In Which She Takes The Boy To A Concert

On Sunday afternoon the boy and I packed up and headed out for the West Island Youth Symphony Orchestra's free concert called "1910 - A Celebration in Music," programmed to celebrate the city of Beaconsfield's centenary. The last time I heard the WIYSO was, erm, sixteen years ago, when I was looking for a cello teacher. Not only was this a chance for me to actually attend a concert (imagine! live orchestral music that I wasn't playing!), it was an opportunity to share a concert-going experience with my son. And finally, I'd also have the chance to see my new conductor in action with a different group. I explained to the boy that this orchestra was made up of kids, and he immediately asked if he could join. I told him that these were older kids, but in four three years (holy cats) he would be eligible to join the junior orchestra, if he liked.

I let him choose where we sat in the auditorium (on the cello side, halfway between the wall and the aisle; we had the whole row to ourselves), and he explored the fold-down seats and asked all sorts of questions about the theatre (he thought we were going to a movie theatre, for some reason). When the lights went down for the orchestra to tune, he caught sight of the conductor just offstage, and he turned to me. "It's Stewart!" he said with great excitement, and I had to laugh; he made it sound like he and the conductor were old buddies.

Overall, he was very good. They played the music "all in a row," as he told HRH back home; in other words, there was no intermission, and the concert lasted just over an hour. He was a bit squirmy, climbing from his seat to my seat to the seat on my other side, or lying down across my lap with his sweater over him as a blanket, but he wasn't disruptive or distracting, and we never needed to resort to pulling out his books or colouring books. His first favourite bit was the Maple Leaf Rag (who can resist ragtime?), and he pretended to play a trombone through it, humming into his straw bottle of apple juice and moving his free hand forward and back in front of him. The guy sitting behind us thought it was hilarious. The Joplin was blown out of the water by Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, however. It may have been partially due to the fact that in the music he could hear the story that Stewart had briefly outlined for the audience before the piece began. "Mama," he whispered during the first movement, "do firebirds have fur?" "No," I said, "they have beautiful, long feathers made of flames." "Not the babies," he said authoritatively. "They have fuzz." "Oh," I said, "so they get their fire-feathers when they grow up?" "Yes," he said, quite firmly.

He crawled onto my lap at one point to snuggle, and had his head on my shoulder when the first crashing chord of the Danse Infernale began. He must have jumped six inches into the air before sitting straight up and staring at the orchestra. I had to try very hard not to giggle, and I could hear the guy behind us muffling a snicker, too. The boy sat up very straight and applauded loudly when it was over, the first piece for which he'd done so with such enthusiasm. He talked about it had been the best part of the concert and about firebirds and baby firebirds all the way out and through the parking lot, to the amusement of other patrons. It seems that my son is a budding Stravinsky fan.

He'd been so good that we picked up a doughnut on the way home.

* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal

February 2010 Summary

17 February 2010:

After a severe setback yesterday wherein I lost most of the day to researching ways to embed fonts on a Mac, and then finding that using Open Office to make a PDF had resulted in borking my document (it was supposed to make things easier!), I finally finished the cello manual layout and proofing today.

It’s been a really fun six weeks, taking a text document and doing a basic layout, then a copyedit, then the endless tweaking that happens when two people trade a document back and forth once a week for a while. Some of that tweaking was to condense the layout; some fixed things that became problematic; some involved adding material; some fixed errors that popped up thanks to the document format. Still, six weeks from plain text to a finished PDF ready for printing is a really good timeline for two busy people. (I come from a publishing world where three to six months for all this is the norm!) I’m crossing my fingers that there aren’t any problems with the printing process. (That’s what all the PDF and font-embedding strife was about. It was a whole thing.)

And today, apart from finishing the book PDF, I managed to wipe myself out having a shower, scrubbing the bathroom, and doing yoga. The fibro is really in my bad books these days. It would help if it gave me some sort of warning sign instead of just handing me a tonne of fatigue and pain all at once when everything seems to be going well.

