Top of the Pop (Concerts)

Although I am not personally a fan of the TV show Glee, I am amused by the popularity.  I am fairly certain that most fans of the show will not claim that it honestly reminds them of past high school choir experiences nor will they state that it is realistic in any way, shape or form.  They simply find it entertaining the way that many people find musical theater entertaining.  Or World of Warcraft.  All of these things are for people playing pretend, but they're fun anyway.

All of this talk of "music" and "fun" has led me to contemplate my own choral experiences.  I am not going to lie, I honestly enjoyed being in choir most of the time.  My high school's top choir focused mainly on concert choir singing.  For the uninitiated, this is music that is designed for large, well balanced choirs and can be both accompanied and a Capella.

Unfortunately, once a year all choirs in the school had to participate in a debacle known as the "pop concert."  In this format, we were required to learn "modern" music and jazz it up with choreography.  For choirs that are specifically coordinated to do this kind of schmaltziness (a la Glee), this is not a problem.  For choirs that typically stand still in big formal robes and focus on sound instead of appearance, it was usually a bit of a hot mess.

For entertainment purposes, I shall now endeavor to offer illustrated highlights from my pop concert history, starting with 7th grade.

"International Harmony General Theme"

Any resemblances to actual people are purely coincidental.  :)

For my first ever pop concert, I really don't remember the overall theme.  What I DO remember was the main song.  It was a Michael W. Smith number called "Seed to Sow" that involved singing in some foreign (African) language.  The song itself wasn't bad, and I could probably sing most of it for you now.  What was memorable about the performance was the dress requirement.  Every single choir student was required to make (or have their mother make) a cape/poncho/drapery out of colorful fabric to wear over their t-shirt and jeans.  This was probably to symbolize some sort of colorful diversity idea, but I would definitely pay good money to see any video recording of this shenanigan again.  It had to have been extremely hilarious to my parents.

8th Grade:  COUNTRY MUSIC

Grrrr.  If you know me well, you know that country is not and never has been a favorite of mine.  Fortunately, the year that we did a country theme, my choir directors kept things old school with what I suppose you would call "traditional" country songs.  The school even splurged this time and purchased cheap straw cowboy hats for all the little choir students.  Our choreography even included the hats with some fancy twirling movement that was guaranteed to look awkward and again provide our parents with comic relief.

9th Grade:  Generic Lame Music Medley

I have to say that I found our senior high school pop concerts to be a bit of a let down after the major production values of junior high.  I'm not sure if this was because the choir director's heart wasn't into it and he just felt like had to fulfill an obligation, or if dancing on risers really just is THAT ridiculous.

Either way, our 9th grade pop concert was entirely forgettable.  We did some medley of oldish 60's and 70's music.  I can remember a few of them (unfortunately), but the one that always gets stuck in my mind is this one:

You can see that the costume budget went way down in 9th grade as well.


10th Grade:  Last Minute Disney

My sophomore year pop concert is a bit of a blur for me.  This is mainly because I didn't have to learn any of the choreography or lyrics.  Why?  I was playing the piano through the entire thing.  I'm pretty sure I did a crappy job of it too.  What I do remember is that when the time came to start preparing for the pop concert, our director didn't seem to have any idea what he wanted us to do.  We happened to have a Disney medley that we had played around with before, so we decided to tune it up and wing it.  This is definitely a concert that I would pay NOT to have to see on video.

This is from an obscure Disney song.  We were not dealing with modern stuff here, to be sure.

11th Grade:  Great Expectations

My junior year in choir was definitely my favorite overall.  We had a large and talented group (largely thanks to the senior class) and I was always proud to perform.  With this much promise, I had high hopes that our director would choose a really good set of music for our pop concert that would showcase our vocal abilities and maybe let us have a little fun.

For some reason, my director opted to sift through the old and obscure 60's and 70's era music in our files and pulled out some bizarre and somewhat "blah" choices.  I think one was from the musical Godspell.  The other one which was supposed to be "upbeat" was one no one had ever heard of before.  The only good thing about this concert was that we got to dress up in authentic 60's and 70's garb.

I KNOW there is a picture of me in this outfit somewhere.  If I ever find it, I'll add it here.  My dress was SWEET.

12th Grade:  Finishing On a Lame Note

This was my final year of high school.  By this point, I had learned not to have any expectations for the pop concert, and therefore I can say that I was not disappointed.  We didn't even get cool clothes this time around - just monochrome t-shirts and jeans.  Although we did get to "lounge" on the risers for our song from the musical Rent so that we could appear more casual and slacker-like.

Now that I am looking at the evidence, it appears that my pop concert experiences may have had a downward trend.  If the peak occurred in 7th with the technicolored ponchos, I'm not sure I can identify much with the plot of Glee in any given episode.  We certainly never got to sing Journey songs.  Or Young MC.  Honestly, I do think that our concerts would have been a lot more entertaining if we could have used "Bust a Move" instead of "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah."

