Four out of Thirteen

Not so good this time, and, on account of my laziness, you had two weeks with these quotes! =)

5. "I have heard The cock that is the herald to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day." -- Hamlet, guessed by dreamingcrow

7. "Cock-a-doodle-doo. What, what." -- Chicken Run, guessed by aequitaslevitas, nea852

8. "Why the hell are you dressed like a chicken?" -- Home Alone, guessed by nin_man, 1_rhiannon_1

13. "I will tell you a joke! Why did the robot cross the road? Because he was carbon bonded to the chicken!" -- Lost in Space, guessed by onesexiladee, shadowwolf13

Updatia Type Stuff

Contact Juggling: I can do a few rounds of the butterfly. Right hand is pretty good, almost getting the roll vs. throw; left hand is weaker because I mostly forgot it existed when I first started learning, even though I know better. The back-to-back transfer of it eluded me mostly completely up until I tried it today and it actually worked. Whaddayaknow. Need to keep at it of course, clean it up, and get more consistent. Focusing a bit more on some isolations. Also a couple of holds. And the enigma. That's the next big trick.

Flute: Worked on a little melody aequitaslevitas wrote. Fumbled through the fingerings as it was a) the first time I tried the proper fingering to get a certain note; and b) the first time I tried to deliberately string a series of notes played properly in a particular order. So yeah, since I first "picked up" the flute back in 1992 or so, I actually did something other than raw improvisation and went beyond just getting sounds. The tune, as it stands thus far, is scored for flute and cello, although the phrasing and speed possible on the keyboard are slightly out of range of my breathing, although I'm getting a bit better at it. The other day, in an effort to go completely insane, I played the first two bars of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Two different octaves of F in that, and thus the first time I've attempted to play two different octaves on purpose.

Bass: I've been working on some different rhythmic stuff, some ideas from Afro-Cuban percussion work. I've come up with a bunch of neat parts - mostly simplistic stuff - for playing along with one or more of the kids. aequitaslevitas did some nice piano improv along with a slow n' slinky bass line. If you closed your eyes you might think he was playing a grand and I was on an upright acoustic bass. Of course, than I did some Jaco-ish bits with lots of harmonics - and a bit of slap - and it was pretty clear it was an electric fretless.

Djembe: Played the aforementioned Afro-Cuban percussion stuff. Worked on a few clave rhythms just to get the basic idea, and some of the conga parts as well. Someday I might even get a decent sense of rhythm. Layering duple and triple meters on top of each other might do that, although I'm convinced it will leave certain people thinking I'm missing the beat. Have to admit, even my hacked rendition had echoes of a more traditional sound, so I did something right. I think.

Guitar: Just learned the main melody of Vernon Reid & Masque's Flatbush and Church Revisited - a reggae piece by Living Color's guitarist's instrumental band. aequitaslevitas figured it out and worked through it with one of the guitar sounds, and as I learned it, I helped tweak it a bit. Based on memory (last heard the tune maybe three months ago), we were off on two points, both easily changed. Hopefully he has the bass part figured out by now.

Speaking of figuring out tunes, Rachel picked out a portion of the melody from Michael Hedges arrangement of What Child Is This?.