I have a freelance project due on Friday that I really wanted done earlier this week, but PDFs and fibro are messing that up. I have orchestra tonight, and I fully expect to perform horribly despite practising this week. It occurred to me that I might discuss dropping orchestra with my teacher. Or taking a break. It’s been a really tough winter for me in a lot of ways, and orchestra’s getting trounced in my priority list. I love this new conductor, and I love the music, but I just can’t handle it capably. I know the rest of the section feels the same way, though, so I suspect I’m overreacting in a maudlin self-defeatist fashion borne of fatigue. Still; I really don’t want to drop it, but I feel so stressed about it that I don’t know if the tradeoff is worth it.

Time for winter to be over, I think. The cold and damp is really bothering the fibro.

18 February 2010:

The thing is, if you stick with something long enough, the bad parts usually get better.

Yes, orchestra rocked. Why would I drop something that challenges and rewards me? When it’s going badly it’s bad, but when it works, when everything comes together, it’s glorious. And I wouldn’t give that up.

Besides, Butterworth’s “The Banks of Green Willow” alone makes up for any frustration. (Including the frustrating passage of stormy strings a third of the way through where everything sounds like it’s falling apart, but is actually building before the absolutely gorgeous climax.) I’ve played some very pretty things, but I find this piece absolutely spectacular and it gets me every time. The transition in the middle is throat-clenchingly exquisite, and then the arrangement of the folk song at the end (the same one that Vaughn Williams used as the second movement of his Folk Song Suite, “The Bonny Boy”; Butterworth and Vaughn Williams were both interested in English folk songs, and Butterworth worked with Cecil Sharp to collect them) is gentle and ethereally beautiful in its simplicity.

I loved this piece even before I found out that Butterworth was killed in the First World War, after destroying the music he though unworthy of survival should he not return. His remaining catalogue is slim, and you can’t help but wonder what he destroyed, and what he might have composed had he lived through the war. Knowing it’s one of the few pieces that survived makes it all the more precious.

23 February 2010:

My monthly group cello lesson later that afternoon was great; we had a new student there, and did some good work on the Corelli. I’m having a stupid time counting, for some reason; I got lost in the middle of everything that I wasn’t playing the first cello line for (I’m fine with first and whatever the bottom line is, but I’m wobbly on the middle voices because I’m not sure how the harmonies are supposed to move or sound like yet). Despite this, our first read-through of Joplin’s “The Entertainer” went pretty well. We sight-read a new piece, “Soldier’s Joy,” that will be paired with “The Ashokan Farewell,” as well as getting the official new music for our quartets and trios. I really enjoy my group lessons, and I wish we could do them more often, although I know they’re a tonne of work for my teacher and the scheduling is enough of a nightmare.

All Cello, All The Time

Yesterday was all cello, all the time. Well, not precisely; I did three hours of errands and grocery shopping and such in the morning. But I had an excellent two-hour duet rehearsal with my partner, then had half an hour to tidy up, and headed then off to my cello lesson. It was great to hear my teacher say that it was really coming together, and there were just twiddly things to do to the duet. When I was packing up she said that in general I was sounding good: my bow was more confident, and my intonation was really improving. It put me in a great mood as I left, and it stayed with me for the rest of the day, even through the traffic from hell on the highway that nearly made me late to collect the boy from the caregiver. (Hello, construction season. I have not missed you.)

The night before had been orchestra, so in effect I had five hours of cello in the space of eighteen waking hours. *flexes her callouses* I have to find a way to keep my left hand relaxed through the Vaughn Williams; I'm using way too much pressure. It's not like I have to press any harder with my left fingers if I'm playing louder, after all. It's all about bow speed.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

I Suspect That We're... Different

What does it say about my family when my son digs through the CDs and chooses Brahms' Fourth Symphony to listen to while he plays with his trains?

Also, I figured out a way around his stubborn insistence that I not practise when he's at home: I played "Old Macdonald" and "Frère Jacques", two of the exciting selections from our upcoming recital in which we accompany the two littlest girls. (After playing Jeff's tab of Tom Waits' "Ol' 55", that is. Which is what he claimed woke him up, despite me using a practise mute and playing pizzicato.)

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* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
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Sharing

One thing I love about the Internet (hello, Internet!) is that it's good for sharing stuff with millions of people you've never met.

Allow me to share some music with you.

I discovered Philip Sheppard almost exactly two years ago. He's a cellist and a very talented composer. I used to have his MySpace page open while I worked on other things so I could listen to his posted tracks on an endless loop. I got other people hooked, too, muah-hah-hah.

