Well, I thought your neighbors kept their Halloween decorations up too long. Kiss Rocks? Why would anyone want to... oh, I get it.

I should probably get a new tag. (For posterity, current tag is "The ping of an aluminum bat is an abomination before Almighty God.") That one is from something my DH said when they kept advertising the College World Series on ESPN with lots of those high-pitched pings, but that was weeks ago now.

Your husband is wrong wrong wrong, I've been meaning to say. (And my opinion is that of a player, not a fan. As a softball player who is a power hitter, there is no sweeter sound than the PING! of an alumnium bat when you hit the pitch at just the right angle and height off the sweet spot. Hot damn.)

I like aluminum bats in softball, just fine.

But what were they thinking, teaching college students who are planning on careers in the Show, to hit with aluminum bats? Which are totally outlawed in the bigs?

But what were they thinking, teaching college students who are planning on careers in the Show, to hit with aluminum bats? Which are totally outlawed in the bigs?

Oh, I agree. But Susan's DH (who I'd like to heckle in person, instead of by proxy) referred to that sweet sweet PING!, and I just can't help speaking up for it.

I can totally see that. But I'd pitch a fit if MLB ever allowed them, not that I think there's any danger of it.

t xposted

Going back a bit, a dear, dear classmate of mine at NCSA had the absolute worst singing voice I'd ever heard. He had no conception of tune. He could hear music, he loved music, but he opened his mouth and, the sad truth was that his singing voice, unlike his melliflouous speaking voice and enormous acting talent, was purely painful to listen to: harsh, grating, all over the scale. It took a full semester, patience from the class, and dedication of the teacher and much, much extracurricular work by the student, but by the end of the semester he could follow notes on a page up and down the scale. He actually almost achieved on-tune for a couple of very familiar simple melodies. He worked so hard to acheive that, we were all so proud of him. Not a one of us hoped he'd go into musical comedy, though, since his singing voice remained about as pleasant as scraping metal over gravel.

Edited to add my point, which is, technique can be taught. But if there's no talent there, it can be a pretty pointless exercise.

Bev, as you know, the female protagonist in the Weaver series, Penny, has precisely that issue. It was her reason for choosing Jacobean and Elizabethan drama as a career; iambic pentameter is as close as she gets to singing.

It was rereading bits of Weaver that brought my friend to mind, Deb. "It's all connected!"

Huh, how does that happen, that some people have beautiful speaking voices and can't sing at all? Cause you'd think it would follow.

erika, isn't that weird? My sister Alice is the model here. I have a superb speaking voice - no modesty on this one - and in fact, my entire family have deep, melodious voices. That includes Alice - her voice, among the three female children, is very slightly higher than mine or Frieda's.

Her singing voice - even an attempt to hum - is an atonal twangy drone. She's taken singing lessons, she's taken breath and diaphragm control lessons, she loves music with a passion that makes her cry. She can't reproduce a single note of it.

And she's the same with dance. She takes yoga, has done for decades. She's very light and graceful while walking.

And despite attempt after attempt to learn dance, she can't. Not at all. But on that one, I think she herself has the reason why - she feels it's a control thing, that it comes from the same space in her psyche or spirit that makes her impossible to hypnotise. She refuses to let go of herself enough to trust what she can do.

The singing, though, no. Just - something gets lost in the translation between ear and throat and brain and whatever.

And she would kill for it to not be the case. My father was a jazz musician, I play a mess of instruments and sing (had my own band for awhile), other siblings sing. She got my mother's talent (drawing) but it's no solace to her.