Phoenix?

Miss this creative outlet....maybe a return is necessary.

Mac

Well have one as of yesterday and even after one day, I am still amazed that I can just turn it on and off without the song and dance. Awesome.

And Sibelius works ten times faster. Even more awesome.

See you soon?

Decision

Been thinking for the last couple of months if I should just delete this blog. I havn't been posting very much. Actually once or twice a year.

However I've decided to do the opposite. Will be writing here a lot more now.

Father

Today I am thinking of my dad. He would have turned 64 today. He loved the Beatles (When I'm 64) so for me this year is more significant than next year. Cigarettes cut his life too short 20 years ago.

I don't think I would have been a musician without his help. Almost every musical milestone until I went to university involved him.

My first memory at three, was going to Chedoke Park with him hand in hand and Vivaldi's guitar concerto playing through my mind.

He taught me some folk guitar at 6. He taught me chords at 7. He made me sight read at 10.

I remember his thick orange binder stuffed to to breaking point with photocopies of the entire guitar repertoire (it seemed) of the local library. It was filled with Dowland, Bach, and countless Spanish exercises. I had been playing viola for a few months and had no technique. Didn't matter to him. He would open that 10 lb. 6" book and open to a random page and say "Okay, read this!". And I would read it, always badly. This went on for 5 years. Torture.

He was remarkable. He strived to learn his entire life. Taught himself guitar at the age of 24. He was an incredible nature photographer and painter. Had a passion for science that I didn't see again until I met my husband.

Mendelssohn was his favourite composer. For him, Mendelssohn was a composer who he thought was underrated, a genius in his opinion.

My dad was disappointed that I had never composed since he thought that was the highest calling of being a musician. He implored me not to be "just a music box", not just to be a violist.

I guess maybe I should tell you now that I am not just a violist anymore. Something changed in me this autumn. And I think it quite spooky that the pieces that changed my perspective were two Mendelssohn duets I arranged for voices and string trio. And now composing does not seem as daunting anymore.

I will always miss him. But what he gave to me will always be there. Thank you and love you Dad.

2008

This year was a bad year for blogging. It will go down as the year I lived on Facebook. It was fun though!

This year was also a year of doing and not contemplating. A lot of concerts and teaching and chasing after my increasingly (by the hour it seems!) active family.

However in the last week, I felt the need to contemplate again. All the sudden I am wondering how my career is going to turn out and thinking about the ways to do so. (I am in a rut.) And the draw of an old hobby is there again after six years.

I guess I have to figure out what I want to be when I grow up...anytime now.

Back

Okay I think that I am ready to come back to this blog.

If it's okay with you though-I really don't want to write a long post why I was away.

Good...

Incredibly Short Stories VI

The Campagnoli project is going extremely well in the practice room. Now the challenge is blogging about it. A week (or two) behind in posting. Not to worry-this weekend it will happen.

I finally had a good night's sleep for the first time in 10 days. This will help with the blogging thing...

Middle son may not be autistic (PDD-NOS) after all. This gives me great joy. He can stay home with me in the mornings. He did wonderfully with his program the last few months and he is very, very close to normal.

I heart Facebook. That's all about that.

I still like this blog. This year it will become more of a kitchen sink/ general life rambling kind of thing. It may even become slightly more personal. The other blog will talk about the nitty gritty of practicing.

Intermission

Nursing a bad cold today and just thinking about things and how life is really too short not to reach out to people or delay doing an important project because the timing is wrong.

Therefore made some subtle but important changes in the last couple of days...how enigmatic is that?

The next project will be here soon on a related blog link. (I've decided to give up the idea of the negative autism blog for now and forever-not good to focus on that.)

In the meantime, here is the first of some really shameless plugs that will be posted over the next few days.

Anna (my favorite stand partner of all time) is in a fabulous quartet.

Here's an interview with them. Love their thoughts on music education.

Enjoy!

Thoughts on NoBoPoMo this year

Basically I can't do it. Since I won't be at a computer every day this month. In fact November and December are the worst month because our family travels a lot. For me February would be a much better choice. Lots of snow days and it *is* the shortest month after all...

Anyway with the mood I'm in these days, the best choice for me would be the Cranky Bloggers Group (thank you Miriam for showing me the link!). Though I don't know if anyone would want to read my words of "grr", "blah" and "argh" over and over on the page. It may get a tad bit tedious after day 4 (or Day 0.25).

Still thinking of the advice from one of my viola teachers saying not to be in love with one's problems. It's time to be solution oriented and not avoid things.

So I think as an alternative, I'll do what I've been saying since last May I should do. Record my viola playing every day for the first 15 days of November and then from November 25 to to November 30.

