Scott Ainslie

The Scott Ainslie concert was wonderful. Scott is a remarkable musician. He was playing on four different instruments, including a single string instrument made out of a pool stick, a cigar box, and fishing line, and played like a slide guitar. I think Scott made it himself; in any case it's the kind of instrument a young African-American musician would have been able to play on in the early 20th century because it was so cheap to make.  Scott also played on a metal acoustic guitar which you would swear was an electric guitar - it sounded amplified. It was a house concert, with about 30 people in the audience. We all fit into the living room-dining room area. So it was very intimate. It was a fantastic concert. I'll put up some pictures when I get a chance to get to a Wi-Fi spot. But of course the ideal would be actual sound, but I can't do that on my blog. Quelle dommage!

Scott Ainslie playing the single-stringed instrument

l. to r.: the metal acoustic guitar, single-stringed and a wood acoustic guitar Scott made himself with the help of a friend. The fourth instrument, not pictured, was a uniquely stringed banjo

This morning was choir at the Dummerston church, and it sounded great. We sang a contemporary shape-note hymn titled BOSOLD, a setting of Isaac Watts' paraphrase of 1st Corinthians 13, which was the scripture for the morning. The arrangement was pretty complicated, but they did well and I was proud of them.

This afternoon we enjoyed sitting on the deck in the sun and working on the Spelling Bee puzzle.  We both were geniuses in pretty short order – one of the easiest ones to come down the pike for a while. Letters. A + YCFLTU. Make as many words with five letters or more as you can; you can use letters as often as you wish, there has to be an "A" in every word. Words are worth one point, but if you use all seven letters it's worth three points. 24 points and you're a genius. There happened to be 3 3-point words in this puzzle.

Later in the afternoon, I went up to the church and downloaded all the music and MP3s for the fall session of River Singers. Mary Cay posts everything online and it's the responsibility of each person to download the scores and the audios. That took a while.

Later:
Went home and had supper; talked with John. He gave me a number to call for a septic tank inspection, which was recommended by the realtor we spoke with at Morningside a week ago Saturday. Our system is 46 years old - if we sell the house we need to know its condition in order to set a fair price if it needs to be replaced. 

Now I'm back at the church using WiFi while Ellen is at the supermarket.