My Happy Apps

I am selective about my smartphone apps: No to Angry Birds or Tetris, yes to Couch to 5K. No to Minecraft, yes to Vine. I only keep apps that I really like and use frequently. These apps make me happy!

Pandora reminds me of the summer I sold actual physical CDs and cassettes at Camelot Music. We sat around the break room digging through the large cardboard box filled with free promotional cassettes and CDs (okay, only I did that). I scored Madonna's Immaculate Collection, which was a big deal at the time.

I'm always justifying looking for apps for music education. My hardworking ClearTune app helps singers (including moi) figure out how to make the small changes that lead to more accurate pitch, and it's a godsend for nervous new sight singers and pianists ("Was that an E flat? It wasn't? I could have sworn it was. Are you sure?").

Being from the Dark Ages, I learned music theory the traditional way, with workbooks and flashcards. Writing out the scales is always a good idea, but apps are great for drills on note names, intervals, and chords. I like Musicopoulos for straight theory and straightforward practice. If you don't have a smartphone, Theta Music Trainer is a good place to practice.

My perfect pitch made ear training very easy for me, but I have begun to recommend these two solid apps for musical mortals: PlayByEar asks you to sing or play back chords and melodies accurately. EarTrainer shows intervals being played on a piano keyboard.

For sheer fun, the best ear training app is The Blob Chorus. Groups of blobs sing individual pitches, then a purple King Blob repeats one of the previous pitches. Match the blobs, and King Blob gets a crown. Get it wrong, your blob explodes! This is great for singers who are learning to hear their part inside a choir.

I have loved the public radio show Music From The Hearts Of Space since I was a teenage waitress at Elby's. The program aired on WCBE every Sunday night at 10pm as I drove home from the night shift, and I would keep listening as I changed out of my 100% polyester uniform and speed-read some Faulkner for the school week ahead. I use the show's app frequently and also listen to their online archive at www.hos.com

My senior high prom date turned me on to the SomaFM website years ago, as we exchanged one or two perfunctory emails to catch up and therefore avoid meeting up at reunions. He remembered my teenage love of Hearts of Space and recommended this. It was the last I heard of him but thanks, Dean, and I bet you have the app now too! SomaFM is a collection of 15 quirky, well-curated online stations (and that's the last time I will use "curate" in a post) ranging from NASA beeps and blips to bachelor pad jazz. I always wrap presents from Santa while listening to "Xmas in Frisko," their not-safe-for-children radio station.

I just downloaded the Inception app and . . woah. Wierd and wonderful to have music played according to your own movements! When I miss Michigan or DC, I listen to the local traffic report through my iHeart Radio app and then I'm glad I don't live there anymore. I also use a couple of lolofit apps, including the 7-minute workout and Jeff Galloway's Easy 10K. They always make me feel like an Olympian, no matter how infrequently l use them. I wish the 10K app had more variations in run-walk ratios. I don't see why I can't run for one minute and walk for ten, and still have Jeff tell me "great job!" in his Southern twang.

Even on the worst day, my Random Gratitude app asks me to think of something good and type it in. The best feature of this app is that it randomly scrolls through my previous posts, reminding me of so many wonderful little things that I might have otherwise forgotten.

So, what apps should I add to my collection?

Teachypants

Deep Thoughts on the Summer Music Theater Camp Teaching Experience, written in Bossypants-ese. 10. Enrollment Axiom 1: If your summer theater camp has only two enrollees, both will be low-energy, gluten-sensitive tweens whose parents confused emo with interest in acting. The class will meet for six hours a day, five times a week, for a solid month. You will have to abandon your groundbreaking production of Oh, Calcutta! Jr. and endure their silent scorn as you desperately try to find something they can present at the camp showcase. With proper medication and diet, these kids can become excellent lighting designers.

9.  Enrollment Axiom 2: If you are blessed with enthusiastic, energetic actors who are eager to learn and experiment, the head count will be 56. One of the five days of camp will be a national holiday so you will be expected to cram five days of rehearsal into four. Five years from now, one of these campers will win the Tony Award for Lead Actress in Musical Theater, having never forgiven you for relegating her to the chorus this summer.

8. Whatever you encourage hesitant students to do in rehearsal will be executed at Mach Level 3 in performance.  "Move around the stage a little" will look like a human pinball. "Act sadder" will look suicidal. "Go ahead, be flirtatious" will look like Courtney Stodden.

courtney-stodden-1

7. Success stories are always inspiring. Invite professional actors to perform for your future Nellie Forbushes, and watch their little jaws drop when they see the pros go at it. It's even more fun because you can actually sightread the material the pros bring to show off their chops, which makes you feel like a bit of a pro yourself. (No snark here, that is really fun. And wow, Marvin Hamlisch still sounds good in 2012.)