Now he's posting more and more tracks, some free to download as mp3s, others embedded within his web site. As a start, visit this page to listen to a selection of his haunting piano pieces. A handful of free mp3s for download can be found here. There are other embedded pieces of various styles scattered throughout the site's pages, too, as well as a free download of sheet music for his lovely Crystallized Beauty theme, arranged for two pianos.

Enjoy!

@PhilipSheppard
Radiomovies (Philip Sheppard's official blog and web site)
Philip Sheppard's MySpace page


* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal

Hello, Thumb Position

Last night my hour-long lesson, which usually goes a bit overtime, clocked in at a solid hour and a half. Why? Because we worked on the orchestra music instead of my lesson stuff, which I think is sensible because my lesson stuff can wait while the orchestra stuff grows ever more crucial. Rimsky-Korsakov gave the celli some lovely lines in the third movement of Scheherazade, and wrote them in treble clef. Which means they are Very High. And that means thumb position.

Which I have never used before.

So I was initiated by necessity into the Mysteries of Thumb Position, and ow. But other than the ow, it made a lot of sense. I came home with instructions to play Mary Had A Little Lamb and Ah, Vous Dirais-Je Maman and any other nursery rhymes I could think of in thumb position, as well as the Bizet and Mendelssohn and Rimsky-Korsakov that require it.

I think my lesson would have gone quicker if I hadn't had to stare at the treble clef and count up from the bottom all the time to figure out what note what indicated. Because good grief, I'm only barely fluent in tenor clef, and now treble? I had to write it all out and post it in front of my music stand at home for quick reference.

And in 7/8 news, it's very very easy to play all the way up there in thumb position. Sixth and seventh positions in general have been easier to play than on the 4/4, so unless I'm making it up (which is entirely possible) we have a thumbs up (no pun intended) for ease of (and possibly easier) playability in upper positions. I'm finding the full tone reaches between fingers 1, 2, and 3 up very challenging up there, so I can only imagine how much harder it would be with an extra millimetre or two on the oversized 4/4. The distance between notes is supposed to be smaller up there! Why do the distances between full tones seem so big in thumb position?

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Astonishing

So I took the 7/8 in to the luthier last night (and was twenty minutes late, thank you every single red light on de la Verendrye) and talked about the kind of sound I was looking for. I played it for him and he agreed that the C string was a little mou (which would translate to 'soft' or 'mooshy' [not 'mushy,' totally different!] or some such thing, but in English those infer touch rather than quality of sound). He put the cello across his lap and WHACKED THE BRIDGE a few times.

Yeah. But he's a professional, so he can get away with it. Also, he was probably using some Jedi Luthier Techniques or something, which means there was More Going On than just whacking it.

And he gave it back to me, and my gods, it was like a different cello.

Then he said, "Hmm, the A is a little timide." And he asked what that would be in English and I said the direct translation was 'timid,' but again, it didn't convey the quality he was looking for. I would have said 'reserved.' So he put the cello across his lap again and inserted the fancy swirly crowbar that is the soundpost-adjuster, adjusted the soundpost, and gave it back to me to play. And my gods, it was yet again a different cello. The lower strings are more focused, everything is more balanced, and yes, the projection has improved overall as well. (Not a lot of the latter, but hey, it's a student cello.)

I am very pleased.

I signed a two-month contract for rental, paid the fees, and walked out with it. Now it becomes my primary cello so as to really work it and see if the size difference actually does make a positive impact on my technique.

I realised this morning that I haven't even looked at my lesson material over the past insane work-week, which is moderately problematic because (a) I have cello lesson in an hour, and (b) there was an entirely new piece that I haven't even played through yet, but I suspect my teacher will be understanding because I worked my orchestra stuff instead. (Good grief -- the Hebrides overture, the Arlesienne treble clef celli solo in the 'Carillon,' and the Risky-Korsakov; they will kill me.)

