CHARLESTON -- Summer Strings will present its annual concert at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the John Daum Amphitheatre in Kiwanis Park.If you happen to be in the area, Charleston is about an hour due south of Champaign on Route 130 (or Route 57) and about an hour west of Terre Haute. Kiwanis Park has entrances on both Harrison Street and Jackson Street. There is ample parking and admission is free.
The program includes classical and popular works arranged for string orchestra by Elaine Fine. Conducted by Rachel Warfel, Summer Strings members include students, adults and string teachers from Charleston and surrounding communities including Mattoon, Shelbyville, Sullivan and Tuscola.
A wide variety of musical selections include "Till There Was You," "He's a Pirate," "Once Upon a December," "Those Were the Days," "Cinema Paradiso" as well as familiar works by Fasch, Bach, Satie and Offenbach.
Summer Strings offers an ensemble experience for string players of all ages and abilities.
Facilitated by area string teachers, Summer Strings thanks the First Christian Church for providing rehearsal space, the Coles County Arts Council for music printing funds, Fit to a Tee for concert shirts and the Charleston Recreation Department for concert sponsorship.
The public is invited to the performance Tuesday. In the event of rain, the concert will be at the First Christian Church, 411 Jackson.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Summer Strings. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Summer Strings. Sort by date Show all posts
Friday, July 15, 2016
2016 Summer Strings Concert
Here is the announcement for the 2016 Summer Strings concert from today's local paper!
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Summer Strings 2019
Last night our Summer Strings orchestra played its annual concert. We begin rehearsing Tuesday evenings as soon as school gets out (the last week of May), and we perform our program the third Tuesday of July, right before the county fair begins (where many of our participants show animals). That gives us seven ninety-minute-long rehearsals to learn an hour-long program of brand-new string orchestra arrangements (that I spend most of the year making). We are very efficient with time.
We always learn the program, and every year the group gets better and better. My goal for the group is to get from "can't" to "can" (and this year, with a difficult program, we made it way past a mere "can"). Adults who don't do much playing during the rest of the year are happy to have challenging music to practice. Kids and teenagers who don't have enough time to practice during the school year have time to practice in the summer. And they really do practice.
There are no auditions, and people can choose what part they want to play. I love it when violinists who spent previous years in the second violin section decide to play the first violin part. I also love it when people who normally prefer to sit in the back move towards the front (we do not have seating assignments). Rehearsals always begin promptly at 6:30 and end promptly at 8:00. We use our time efficiently.
One of the other coordinators of the group makes detailed instructional recordings of the first violin part, the second violin part, and the violin 2b part for every piece. We keep the audio files in a Dropbox folder, and people can use them when they practice. It's like having a personal trainer. My students get the added benefit of working with my colleague, both in the group and on tape.
The experience is kind of like participating in a summer camp program without having to do all the things involved with leaving home. No money trades hands between participants and organizers in our yearly adventure (though support comes in the way of donated rehearsal space and money that we turn into T shirts). We require no commitment: some people who have to be out of town for the concert come and play for the rehearsals. Sometimes people who played in Summer Strings in previous years and have moved away come to town and play with us for the concert.
If you want to listen to the concert (it takes about an hour), you can listen through this link.
You can find a link to the program here.
So many wonderful things happened this summer. A beginning student of mine (in her first year) who could not find her place in the music during the first rehearsal became one of the strongest players in the violin 2b section by concert time. One of my high school students became more confident, more aware of his ability to count, and perfectly comfortable going into third position, and another became confident in fifth and sixth positions. One cellist who used to come with her sometimes-reluctant teenage bass-player son eventually decided to try playing his bass herself. In two weeks she went from zero to sixty on the bass, and you will hear how great she sounds (and maybe be inspired to try playing bass yourself).
It is such a thrill for me to see people take musical risks.
If you are interested in joining the wider community of Summer Strings, I keep all my arrangements in a Dropbox folder and share them with anyone who wants to play them. Just send me an email, and tell me about your group.
Other Summer Strings posts
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Streaming Summer Strings
Last summer the local television station made a portion of a documentary film about our Summer Strings program in Charleston, Illinois. It aired this past Sunday, and now is capable of streaming all over the world. Around nine minutes into the program there is a piece about my friend Nina Marshall (one of the co-directors of Summer Strings) making harps with her father. The Summer Strings portion begins at around the 16-minute mark, and lasts around eight minutes. [If you are reading through a reader you will need to click through to the post to see it.]
Thursday, June 27, 2024
Summer Strings 20th Anniversary Concert July 9, 2024 at 7:00
And now they are gone. Every last one of them. And our birds, deer, squirrels, and other animals, including dogs, were well fed with their manna from heaven.
Our Summer Strings program was set by March without a thought of cicadas, but once I made a string quartet transcription of a piece for two violins I wrote during the last Magicicada emergence back in 2011, and once I played it with some of my Summer Strings friends, there was no other choice but to make a version of it to put on the program for this year's Summer Strings concert. And it is particularly approrpriate in this location, among a lot of hardwood trees and along the town branch of the Embarass River, where the larvae of millions of Magicicada Brood XIX (who will next emerge in 2037) might even be listening. They are just babies, so there is no danger of any activity. Here's what we will be playing:
The theme of the concert is "Christmas in July," which means it is an excuse to play "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," my favorite Christmas holiday song. In Monteverdi's "Zefiro torna" the warm west wind comes after the cold of winter, but most importantly it is a chaconne with a bass line that repeats throughout the piece. "Once Upon a December" has cold and icy pizzicatto dressing up a waltz that sings of nostalgia, "California Dreamin'" is a longing for the warmth of Los Angeles on a day in winter from a place where "all the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey."
"You Must Believe in Spring" by Michel Legrand yearns for spring even in the deepest winter.
The other songs should be familiar, but only dedicated readers of this blog would know that the "Humoresque" on the program must be the one by Ethel Barns rather than the one by Antonin Dvorak. I have loaded this arrangement into the IMSLP, and it should be available soon.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Summer Strings and Sesame Sauce
We just finished our fourth summer of Summer Strings in our small Midwestern town (a town that doesn't have a string program in its school system or in any school system within an hour's drive). We had around 40 string players take part in a program that my partner in string "crime," who teaches most of the young violinists and violists in the area (three of my students played this year) offer as a service to our community.
One of my father's "laws" (having a scientific mind helps him to map out the ways of the world, musical and otherwise) is that no matter how little rehearsal time you have for a given performance, it is always enough. He's right. If a group of musicians have a month or two to put something together, they will use all of the time, and a group has two days to put together a whole program, its members will use the allotted time to get the job done. It just takes a lot more concentration to do so, as well as a lot of personal practice time outside of rehearsal.
Our Summer Strings group put together an hour-long program of pieces in a variety of styles and from a variety of eras without a conductor in eight two-hour-long rehearsals (with breaks for cookies), four of which were used to read through music. It took a lot of work to get the six and seven-year-old children to remain focused and physically alert for two hours, and it took even more work to get them to count, remember where they were in their music, and listen to what was going on around them (it was my job to sit in the beginner section and corral them in--my bow acting like a lasso much of the time). Our final "product" was a concert that sounded really good. The whole was far more, in this case, than the sum of its parts.