OMG

OK, so I have recently discovered the "stats" feature of this blog, and it is super sweet.  Not only do I now have FOUR followers, but people in CHINA have viewed my blog!  I'm not sure if they are really reading it because I haven't had comments, but I am super excited about it.  In case you were wondering, none of my official followers is my mother!  However, they ARE all female.  Hm.

Maybe I need to jazz this thing up a bit for the guys.  I thought that the changes in my template and background to include some buffalo and bright explosions would draw in the Western/action crowd, but so far, not so much.

So... in order to cater to the potential male readers and/or followers out there, I will look to my closest male relative for assistance:  my brother, Michael.

He does not know that I am writing about him, although as soon as my mother reads this, I'm sure he will.  Rest assured, Mikey, I am not going to share one of your fine and shining moments of youth... right now.  Oh, just you wait.  I have two words for you:  Cotton Candy.  Hee hee...

Anyway, tonight I am going to tell you about something that my brother holds near and dear to his heart.  No, it is not his guitar or mandolin.  Nor is it his lovely girlfriend and her amazing dog, although he does indeed care greatly for all these things.  No, for this love we must look somewhere a little bit darker.  A little bit stranger.  A little bit nerdier.

If you met my brother for the first time, you would likely react as most people do and find him to be a very nice fellow.  He's rather tall, sometimes shaggy, but almost always good natured and extremely likable.  It is his good natured feature that assures me that I will not be severely punished for this entry I am writing.  :)

When young Mikey was a college student, he formed a strong bond with a small group of friends.  They're all pretty decent guys, and in the years since graduation, they've all enjoyed decent levels of success.  However, they all harbor a (sometimes) well-hidden secret.

Actually, I am pretty sure if you confronted most of these guys with the "secret" they would unashamedly own up to the truth.  However, it has been my experience that this association has always carried a bit of a stigma to it and I know for a fact that my brother has tried to keep his full interest in the "hobby" on the down-low from his lady love.

(Heidi, if you're reading this, now is the time to look away.)

In case you haven't already guessed it, my brother plays World of Warcraft.

If you have no idea what this means, good for you.  You are a normal person with normal hobbies likely do not spend much time at the computer (aside from the time you spend reading my blog).

For those of you who know EXACTLY what this means, welcome to the club.

In layman's terms, World of Warcraft (or WoW as it is sometimes known) is an online computer game that allows the user/player to create one or many characters (elves, dwarves, people, blood-elves, taurins, wizards, etc) that will live in the World (of Warcraft).  You can play with your friends and go on quests together.  You can meet new friends!  You can create outfits and buy accessories for your characters.

I am NOT going to go into any more detail about the game itself because it will just reveal that I know much more about it that I want to know.  I blame my brother for this entirely.  After staying with him for several stretches of time while he was in and just out of college, I was exposed to this fantasy freakiness far more than is healthy.  If you would like an excellent illustration of what this game looks like and what it can do to someone, I highly recommend the South Park episode, "Make Love, Not Warcraft."

I would like to take a brief moment to clarify that my brother is not one of the people who turns their life into the pursuit of WoW achievement.  He knows his limits (I think).  I know that he has even suspended his subscription for periods of time when he knows that he must focus on school or other real life endeavors.  BUT he still has active characters.

Anyway, although I have never nor do I ever have any intention of playing this game, I have had many hours of entertainment in mocking my brother while he plays, often at the expense of family time.  My parents are also frequent mockers as it annoys them that he pays money to play this game and that although he claims it is a social event (as he's online with his college buddies), he is not emotionally present for any conversation with people in the real world while he plays.

One of my favorite things to do is to narrate the story as he moves his main character, Chako, around the screen.  Sometimes Chako flies on dragons, but it's not as exciting as it sounds.  These dragons do not spit fire, nor to they do sweet turns and flips.  They pretty much just function as a flying bicycle.

Of all the weird things in the WoW, one of the best has to be the names given to the different towns and geographic locations.  In the game, they have names like "The Vale of Valor" and "The Road of Righteousness."  In my version, they have names like "The Ditch of Despair" and "The Swamp of Eternal Virginity."  My brother laughs at these names, but I suspect that he is actually quite irritated with me.

Well, it's getting late, and I need to get some sleep.  Hopefully my dreams will not be filled with dwarves chasing me with axes, but you never know.  If I didn't bore you all to tears with this entry or incite hatred in some true lovers of the game, I hope that at the very least I demonstrated that I can write something with interest to both genders.

If I did manage to seriously anger some WoW lovers, you should really stop and think for a minute.  By now you should have realized that many people in the real world are not going to understand your insatiable need to spend hours in an online alternate reality.  But do you really care?  As long as no one is threatening to take it away (like your mom, dad or spouse), you really should just be grateful for the fact that you a) can afford a computer with high speed internet, and b)have not developed carpal tunnel... yet.