Merry Christmas

We finished our last concert today. it is 11:44 pm Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas!

Ruben

Jingle Bells recap

Ruben posted about Jingle Bells the other day. Since Jason obviously isn't saying anything about it, I thought I would step in as a fair and impartial observer....

Jingle Bells is a quartet piece (arr. by Kevin McChesney, IIRC) that occurs as the 3rd piece in the 2nd half of our concert. There are funny hats involved - sorry, Charlotte, but the Japanese audiences simply eat it up!

Anyway, Ruben's hat is under the table. Jason's is supposed to be, too.

See where this is headed?

The schtick starts. Ruben does his thing. All of a sudden, Jason comes running offstage, past all of us gathered there, watching via the monitors. As he runs past me, I hear him say, "My hat is in the dressing room!" I tell the others to make way for him as he's going to be coming back through at a pretty fast pace!

Meanwhile, Ruben is left onstage alone. He covered well, looking around and acting surprised that he was alone on stage (well, maybe that part wasn't an act!). He does a big dramatic shrug for the audience and calls out, "Merry Christmas!" The audience laughs heartily.

Finally, Jason comes running back past all of us backstage, onto the stage with his elf hat on. The audience gives him a round of applause.

The rest of the schtick proceeded as normal (PL, with reindeer antlers & red nose, saunters (like the diva she is!) onto the stage before Michael steals her spotlight with his blinky-light jacket).

After this incident, an Executive Decision was made to pack Jason's hat in with the equipment & put it out as part of the regular stage setup.

Speaking of Osaka...

Osaka is quite different from Tokyo. I think the 2 cities are of comparable size, population wise (and perhaps even land mass), but to me Osaka always feels "smaller" than Tokyo.

It might be the location of the hotels we stay in.

In Tokyo, at the Tokyo Dome Hotel, we can see for miles in every direction - skyscrapers as far as the eye can see and cranes where there is new construction. On a clear day, you can see Mt. Fuji.

In Osaka, the New Ohtani Hotel is right next door to the Osaka Castle (a beautiful building, btw). If you look out the window, you see some of Osaka, but it doesn't seem to stretch all the way to the horizon like Tokyo does.

The people are also different. Both cities are very cosmopolitan - lots of English and people who are used to seeing Westerners - but in Osaka the people are a bit more... agressive, if you will.

In Tokyo, people will almost sheepishly ask you questions or excuse themselves if they happen to bump into you on the subway (you hear "sumimasen" ["excuse me"] a lot).

But case in point about Osaka: Backstage at the concert night before last at the Itami Aiphonic Hall, Nuno was showing me the route to take to get to our positions to play Aka Tonbo. The house was open & the audience were taking their seats. There was a lady walking around backstage near our dressing rooms. She called out in loud voice, "Sumimasen!" and then launched into rapid-fire Japanese.

Nuno, not thinking she was talking to him (because she was speaking so quickly), walked right past her. She caught my arm and repeated herself, pointing at a seating chart. Apparently she was asking me how to find her seat!

I looked at her and said, "Gomen nasai, wakarimasen [I've very sorry; I don't understand]" She then proceeded to speak louder (but not slower) - I think she repeated herself again, but I'm not sure. Of course, I still didn't understand her so I repeated myself and backed away. She turned around and went back down the hallway. (I sure hope she eventually found her seat!!)

Back Home at the Dome

After 3 days in Osaka, we are back "home" at the Tokyo Dome hotel. We'll stay here for 3 nights, then take the Shinkansen to Nagoya before Sonos returns home to the USA.

We have 3 concerts to go!

Jingle Bells tonight

That's all I am going to say. Jason will fill you in.

Ruben

We Three Kings

We are performing Arnold Sherman's arrangement of this piece and it is becoming my favorite Christmas carol piece in our concert. With Michele and Nancy on percussion and Jason and PL playing the low bells down to the G2, the piece has this big sound that fills the hall and this arrangement is very effective.

Ruben

H2O

There is a Sonos virus going around and it hasn't got me yet. This is our 11th day on tour and the secret to staying healthy (at least for me) is to drink lots of water. I am tempted to drink soda all day but I believe that water is the wonder drug.