Perhaps that is what I like most about ensemble music. Young people, especially string players, tend to be quite competitive when it comes to playing music. There is always someone who can play something that you are unable to play. There is always someone younger than you who can play something faster and cleaner. There is always someone who gets more attention and praise for what s/he does than you do. String players also tend to evaluate themselves by where they are seated in orchestras. It is a fact of life, even if it has no bearing in reality. Ideally members of an ensemble, particularly a string ensemble where there are several people playing the same part, should let down the walls of their individual egos and realize that what they contribute to their section is more valuable when they act as musical emulsifiers, allowing the oil and water of each person's sound to blend into a paste that can become a delicious musical sauce.
Now I have to insert a recipe that proves my point:
The same magical thing happens with mustard and oil:
So I hope that the musical sauce we made this year at Summer Strings will make our corner of the musical world a bit warmer. I am encouraged by the experience and am excited to spend time on more arrangements for next year.
One of my father's "laws" (having a scientific mind helps him to map out the ways of the world, musical and otherwise) is that no matter how little rehearsal time you have for a given performance, it is always enough. He's right. If a group of musicians have a month or two to put something together, they will use all of the time, and a group has two days to put together a whole program, its members will use the allotted time to get the job done. It just takes a lot more concentration to do so, as well as a lot of personal practice time outside of rehearsal.
Our Summer Strings group put together an hour-long program of pieces in a variety of styles and from a variety of eras without a conductor in eight two-hour-long rehearsals (with breaks for cookies), four of which were used to read through music. It took a lot of work to get the six and seven-year-old children to remain focused and physically alert for two hours, and it took even more work to get them to count, remember where they were in their music, and listen to what was going on around them (it was my job to sit in the beginner section and corral them in--my bow acting like a lasso much of the time). Our final "product" was a concert that sounded really good. The whole was far more, in this case, than the sum of its parts.
Perhaps that is what I like most about ensemble music. Young people, especially string players, tend to be quite competitive when it comes to playing music. There is always someone who can play something that you are unable to play. There is always someone younger than you who can play something faster and cleaner. There is always someone who gets more attention and praise for what s/he does than you do. String players also tend to evaluate themselves by where they are seated in orchestras. It is a fact of life, even if it has no bearing in reality. Ideally members of an ensemble, particularly a string ensemble where there are several people playing the same part, should let down the walls of their individual egos and realize that what they contribute to their section is more valuable when they act as musical emulsifiers, allowing the oil and water of each person's sound to blend into a paste that can become a delicious musical sauce.
Now I have to insert a recipe that proves my point:
Take a tablespoonful or two of sesame tahini and add a tablespoon or two of lemon juice (always use more sesame than lemon). Mix them together for a while, and you will eventually get a very thick paste. Add some soy sauce or tamari (just a little bit) and mix it in. Then slowly add water, bit by bit. You will notice that the sauce will turn white and will remain thick (unless you add too much water--so be careful). You will find it delicious with just about anything.
The same magical thing happens with mustard and oil:
Mince some garlic, and put it and some olive oil in a glass. Add about an equal part of Dijon mustard to the oil, and put in a little salt. Mix it for a while, and you will notice that it will eventually form a jelly-like paste. Add vinegar and spices, and then add some water, a little at a time. The oil and water components of the salad dressing will magically remain mixed together.
So I hope that the musical sauce we made this year at Summer Strings will make our corner of the musical world a bit warmer. I am encouraged by the experience and am excited to spend time on more arrangements for next year.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Summer Strings Concert Tomorrow Night!
It's had to believe that we have been doing Summer Strings for ten years. What started as a way to give students a way to play music together in the summer has grown into something that string players around here look forward to all year. This year's concert has a little less in the way of pop music than previous years, and it will open with the first performance ever (a world premiere, if you will) of my "May Day Overture" a piece that I completed on the first of May. All of the other music on the program that I have either written or arranged I have already made available through the IMSLP and Dropbox, and I will upload the Overture after the performance on Tuesday. This year's program will also have two arrangements by Nina Woodgate (who has left Illinois for Michigan, where I hope she will start her own Summer Strings orchestra one day), and two arrangements by Ka-Wai Yu.
The people who play in this group range in age from about 4 to their later 70s. Some people have been playing all of their lives, and some have only been playing a year or two. Some people travel a few blocks, and some drive for an hour or more. Some people come to every single rehearsal, and some people only come to one or two (we are very flexible about attendance since it is summer, and people tend to go away from time to time). It is a community-supported organization, and the string teachers and conductors that run the program all volunteer their time, so we do not charge tuition of any kind.
The concert is free, and the weather looks like it will be beautiful.
Friday, August 12, 2022
Reflections on life during the pandemic
As the larger world is aiming towards a post-pandemic mindset, I find myself thinking back over how I spent the past couple of years, and the way the early months of what some people referred to as "lockdown" gave me a great deal of incentive to work hard at my various musical crafts. Even though my local musical activities came to a virtual standstill, I felt like I had a lot of meaningful musical contact with people online, and I got a taste of how important musical communication is, even if it is not happening in real time.
Our university library asked people in the commmunity to keep a diary for the six months between March 13, 2020 when the first cases of Covid came to downstate Illinois, and the end of November 2020.
I was a pretty faithful writer, and my journal (all seventeen pages of it) is available to read through the university website. I am both surprised and not surprised that out of the whole university community only five people submitted journals. Four of them were students (and one is a violinist).
I posted some of the entries I made in this journal in "real time" as blogposts, so I haven't duplicated them in this series of posts:
April 3, 2020
By the academic year of 2019, musical life in Central Illinois had finally lost the shackles of the Great Recession, and concert attendance was up, participation in music ensembles was up, and the number of young people studying stringed instruments was up. In Charleston we were at a kind of “golden” spot where the performing organizations connected with Eastern were increasing in quality. The concert series at Doudna, which included excellent out-of-town musicians and excellent faculty musicians (finally, we have a faculty filled with people who really can play—and sing), was impressive. Between playing with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony, the Eastern Symphony, and the new Eastern Camarata, my schedule of orchestral playing in March and April was packed. I play in a Renaissance and Medieval ensemble, the Charleston Consort, that was planning on playing a concert of Senfl in June, and play in a string quartet, the Wild Indigo Quartet, that was planning a concert of Haydn Quartets in April. It was going to be our first concert together. My viola and piano duo with John David Moore had a concert of Irish music scheduled on St. Patrick’s day, and another concert on May 29th of music by Smyth, Bosmans, and Barns as part of Women’s History and Awareness Month.
On Friday afternoon, March 13th I played with a student at her grandfather’s funeral. We were already wary that the virus might be lurking, but since no cases had been reported in the county, people were still hugging one another. I kept my distance, but observed a rather loud man in his 60s proclaiming, as he hugged the widow, “Everyone’s going to get it anyway.”
Later that evening the first case of Covid-19 was reported at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center. The infected person, who lived in Cumberland County, was told to stay isolated at home. The next morning John David Moore and I thought it would be best to postpone our March 17th concert.