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
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In Which She Apologises

Dear new guest conductor,

I’m really, really sorry for panicking about the second bassoon part you asked me to play for the L’Arlesienne suite two nights ago at rehearsal. I agree that it was really needed so we could fill in the missing bits, and I was willing to give it a shot on the cello until you handed me the music. I was having a really bad day, and all I saw was multiple flats and tenor clef, and I knew I couldn’t sight-read it. Thank gods for M, who was willing to give it a shot (and pulled it off creditably, too). I’m pretty ashamed of myself, especially because it turned out that I could have done it as the crucial bit she ended up playing in that exposed part was in fact in bass clef and nice relaxed eighth notes. But her intonation while sight-reading is probably more reliable than mine anyway.

Just wanted to say I was sorry. And I should apologize to M again too, who was almost as flustered as I was about the music, even though I probably already apologized to her too many times during and after the rehearsal. I feel awful about it.

But hey, how about that sight-reading of the third movement of Scheherazade? Pretty good, hunh?

Sincerely,
the cellist in the second chair

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

More Musings on 7/8 Cello No. 7

Yeah, I know, I tend to go on about this. It's a big thing in my life, and this journal is mainly for my records, after all.

I mentioned the slice in the table to my teacher at the ensemble lesson on Sunday and her eyes got very big. She looked at it and said, "Do you have a digital camera? Take a picture and send it to them, and ask them what they're prepared to do about it, and if they'll guarantee the work. This kind of thing can really affect resale value." I wonder if they might end up dropping the price a bit because of it. Because damn it, I like the sound of this one. I've already seen that four different examples of this model sound completely different; it's not like they can just order another one in for me.

Also, the more I think about this, the less willing I am to make an absolute decision one way or another in this brief space of time. Renting had occurred to me months ago when I was trying the Jay Haides in Toronto, but my mother reminded me of it yesterday. I know my local luthier rents student kits; there's probably no reason why they wouldn't rent this student cello to me for a few months, in order for me to get a better sense of how the size is going to affect my playing. Not all my rental fee will go toward the purchase, of course, but most of it will, and if I don't buy this one then I have a credit for whatever I do end up buying, be it cello or bow.

We got new music in the ensemble class yesterday: The Beatles' 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' arranged for trio (so much fun for the middle voice because there's that rhythm but you're not playing the melody you expect), 'Dona Nobis Pacem' as a canon, 'Ave Verum Corpus' (which I could not get in tune; the 7/8 felt like it was sitting funny, as if I was torqued, but no matter how I adjusted I couldn't shake it, and of course I was playing the top voice which goes stratospheric), a really fun blend of two popular tunes done tango-style, and a kids' song (we get to accompany the littles, and it's going to be hilarious). There will be more, no doubt. And I learned that my friend from orchestra, who also began studying with our principal cellist about a month before I did (and who also plays a 7/8), is playing the other part of the Lee duet with me, which is going to be lovely.

Back to work.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Low Morning

It's been a frustrating morning of work, on top of my already low mood.



But this was in the parcel waiting for me at the post office, one of the two I missed on Monday when I was working in the cafe. And I'm kind of glad the upstairs neighbours aren't home because I'm listening to it at a rather loud volume. It's both beautiful and depressing. I can hear every shift Sutter makes and the movements of her bow arm (not because of poor recording or shoddy technique, but because of her phrasing and the stunning acoustics of the church in which it was recorded), and I wish I could play like that.

I'm going to go heat up a piece of last night's lasagna and then come back and slog some more.

(Condensed from the original post at Owls' Court.)

Self-Confessed Music Addict

I just upgraded my eMusic account from basic to plus, and now I can download 50 tracks a month for $14.99. That only five extra dollars for twenty more tracks, and at the rate I've been queueing albums for download I wasn't going to get some of them until five months from now. And I'm still paying less than what I'd pay for a single physical CD for what essentially amounts to five albums' worth of music.

Now I can have the Erik Friedlander I want for this trip. And I can download all three discs of the Matt Haimovitz Bach solo suites, too!

I don't remember the last physical CD I bought in a store. So much of what I want isn't available through regular channels, or would take months to obtain, or would cost a ridiculous amount of money. (Oh wait, it was Danny Elfman's Serenada Schizophrenia, and I don't remember buying it in a store because t! ordered a copy for me via one of his music business contacts.) I really like the option of being able to download selected tracks from an album, too. The one frustrating thing is that some of the artists I hear and want to try out, or buy an album from, aren't available via eMusic (yet, or whatever).