Ruben

Shake Rattle and Roll

Shortly after 3:30am this morning (Saturday morning) there was a 6.2 earthquake. It was an undersea earthquake approx. 180 NE of Tokyo. We are still in the city of Sendai, which is north of Tokyo and boy did we feel it. We were all in the 12th floor of the hotel and many of us went out in the hallway to check on each other.

Just another day on tour...

Ruben

A Modest Proposal

Tonight we played in Koriyama, a 40-minute shinkansen (bullet train) ride south of Sendai. A nice hall, but small - perhaps 400 seats? (I'm really bad at estimating how many; sorry!)

Anyway, after the concert, the audience was invited up on stage to ooh and ahh over the bells. We always enjoy this bit because they look so excited and happy to get to touch the instruments & learn how to ring them. They also get excited when they encounter one of us who know a little bit of Japanese!

As the stage started to clear, a young man (early 20s?) came up to me & excitedly told me, "You are so COOL! I am falling in love with you. Will you marry me?"

I giggled & covered my face in the embarrrassed Japanese schoolgirl fashion & then pointed at my wedding ring and said, "Gomen nasai [I'm very sorry], but I'm already married!"

He seemed very disappointed! He then proceeded to tell me how beautiful I am:

"Your eyes are so deep and your nose..." here he gestured with his hand indicating that I have a long nose.

I had to laugh because that's the first time in my life anybody has told me I'm beautiful *because* I have a big nose! LOL!

Livin' La Vida Loca

Last night I was Walking Like an Egyptian at the Kareoke Bar. Although I Left My Heart in San Francisco and I was All Out of Love, I was still acting like an American Idiot.

Ruben

Surprise....

Ruben & I were at a restaurant having a beer (they *do* have dark beer in Japan!). They brought us a lovely 3-sectioned dish of appetizers. One section was 2 tiny, tiny whole shrimp with a lemon. Another section was a small piece of beef in a nice sauce. The middle section was a poofy thing in a sweet sauce.

I split mine in half. It looked like there was a scallop inside, so I ate it.

Meanwhile, Ruben dissects his & turns the "scallop" over to reveal suckers. It wasn't a scallop, it was octopus!!

I said, "Ugh! Don't show me the suckers until I've swallowed!"

The mall gig: Yes, we have arrived.

You know, when you start out with a new community group, you will almost inevitably encounter "the mall gig." This staple of cash-strapped, publicity-hungry non-affiliated groups everywhere is always fun. It seems that there're an endless supply of shopping centers that, when Christmas rolls around, have an insatiable appetite for low-budget musical groups to (theoretically) inspire their patrons to greater heights of consumerism. I guess this means there is a relationship between "Jingle Bells" and a shopper's wallet. Whatever.

And, for some reason, mall directors look at handbells and immediately see dollar signs. Don't ask me why! (Handbells are for Christmas!)

So, in the typical mall gig, you end up arriving at the venue at the wrong entrance (invariably). You stand around looking confused. After a suitable period of vexation, the mall gods are appeased and the entertainment coordinator materializes out of the mass of huddled shoppers wearing an exasperated look and trots you through the entire mall. It's a little slow because you're shlepping all your stuff, naturally.

Just before you think you'll collapse and your fingers will never uncrimp from their permanently clawed position (bell cases are heavy!), you finally reach the designated performance spot. Of course there's only 9 feet and you need 18, but, hey, be flexible. Various angles, configurations... you know the drill. Eventually you shoehorn yourself into the pathetically inadequite performance space and set up. When all is said and done, you're ready to play.

Then the fun part - you get to play in a mall! With tons of milling shoppers who really don't care about you walking by, slightly turning their heads in vague disinterest, and then continuing on their slavish, consumer search for gifts to one-up their relatives. Oh, joy.

You play your set (15 minutes or so) the first two times, and then the director walks up: Can't you play "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus?" Apparently, they have a big Christmas lingerie sale that day, and he thinks this song would be a major draw. After letting him down gently because, no, you can't play that, you go back to playing your set a few more times. Then you pack up and leave. If you're lucky, somebody was able to bring the shlepmobile to the right entrance so you don't have to trek the whole length of the mall again (remember the cramped fingers?). Your first mall gig - your group earned $150. Woo-hoo!