By the middle of the next week all concerts had been cancelled. Spring break was extended for an extra week, and then university students were told not to return to campus. Our governor closed all the public schools.
Restaurants were only open for take out. Banks did all their business through drive-up windows.
I started teaching all my lessons via FaceTime on March 15th. My students, who didn’t have any activities outside of schoolwork that they were doing at home had time to practice. The struggles I have with remote teaching (having to evaluate sound through computer microphones, having the signal cut out from time to time, not being able to play with my students, having to rely on them to write fingerings and bowings in their music) are kind of balanced by the fact that they are all spending serious time with their instruments, and are making improvement.
It is hard to plan for the future musically. Our Summer Strings orchestra, which was going to begin the last week in May, will not be happening this year. People of all ages from all over the area (some drive more than an hour to Charleston) look forward to Summer Strings as a way to play music together. Terry Coulton and I always enjoy having the chance for our students to play together with other people for fun, without the pressures of performing in solo recitals. This is the first time in more than ten years that Summer Strings will not be happening.
There were also concerts scheduled around the world of pieces I have written. One was a premiere in Chicago of “Nuit de Vielle” played by the people I wrote it for. I was also supposed to be given an award for things I have done in the community musically by the Coles County Arts Council. Everything was cancelled.
My Downstate Strings Quartet has weddings scheduled for July, September, and October. We don’t know if any of these will be possible.
I have been spending my time doing what I normally do, but with some modifications. I don’t have the heart to practice viola, so I have been practicing violin. I have been fairly disciplined in my practice, working on solo Bach, Rode Etudes, and the first violin parts of the Beethoven Opus 18 Quartets. I have written one piece for string quartet, and, at the request of a friend in Italy, made an arrangement of the Finale of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony for string sextet. I made arrangements for solo viola of “Amazing Grace” and “Scarborough Fair,” for the March 13th funeral, and I made those, along with the string quartet piece and Tchaikovsky arrangement, available in the IMSLP. Michael and I continue to read together every day. We see our children and grandchildren via FaceTime. We take a two or three mile walk every day. Michael talks to his mother on the phone every day, does the crosswords, and makes daily posts on his Orange Crate Art blog. We watch movies together, and try to only watch a little of the news on television. We both read the New York Times and spend more time online than we normally would. Many members of our family live in areas that are densely populated, and, in spite of the fact that they are diligent about remaining safe, we still worry.
The actions of our federal government are shameful. We feel helpless to have the fate of so many in the hands of people who stretch the meaning of incompetence and personal greed to new lengths. And they seem to do it daily.
The Illinois map of Covid-19 activity is filling up quickly, but Coles County is still free of the virus. It is probably because (for the most part) people have been keeping their distance when outside, and staying home as much as possible. Michael and I have the leisure to do so since we are both retired and our expenses are low. It is strange to observe just how little money we spend these days. We have gone to the grocery store once since March 13th, and spent $250.00 or so on groceries. We have a full tank of gas in our car, and will need to get some gas to fill our mower soon. We get take-out once a week from the Thai restaurant, and are planning to get take-out form El Rancherito on Sunday. We hope that we can help keep these businesses solvent. We give them big tips.
I made some face masks for Michael and me to wear next time we go to the store, which might happen in the coming week, and I made one for our son Ben in Boston, which I put in the mail today.
So I’m up to speed for the day. I started working on the Bach Chaconne this morning, so I think I’ll go back to it this afternoon.
April 4, 2020
It’s odd the way you look at objects in a time of crisis. Last night I saw a video about how to make a very simple face mask out of a normal bandana and two rubber bands. I showed Ben how to do it (Michael made a video) so that if he wanted to go out this weekend, before the mask I sent to him yesterday arrived, he could. Today I noticed that one of my favorite linen shirts had sprouted holes. I immediately thought about using it as mask material, but the weave of linen is to loose to be effective. I threw it away. Yesterday the president made an announcement about the CDC recommendations for everyone wearing masks, whether they feel sick or not. He said that he wasn’t going to wear one. I will wear mine proudly in defiance of him.
Practicing the Bach C major solo sonata this morning was very rewarding. So often, in times of playing concerts, practicing is about learning a specific set of pieces in order to play it, at a minimum, correctly and at a maximum beautifully. Sometimes it means staying in shape between concerts and rehearsals so that when the onslaught of work comes, you don’t injure yourself.
But practicing in a time where there are no concerts in the foreseeable future is different. Practicing becomes more of a means to a personal end. A chance to have some satisfaction and personal/musical happiness. A chance to accomplish something—to finally actually practice passages that have bothered me for years. A chance to feel the pleasure of being able to play Bach, and have it sound good—as if all the years I have spent practicing have brought me to this time and this moment.
I heard a comedian on the radio today who said that really dark comedy about the Coronavirus is healing for a lot of people, because it makes them laugh, and thus gives them some “dopamine squirts.” Watching someone laugh is not the same as laughing yourself. Watching or listening to someone play, no matter how beautiful it is, does not give me the same pleasure as playing myself. I am so thankful to Bach for giving us musicians this way to make daily affirmations about how valuable for our sanity his music is.
Our university library asked people in the commmunity to keep a diary for the six months between March 13, 2020 when the first cases of Covid came to downstate Illinois, and the end of November 2020.
I was a pretty faithful writer, and my journal (all seventeen pages of it) is available to read through the university website. I am both surprised and not surprised that out of the whole university community only five people submitted journals. Four of them were students (and one is a violinist).
I posted some of the entries I made in this journal in "real time" as blogposts, so I haven't duplicated them in this series of posts:
April 3, 2020
By the academic year of 2019, musical life in Central Illinois had finally lost the shackles of the Great Recession, and concert attendance was up, participation in music ensembles was up, and the number of young people studying stringed instruments was up. In Charleston we were at a kind of “golden” spot where the performing organizations connected with Eastern were increasing in quality. The concert series at Doudna, which included excellent out-of-town musicians and excellent faculty musicians (finally, we have a faculty filled with people who really can play—and sing), was impressive. Between playing with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony, the Eastern Symphony, and the new Eastern Camarata, my schedule of orchestral playing in March and April was packed. I play in a Renaissance and Medieval ensemble, the Charleston Consort, that was planning on playing a concert of Senfl in June, and play in a string quartet, the Wild Indigo Quartet, that was planning a concert of Haydn Quartets in April. It was going to be our first concert together. My viola and piano duo with John David Moore had a concert of Irish music scheduled on St. Patrick’s day, and another concert on May 29th of music by Smyth, Bosmans, and Barns as part of Women’s History and Awareness Month.
On Friday afternoon, March 13th I played with a student at her grandfather’s funeral. We were already wary that the virus might be lurking, but since no cases had been reported in the county, people were still hugging one another. I kept my distance, but observed a rather loud man in his 60s proclaiming, as he hugged the widow, “Everyone’s going to get it anyway.”
Later that evening the first case of Covid-19 was reported at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center. The infected person, who lived in Cumberland County, was told to stay isolated at home. The next morning John David Moore and I thought it would be best to postpone our March 17th concert.
