February 8, 2009

• The married couple in the group I play recorder with hosted a “double-choir party” tonight.  That means that four of us sat on one side of the room and four sat on the other.  Each side had a soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, and we did sort of a call-and-response kind of thing where the sopranos, for example, would go back and forth with the melody. 

  It was a potluck, and I swear everyone is allergic to something so the food was overly healthy.  I made broccoli and mushroom soup and just took the cheese separately.  The desert was a gluten-free, chocolate biscotti that didn’t taste like chocolate and didn’t feel like biscotti. 

  The host and hostess play in other groups with the three people I don’t normally see.  I have been to parties where I’ve met them but tonight I got a better feel for how funny the one guy was and how obnoxious the woman was.  I’m the only single one in the group, come to think of it.

  We played some, ate some, drank some and then tried to play again but the obnoxious woman must have had too much wine because she couldn’t keep up after dinner.  She is a Quaker and wanted to argue about religion.  I enjoyed it because I have been in a lot of churches by now, and I was able to talk about the born-agains, as well as the Unitarians.  I never could get a feel for what the Episcopalians believed.  Most of this group are Jewish, so that was interesting for me. 

  When I first got there people were showing off, pulling out words I’ve never heard used.  I and the couple who didn’t remember me were late so we set up while the others played.  I noticed these new people had fancy stands which held all four of their recorders.  Most of them own two of each, one plastic and one wooden.  They switch to plastic when the wood gets too wet.  My tenor and soprano are plastic.  I was a little intimidated until we started playing.  The music was harder than what I’m used to on Mondays.  The host and hostess had been practicing, of course, but the rest of us had to sight-read.  I’m good at that so it was fun. 

  Talk about going back to your roots.  My parents used to host this very type of evening, and I got to sit in when they needed an extra soprano.  Our Monday quintet is nice but I prefer playing with a bigger group.  Eight-part recorder music sounds so much richer.  I savored every minute, from the toast in the kitchen to the tuning in the living room.  It’s nice to fit in, even if it is a bit of a stretch.

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