too busy to blog

Hello All

Alexis is much too busy to blog this weekend, I've tied the red pen to her hand to proof read my thesis. So far only one fight, which considering the way I respond to having people proof read my papers, is pretty good. I did want to drop a line to introduce her readers to sacred harp music. Last weekend alexis was good enough to go with me to a sacred harp "sing" in the city at St. Bart's. It is really hard to sum up sacred harp, but basically it is a tradition of community singing of hymns in a rather unique style that has roots in the south. In 4 parts the group sings slighly different melodies all together and create an amazing sound. The other major part of sacred harp is the singing of an intro to practice the melody with notes (fa,so,la,mi). All songs start out with just singing the notes, then you sing the words. You really have to hear it to understand so here is a link to a recent film documenting the movement it has several samples to check out:
www.awakemysoul.com
Well we went and we sang, it was our first time and it was really difficult without some musical training but even in a small group, the depth of sound is really haunting and it was a lot of fun. I can't believe how fast the TWO HOURS flew by, who would have thought I would want to sing hymns for two hours! Now I have to see if I can convince Alexis to come back next month, it was intense but the mentality seems to be learn through repetition, so to get it we need to go again.

Take care and thanks so much for all your prayers.
Greg