By the middle of the next week all concerts had been cancelled. Spring break was extended for an extra week, and then university students were told not to return to campus. Our governor closed all the public schools.
Restaurants were only open for take out. Banks did all their business through drive-up windows.
I started teaching all my lessons via FaceTime on March 15th. My students, who didn’t have any activities outside of schoolwork that they were doing at home had time to practice. The struggles I have with remote teaching (having to evaluate sound through computer microphones, having the signal cut out from time to time, not being able to play with my students, having to rely on them to write fingerings and bowings in their music) are kind of balanced by the fact that they are all spending serious time with their instruments, and are making improvement.
It is hard to plan for the future musically. Our Summer Strings orchestra, which was going to begin the last week in May, will not be happening this year. People of all ages from all over the area (some drive more than an hour to Charleston) look forward to Summer Strings as a way to play music together. Terry Coulton and I always enjoy having the chance for our students to play together with other people for fun, without the pressures of performing in solo recitals. This is the first time in more than ten years that Summer Strings will not be happening.
There were also concerts scheduled around the world of pieces I have written. One was a premiere in Chicago of “Nuit de Vielle” played by the people I wrote it for. I was also supposed to be given an award for things I have done in the community musically by the Coles County Arts Council. Everything was cancelled.
My Downstate Strings Quartet has weddings scheduled for July, September, and October. We don’t know if any of these will be possible.
I have been spending my time doing what I normally do, but with some modifications. I don’t have the heart to practice viola, so I have been practicing violin. I have been fairly disciplined in my practice, working on solo Bach, Rode Etudes, and the first violin parts of the Beethoven Opus 18 Quartets. I have written one piece for string quartet, and, at the request of a friend in Italy, made an arrangement of the Finale of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony for string sextet. I made arrangements for solo viola of “Amazing Grace” and “Scarborough Fair,” for the March 13th funeral, and I made those, along with the string quartet piece and Tchaikovsky arrangement, available in the IMSLP. Michael and I continue to read together every day. We see our children and grandchildren via FaceTime. We take a two or three mile walk every day. Michael talks to his mother on the phone every day, does the crosswords, and makes daily posts on his Orange Crate Art blog. We watch movies together, and try to only watch a little of the news on television. We both read the New York Times and spend more time online than we normally would. Many members of our family live in areas that are densely populated, and, in spite of the fact that they are diligent about remaining safe, we still worry.
The actions of our federal government are shameful. We feel helpless to have the fate of so many in the hands of people who stretch the meaning of incompetence and personal greed to new lengths. And they seem to do it daily.
The Illinois map of Covid-19 activity is filling up quickly, but Coles County is still free of the virus. It is probably because (for the most part) people have been keeping their distance when outside, and staying home as much as possible. Michael and I have the leisure to do so since we are both retired and our expenses are low. It is strange to observe just how little money we spend these days. We have gone to the grocery store once since March 13th, and spent $250.00 or so on groceries. We have a full tank of gas in our car, and will need to get some gas to fill our mower soon. We get take-out once a week from the Thai restaurant, and are planning to get take-out form El Rancherito on Sunday. We hope that we can help keep these businesses solvent. We give them big tips.
I made some face masks for Michael and me to wear next time we go to the store, which might happen in the coming week, and I made one for our son Ben in Boston, which I put in the mail today.
So I’m up to speed for the day. I started working on the Bach Chaconne this morning, so I think I’ll go back to it this afternoon.
April 4, 2020
It’s odd the way you look at objects in a time of crisis. Last night I saw a video about how to make a very simple face mask out of a normal bandana and two rubber bands. I showed Ben how to do it (Michael made a video) so that if he wanted to go out this weekend, before the mask I sent to him yesterday arrived, he could. Today I noticed that one of my favorite linen shirts had sprouted holes. I immediately thought about using it as mask material, but the weave of linen is to loose to be effective. I threw it away. Yesterday the president made an announcement about the CDC recommendations for everyone wearing masks, whether they feel sick or not. He said that he wasn’t going to wear one. I will wear mine proudly in defiance of him.
Practicing the Bach C major solo sonata this morning was very rewarding. So often, in times of playing concerts, practicing is about learning a specific set of pieces in order to play it, at a minimum, correctly and at a maximum beautifully. Sometimes it means staying in shape between concerts and rehearsals so that when the onslaught of work comes, you don’t injure yourself.
But practicing in a time where there are no concerts in the foreseeable future is different. Practicing becomes more of a means to a personal end. A chance to have some satisfaction and personal/musical happiness. A chance to accomplish something—to finally actually practice passages that have bothered me for years. A chance to feel the pleasure of being able to play Bach, and have it sound good—as if all the years I have spent practicing have brought me to this time and this moment.
I heard a comedian on the radio today who said that really dark comedy about the Coronavirus is healing for a lot of people, because it makes them laugh, and thus gives them some “dopamine squirts.” Watching someone laugh is not the same as laughing yourself. Watching or listening to someone play, no matter how beautiful it is, does not give me the same pleasure as playing myself. I am so thankful to Bach for giving us musicians this way to make daily affirmations about how valuable for our sanity his music is.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Summer Strings Concert 2013
It's time once again for our annual Summer Strings concert in Charleston, Illinois. We'll be playing on Tuesday, July 30 at 7:00 in the Daum Amphitheater of Kiwanis Park. Admission is free, and any past Summer Strings players reading this who happen to be in town are welcome to play. (Send me a message, and I'll send you PDFs of whatever part you would like to play.)
Friday, August 04, 2006
Playing music with kids just for fun
For the second summer in a row a friend and I have "run" a program that we call "Summer Strings." We meet once a week during about 8 weeks of the summer, and we play music. The general favorites are pieces by Handel, Vivaldi, and Mozart, but we also mix things up with arrangements of show tunes and music from movies. Since there is not that much music for string orchestra that is accessible to younger kids, we play a lot of "custom" arrangements (in other words, quartet arrangements I have made over the years) of pieces. We have unwritten and unspoken guidelines for our group: anyone of any age and any playing level can come and play, nobody is required to come, it doesn't cost anybody anything (the local arts council gave us money for photocopying) anyone can sit wherever he or she wants, nobody practices the music (they can't--it stays in the place we play), anyone can make comments and tempo suggestions, and we do not have a conductor.
At the beginning of each summer things are a bit rough. People are shy and a bit insecure. By the end of the summer we have real music making. Without having to be told in any way at all, the people who participate in Summer Strings know the social and musical rewards of practicing, and they learn the joy of playing music in a situation that is totally devoid of pressure.
I'm really looking forward to next summer.
At the beginning of each summer things are a bit rough. People are shy and a bit insecure. By the end of the summer we have real music making. Without having to be told in any way at all, the people who participate in Summer Strings know the social and musical rewards of practicing, and they learn the joy of playing music in a situation that is totally devoid of pressure.
I'm really looking forward to next summer.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
The Illusion of Social Media
I feel nostalgic for the musical communities that this format of blogging made possible during its first decade, and I remember how much I enjoyed participating in long and interesting discussions on other blog posts in the musical blogosphere. Everything changed once Google Reader stopped making a lively blogosphere possible.