Well, I haven't played a mall gig in a while, and I guess it was my time again in purgatory, because near the end of our rehearsal in Sendai, Jim comes to me and says, "We have to stop at 6:00 because you're going to the mall to play 'Sakura'." R-i-i-i-g-h-t. I didn't exactly sense an interrogative in there, so all I could do is nod my head. But, sheesh, I was tired. We'd been on the road since 6:30 AM, with a trip to Fukushima, a television show, another train ride to Sendai, then a stressful rehearsal with the violinist and the local all-girl double choir group. And the rehearsal with the violinist had been stressful because the four of us accompanying him in "Ave Maria" had to transpose on the spot since we had apparently learned the quartet in the wrong key! Yeah, he knew it in F and we had learned it in G. A whole step sounds easy enough, but those noodle-noodle sixteenths fly by pretty quickly, and it's a quartet, so we're moving all over the place as the line goes up and down. Mentally stressful!

(BTW, we played Jingle Bells for the TV show, with Michael being interviewed by a translator. This was good.

Interviewer: "So, what are these instruments you play?"

Michael: "We're an English handbell ensemble, and these are the instruments we play. [point at bells] So, we play... English handbells."

[pregnant pause]

Michael: "Merry Christmas!"

Fortunately the translator's rendition of that appeared to not faithfully render Michael's response.)

Turns out that the publicist at the concert hall (or somebody) had decided that sticking us in the outdoor mall would be a good way to advertize the concert on the next day. Actually, it was a good idea! But at the time I was just a little miffed that we weren't even asked and that the four of us were being singled out for this extra duty with no preparation.

OK, so we figure out we're going to the mall. At the appointed time, the six of us (Tamamura-san, Nohoko-san, Michael, Sunghee, Josh, and I) bundle into two taxis and drive for 10 minutes to a location in a freakin' huge outdoor mall in downtown Sendai. Many, many blocks long in two directions, this is what the Mall of America would look like if you took all the stores and laid them out along two intersecting streets, each extending blocks in either direction. (Turns out we could have just walked to the area, since the taxi had to fight terrible traffic due to the first night of the "20th Annual Sendai Festival of Starlight," during which they basically wire the heck out of the trees along the boulevard that marks the end of the mall and along with the concert hall sits. The foot and driving traffic were horrendous.) We walked some of this mall today, and it really is fun.

We finally make it our performance location. They've built this cute little red felt-covered stage, with an arch of green baloons and some pine trees in the background. The stage is *very* small, and round, so it's a good thing the piece we played, "Sakura", only requires four ringers and is played in a circle. (This is a pretty cool piece, being Jim's blending of English change ringing and the famous Japanese folk melody. Maybe I'll describe it later.) While we're getting ready, all of the assistants (maybe six of them) begin donning goofy Christmas gear, like flashy santa hats and reindeer ears for the girls. One guy actually gets into a santa suit. Oh, yeah - I remembered from our first trip that low-level flunkies for these publicity stunts put on little costumes and yell at people until the poor shoppers relent and take whatever marketing materials they're handing out. (Kinda freaked me out the first time we encountered that - I distinctly remember avoiding the store that had this kind of "advertising".)

The emcee brings up his mike and begins to rapidly belt out Japanese while we stand there and look pretty. Finally, we get the cue ("please start playing now, thank you") and launch into our one-minute rendition of Sakura. We finish and everybody claps. A very few mall passers-by stop to listen, but most actively avoid the yelling, overly-cheerful flunkies trying to hand out concert flyers.

We start up again, playing Sakura again - hey, it's all we know for four people with 10 bells - and it seems to go fine. We get a few more people. We play again, and then we get a little break. The local newspaper has sent a photographer, and he wants some shots. Some little girl appears out of nowhere and gets put on stage, probably to add a "cuteness" factor to our mugs. Josh leans down and gives the five-year old a bell and sorta shows her how to play. She finally makes a sound, and everybody smiles. Ah, isn't that sweet?? :)

We do some airbelling to get a usable picture (which we do, BTW - we showed up in the paper the next day - I doubt we would have without the little tyke their to endear us). After that, we go back to playing, but this time in a straight line. Ugh, it's hard to play a piece that's designed for a circle in a straight line!

While we're playing Sakura for the fourth time, our producer, Tamamura-san, is conversing intently with the liaison at the mall. My imagined conversation goes something like this:

Mall guy: "This piece is short. I can hardly hear the melody. Can't they play 'Happy X'mas?'"

