Canada Day Concert Redux

It is my very great pleasure to share with you the video taken of the entire Canada Day concert.

Bless Martine and Daniel for shooting the HD footage, for editing it and posting it to YouTube; and even more so for burning all those concert DVDs for the orchestra members! It was a real treat to sit back and enjoy the concert the way the audience did, and as the Blu-Ray player and TV are hooked up to the surround stereo and subwoofer, I got to hear the orchestra in all its glory. (Okay, the church is very echoey, and at times our articulation isn't as clear as it could have been and those two issues = occasional muddy sound, but hey! There's sound to be heard!) And I appreciate it all the more because my audio recording was such a miserable mess.

Calixa Lavallée's O Canada

Schubert: Symphony No 3 in D Major

1. Adagio maestoso - Allegro con brio

2. Allegretto

3. Menuetto - Trio

4. Presto vivace



Vaughan Williams: Suite of English Folk Songs

1. March - Seventeen Come Sunday

2. Intermezzo - My Bonny Boy

3. March - Folk Songs from Somerset



Fauré's Pavane



Grieg: Norwegian Dances

1. Allegro Marcato

2. Allegretto tranquillo e grazioso

3. Allegro moderator alla Marcia

4. Allegro molto



Encores

1. Vaughn Williams suite excerpt

2. sing along O Canada

Overall, I am very pleased with my performance in this video. Two things leap out at me. One, I tend to make small faces while I play, mostly tightening of the mouth during different phrases. It's not in reaction to mistakes, it's more like... expression. It probably can't be seen from the audience, but seeing it on screen when the camera was on the celli was very odd. This summer I'm going to work on relaxing the muscles around my mouth when I play. And two, I've been working on lowering my right elbow, and damn it, every once in a while it pops up like a chicken wing. Down, elbow! Down! Something else to work on this summer.

There were a couple of places in the video when I waved my hands at the screen and said, "The celli! The CELLI! They have the theme, the violins are just playing a repeated note -- pan RIGHT!" And there was the odd place where the camera would pan to the brass... just in time for them to lower their instruments. But those are understandable in a live recording, and really, I'm just thrilled to have the record of the event. Especially on DVD! Merci encore, Martine et Daniel, vos efforts et votre générosité sont vraiment appréciés!

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

I debated about posting this, but why not.

Someone made a video recording of about half of the recent LCO fall concert. It's broken into approximately eight-minute long sections, so you can see the first and second part of the three-movement Mozart Divertimento (the second part covers the second and third movements), the lovely Adagio for Clarinet and Strings (the so-called "Wagner adagio", which has some nice close-ups of Martine's hands for you clarinet players out there), and the Haydn Symphony 104 in D major (first part, second part, third part, and fourth part). I wish I could say each part actually corresponds to a movement, but they don't. The first part is most of the first movement, the second part is the end of the first and most of the second, the third is the rest of the second and the full minuet/trio, and the fourth is the fourth movement in its entirety.

Why did I consider not posting this? Well, mainly due to the fact that the sound is awful. It's very flat and quite distorted. (Although I recognise that not all the distortion is due to the recording. Ahem.) The balance is completely off, and things are very muddy. Hand-held video cameras just aren't designed to record such a wide range of sound level, especially from that distance in a very echoey venue. And as such, it isn't particularly complimentary. But it's an idea of what went on. Also, it's fun to see what the audience members are doing while we play. (I was amused by the people nodding and tapping their programmes during the minuet, and by the kids.)

And yes, I am cleverly hidden by my teacher's scroll most of the time through the Mozart and the Adagio! Although the videographer seems to have moved forward for the first two-thirds of the symphony and therefore there is a better view of me from a three-quarter back angle in those recordings. (And thus my pathological avoidance of vibrato has been preserved for prosperity. I'm working on that now in my lessons.) Also, good gods, does my left hand always look that spidery?

This is the first half of the programme. I wonder if the videographer recorded the last half, and if it will be posted.

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

Cello Hero?

So it seems that cellists may have an edge when playing Guitar Hero:

On the whole, a musical background seems to help Guitar Hero players. Zach Whitsell’s mother, Betty Whitsell, said her son has played violin, cello and saxophone in the past.

Ming Cheng, a 17-year cello player, said he was able to play the game on the medium level in the store before purchasing the game. He placed fourth in the 16-and-up age bracket on Saturday.

Cello players might have an advantage in the game, Cheng said. He explained that the spacing between the buttons on the controller is almost identical to the spacing between fingers on the strings of a cello.

“It keeps my fingers in shape for cello,” Cheng said. “I don’t have to practice as much.”

Except:

[Guitar player] Bloomfield is able to strum the notes up and down, which helps boost speed, Cheng said.

“I normally only strum down,” he said. “It’s more accurate, but I get tired faster.”

Which is a problem I have encountered myself. So when I saw this really interesting video called 'Taking Trips to America' promoting the album Block Ice and Propane by cellist jazz alternative musician composer-type person Erik Friedlander yesterday, I was fascinated. Don't miss the video of Erik performing 'Yakima' at the bottom of the page.