Jon Vickers as Otello

Gum Tree Seasonal Confusion: No Words are Necessary

A Sheet Music "Life Hack"

If you are like me and keep your 15.4" laptop computer at home most of the time, but have a neoprene travel sleeve for the rare times you do take your computer out of the house, here's a way to put the sleeve to good use:



It is the perfect size for music, and it keeps your music safe from "injury" when you carry it in your shoulder bag or back pack. It also weighs next to nothing, is waterproof, has a great zipper, holds a healthy pile of music, and NEVER wears out.

The text in the lower right hand corner reads "Second Skin folder," the brand name appears to be Tucano, and I believe my color is "Aluminum alloy." Case Logic makes a 16" neoprene folder that sells for 11 bucks, and a 17" folder that sells for 13. Those would probably work beautifully for carrying French music.

Performance Practice

I really like the way the Zemlinsky Quartet plays this piece, but it disturbs me to see that every time the violist has a solo, he faces out to the audience. I don't know for sure if turning your head to the audience (and the requisite few inches that the viola's scroll faces them) increases the amount of sound you produce on the viola, but I sure find it a distraction to have choreography tell me where I should focus my attention.

But I suppose that this is 21st century performance practice, and we'll just have to live with it. Just like the stomping that some quartets do (and this quartet does only occasionally).

When Fluoristan is just too strong . . .

(Fluoristan was the original name for Crest!)

Read Jan van Steenbergen's scholarly article about the Schumann Brothers, Florestan and Eusebius (just for fun).

Steven Staryk's Violin Secrets Revealed!

Who wouldn't like to play the violin as well as Steven Staryk? The secret to great violin playing is, of course, practice. And lots of it. What you practice does make a difference, and Staryk has decided to share his particular and practical version of "what" on line.

Steven Staryk's 1975 collection of daily exercises, his "Daily Dozen," is now available as a free download from Cedar Coast Music. There's one for violists too--a straight transcription one fifth lower that is written in the alto clef.

I'm becoming a "pipa person"

I'm playing a concert that includes Tan Dun's Pipa Concerto, and until today's rehearsal, I really had no idea how totally cool an instrument the pipa is. None of the YouTube recordings of the Dun pick up all the pipa's nuances, but this Kronos video of the 1995 "Ghost Opera" (that shares some of the same material as the concerto) comes pretty close.



Here's the pipa in a more traditional setting:

Gender Equality and T-Shirt Size

I went online to order a T-shirt to support a cause I believe in strongly, and I couldn't help but noticing that there are sizes for "Women" and sizes for "Adults." Does that imply that the "Adults" are male? What does that imply about women? Hmmm . . .

I hope they fix this.

High Tech Notching: Notes from a Former Luddite

The act of practicing difficult passages hasn't really changed through the ages (at least through my ages), but the tools to do it have. Faced with the huge task of preparing a program of difficult music (in my case a program for violin and piano), I'm using every tool I can get my hands on.

This is one way I use Finale to my best advantage. I'm sure it will work with other notation software programs.

I enter the piano part of a difficult section into Finale, and set a very slow tempo. Then I copy the passage twenty times (or as many times as I want to repeat it), leaving a measure of rest and then of just the pulse (played on some high or low note that has nothing to do with the passage) between each repetition. Then I go in and set incrementally faster tempos for each repetition. After the masterpiece is completed, I export it as an audio file, load it into my ipod, and let the passage "practice me." It beats pure metronome notching because you don't have stop to move the metronome, and you get the harmony and counterpoint notched into your brain along with the passage in question.

String Bag "Life Hack"

I have been using string bags for my groceries for a couple of years now, and I always keep them in my shoulder bag. Sometimes they get tangled up in other stuff, which is why I invented this "life hack." I thought I'd share it here.

Two string bags:



Two string bags tangled in my shoulder bag:



I take an odd sock (who doesn't have one of these?) . . .



I put my hand in the sock . . .



and grab the handles of the string bags . . .



slipping the sock, pillowcase style, over the string bags.



La voila!



Then I put the stuffed sock it in my bag where it acts as a very light and non-bulky cushion for whatever else I have in there. No more tangles!



[Notice that I put the most attractive book in my library in the bag?]

Berlioz's orchestration of Schubert's Erlkönig!

Perhaps it is just a tad late for Halloween, but it's never too late for Schubert or for Anne Sofie von Otter! Berlioz's orchestration is mighty surreal.

Musical Success Story

This interview with Francisco J. Núñez from the NPR podcast The Story, tells a great story about the kind of musical success that really matters. Núñez was given a 2011 MacArthur Genius Grant for his work with the Young People's Chorus of New York City, a program that he created in order to get children from various neighborhoods in New York City to get together and make music. Listen below, then listen to the podcast!

Don Juan and the Jews of Spain

"Concealed in its puppet-theater plot is a Jewish joke: Don Juan exists to prove by construction that a devout Christian can be a sociopath, and by extension, that the Christian world can be ruled by sociopaths. The Enlightenment’s most insidious attack on Catholic faith, then, came not from atheists like Voltaire, but from a Spanish monk with buried Jewish sensibilities."

". . . [Don] Juan is not an archetype of legend: He is a metaphysical construct unique to his time, and to the tragedy of the Spanish Jews."

Go to Tablet Magazine and read this most interesting article about Mozart's Don Giovanni by David P. Goldman.

Variations on the Obvious?

I'm playing a concert tonight with a really wonderful program: Dohnanyi's "Variations on a Nursery Song," Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," and Elgar's "Enigma Variations." The Britten is, of course, not unrelated to the Elgar, but what I found going through my head between dreams last night was the concurrent juxtaposition of the theme that Dohnanyi uses and the variations of the Elgar. And then I realized that the "mystery" theme (one that everybody knows, yet nobody knows because it is absent) is the theme of the Dohnanyi. Pay special attention at the 3-minute mark of this video, and then consider the first Elgar Variation as a variation of this theme in the minor mode. The harmony is Elgar harmony, of course, and the relationship is obtuse, as the best variations on themes tend to be.

Maslow's World and How it Applies to Music

Would you believe that I just recently encountered the work of Abraham Maslow? As musicians we apply his "Four Stages of Competence" in everything we do. I know that I go through the path from conscious incompetence to unconscious competence with every piece I write, and if I'm lucky I make it from conscious incompetence to conscious competence with almost every piece I learn. If I'm lucky I make it all the way to unconscious competence. Sometimes I find myself going through the cycle many times with the same piece, if the piece is strong enough to take it. With a lot of music, like solo Bach, going through the cycle again and again is actually part of the fun.

Unconscious Incompetence

The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit. They may deny the usefulness of the skill. The individual must recognize their own incompetence, and the value of the new skill, before moving on to the next stage. The length of time an individual spends in this stage depends on the strength of the stimulus to learn.

Conscious Incompetence

Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. The making of mistakes can be integral to the learning process at this stage.

Conscious Competence

The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in executing the new skill.

Unconscious Competence

The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task. The individual may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.

If you wade through all the primitive "pseudo-psychedelic" pop-ups on this page, you can read all of Maslow's Religion, Values, and Peak Experiences on line. Or you can just look at the Wikipedia summary. Perhaps what we are doing when we practice has something to do with trying to replicate the idea of a peak experience for ourselves (once we are able to get close to unconscious competence), and perhaps when we are performing our goal is to share that peak experience with others. Perhaps when we are writing music, our goal is to write stuff down that makes it possible for people to have and share peak experiences.