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[19 Nov 2009|12:34pm] |
Dominique called to say her son spiked a fever overnight and she's at the hospital with him for tests and so my lesson is postponed. Once again, perhaps luck. I mean, not for the kid, that's unfortunate, but it gives me time to regroup. In the time I've been here I haven't really produced anything inside the lines of guidance the teachers have set up, and I should try it so I can get some feedback and accomplish something.
I reread Sam's Nameless in hard copy, with his illegible but ineffable signature on the cover page. Extribulum. What an idea. It's vaguely related, in an author-fan-direct-interaction way, to the paradigm shift Dr. Horrible represents.
I have to make something today, but if my lesser instincts prevail it will be a baked good and not a piece of music or writing.
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[18 Nov 2009|06:23pm] |
Catching up with the homework I didn't do over the weekend in Philadelphia, but also catching up on the TV. When did that start being something I did? Lj will know.
Also reminiscing hardcore, watching a disc of JCS that mama brought me. Aw, Joodles was so tiny. So was everyone else.
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[17 Nov 2009|12:38am] |
It was a weekend of epicness. ( I can't possibly summarize properly. )
I made it back to town in time for a shower and a change before my lesson with Coleman. Perhaps thankfully (I was underprepared and underslept), he was running about an hour late and called to say so and reschedule. Ahaha. Ear training was as usual highly tangential, but a lot of it encompassed improv-stragegy territory that probably would have consumed my lesson, and I was picked to demonstrate and adjust, so things turned out well. Evening Coleman ensemble rehearsal did too; another of our members wrote an organized-improv piece, which I like, and we finally settled on a name, Survivors' Breakfast (pending approval from Hankus, who used the phrase in conversation first).
I rushed out as soon as we were dismissed, because I knew that tonight's Jordan Hall concert was going to be a special one. I tend to go to any orchestra concert I have time to (unless its programming absolutely disgusts me), but this one was going to be extra awesome. NEC Chamber Orchestra, smallest and most elite large ensemble of the classical program (4 firsts, 4 seconds, 4 violas, 3 celli, 1 bass), playing the Ginastera Concerto for Orchestra and the Piazzolla Four Seasons.
I was right. I hadn't heard the Ginastera, but it may become one of those things I get and listen to constantly, because it's the most exciting kind of nontonal, harmonically interesting, timbrally variant thing I like. And then they had a different violin soloist for each movement of the Piazzolla, and besides its being one of my favorite things ever, it was ecstatically played and owned by everyone onstage. The differences of interpretation from my beloved Kremerata Baltica recording were fascinating, rather than annoying (as has been the only other live performance I've seen of this piece). I had multiple moments of overwhelming jealousy and the impulse to actually dance, and I could tell some of the players wanted to, too. That's how it should be.
I still have homework for tomorrow. I'll do it before class. I am incredibly tired. I don't even believe it.
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[15 Nov 2009|12:05pm] |
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Philadelphia is treating me well. That's all for now.
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[11 Nov 2009|08:39pm] |
Mama went home this afternoon, after observing my morning Dominique ensemble (Dominique couldn't come, because her kid had to go to the hospital).
And then this evening our rehearsal was minus several members. It may have been productive anyway, since a lot of it was spent on note-bashing, something I gather certain singers don't tend to do on their own time.
Since I'd brought my Company book with me in a fit of pianistic withdrawal, I stayed in the room after rehearsal was over and played through Marry Me A Little enough times to get it back in my fingers. Then I affirmed my commitment to a music degree of some kind. I practiced for the first time in a long time.
I went through the modal exercises Dominique gave me that I could remember (I didn't have any of them with me), and then went through a standard series of classical warmups and a couple of my favorite pieces of rep, and was astonished at how easy everything was, compared to what I'm trying to do as a CI major. It's all just physical adjustment, after brainless rote memorization or clearly written, solid, unchanging sheet music. I have to think about everything BUT production in trying to produce an object to satisfy Coleman; harmonic progression, monophonic musical events of interest, overall arc. It's composing out of nowhere while also singing, and everything is fluid and nothing is ever wrong but it's awfully hard to get anything really right either, the way I can learning rep after a few tries.
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[10 Nov 2009|01:06am] |
Film Noir Concert went quite, quite well. Carol and Rick came, too! They even liked it. Good thing, too, because their car was ticketed and about to be towed (they rescued it with a well-placed $20) when we got back from post-show dinner.
