As many of you remember, I'm a bit of a nut for barbershop quartet music. Well, I am now OFFICIALLY a member of the Barbershop Harmony Society (formerly the SPEBSQSA).
I joined June 10th.
I'm in the "Town North Plano" chapter, in the chorus called the "
Men of Note".
Last night, I participated in the
SouthWestern District's 2009 "Novice Quartet" competition.
"Novice" is a bit of a misnomer, because as long as you aren't in an officially registered quartet, then you're a novice. (But hey, I'm REALLY a novice.) And you only had to have 2 (of the 4) people be "novices" for it to qualify as a Novice Quartet.
I sing baritone (rather well, I think), and I was asked by THREE different groups to be in their quartet.
In the competition, there were, all together, NINETEEN quartets who came from all over the region (which stretches from El Paso to Little Rock), and I was in 3 of those 19 groups.
One group I was in, called "The Rear", was thrown together at 7:26 PM by a group of guys at the last minute (the contest was at 7:30). And another group I was in, called "Coda Conduct" has been rehearsing for about 3 weeks. The third group, "Just Us GuyS (JUGS)" got together once, but 2 of the guys dropped out, so we had to scramble yesterday to get replacements.
Yeah, it's REAL formal. ;)
Anyway,
Long story short, "The Rear" got THIRD PLACE!!!!
And "Coda Conduct" came in SECOND!!!
This is me with my two medals.
I'm the first guy in this region in 20 years to get 2 medals in my first competition.
:D
So, there ya go, it's a perfect "Hobbies and Addictions" post, I guess.
---- Khonshu
(aka Terry Chapman)
p.s. it was called "The Rear" because we knew we'd be "bringing up" it. ;)