It could be worse.....

I might be a little biased since he is one of my favorite composers, but if you are feeling depressed, you should try listening to Shostakovich. This suggestion might be a new step in the history of psychology, for it does not come because he is lively and uplifting. Rather, if you are thinking that whatever you are dealing with is unbearable, listen to Shostakovich and realize that it could be worse. It has been stated (I believe by him) that Shostakovich never wrote a happy note. His music flows from some of the darkest points of Russian history. He wrote great music, but not "happy" music.

Catching up

I will try to catch up, since I haven't blogged for a while. The reason? My week is trying to kill me. It is the week before midterms- enough said.
So I will try to sum up the week with things that I have learned:

• Changes in weather are nice, but they "play bloody hell" with my reeds... (sorry, that's a quote from Wooster and Jeeves.)
• Playing low notes on the contra makes my vision vibrate.
• I play with a lot of back pressure, which means that I breath too often for my own good.
• Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra is NOT sight-readable.
• Agreeing to more than two gigs in a weekend is not the best idea.
• I am not joking when I say that I can't play Heckel contras, because I tried last night. I can't reach half of the keys, so I can only play the lower two octaves..... see point two.

Got Bassoon?

Never let a musician alone with a camera.... strange things happen. I was supposed to be practicing, but when those artistic juices start running......

I win.....

This is the view out my practice room window..... I think that Temple should use it as a prototype for the New Presser. All the poor, light-deprived music students would think that they died and went to heaven. But, I know, "we dream on a budget"..... and a Temple budget at that!

Beware of....Squirrel?

As orchestra went to break this afternoon, we were greeted with the following announcement: "Please don't use that door, there is a squirrel loose in the hall and I just don't want it to jump on someone." Of course that meant that everyone had to go out the other door and around to stand in the hall and try to see the squirrel. Now, first of all, I can't conceive of how the squirrel got into Presser in the first place, let alone getting to the second floor, but having 45 people standing trying to get a look at it isn't going to help anything. I left without seeing the distracted rodent, but it must have been getting pretty frenzied with all the attention, because half-way down the stairs a chorus of screams issued from above- you would have thought there was an elephant stampede not a rogue squirrel.

Something unexpected

Sometimes there are certain things that you just don't expect..... I was waiting to go into orchestra rehearsal this afternoon with my bassoon on my back, the contra on my shoulder and my knapsack at my feet. All of the sudden, one of the bassists (whose name I do not even know) offered to carry the contra in for me. He said that he didn't have anything to do, just waiting for rehearsal to start. I was so surprised I let him do it. Since he sits at the end of the bass section and I sit at the end of the bassoon section we are neighbors of a sort.
You find gentlemen in the oddest places......

I love tonality!

I came out from my back-to-back theory classes to day with a headache..... This is entirely due to the fact that we are now firmly into atonal music (if you don't know what this term means you are a blessed person and want to keep it that way). So when I got to choir tonight my musical ear was a little harried..... but there is nothing like a little 16th Century, choral tonality to smooth the ruffled feathers. We sang the most beautiful Agnus Dei arrangement by Thomas Morley. It really shows what all those 20th Century composers are missing- they may be inventive and expressive, etc., etc., but you just can't replace those beautiful harmonies!

Good article

I just found a really good article in the January 13th edition of WORLD. It is called Silent Furnace: Our trust in God is refined and perfected when our Master doesn't speak by Andrée Seu. Very thought provoking......

Nostalgia...

One of the ensembles at Temple is reading through the Francaix quintet. I remember how much I hated that piece while we were playing it in Weinstein. I wanted to play Summer Music and couldn't really see the Francaix as an acceptable substitute. But now I would give anything to make music like we did in Weinstein, to play Francaix with people who love music, who love learning. Maybe sometimes you can be too close to something to really see it, or understand how important it is to you.

Snow!

I love snow! I was greeted this morning with a view from my bedroom window that was simply breathtaking. A thin blanket of snow had draped the tree outside in lace.

Ahhh, yes.....

I have just remembered one of the down sides of taking aural theory. Ear training must somehow let down your guard and make your brain more vulnerable or something, because I just finished my first dictation and am having post trauma reactions. Trying to make your brain memorize music long enough to dictate it usually ends up driving you batty for hours afterwards because you can't get the tune out of your head. But this semester is going to be different. Since we are going to be doing atonal music (which isn't exactly singable), I think that I am going to have a related but slightly different problem. Your brain becomes like a sponge, very susceptible to every passing sound, so that for hours afterwards you will be singing any tune that you hear.