Other Duties

I'm at a friend's house deeply involved in the last couple of weeks of wedding preparations. I expected my duties would mostly involve textiles and papercraft--as well as lots of talking, laughing, planning and various forms of organised chaos. What I didn't expect was this: The band for the wedding ceremony and reception is meeting to rehearse today. Last night--well after my usual bedtime--J was struggling to get the music together for them: piano, guitars and electric bass. J and her Dad are both guitarists of some talent. J reads music some, her Dad (A) not at all. I, on the other hand, couldn't play more than one guitar chord to save my life, but I do have some musical training and a fair bit of experience with Church music--in a former life, some dozen or more year ago! Without getting too technical, let's say we had the hymn for the piano and congregation in sheet music, without chords. The rest of the band needs chords, which in theory can be worked out from the sheet music. That was my challenge, but before tackling it from first principles I decided to approach my good friend Google. That provided a partial solution. Instead of working out the chords from scratch, all I had to do was transcribe them from one form to another and go through some detailed cross-checks to make sure it was all compatible. Then I held up the music in front of A and sang it through a couple of times while he picked his way through what I'd written out. We decided it sounded good enough.

In other news: I've been asked to be MC for the reception. That will involve crafting of a different kind . . . I can't wait to see what else will come up in this last week!