6. Each day you shall hear at least two of the following: "I'm more of an actor-dancer" . . . "I'm a really low alto in school" . . . . "Can't you just transpose it down? That's what my choir teacher always does" . . . . "These pages of the song don't fit my voice, so I just leave them out" . . . "I just can't remember all the words to the song you gave me last week and the concert is in an hour, so my parents just said I should do Meadowlark again, you have the music around here, right?" Try to figure out a way to extract money from students for each utterance.

5. You will teach this lesson continually: Unless you are rendered unconscious by your own greatness, the performance isn't over when you stop singing. No, Oliver Twist, you will not lower your arms and shrug two seconds before the final chord of "Who Will Buy?" and ruin all the good work you did in the previous two minutes. We will practice it nine times until you hold those arms up for the duration of the final chords of music. The performance ends when I say it ends, mister. And it starts when you are walking onto the stage, so we're going to rehearse that too, until you stop shuffling and start walking. (Half of the campers will be so excited that they will forget to bow at all, but a few will do it perfectly and make me glad I took the time.)

4. Stop looking at me like you're drowning. I told you this performance would be memorized and you didn't believe me.

3. Just look at me if you forget the words. I will help you. You'll be okay.

2. If you are not the parent or relative of a camper, do not view any videos of summer theater camp performances. No matter how successful the showcase, if you watch it on video, you will deflate. Cherish the hazy memory. It actually went well.

1. Honor tradition. After the show is over and the kids are gone, treat yourself to mint chocolate chip ice cream. This dates back to your childhood, when your dad took you and your little sister to McDonald's for a Shamrock Shake after each piano recital, which was usually held on a cold gray Sunday afternoon in March. You didn't perform today, but you did work your butt off and it's time to celebrate. The iciness also helps to reduce the inflammation in your throat from weeks of shouting over preteens. If there is no ice cream, alcohol is an acceptable substitute. Long live theater!

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Writing with gas

For my summer vacation, I'm writing "Quonnie: The Musical 2012," teaching voice and acting classes at three different summer camps, prepping new classes for the fall in three different locations, and communing with my fellow Somatic VoiceWork voice teachers in hot, humid Virginia. I'm trying to brush the mats out of my 19 year old cat's fur. I'm ordering books for my high school freshman son. I'm cheering my daughter as she practices ice hockey. I'm also doing some weeding in the garden, growing pumpkins and radishes (I ate my own radishes yesterday!), doing some weeding, trying to grow sweet potatoes, and doing some weeding.

I haven't written much since I completed the first "Quonnie" script a year ago. I was looking forward to researching the history of my area again, and actually yes, that part is fun. But the scriptwriting has been difficult. I told myself the only way to improve on last year's show was to write my own music, in addition my own lyrics. I forgot that Elton John had Bernie Taupin, Lennon had McCartney, and even the Captain had Tennille. I was alone and adrift.

Seeing my distress, my husband asked, "Why are you trying to write a first draft perfectly?" He had described my thought process exactly. I gave up trying to control what came into my head, and as soon as I did, ideas and lyrics pushed their way into my brain and onto the page. I may still have time to write the music, but if not, there's always next year.

In the rear view mirror, all writing is easy. I wrote Bride and Flatulence three years ago and finally got a performance of it up on YouTube. I had read Austen's books, and wondered about the private lives of all the genteel men in her literary universe. I wondered what they were like when the women were off catching butterflies and planning balls. Then I stumbled onMr. Darcy Takes A Wife, an R-rated fan fiction sequel to Pride and Prejudice. The Darcys' "compleat delight" in each other, energetically expressed in several locations in and around Pemberley, resulted in the production of an heir, plus a few more progeny. Instead of exploring their most intimate pleasures, I imagined Darcy and Elizabeth's most intimate . . . embarrassments.

Mr. Darby and Miss Bennett in "Bride And Flatulence," 2010. Click on the photo to watch the whole play.

Looking at the video, I think it turned out well. I look at the video and recall happy rehearsals and sentimental thoughts. But, digging a little deeper into my memory, I also remember writing feverishly through the night before the play's due date. I emailed updated versions of scenes into the wee hours, until my future husband finally said, "Good night, and send me the rest at 6am!" I remember the first reading was at 9am and even the adrenaline could barely keep me awake. I was out of . . . gas?

Writing is like childbirth -- you forget the pain, but if you think long enough, you'll remember it. (And still be glad you did it.) And, there's no way to do it perfectly -- just get on with it, take all the help you can get, and hope for a happy ending. It usually works out.

And now, back to writing . . or teaching . . or weeding.