January 29, 2009 by Ro.

Having been warbling together for 4 years 5 months, we now have quite a repertoire of varied material. Rehearsals are not as frantic as they once were, when we knew no songs and had to start everything from scratch. Now we have the luxury of enjoying the learning of new material while sitting on a nice cushion of songs already learned and tested in public. Now we no longer have lofty visions of adding choreography to our act. Life is good.

Happy Birthday is coming along fine, difficult arrangement that it is (who would think Happy Birthday could be a challenge?) We are still inclined to sing “So-and-so” for the person’s name, so all names now start with S: Happy Birthday dear SLarry, Happy Birthday dear SBrenda.

So we need a new Audrey song. Steve has no trouble finding songs featuring his impeccable lead. Jeff has the new Huey Lewis tune “It’s Alright” (which Ro can’t even write, having spent 31 years in the Mt. Olive Public School system prissily telling students that writing “alright” is “all wrong.”) Ro herself actually has a song, “Good Lovin’,” which causes her no end of anxiety, being a background singer all her life, content with her “doos,” her “wops,” her “ahhhhs,” and if she’s very frisky, “pum piddledy pums” (what alto hasn’t sung “Little Drummer Boy?”) To sing lead is alien to her, almost as if she had been asked to sing in some foreign language, like Latin or French or Hebrew or Polish. Wait! She’s done all that. Perhaps this really can work and she will sleep once more…

To round things out, we need a new Audrey song. We search our books and find a couple of possibilities that will do justice to Audrey’s soaring soprano: I’ll Be There and Dock of the Bay. Both will probably wind up in our repertoire (in due time, my little pretty) so mark it: we first tried them out on January 29, 2009.

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January 28, 2009 by Ro.

Happy 2009 to all the Moderately Bright friends and family! MB4 doesn’t miss a beat, finishing up a busy holiday season by singing at the Meridian Rehab Center in Wall, NJ, and then trooping across the highway for a private recital at Ro’s Aunt Mary’s condo. “Oh, you should be on TV!!!,” gushes Aunt Mary, who rivals Ro’s mom with her harsh critique of the quartet. So we leave Monmouth County to rave reviews, add a new NJ county to our territory, and then head back north to start the new year.

We begin by tackling a giant void in our repertoire, “Happy Birthday To You,” always requested, but we never had anything prepared. So we are busy deciphering the Whiffenpoofs’ (Whiffenpooves’?) version. Our biggest challenge will be replacing “Happy Birthday dear so-and-so” (as it says in the music) with the celebrant’s real name. Or perhaps we will only be able to sing it for people actually named “So-and-so.”

We also start on “Good Lovin’” and the Huey Lewis tune “It’s All Right.” This we happen upon by chance after Steve plays us the recorded version and wistfully says, “I’ve always wanted to perform this,” [sigh] “but where to find the sheet music,” [sigh]. Whereupon he picks up one of our music books, flips it open, AND THERE IT IS: four part harmony, SATB. This is a small miracle, and Jeff already knows the solo by heart, almost freakishly so, as he is able to correct mistakes in the sheet music. We begin work in earnest on it and the other two songs.

We begin the year with an open calendar but quickly fill in three dates: the Temple Hatikvah Coffeehouse (our 5th appearance!!), the Temple Hatikvah Fashion Show (our 3rd!!) and the Sacred Bean Coffeehouse, one of our favorite venues ever! We are brimming with excitement!

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