I was an early participant (I began in 2005), and I am one of the few musical bloggers from those days who posts with any regularity. Musicians seem to have moved their musical lives to Facebook, where they can find groups of people with specific musical interests and people from their musical pasts (and other pasts) to interact with. I use Facebook as well, and sometimes I put links to posts from this blog and my Thematic Catalog blog there. Those posts are read by a relative handful of people, and "liked" by many who scroll by without reading.
That is the way Facebook has "trained" us to engage. Scroll. Like. Move on. Scroll. Like. Move on. Comment. Move on. Feel disconnected. Try again. Try again later. Feel hopeful that someone will engage. Move on. Feel foolish. Feel disconnected. Rinse and repeat.
One thing that Facebook seems to do is to make some posts available to a lot of people who "like" them. One recent post I made from a moving car got "liked" by seventy people:
It was an iPhone picture with very little in the way of text. It took very little in the way of thought, and even less in the way of effort to post. Other posts I have made on Facebook, particularly posts I have made in musically oriented forums that have links to this blog or to my Thematic Catalog blog, seem to only be seen by a handful of people.
Oddly, except for birthday notices, I see very few of the posts that my Facebook friends make in my Facebook feed. It seems, in a way, that Facebook has narrowed my online social world, and it has turned social interaction into something more like window shopping.
Scroll. Like. Move on. Scroll. Like. Move on. Comment. Move on. Feel disconnected. Try again. Try again later. Feel hopeful that someone will engage. Move on. Feel foolish. Feel disconnected. Rinse and repeat.
There are "pages" on Facebook, and these seem to be offered for free. I "host" a few of these pages. There's one for my Thematic Catalog, there's one for Summer Strings, and there's one for Downstate Strings (my string quartet). I regularly get "suggestions" from Facebook that if I were to pay a small amount of money, those pages and the posts I put on them could be seen by a lot of people. It is the same with "events." If I want people to know about a free concert I am giving, I guess can pay money for my notice to go to Facebook feeds.
I wonder if by not paying into the "service" I am limiting my ability to communicate through Facebook. I have nothing to gain monetarily through my participation in this kind of Facebook world, so I don't feel that I should throw money at the problem of not feeling engaged. Making more Facebook posts doesn't help me feel more socially engaged, except on birthdays. A Facebook birthday is something extraordinary.
Scroll. Like. Move on. Scroll. Like. Move on. Comment. Move on. Feel disconnected. Try again. Try again later. Feel hopeful that someone will engage. Move on. Feel foolish. Feel disconnected. Rinse and repeat.
I think that the problem is our social interactions are being streamlined and directed by the automatons that regulate the Facebook "highway." Some of us choose to no longer engage in the social ways of Facebook. But in a post-Facebook world it is difficult to find a sense of community anywhere, even in our own physical communities. Facebook is either where the "audience" is, or we are given the illusion that Facebook is where the audience is.
Now I will wax nostalgic. When we first arrived at our little university town in the mid 1980s, there was a newspaper that reported on much of what went on in town. There was an insert in the paper that listed all the concerts that were being given at the university, and there were articles promoting events. We used to write letters to the editor. Our kids used to write letters to the editor. Local people used to write columns. The paper was a big deal. The paper felt like a vital organ in our community until the early 2000s.
Now our local paper is owned by a conglomerate, and aside from the obituaries, there is very little of local interest. We stopped subscribing because there is nothing worth reading. The (no longer) local paper does host a Facebook page, but it does very little in the way of creating a feeling of community for our town.
I try to get out. I participate in the local university orchestra in order to try connect with people in my community. I play in a local Renaissance ensemble. In the summer I get to connect with people through Summer Strings. I go to political forums, to funerals, and to concerts. And I go to the grocery store, which sometimes provides for a meaningful social interaction.
Scroll. Like. Move on. Scroll. Like. Move on. Comment. Move on. Feel disconnected. Try again. Try again later. Feel hopeful that someone will engage. Move on. Feel foolish. Feel disconnected. Rinse and repeat.
I was an early participant (I began in 2005), and I am one of the few musical bloggers from those days who posts with any regularity. Musicians seem to have moved their musical lives to Facebook, where they can find groups of people with specific musical interests and people from their musical pasts (and other pasts) to interact with. I use Facebook as well, and sometimes I put links to posts from this blog and my Thematic Catalog blog there. Those posts are read by a relative handful of people, and "liked" by many who scroll by without reading.
That is the way Facebook has "trained" us to engage. Scroll. Like. Move on. Scroll. Like. Move on. Comment. Move on. Feel disconnected. Try again. Try again later. Feel hopeful that someone will engage. Move on. Feel foolish. Feel disconnected. Rinse and repeat.
One thing that Facebook seems to do is to make some posts available to a lot of people who "like" them. One recent post I made from a moving car got "liked" by seventy people:
It was an iPhone picture with very little in the way of text. It took very little in the way of thought, and even less in the way of effort to post. Other posts I have made on Facebook, particularly posts I have made in musically oriented forums that have links to this blog or to my Thematic Catalog blog, seem to only be seen by a handful of people.
Oddly, except for birthday notices, I see very few of the posts that my Facebook friends make in my Facebook feed. It seems, in a way, that Facebook has narrowed my online social world, and it has turned social interaction into something more like window shopping.
Scroll. Like. Move on. Scroll. Like. Move on. Comment. Move on. Feel disconnected. Try again. Try again later. Feel hopeful that someone will engage. Move on. Feel foolish. Feel disconnected. Rinse and repeat.
There are "pages" on Facebook, and these seem to be offered for free. I "host" a few of these pages. There's one for my Thematic Catalog, there's one for Summer Strings, and there's one for Downstate Strings (my string quartet). I regularly get "suggestions" from Facebook that if I were to pay a small amount of money, those pages and the posts I put on them could be seen by a lot of people. It is the same with "events." If I want people to know about a free concert I am giving, I guess can pay money for my notice to go to Facebook feeds.
I wonder if by not paying into the "service" I am limiting my ability to communicate through Facebook. I have nothing to gain monetarily through my participation in this kind of Facebook world, so I don't feel that I should throw money at the problem of not feeling engaged. Making more Facebook posts doesn't help me feel more socially engaged, except on birthdays. A Facebook birthday is something extraordinary.
Scroll. Like. Move on. Scroll. Like. Move on. Comment. Move on. Feel disconnected. Try again. Try again later. Feel hopeful that someone will engage. Move on. Feel foolish. Feel disconnected. Rinse and repeat.
I think that the problem is our social interactions are being streamlined and directed by the automatons that regulate the Facebook "highway." Some of us choose to no longer engage in the social ways of Facebook. But in a post-Facebook world it is difficult to find a sense of community anywhere, even in our own physical communities. Facebook is either where the "audience" is, or we are given the illusion that Facebook is where the audience is.
Now I will wax nostalgic. When we first arrived at our little university town in the mid 1980s, there was a newspaper that reported on much of what went on in town. There was an insert in the paper that listed all the concerts that were being given at the university, and there were articles promoting events. We used to write letters to the editor. Our kids used to write letters to the editor. Local people used to write columns. The paper was a big deal. The paper felt like a vital organ in our community until the early 2000s.
