There are some who start their retirement long before they stop working. -Robert Half

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Belles.

Wednesday night means belle choir practice. (Yes, I've forever changed the spelling of the word "bell" when referring to "bell choirs"). I'm not sure why all of our belle choir music has the word "bell" spelled with an "e," but I do have some predictions:

1) There is a town close by called Belle, MO. Maybe the person who wrote "belles" on all of our music:
a) is from Belle
b) loves Belle, MO

2) It is possible that the person who wrote on our music just finished watching Beauty and the Beast, starring Belle. I mean, what an inspiring movie! Independence, creativity, true love despite appearances...a definite inspiration. Though, I never liked the movie growing up because:
a) it was my sister's favorite movie
b) my sister looks like Belle and that was annoying

3) Maybe the author simply likes to spell things with an extra "e" on the end. If this is the reason, I completely understand! I love writing "e's," especially in cursive and especially at the end of words. Take my first name, for example. Grab a pen and paper and see how fun it is to write my name! It is just a bunch of loops:

And it wouldn't be the same without that "e" on the end.

4) Maybe "bell" was actually spelled "belle" a long time ago. The music is really old, so maybe the spelling has changed. Maybe one day, someone decided that the "e" was unnecessary, so they just started spelling "bell" without it. Then they probably bribed Merriam-Webster with bazillions of dollars so they would make "bell" the "official" spelling.

There are seven of us in the belle choir. I have three belles (the F, F# and G) and everyone else has at least four, but that's okay because I'm not very good. Whenever we're playing, I tend to space out and then I get lost and then I just hold my belles up and look at the music and pretend like I know where we are. The ladies on the ends with the really high belles and the really low belles all have like eight belles each. They are amazing. Someday I will play eight belles, too, and my life will be complete. I stand next to Virginia (who plays the A, Ab, B, and Bb). Sometimes she gets lost, too and stands there and pretends like she knows where we are, which makes me feel better about my lack of belle playing ability. I've also discovered that I play better when I stick my tongue out. In fact, I concentrate better on everything when I stick my tongue out. Especially things like cutting with scissors and tracing things; basically anything that involves coordination or skill.

We play in church the second Sunday of each month. We get to church an hour early so we can practice and perfect our music. My favorite part about playing at church is that it doesn't really matter how well we play, because the congregation is over 75 and thinks it sounds good no matter how badly we play. Plus, I think belles sound good all the time because they echo. Echoing is great. My other favorite part is that we get to wear these awesome robes. They are dark blue and have huge, flowing sleeves that tighten at the wrists with elastic. They make me feel like an angel.

4 comments:

  1. You are an angel.

    Rachel does not look like Belle, especially since she chopped all her hair off.

    I like the "Julie," I never know how to do my J. The rest of the name is nicely looped together.

    AND. I stick my tongue out for concentration too.

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  2. you need to put up a pick of you wearing your robe outfit.

    more pics/visuals is just what your blog needs

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  3. I like theory #4 solely because you said bazillions of dollars. Nicely put. When I did bell choir I was at the very top and had like 8 bells. I got almost all of the notes, but I used to clink the bells together since I had to pick them up and put them down so fast. Unfortunately, every time we clinked bells together we had to do 10 pushups (the bell choir director, incidentally, was also my soccer coach). Needless to say, I was in great shape during bell choir season :) Also, one of the reasons I love the Methodist church in downtown CoMO is the bell choir... they play in balconies on each side of the church, so it's like surround sound! So pretty!

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  4. I agree with Andrea, I want to see a picture of you as an angel.

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