It won't get a nice little sticker for this blog. But just maybe I can finally get more co-ordinated with running sixteenths passages ("noodles"). Or maybe time the shifts better. This morning I bought a basic voice digital recorder. It's doesn't record any pretty tone colour at all. But pitch and rhythm will be captured.

And of course this time I should be accountable to you, dear blog reader, and posting how it went that day. If I am successful at doing this for the above days, then I will buy this for myself for a combined birthday/Christmas present.

The funny thing I was going to do this a few months ago with Audacity. But I didn't do it probably but the laptop turned out not to be very portable for recording. And then the computer motherboard fried in September and I didn't reinstall it on the new computer. It is a great program and I do recommend it-however right now I need something more basic. Sound quality will wait...rhythm can't.

Incredibly Short Stories IV

There is a lot of sun here right now. Youngest son does not want to stay inside. Can't blame him.

Same son woke up at 3 a.m. this morning. Not back to sleep until 5:30. Sleep deprived mother is unable to make sense of even the simplest rhythms in contemporary music rehearsal. Like counting 5 beats in a row in rests...

The microwave breaking was a good thing. It's more fun to cook anyway. Discovered the oven was consistently 20 degrees too low with careful use of oven thermometer. (Thanks Alton Brown...). Now I'm a fabulous (even if only in my eyes ;) ) baker.

Have a good day...now I have to go learn how to count past 4.

Recalibrate

Still great weather here.

I'm trying to make a habit of walking for 30-45 minutes every day regardless of my energy level or mood. This is what I used to do about ten years ago in Toronto. In fact, I am attempting to recreate some of the things that made me happy back then and adapt it to life here. Walking is one of them. (Some things may not work so well in the mountains of Vermont...like the attitude chunky black heels and eating great cheap Thai and Vietnamese food at midnight.)

Also getting back to practicing this past month. I have a concert in three weeks, playing new works of Vermont composers. I'm really looking forward to doing this. Going back to what I do best. I promise I will write more about the concert...

So I'm plodding though the pieces using my practice strategy of "divide and conquer" along with much singing of the intervals. Fun. :)

And though no fault of my own, I will have to teach an advancing student the Stamitz concerto. Wait-it is my fault! I gave her the choice of Hoffmeister or Stamitz and she likes the Stamitz better.

Maybe I don't like it so much simply because I played it badly in high school. Nightmares of terrible double stops haunt me. Well it's going to be subjected to practice. Because, I will learn it better this time around. Have to.

Recalibration...start now.

Very short post

I will be back online on Tuesday.

It's been an interesting (although unwanted) experiment.

BTW the microwave also died last week. Though unlike the computer, it's not a necessity (will get a new one next year maybe).We have embraced the Slow Food movement as a result. The kids are thrilled. It was cause of celebration when I baked cookies a couple of days ago. The two older boys sang the "C is for Cookie" song the entire time the oven was on. Very cute...the future Broadway singers!

Also practicing a C major 4 octave scale. And it's going well. What else? Penderecki and a Vieuxtemps etude for viola and piano, I *could* actually play in public. Cool..

Listening to a lot of music. But not classical. Mostly the Police, Queen, and BNL.

So that's my virtual vacation.

And I want it to end...now.

Oh well-talk to you next week everyone.

Soho the Dog quiz!

Well that Internet vacation didn't really work.

Life intervened in a big way and now I have to postpone this for a week or two while I deal with massive paperwork.

But now onto the positive...

If I was offline, I would have missed Soho the Dog's delightful quiz. Been hoping that he would do one again. It should be *every week*. Hint, hint.

Okay here goes...


1. What's the best quotation of a piece of music within another piece of music?
In Britten's Lachrymae for viola and piano (or orchestra), the very end, the John Dowland song "Flow, my tears". It's absolutely heartbreaking.


2. Name the best classical crossover album ever made.
Easy. Anything by Yo Yo Ma.

3. Great piece with a terrible title.
I'll give you two-both by Barber.
School for Scandal. Adagio for Strings (did he actually name this one?)


4. If you had to choose: Benjamin Britten or Michael Tippett?
Benjamin Britten. See answer to question #1.


5. Who's your favorite spouse of a composer/performer? (Besides your own.)
Nela Rubinstein. For her wonderful cookbook with the many pressure cooker recipes. And for putting up with her husband.


6. Terrible piece with a great title.
I think will stay mum on this one...unless we can include some compositions performed from my student years. Let's protect the not so innocent here...


7. What's the best use of a classical warhorse in a Hollywood movie?
Aw, do I have to pick just one? (The whole film "Amadeus" is just so great). Really just one? Okay here's two- toss up between Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barber's Adagio for Strings in the Elephant Man.