Now our local paper is owned by a conglomerate, and aside from the obituaries, there is very little of local interest. We stopped subscribing because there is nothing worth reading. The (no longer) local paper does host a Facebook page, but it does very little in the way of creating a feeling of community for our town.
I try to get out. I participate in the local university orchestra in order to try connect with people in my community. I play in a local Renaissance ensemble. In the summer I get to connect with people through Summer Strings. I go to political forums, to funerals, and to concerts. And I go to the grocery store, which sometimes provides for a meaningful social interaction.
Scroll. Like. Move on. Scroll. Like. Move on. Comment. Move on. Feel disconnected. Try again. Try again later. Feel hopeful that someone will engage. Move on. Feel foolish. Feel disconnected. Rinse and repeat.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
How to Have Fun on a Summer Night
This is the final piece of our Summer Strings concert, which was earlier this evening--before it got dark. Michael took the picture. I made the arrangement. Everybody had fun.
Here's a recording of the Fiocco Allegro from the same concert, and an arrangement of a Latvian folk song.
Summer Strings is a program that a couple of friends and I run every summer. Because of the kind sponsorship from some East Central Illinois entities, we can offer the program for free. This year about a third of the members of the group were playing in an orchestra for the first time, and this concert comes as the result of about seven 90-minute rehearsals. We play without a conductor, and we rely on the leadership of members of the group who choose to take leadership positions. There are no auditions, people can sit where they want, and mistakes are expected.
I find it wonderful to be able to write arrangements for this group, and I feel proud to play the arrangements made by other people in the group. We have a wealth of resources out here in Downstate Illinois.
Here's a recording of the Fiocco Allegro from the same concert, and an arrangement of a Latvian folk song.
Summer Strings is a program that a couple of friends and I run every summer. Because of the kind sponsorship from some East Central Illinois entities, we can offer the program for free. This year about a third of the members of the group were playing in an orchestra for the first time, and this concert comes as the result of about seven 90-minute rehearsals. We play without a conductor, and we rely on the leadership of members of the group who choose to take leadership positions. There are no auditions, people can sit where they want, and mistakes are expected.
I find it wonderful to be able to write arrangements for this group, and I feel proud to play the arrangements made by other people in the group. We have a wealth of resources out here in Downstate Illinois.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Summer Strings Concert
This year's Summer Strings concert on July 22 was a lot of fun for everyone playing, and the audience enjoyed it as well.
I did manage to get a good recording, and I am sharing it through this Dropbox link. There is no need to join Dropbox to listen. You can also see a program there.
Remember when listening that this is a community orchestra made of people ranging from around 4 or 5 to their later 70s (I'm not sure of exact ages). The violin 2b section is mostly made of people who have only been playing for a year or two. There are a lot of adults in the group: some are "late starters," some are people who studied seriously but do not play professionally, some are college students, and a few are professional musicians (who also teach many of the people in the group). We only meet during the summer (Tuesday evenings in June and July for 90 minutes), and not everyone comes to every rehearsal. This year we had three conductors, and they were flexible enough to "cover" for the times when one or two of the others could not be at rehearsal.
All the arrangements that I made (Ka-Wai Yu and Nina Woodgate made some of them) are available for free through a dropbox folder I share (just send me an email message, and I'll send you a link).
[The picnic that we had before the concert was fantastic, by the way. It was my first pot luck as an omnivore in years and years and years, and I was one happy eater.]
I did manage to get a good recording, and I am sharing it through this Dropbox link. There is no need to join Dropbox to listen. You can also see a program there.
Remember when listening that this is a community orchestra made of people ranging from around 4 or 5 to their later 70s (I'm not sure of exact ages). The violin 2b section is mostly made of people who have only been playing for a year or two. There are a lot of adults in the group: some are "late starters," some are people who studied seriously but do not play professionally, some are college students, and a few are professional musicians (who also teach many of the people in the group). We only meet during the summer (Tuesday evenings in June and July for 90 minutes), and not everyone comes to every rehearsal. This year we had three conductors, and they were flexible enough to "cover" for the times when one or two of the others could not be at rehearsal.
All the arrangements that I made (Ka-Wai Yu and Nina Woodgate made some of them) are available for free through a dropbox folder I share (just send me an email message, and I'll send you a link).
[The picnic that we had before the concert was fantastic, by the way. It was my first pot luck as an omnivore in years and years and years, and I was one happy eater.]
Tuesday, August 11, 2026
Healing and Other Activities
My body's recovery seems to be on track, and though I have to live much of my social life masked, I am able to engage in local musical activities, like Summer Strings, playing Renaissance music on the viola d'amore with our local consort, and playing string quartets. I have been able to do some productive practicing, and feel like I have more bow control than I have ever had before, and feel more emotionally connected to the music and the keyboard when I play the piano. I have even written something utterly cheery, which surpised me greatly, since lately I have been the opposite of cheery.
I know that this will pass (much of it has), but I also know that sharing the music that I write is something good for my mental health. It just doesn't feel like functional music when it lives exclusively in my head or festers silently on my computer.
Next Tuesday we have our full Summer Strings concert, and after a whole summer of weekly rehearsals the group sounds better than ever. The image on this poster is a painting made by my mother. I love to have an excuse to share her work. I don't know where the original painting is. Happily hanging in a New England living room, perhaps? It is nice to remember that life and art do happen outside of the internets.
I know that this will pass (much of it has), but I also know that sharing the music that I write is something good for my mental health. It just doesn't feel like functional music when it lives exclusively in my head or festers silently on my computer.
Next Tuesday we have our full Summer Strings concert, and after a whole summer of weekly rehearsals the group sounds better than ever. The image on this poster is a painting made by my mother. I love to have an excuse to share her work. I don't know where the original painting is. Happily hanging in a New England living room, perhaps? It is nice to remember that life and art do happen outside of the internets.
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Summer Strings and the End of Summer
We had our Summer Strings concert on Tuesday, and I was really pleased with the quality. Everyone did their very best, and music was made. What more can anyone ask for?
I would have loved to have played the concert without having to worry about the state of my immune system (which is still a work in progress). Playing while wearing a mask tends to tire me out, but at least I was able to play, thanks to Science (with a capital "S").
Every day is a struggle. I have been getting a full night's sleep nearly every night, but I still find myself tired by the time breakfast is over. The act of practicing tends to give me some energy, which is a good thing, but that energy stops as soon as I put the instrument away.
But I am putting one foot in front of the other, and like to believe that I am getting stronger and healthier every day.
I would have loved to have played the concert without having to worry about the state of my immune system (which is still a work in progress). Playing while wearing a mask tends to tire me out, but at least I was able to play, thanks to Science (with a capital "S").
Every day is a struggle. I have been getting a full night's sleep nearly every night, but I still find myself tired by the time breakfast is over. The act of practicing tends to give me some energy, which is a good thing, but that energy stops as soon as I put the instrument away.
But I am putting one foot in front of the other, and like to believe that I am getting stronger and healthier every day.