So much tired. Shows take it out of you.
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[09 Nov 2009|12:10am] |
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I have introduced Brent to the charming world of Ouran. He's hooked. Utterly. He laughed until he cried, then rewound one scene about four times and laughed some more.
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[08 Nov 2009|07:11pm] |
We did indeed go get stuff. Spatulas, oven mitts, vitamins, and a glue mousetrap I put it down about an hour ago when we got back. I figured since I'd seen the mouse running along one side of the apartment under the counters and along the couch wall, I'd put it right next to the couch.
Just now I looked at it, and it had disappeared. What?
I picked up the couch and there it was underneath with a mouse on it, scrabbling away with his free front feet. I didn't really want to squish him or chop his head off, so I put him in a paper Whole Foods bag and took it down to the dumpster across the street and set it on its side, so when he gets off the glue (they inevitably do), he can go dumpster diving.
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[08 Nov 2009|03:49pm] |
Mama came to stay till Wednesday and see my concert tomorrow, so she's been chatting up a storm with both roommates. Brent is well-disposed to talk about growing up on a farm, and Tony of course is always ready to discuss matters of vocal health and development.
We may go get some things that have been on a list forever to get, now that the boys have gone to their respective gigs. I really do need a spatula, and not just because I like the word. And oven mitts. And probably a mousetrap, though I wish I could just catch the little dude and put him in a box.
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[07 Nov 2009|12:59pm] |
It is a good day that starts with a Brenty head poked in my open door to say good morning as I read Herriot in bed.
And then there was a roommate pile and a roundhouse butt-kicking competition and Chanticleer doing McGlynn.
I shall embark upon train adventur as a means of meeting mama at the airport. All shall be grand.
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[06 Nov 2009|04:11pm] |
Odd that my post from yesterday didn't show, but it basically said nothing to report. Lesson was good, we even sang a little at the end. People on the street (though not the Jordan doorkeeper, who is a fan) continue to condescend solicitously about my shoelessness and its potential to attract disease. There's also a positive comment nearly every day from a denizen of the street about my hair. One guy today stopped in his tracks on the way past me to stare and exclaim how much he liked it, and he wasn't one I would've pegged.
Robin has a gig this evening that apparently has belly dancers in it, which sounds interesting to me. It starts late, so hopefully I'll hear something from her before then.
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[03 Nov 2009|02:56pm] |
Farmaisi chakradar? I think I wrote one. In Tintal.
>-----------------
S rm P dn |dn P - m |P m g r |Sr mP mg r |
-<>---------------<>-----------------<
S Sr mP mg |r S Sr mp|mg r S S |rm P dn dn|
>-----------------<>--------------
P - m P |m g r Sr|mP mg r S |Sr mp mg r |
-<>--------------<
S Sr mp mg |r S S rm|P dn dn P |- m P m |
>---------------<>---------------<>-------------<
g r Sr mP |mg r S Sr| mp mg r S |Sr mp mg r | S
Hopefully Peter Row will agree.
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[02 Nov 2009|10:10pm] |
There is finally a production assignment resultant from my Coleman lesson. I must create an object canalizing my interest in harmonic complexity with the ideas I've absorbed from the array of monophonic approaches to multiple planes I've been listening to. And also incorporate the idea of timbre as a variable element and potential building block.
And in Ear Training we played the bass line and sang the melody of Ugly Beauty. I was slightly perturbed when after my turn he started the line of playful compliments that results in emphasizing my classical education (which amounts to a hole in jazz education). He even brought up the von Otter rock record, which I don't know but I'm sure is pitifully operatic, and I don't want to be that. My Monk sounded like an art song because that's what I know how to sing and I don't know the original. Nor much about the entire tradition. Oh, well. I didn't get too defensive.
Tiny teenaged trumpet in our ensemble this evening had an improv piece he'd written and it was excellent fun.
I have to write a farmaisi chakradar before class tomorrow, but it is dark and nightly and I think I will do it in the morning. I may just give up on the evening and go to bed now. I tickled Tony pretty exhaustively when he called me in to show me some of the Chambers music, so now he's beat and I'm indifferent to the night so I might as well use it for sleeping.
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[01 Nov 2009|09:26pm] |
Today has been a day of mighty procrastination. I didn't even feel like doing the things I'd thought I might do for fun. I read half a book and played on the internet and, once or twice like pulling motivational teeth I listened to and wrote down responses to music Coleman told me to respond to.