8. Name the worst classical crossover album ever made.
I'm not really an expert on the crossover/classical thing. In fact it makes me run screaming from the room. Although I have vague memories of seeing Engelbert Humperdinck singing "Ave Maria" a few months ago. Which version? I don't know...memory suppressed.


9. If you had to choose: Sam Cooke or Marvin Gaye?
Marvin Gaye all the way. I'm allergic to Cooke's "Wonderful World."


10. Name a creative type in a non-musical medium who would have been a great composer.
Pablo Picasso. It would have been fascinating to see how he would have gone through his phases in music. And can you imagine Guernica in Sound?


EXTRA CREDIT:For opera nerds: If you had to choose:a) Lawrence Tibbett or Robert Merrill? b) Amelita Galli-Curci or Lily Pons?
Uh, no.

For early-music nerds: Name a completely and hopelessly historically uninformed recording that you nevertheless love.

That's too easy...in the Bell Telephone Hour. The Oistrakhs playing the second movement of the Bach Double Violin Concerto. It's heaven on earth.

Sisyphus

It will be ten days before school starts for the kids. Then life will have a little breathing room.

Case in point....typing with one hand right now since little guy is hanging on right arm.

(Okay I just gave him two peeled clementines-that will hold him off for maybe 4 minutes.)

I have not "Pendereckied" much. In fact I have barely touched the viola except when teaching a couple lessons last week.

The culprits? Refereeing the children in their twice hourly fights. Facebook. Sleep. Writing emails. Changing some facets of my life.

The Sisyphus part comes from trying to keep the house neat and tidy everyday when there's still many disorganized bits to it. This hasn't been addressed since we've moved here two and a half years ago. I would like it to be better organized since I teach at home and it seems like every autism specialist in Central Vermont visits every day.

So I've decided starting this Thursday morning to the next Wednesday to take a virtual vacation so I can deal with the first life. The computer will go in the closet for the week. It's not going to be fun. Much of my life revolves around reading the newspapers online, reading my favorite blogs, reconnecting with some of my favorite people via Facebook. However this is the way it has to be.

Therapy by Viola

This was also the summer of withdrawal and waiting.

All summer I was expecting an appointment. The one where specialists would diagnose my other two boys with autism.

It finally happened last week. Now I have time to think about it.

Now we are left with working out the logistics of raising three children on the spectrum. Feel like I've struck out on the parenting front.

In all honesty playing the viola seems a lot easier right now. Just stringing one note after another.....

Maybe I need a piece that will reflect my mood of bitterness. Been drawn to the Penderecki Cadenza. That may be the salve I need. As well as a new blog devoted to parenting kids on the spectrum. I will have to soldier on.....

Learning how to play modern music

I apologize for not posting sooner. Various things happened. The most important one was this:

I was just incredibly tired.

And yes it took two weeks to recover from that concert of the Clearfield premiere.[Also we went to Ottawa for the next weekend and my two-year-old son has turned into sticky tape (well he does love oranges....) due to the fact I went away for three days and three nights.]

But it was a great experience and got me to think about the reasons for that.The main one was that it really was a terrific piece. And terrifying in places. The mood (and hopefully not the playing!).The soloists and conductor were wonderful and you could tell that they loved contemporary music. And I think this is one of the main reasons for the success of the premiere. They were just so skilled and had the openness to work with the composer even to the point of changing articulations and rhythms at the last minute. And nary a grumble from the orchestra which was a nice change.

A thought:

Maybe with contemporary music the reason many musicians grumble is that we are simply not used to the new techniques. In a way we are a generation (or two) behind the composer and we have to be coaxed (or dragged) into the experience. With time the next generations of performers are used to it and have learned the techniques. Audiences maybe need time as well.

And also over the last couple of months, I've seen the result of young performers succeeding in learning and performing an entire concert of music of local women composers. And done with such a good attitude as well. We mid-career players could take a clue from these enthusiastic teenagers.

Of course I don't mind being dragged at all. I do like the challenge of trying new techniques. (I was an admittedly bad improviser in the mid '90s) However sometimes I wonder what if I had learned properly at 15 to do Bartok pizzicato (or a whole bunch of them) in a viola piece. Or a bowed glissando-have seen this in many orchestral pieces written in the last 10 years.Just thinking that we violists (and other string players) need some 21th century etudes so it's not as demanding to learn a contemporary piece every time we're faced with it. Maybe with lots of glissandi, tremolo, artificial harmonics. Wondering who are the Rodes and Kreutzers of 2007? Are there any violin/viola teachers who compose for their students? Anybody interested? Or maybe should I try?.......