Sunday, May 10, 2020
Musical things lost,and musical things gained from the Covid-19 isolation
What I have lost this March, April, May, and into the summer:
The opportunity to perform recital pieces I spent most of January and February of 2020 rehearsing.
The opportunity to play orchestral pieces that I had been looking forward to rehearsing all season.
The income from those concerts.
The chance to rehearse and perform the music I arranged for Summer Strings 2020.
Having the experience of working with my Summer Strings colleagues.
Having the chance to prepare and perform a Haydn Quartet program.
Having the chance to learn more Haydn with my good friends.
My weekly consort rehearsals.
Having the chance to perform a Senfl program with my consort.
Getting an award from a local arts organization.
Hearing premieres of pieces I have written.
Teaching my adult recorder group.
Being able to play together with my students.
Unexpected ways I have grown musically these past few months
I have become comfortable with teaching lessons through videochat.
My students are practicing and improving.
I have practiced violin (rather than viola) diligently.
I have learned so much from watching Augustin Hadelich's videos. I apply what I have learned from him every time I practice.
This has made me a better teacher.
And a better violinist.
I have written a good amount of music, and continue to write every day.
I have made new friends with musicians all over the world through Facebook. I find the Facebook experience much improved these days. It has become more like interatctions in real life.
And I found some of those new friends through video recordings they made of pieces I have written.
I observe an almost daily climb of technical improvement in the multi-track and multi-image video recordings I see online.
Recording in such a way has suddenly elevated (and evolved) itself to a new artform. And I believe that artform is here to stay. Musicians who produce these videos are learning valuable skills.
Musicians who engage in making these videos practice carefully with a metronome. And they find that practicing with a metronome does not have to result in music making that is stiff and regular.
It can be beautiful while remaining in rhythm.
And people making these videos have the opportunity to work with other isolated musicians towards a common goal.
When we play with a recording of another person, we are still engaging. People who may have had trouble following other musicians in the past, are now learning to be better listeners.
I know how important music is.
I know that writing music for people to play is important, and that people like music I write.
I know that through music we will continue to make the world a better place.
I sense a collective "we" among musicians.
I hope that never goes away once we are able to play together again.
Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Summer Strings Concert
Tonight's Summer Strings concert is not only going to be indoors, it is going to be live-streamed on Facebook. The concert begins at 7:00 p.m. Central Time, and should last around forty-five minutes. 
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1B7jXWDSvN/
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Summer Strings Concert this Week
If you happen to be in East Central Illinois this Thursday, and are looking for a nice (and free) way to spend an evening, come to our Summer Strings concert at the Kiwanis Band Shell in Charleston (just an hour due south of Champaign-Urbana)! We now have a conductor (which really does make things easier for everyone), and have a program of new arrangements for string orchestra and harp.
After the concert I'm planning to make the new arrangements available (for free) to anyone who wants to use them for their (non commercial) pleasure. Send me an e-mail message, and I'll send you the PDF files of scores and parts.
After the concert I'm planning to make the new arrangements available (for free) to anyone who wants to use them for their (non commercial) pleasure. Send me an e-mail message, and I'll send you the PDF files of scores and parts.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Summer Strings Concert
Susato Bass Dance
[Photos by Michael Leddy]
The Summer Strings concert last night had the usual chorus of insects, and the crickets were particularly active (it must have been in the upper 80s), but I did manage to get a recording. If you would like to hear more, please send me an e-mail and I will send you an invitation to the cloud (the dropbox folder) where the whole recording resides.
[Photos by Michael Leddy]
The Summer Strings concert last night had the usual chorus of insects, and the crickets were particularly active (it must have been in the upper 80s), but I did manage to get a recording. If you would like to hear more, please send me an e-mail and I will send you an invitation to the cloud (the dropbox folder) where the whole recording resides.
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Conducting Myself
I rely on conductors all the time, and I appreciate what playing with a good one can accomplish. But, even though I have "studied" conducting (I took one conducting course in graduate school), I have never had occasion to use my "skills." Perhaps I should say that I have actively avoided situations when conducting was involved, particularly when it involves conducting music that I have written. I much prefer to be in the orchestra or in the audience.
Our usual conductor wasn't around for last night's Summer Strings rehearsal, and all efforts to bamboozle other people into conducting failed, so it fell upon me to conduct. I knew the scores really well, since I had made the arrangements we were playing. I had fun marking them with colored pencils and figuring out ways to rehearse problem spots.
There was really nothing to fear, except for my fear of total inadequacy because of a complete lack of technique.
But I was among friends. I took stuff apart to show how the dialogues and textures worked, and soon everybody (including me) started to relax and have fun. And people started paying attention to the stuff happening in the music outside of their part, and things started to sound truly beautiful. It was a great rehearsal, and I felt exhilarated. I'm still exhilarated.
I used to wonder why anyone would want to be a conductor. Now I understand why. It's a chance to use gesture to shape musical lines and allow (somehow) people to connect with one another musically. Ultimately it is a way to break down (as long as the music lasts) the barriers that exist between people, and allow them to express themselves totally while depending upon and fortifying their ensemble-mates.
Love is fragile, and expressing it in ways other than through music for me is risky. It seems that the only expressions of extra-musical love that don't involve risk involve being with an intimate partner in a trusting environment, expressing love to a family member or close friend, or expressing love to a baby, where you sound like a blithering idiot, but don't care.
Fortunately everyone comes to Summer Strings because they love music. And there was a lot of love last night, even if I totally lack the technique and drive to ever consider being a "real" conductor.
Our usual conductor wasn't around for last night's Summer Strings rehearsal, and all efforts to bamboozle other people into conducting failed, so it fell upon me to conduct. I knew the scores really well, since I had made the arrangements we were playing. I had fun marking them with colored pencils and figuring out ways to rehearse problem spots.
There was really nothing to fear, except for my fear of total inadequacy because of a complete lack of technique.
But I was among friends. I took stuff apart to show how the dialogues and textures worked, and soon everybody (including me) started to relax and have fun. And people started paying attention to the stuff happening in the music outside of their part, and things started to sound truly beautiful. It was a great rehearsal, and I felt exhilarated. I'm still exhilarated.
I used to wonder why anyone would want to be a conductor. Now I understand why. It's a chance to use gesture to shape musical lines and allow (somehow) people to connect with one another musically. Ultimately it is a way to break down (as long as the music lasts) the barriers that exist between people, and allow them to express themselves totally while depending upon and fortifying their ensemble-mates.
Love is fragile, and expressing it in ways other than through music for me is risky. It seems that the only expressions of extra-musical love that don't involve risk involve being with an intimate partner in a trusting environment, expressing love to a family member or close friend, or expressing love to a baby, where you sound like a blithering idiot, but don't care.
Fortunately everyone comes to Summer Strings because they love music. And there was a lot of love last night, even if I totally lack the technique and drive to ever consider being a "real" conductor.