Tamamura-san: "No, they can't play that piece with only four ringers." (Yes, we did play "Happy X'mas" on this tour)

Mall guy: "Hmm. Do they know anything else?"

Tamamura-san: "No, they only know 'Sakura'. Forgive them - they're only westerners."

Well, the upshot is that on my first mall gig in over 10 years, we played a single, one-minute piece six times. Not exactly high art! But, hey, the audience for the next day's concert was 1,100, so I'm not complainin'.

You young community handbell ringers - see what you have to look forward to??

---Jason

Power Rangers, Ho!

Japan is always fun - you never know what you'll see.

Well, being sick isn't so fun; I've been under the weather since we arrived. I'm finally starting to come out of it now. (whew) Unfortunately, I was feeling poorly enough to miss our only free day in Tokyo. :/ Still, if you gotta spend a day of doing nothing, there are worse places to do it than the Tokyo Dome Hotel! (toh-kee-yo dome-oo ho-teh-ru) I was thrilled when our taxi pulled in to the TDH because it felt like I had come home; we've stayed there for probably 12 days over the last two tours.

The Tokyo Dome is a large baseball stadium that also serves as a concert venue and whatever else you can do with a 50,000-seat, enclosed venue. However, there's oh so much more around the area. In fact, the Dome is the center of "Tokyo Dome City," an amusement park/shopping mall/hotel/restaurant/health spa cavalcade. The amusement park is complete with a rollercoaster, ferris wheel, parachute fall, "drop zone"-style cart, kiddie coaster, blah blah blah.

And the really cool thing is that they have live Power Ranger shows! (Yes, we're finally at a place where this post relates to the title...) We were on the 19th floor and I was sick and alone, since my roommate Bruce had abandoned me in favor of an "Old Edo walking tour" (mostly around a highly-tourist-trap oriented temple). We had an "odd" (1907) room, and on our side we could look out over the amusement park and especially over the Power Ranger stage. (Note our first year room was "odd", but last tour's was "even", overlooking little more than MacDonalds ("mahk-oo-dohn-ah-roo-do") and our train station, Suidobashi ("soo-ee-doh-bash-ee").)

Oh, and life was good: it was a rehearsal day for the Power Rangers guys! Coolness! I knew I would be entertained all day watching the antlike (we were on the 19th floor) Japanese athletes in their little black jogging suits as they rehearsed their Power Ranger moves. The stage is a multi-level structure with two large inner cutouts for the Rangers (and their evil nemeses) to jump and flop onto after tragically being wounded and throwing their bodies into the air and falling to their doom.

So cute!

They all line up and work on the same jumps and landing. They also all seem to pray to the mattress (or the jump or the air or whatever) because they put their hands together (as the famous "praying hands") and make a small bow to the overlook before they contort their bodies, launching into the air, spinning, and finally slamming into the mattress with (seemingly) little damage. Then it's the next guy turn for praying, bowing, launching, spinning, and slamming. It's hilarious! The bottom guy runs out of small doors in the structure, up the steps, and back into position at the end of the queue waiting to jump.

Well, that's the normal course. Unfortunately, one guy appeared to really hurt himself. He was part of the crew jumping off the low landing, spinning around in midair, landing on the mattress with their hands and knees, and quickly jumping up to circle kick and punch one of their mates at the bottom. (Don't ask me why - none of the audience can see into the landing area, but whatever.)

Well, the poor guy does the praying, executes the jump and the spin, hits the mattress, jumps up... and then sits down again. Oops. He tries to get up, and then sits down again. He finally rolls over on his side, falling off the mattress. His companion (the guy who gets "hit" by the circle kick and punch) realizes he's not faking it and comes over to help. All the other guys run down off of their perches, surround the cutout where the guy's been hurt, and seem to just watch. Some more guys come over and cart the hurt dude off. Yikes.

After that, rehearsal went on as before. They probably did the various jumps, martial-arts combat scenes, and individual calasthenics for over two hours. I found myself thinking about what it's like to play in Sonos: yeah, we can hurt our wrists or our backs over time, but, sheesh! Would you want that guy's job??

---Jason

P.S. The first year, Diane and I actually got to see the Power Rangers show from the 25th floor. What a great blast!! That was super fun...

A Quote from Afternoon Tea

DESSERT,which brings you a happiness

It's important thing laughaing obediently, if you don't have

a short time in daily life. Please let us

help your time for this hapiness.

Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea

I am not posting in chronological order but on Monday Dec 12, I went to Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea. If you have been to Disneyland or DisneyWorld in California or Florida you do not have to go to Tokyo Disneyland. It is basically the same thing. However, I do recommend DisneySea. It has 7 themed areas including Mediterranean Harbor, Arabian Coast, American Waterfront and others. They have some great rides including the rollercoaster Raging Spirits and Journey to the Center of the Earth. The had several incredible shows on the waterfront of Mediterranean including Porto Paradiso Water Carnival and BraviSEAmo!

We are going back to Tokyo next week and I will have a chance to explore the city then.

Ruben
Sendai, Japan

Wardrobe Malfunction

Last night during Porgy and Bess I heard a snap and my cummerbund unhooked. This happened about 10 measures before my big "Summertime" solo. I leaned forward up against the padded table so it would not fall into the ground. I managed to remove it and put it between the foam and table and finish the piece. When the piece ended I rolled it up and put it in my pocket. The next piece was Ave Maria and I performed the piece without the commerbund. The next piece was Largo and I didn't play that piece so I went off stage and put it back on.

Just another day in the life of a performer...

Ruben
Sendai, Japan

In Good Company

Today we took the bullet train from Tokyo to Fukushima, a suburb of Sendai. The "Jingle Bells" quartet (Jason, Ruben, Nuno & PL) played for a local TV station's variety show.

After the show, we hopped back onto the bullet train & went to Sendai proper, where we had a rehearsal with a local school bell choir - they will be joining us for our concert tomorrow.

Come dinnertime, I didn't feel like walking far, so I talked Bruce & Taiko-san into going to the Ramen shop across the alley from the Sendai Plaza Hotel (where we are staying). We entered the shop & ordered, then settled in for dinner.

The place consisted of a counter with about 12 stools - the other half of the shop was kitchen. That's it. "Hole in the wall" epitomized!

Looking around, we noticed that many musical groups had signed the white paper-board squares that were hanging on all the restaurant walls. There were squares from Cyndi Lauper, Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Manhattan Transfer, Hall & Oates, several European orchestras, Ray Charles, Chick Corea, etc., etc.

Taiko-san explained to the staff that we were also a musical group, so they gave us a paper-board square to sign. Nuno, Josh, Bruce, Taiko-san & I signed it (and we've asked the rest of the group to sign it sometime during our 5-day stay in Sendai).

We're in good company!

Oh, and the ramen? Ray Charles says it's the best in town!

Let's Do the Time Warp Again!

In "Tokyo Dome City" - which is the complex containing the Tokyo Dome baseball park, the Tokyo Dome Hotel as well as an amusement park and many shops & restaurants - there is a "Baseball Cafe" restaurant.

Last night as we walked past it to go to a nice Italian place for dinner, we noticed the staff inside standing up on the counters, dancing for the clientele. We made a few comments and laughed about it, and continued on our way.

After dinner as we passed the cafe again, they were still dancing. After a moment, we recognized the song as "The Time Warp" from Rocky Horror (I believe it was a Broadway recording, but I might be wrong).

Bruce & I stood outside the windows of the restaurant and danced along with the staff. As we took our "Step to the right", we noticed 3 or 4 Japanese youth (perhaps teenagers or young 20-somethings) dancing with us!

Backlog of Blog Posts

If you've been checking for blog posts here & haven't found any until today, it's because today is the first time we've had internet access. We're at the Tokyo Dome today - going to Sendai tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have internet access there, too.

More stories soon! (Including dancing the "Time Warp" with a bunch of Japanese youth!)

Culture Shock

This is my 3rd trip to Japan with Sonos, so I pretty much knew what to expect.

At least, I thought so….

We had a few hours to ourselves before rehearsal on Friday afternoon in Munakata City, so I decided to go for a walk. As I left the hotel and headed down the road, I thought I heard music. Guitar music – loud, distorted guitar music, to be exact, eminating from the garage down the road

As I walked, the music got louder. “This almost sounds familiar,” I thought to myself.

Then it dawned on me.

I was hearing “The Star Spangled Banner” as played by Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock!

Yes, I was walking down a road in rural Japan and hearing the US National Anthem played by a very loud, very distorted guitar.

Talk about culture shock!