10 things

Okay-I will post tonight about my wonderful experience this past weekend in NH. I was section viola with the Hanover Chamber Orchestra and we were playing for the 200th anniversary of the Handel Society of Dartmouth College. There was a premiere of a commissioned work by Andrea Clearfield called "Fire and Ice", using poetry of Robert Frost. And yes it went very well and was received with a justified standing ovation. But more on that later...

It's neat that I now have regular readers of this blog even though I don't post that often. And I would like to say:

Thank you!

To me this blog, well it's trying to be a practice journal. It hasn't quite worked out that way. However I guess it's been a lot of fun learning how to do this blogging. And I do plan to continue indefinitely.

And today I would like to pull back the curtain and let you know a few things about me (since I didn't do that at the beginning). So here goes....

1. I'm Canadian. But I've wanted to move to the United States since I was sixteen.
2. Now that I'm here (do expect to live here for the rest of my life), I've spent a large chunk of time experiencing culture shock. It's kind of like that old Star Trek episode with the parallel universes. Some things are the same but others are *very* different. And it's not apparent until you live there. (Not going to go into much detail here-don't want to make this political-both places have good and bad things.)
3. In my mid-thirties. Look very slightly younger. Was carded regularly until last year.
4. Have three boys all under six. Everything you've heard about boys is true (active, active and more active!). I don't sleep much. Wouldn't trade them for anything.
5. Drink 3-4 cups coffee a day sometimes before noon. Partly because of 4.. Partly because I love coffee. And lattes, and cappuccino. Tea will do only if there's no coffee around (a rare occurrence).
6. My day's not complete unless I do three things: practice, read, and (the newest one) exercise.
7. Wear lots of black. Mostly because I own it (surprise, surprise!) and it's one less decision in the morning. Works pretty well in Toronto and Montreal. Not so well in Vermont.
8. Met my husband at a bus stop after the worst viola lesson of my life. He was on a date....with my friend. I'll leave it at that for now..... He amuses me more than any person I have ever known (is that a good reason for marriage?).
9. Have too many cookbooks. Love vegetarian food except for tofu. Would be vegetarian except for bacon.
10. I do play the viola well. But have a strong feeling that I can do it better. Became a much better player after 30. (That's a story of it's own) Can't see why that can't continue.

Incredibly Short Stories II

Stamitz and Pleyel duets are fabulous for intermediate violists. A nice bridge before the Hoffmeister, Stamitz and Mozart concerti. I can't believe I didn't know about them before. (insert sound of slapping own's head here...)

The Beethoven Notturno is quite a nice piece. Although it's not legit (a publisher's arrangement of the Serenade for String Trio), it's a lot of fun to play and not too difficult. Well maybe the Polonaise is.....

Already planning next recital's piece although no date has been set. Notturno will definitely be on it.

Youngest son is almost two....energetic but good natured. Oldest son with ASD (6) has decided to act two. Learned how to answer "no" a couple of weeks ago. I guess I should be happy about it.....

I have a new toy. It's awesome! Middle son thinks so too. Glad I brought more than one. Many thanks to Elaine writing about it. Mine also came within a week. From Holland!

About Joshua Bell and the Great Big Subway Station: Pearls Before Breakfast
Right piece in the wrong location and wrong time. The Bach Chaconne is one of the greatest pieces of classical music. However to get a true sense of the architecture and the emotion, one has to listen intently for 20+ minutes. [For me the most emotional point of the piece is the return of D minor after the hope-filled major section. It is always heart wrenching for me. And it happens after 15 minutes. Listening to 4-16 measure sections is not going to have the same effect. It would be only a piece of the mosiac...]

It was an experiment set up for failure. Like punk rock for a child's baptism's service. The setting of a performance has to be considered. It wouldn't have mattered who the violinist was.

And last but certainly not least:

Very sad about this. Many prayers for the families and friends.

Gourmand

Note:

Although cinnamon and cumin have the same first and last letter and both contain one "m", they do not taste the same.

Even on oatmeal.

Signed,
Half-Awake

Incredibly Short Stories

Thursday I will play (on violin) Erbarme Dich for church. I have played the Brahms songs with the same fantastic mezzo soprano. The organist is a Bach specialist and an amazing musician. Will also play (on viola) the First Gamba sonata with the organist.
I am fortunate indeed.


I suffer from SDD. Study Deficiency Disorder. Must learn the Mazas studies. Somehow skipped them when I went from Kayser directly to Kreutzer.


On the Viola Yahoo Group List, somebody remarked they may be a closet violinist. I think I'm one too...for Baroque music.


Mud Season......I vacuum every day. Doesn't help.