Friday, August 16, 2013
What I Learned on my Summer Vacation
There have only been a few years (maybe seven, with four of them happening before I began school) of my life when I didn't operate on the academic calendar, so I suppose it is appropriate to encapsulate the summer on this last weekday before the fall semester begins. The past 10 summers have been relatively active ones for me musically because there were many weddings to play, and there were lots of students to teach. This summer was quite different: the weddings were sparse, and my students have mostly been away.
I am basically a restless soul, and I like to keep myself occupied, so this summer I felt like I was doing relatively little. On second thought, I might have accomplished a lot in spite of my inactivity (or perhaps because of it). I learned some things about efficiency and balance, which I have been able to relate to my tendonitis-prone forearms, and, in addition to doing regular exercises with the very nifty FlexBar, I have been able to practice more mindfully.
Michael and I went on two "road trips" to New Jersey, one for pure pleasure, and one for grief. We also had a huge virtual road trip by watching the whole run of Route 66 (here are Michael's posts). I made nine new arrangements to use for weddings (one person commissioned eight of them), wrote three pieces, and had a really successful Summer Strings session in June and July (I'll have recordings from the concert eventually). Michael and I spent a lot of quality time together (some of it in parallel play), and found ways to have adventures in an otherwise-sleepy town.
I read some books, wrote some reviews, saw some movies, ate many meals, and slept late sometimes. There were days when I wasn't even sure what day it was.
I also learned some things about life as seen through a computer screen, which is where I have spent far too much time this summer.
I joined Facebook (once again), and interacted (after a fashion) with people from my various pasts. I found my Facebook (and all Facebooks are different) to be akin to a party (a movable feast, perhaps) with a mixture of people I know and don't know, a lot of whom know one another. The people who are my "friends" may choose not to see the things I post, and I can choose not to see what they post. The beauty of the system is that you never really know. It feels like broadcasting, but it isn't really. (And I know the feeling of broadcasting from my 13 years as a radio announcer.)
There are some people (friends of friends) you can wave to across a figurative room, and if they are not "important people" (as many of the people I knew back in my previous lives are) they "wave" back. Some people engage in conversations about current events, and some people compliment one another on the way they look. There are also people at the "party" who talk about their shared pasts, and people who talk about their current projects. Some people use the space to share things that they have found of interest on the internet, and some people use the space to promote causes and connect with people they otherwise would never get to connect with. It is quite a lively place, without walls, without time, and without cost, except for the toll that it takes on all the emotions connected with past times, past places, and past failures, both professional and personal.
I find myself (once again) not at "home" in such a "place." I find myself far more at "home" in the blogosphere. There is more "buzz" over at Facebook, but I think that there is more substance happening here, wherever "here" is.
I inadvertently found myself participating in an experiment of sorts here in the musical quadrant of the blogosphere. I made a short post about the decline in my blog's readership over the past several months, and suggested that more people comment about things people write on Facebook. Several other bloggers with rather high readership linked to my post, and everything was all abuzz for a day or two: I had three times my usual number of visitors for two days, and a few people actually engaged in a bit of commentary (one post had ten comments, though five of them were mine). Now it's back to "normal," which is kind of where I expected it would be.
Things observed to be in decline seem to pique people's interests. I wonder why?
I really appreciate the people who come here regularly, and I really appreciate the handful of musical bloggers who still post regularly. I have learned from my Facebook experiences that I will never really feel at home among people who just like to stop, graze, and move onto the next shiny object, particularly when I find myself doing exactly the same kind of thing.
I'm not deleting my Facebook account this time (it doesn't really delete anyway), because it is a good way to see things that our kids share (our daughter and her fiancé have an adorable cat). If you would like to communicate with me (and I hope you do) please do it by e-mail, by phone, or comment on anything I write here.
[N.B. I just learned that fiancé is the term for a man who is engaged to be married, and fiancée is the term for a woman who is engaged to be married!]
I am basically a restless soul, and I like to keep myself occupied, so this summer I felt like I was doing relatively little. On second thought, I might have accomplished a lot in spite of my inactivity (or perhaps because of it). I learned some things about efficiency and balance, which I have been able to relate to my tendonitis-prone forearms, and, in addition to doing regular exercises with the very nifty FlexBar, I have been able to practice more mindfully.
Michael and I went on two "road trips" to New Jersey, one for pure pleasure, and one for grief. We also had a huge virtual road trip by watching the whole run of Route 66 (here are Michael's posts). I made nine new arrangements to use for weddings (one person commissioned eight of them), wrote three pieces, and had a really successful Summer Strings session in June and July (I'll have recordings from the concert eventually). Michael and I spent a lot of quality time together (some of it in parallel play), and found ways to have adventures in an otherwise-sleepy town.
I read some books, wrote some reviews, saw some movies, ate many meals, and slept late sometimes. There were days when I wasn't even sure what day it was.
I also learned some things about life as seen through a computer screen, which is where I have spent far too much time this summer.
I joined Facebook (once again), and interacted (after a fashion) with people from my various pasts. I found my Facebook (and all Facebooks are different) to be akin to a party (a movable feast, perhaps) with a mixture of people I know and don't know, a lot of whom know one another. The people who are my "friends" may choose not to see the things I post, and I can choose not to see what they post. The beauty of the system is that you never really know. It feels like broadcasting, but it isn't really. (And I know the feeling of broadcasting from my 13 years as a radio announcer.)
There are some people (friends of friends) you can wave to across a figurative room, and if they are not "important people" (as many of the people I knew back in my previous lives are) they "wave" back. Some people engage in conversations about current events, and some people compliment one another on the way they look. There are also people at the "party" who talk about their shared pasts, and people who talk about their current projects. Some people use the space to share things that they have found of interest on the internet, and some people use the space to promote causes and connect with people they otherwise would never get to connect with. It is quite a lively place, without walls, without time, and without cost, except for the toll that it takes on all the emotions connected with past times, past places, and past failures, both professional and personal.
I find myself (once again) not at "home" in such a "place." I find myself far more at "home" in the blogosphere. There is more "buzz" over at Facebook, but I think that there is more substance happening here, wherever "here" is.
I inadvertently found myself participating in an experiment of sorts here in the musical quadrant of the blogosphere. I made a short post about the decline in my blog's readership over the past several months, and suggested that more people comment about things people write on Facebook. Several other bloggers with rather high readership linked to my post, and everything was all abuzz for a day or two: I had three times my usual number of visitors for two days, and a few people actually engaged in a bit of commentary (one post had ten comments, though five of them were mine). Now it's back to "normal," which is kind of where I expected it would be.
Things observed to be in decline seem to pique people's interests. I wonder why?
I really appreciate the people who come here regularly, and I really appreciate the handful of musical bloggers who still post regularly. I have learned from my Facebook experiences that I will never really feel at home among people who just like to stop, graze, and move onto the next shiny object, particularly when I find myself doing exactly the same kind of thing.
I'm not deleting my Facebook account this time (it doesn't really delete anyway), because it is a good way to see things that our kids share (our daughter and her fiancé have an adorable cat). If you would like to communicate with me (and I hope you do) please do it by e-mail, by phone, or comment on anything I write here.
[N.B. I just learned that fiancé is the term for a man who is engaged to be married, and fiancée is the term for a woman who is engaged to be married!]
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