Symphony in B

July 16, 2006 at 9:03 AM

When the kitchen gets hot from the inferno of ovens and burners, I turn on the overhead fan, which hums a deafening B-natural. Brittney and I clear our lungs, tune up our voices, and begin.

First, we match the pitch. Then we sing a scale. Then we throw each other intervals. Stacking various intervals, we create chords, then string them into cadences.

How many ways can you dress a B while you roll out the dough and stir the lemonade? With Rogers and Hammerstein? Richard Strauss? Gregorian chant and U2? With majors, with minors, we suspend it and resolve it. Our operatic glissandos push a frenzied crescendo until, with fierce chop of onion, Matt proclaims, “Migraine!” in lovely tenor. Thus concludes the Symphony in B.

From Nicholas Tavani
Posted on July 16, 2006 at 1:10 PM

Sweet, Emily. I do this all the time with airplane no-smoking bells and oven timers. The wierd thing is they're almost always a, b, b flat, or somewhere in between.

From Terez Mertes
Posted on July 17, 2006 at 1:45 AM

Emily, you are the master of the short blog. I, um, think I need some help in that department.

Enjoyed it!

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on July 17, 2006 at 8:17 AM

Emily, you are having a very interesting summer. I wonder what is really going on there. I'm glad you still have your sense of humor.

From Tom Holzman
Posted on July 17, 2006 at 1:03 PM

Do you have perfect pitch?

From Emily Grossman
Posted on July 17, 2006 at 3:11 PM

Terez,

Thanks for the compliment! I wish I had more time for longer entries, but the "short blog" has to suffice for now.

Pauline, I wish I could fill in all the details, but it's very lengthy and a bit personal, so the randomness continues. Some day, when it's all over, perhaps I will tell the whole story.

Tom, I have "perfect pitch." I remember the first note I could tell (middle C). Then 440 A. Then B-flat. I got to know them over the years, and the more I focus on it, the easier it gets. I think some people can learn it like that. I think Brittney can learn it, so we work on it sometimes.

From Emily Grossman
Posted on July 17, 2006 at 3:26 PM

Oh, and Nicholas, you think there's something to that coincidence? I'm sitting here listening to my convection oven, and it's also a B.

From Carley Anderson
Posted on July 17, 2006 at 8:38 PM

Heh. Our microwave bleeps at [a slightly out-of-tune] B/Bflat tone. Maybe it isn't a coincidence.

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