Chrisus zlog

Slept long with few snoring. Breakfast in the Hotel, Foccacia in the town, waiting at the office for a place. Rebeccas dog is well. Met Markus from Vienna. Got a wonderful place in front of the castello, unfortunately at the exit of the busstop. Played two sessions interrupted by a thunderstorm that passed by. Fingertips are hurting. Afterbeer at the Blue Star Bar and at Tiffanys. Learning italian with the waiter was funny. 3 beer went on the house.

Reached Ferrara after 4,5 hours driving. Shopping as usual, entered the hotel, took a shower and then begun a walk through the town. Fine meal, some beer for 4,5 EUR each. Two banjo's, Klezmer, some musicians without any amplifier. Not as much artists as last year. Two sisters from Ravenna with country and rock as final part. Rebecca met us searching her dog. We helped searching sitting at Tiffanys. A final sms from her finished the day. era al buskersgarden.

We had a fine evening at the lakeside-studios for a ferrara-rehearsal. After the song "Bubbles for Lizzy" I recognized bubbles on my lefthand fingers. Bad sign! So I will try to build up horny skin until next week to avoid hurting fingers.

On wednesday the choir visited Susanne in Strad in the Gurgltal. We had a fine barbecue and afterwards we sang a lot of songs we knew. First with piano and then with guitar company. Have a look:

Today we had a wonderful concert in the church of Obsteig because the church's patron saint is St. Joseph and today is St. Joseph's day. We sang a Mozart mass, KV 275 "Missa brevis in B minor". Even the "Freiwillige Feuerwehr" and the "Schützen" said that it sounded great. There were about 150 listeners in the church.

One of my pupils is very good in handycraft. So he built an ashtray-cigaretteholder-pencilcase for musicians that can be attached to a note-desk in only 3 hours. It looks very nice and is good work.
In the Weli, Gregor and I met Klemi and we exchanged blues-notes for our summer tour.

You remember the destroyed fingernail in November? Now it is back again and as long as the others. 3 months is a long time.

Today I received a Stratocasterfrom Squier, this is the cheaper line of Fender. I tested it immediately and it felt very fine with a great sound. Unfortunately I ordered this guitar not for me but for someone else who wants to give it away as christmas gift. So I have time until monday to test it. And I _will_ do it!

Today I opend a non-locked door in my house. My fingers slipped along the door and I heard a quiet sound of a smashing fingernail followed by a pain like a nail pulled under the fingernail. Outsch! After a look I noticed, that the cut is not where the flesh begins, but 3 mm inside the flesh. It is about 5 mm long. So half the nail is destroyed. A lot of blood came out. Outsch. First aid was a strong glue-tape to hold the nail down. Then I grasped the guitar and made a test. Outsch! Playing without the ringfinger for at least 2 months. Outsch!

Today I worked with a friend on cutting the films of our choire-concert for a DVD. He has a W2k machine with room for 120 hours film. *sigh* We started working hard at 4 p.m. and finished at 1.30 a.m. Well, we have finished 9 minutes and 34 seconds. The sound is excellent from the DAT-recorder. The best film is from Gregors handheld. Maybe you want to know something about the time-line-differences: In a 3 minute sound file you have a dieffernce of 10 seconds to the soundfile. So every cutout has to be streched seperately. But it works. Handling of the "one video track - two soundtrack" Programm (Pinnacle 9.x) is as simple as programing my LEGO-mindstorm-robot.

Everybody who has my tablature of "The girl from Ipanema" can now study the practise of the fingers on my homepage. Just follow the link "musik"

Yesterday was the day we were waiting for for almost 1 year. It took a lots of rehearsals to finaly make it. And we made it! 175 visitors in the small hall, the last ones didn't even get a seat. We bought 20 bottles of Prosecco, but we ran out of it. We finaly sang better than the day before, and Andreas directed better than ever. We had to give two encores, and the applause didn't want to stop. So it was a great evening, even for us. It was a milestone in the choirs history: Never before they mad such an event without any musician, only a capella.
Afterwards we had a dinner at the "Fernsteinblick" and came home at 12:30 a.m. 21.10.2005. Unfortunately I had to get up today at 5.15 a.m.

Today was the day of the public rehearsal of our concert. A lot of people came and enjoyed the event. We were nervous as usual and made some little mistakes, but the audience liked the show. Most the "Landsknechtständchen" were we got applause within the concert. I wonder what the recording will be. Either video and sound. A first thanks to the cameramen Philipp and Gregor for doing their jobs well. So go ahead for tomorrow!

Today was the final rehearsal without public listeners. Built up the stage, set up the light, mounted cameras and microphones, tested the standig of the choire. Philipp was cameraman, still-photo-cameraman, sound-manager and the one who told us how to make the best light. A girl from my neighbourhood managed the Spotlight and all invited assistants were here just at time. The sound was ok, especially when I remember the first time we sang the songs. I think we are ready for the public on wednesday.
I wonder how the sound and the film will be at the end. We have one DAT-recorder, one MD-recorder and three digi-cams. One of them is mounted fix in the background, one is at the side, and one will be the motion-cam hold by a person, filming additional scenes in the audience. Soon you will read more.

4 of the five next days will take my full attention for our choire-concert. I hope, I have all arranged, everything is bought and organized, everybody takes his/her part seriously and nobody will become ill. So then, Mr. Sulu: bring us out of the orbit and go ahead!