Pennsic, day 8 (Saturday)
Many people are packing up and leaving. anniemal and I went shopping this morning. She spent 1-1/2 hours yesterday and another hour today looking at dichroic glass jewelry, eventually deciding on 2 pendants and 2 pairs of earrings. But one pendant broke before she could show it to me - possibly in the shop before it was packed, or while we were walking around. But the missing piece was not in the bag, nor could we find it at the shop on a table or on the ground. The jeweler let Annie exchange it for another piece she liked nearly as much, graciously eating the loss. (She can probably file off the edge and still sell the piece.) I bought a large, dark blue ceramic ocarina. The bottom note sounds like the bottom F of an alto recorder. If I learn the fingerings it might be cute for giving pitches. I guess this is my year for ceramics (goblet yesterday, and that's all my Pennsic booty).
I retrieved the van from the (distant) parking lot. I chatted with some choir members on the way. I helped someone find a lost cellphone in the thick grass of the parking lot - it was ringing and I could hear it; he was looking for it, but he was a ways off. On my way back with the van I stopped to look again for the missing beads. We had happened across the bead-making teacher earlier in the day, and she had left all the beads in the classroom (tent). I had assumed she held on to the ones that weren't reclaimed. After that we checked the classroom and Lost and Found. Anyway, still no luck.
Back at camp we met someone with an 8-panel solar setup. We went down to his camp by the lake. He's got enough power to run an electric cooler. And he's camped next to the SCA-legendary bard Andrew MacRobb. dglenn and I heard him sing Pennsic 205 and Itsy-Bitsy Teenie-Weenie Stainless-Steel Chainmaille Bikini. (I'm not into the bard thing myself. I need stories/jokes/etc written down. My aural memory is more tonal than verbal. (So I'm also not so big on phone calls.))
I've occasionally wondered what sort of class I could teach at Pennsic. Some people are passing along skills that they themselves have learned recently, often as a result of taking a class at Pennsic. Some have done doctoral research on their subjects. Some are very good teachers/communicators, some are not so good. As I sit in the choir rehearsals, I find many things I could point out in the music that might help people understand and sing their parts, but I don't want to distract from the problems the director is working on. Perhaps I could teach a class (open to anyone but) aimed mainly at the Known-World Choir members about interesting points in the music for that year's program. We have a wide range of abilities in the choir, and many people are focused on their own parts. Many things that are difficult in a part are much easier if you know what's going on in the other parts - knowing what other part may have just sung the note you need to find for your entrance; being aware of when your inner part has become an outer part (or vice-versa), e.g. tenor (or even alto) and bass parts crossing; knowing when one part imitates another, or nearly imitates (so doing the same thing isn't right). Knowing about cross relations, when some other part has just sung an accidental that conflicts with your note; simultaneous cross relations in particular, like an B-flat and a B-natural at the same time, each melodically valid in its own part - if you hear this conflict, it's not something you're supposed to fix. I'd do this with the director's support and suggestions, ideally on Monday or Tuesday morning, so we've had a few rehearsals to reveal the trouble spots, but we still have some rehearsals left before the concert.