I haven't even gotten dressed today. Brent asked me if I would stay home with him as he pulled his own motivational teeth practicing (it makes him desperately unhappy to practice classical music and he ends up improvising awesome overtones or counterpoint with himself that has nothing to do with what he's working on half the time). I told him I had rigid plans not to go anywhere at all.
As it's the first, and Tony arrived home last night, we took turns resisting the thought of taking the rent checks to the landlord downstairs, who will talk your ear off for an hour about Jesus and life if you don't forcibly remove yourself. As Brent left for rehearsal and I did it last time, Tony bit the bullet and hoped for a reprieve in length of engagement since he was obviously dressed to be on his way somewhere else (namely, the gym). 45 minutes later he calls me from outside the front door on his actual way to the gym to tell me they've lowered the rent back to what it was before I moved in, because we're nice people and they like nice people. It's not that much less, but it's still good news.
I really must do something today. Or I'll have to do it all in the middle of the week, and I'd prefer to be sleeping at night.
Speaking of which, now that we've Fallen Back, it is now deepest night outside at 6pm. It's vaguely disturbing. I am alarmed by the prospect of winter here, where it will be dark practically all the time. I look to candles for the salvation of my psychological well-being.
Not that I dislike the dark; it's just different. And I associate dark time with not-doing-anything time, where you can sleep or play and not do work. That could be unfortunate. Starting with today.
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[01 Nov 2009|09:36am] |
Look, it's an hour! To sleep in! I slept.
Good thing, too, because I was sleepy. I don't know why short road trips and day-long spectation-based activities exhaust me so, but they always do. I didn't even walk around as much as I would in a normal school day, but there were episodes of drowsing even on the car ride home.
( Then again, it was a full day. )
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[31 Oct 2009|08:25am] |
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Happy All Hallows', guys. I'm off to catch the T to Alewife (which sounds appropriately medieval) to get picked up by Lady Eowyn, the Quire director, for a ride to the Crown Tourney of Quintavia. Brent's plans fell through, so he'll be around all day, but he won't come with me because apparently he needs to be in town... I'll regale him this evening with stories of Court and Feast.
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[30 Oct 2009|07:49pm] |
World rocked. And then Robin came to the apartment with me to get a cookie because Dominique's class was canceled and Robin gave me the molasses to make cookies with. We ended up trading some music and talking, which was cool. She toured with Jethro Tull, by the way, after auditioning not knowing who they were. I KNOW, WHAT.
I ate many cookies and ruminated about tomorrow. I have garb all set, I printed out some name and device submission sheets so maybe finally I can be registered, and I fixed the bag I want to carry feast gear in. There will be lunch but not dinner; what shall I make tonight that I can bring with me tomorrow?
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[29 Oct 2009|10:20pm] |
It had been mentioned at some point that this concert was going to be focused on Anthony's work with Jelly Roll Morton, but I'd forgotten till I got the program. Aside from a couple highly specific and stylized songs on the Ain't Misbehavin' soundtrack, I hadn't heard real stride in a very long time. Probably since my dad played it. And he could be a read stride pianist. Anthony's playing Jelly Roll pulled some triggers I didn't know I had. His pieces were interspersed among the Morton sets, and the first half ended with a bass/drums/piano trio that rocked hard with Eastern-European rhythms and a set of variations on an ostinato, and I hadn't heard a jazz trio rocking out in conscious memory.
The piece we were in was first on the second half, and it went as well as if not better than it did in any rehearsal. And a girl saw me leaving after the concert and complimented me on the job I did; I don't know if that's bad because I stuck out (it's a thoroughly ensemble piece) or if she just recognized me because of my hair as someone who had been onstage.
The last piece on the concert was Anthony playing and singing a Rodgers&Hart tune called "It Never Entered My Mind". He was crying, and of course the concert was dedicated to his girlfriend who just lost her fight with cancer, so everyone else was crying, too. All of the emotion possible was directed into the performance. It was that way throughout most of the concert, too, and not just with him.
They're going for a post-concert night out in Chinatown, but I'm drained. And World starts early tomorrow morning.
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[29 Oct 2009|07:39pm] |
I just had a Jellicle Ball moment. Danced with no forethought as hard as I could all over the kitchen, to Rufus's Go Or Go Ahead as loud as I could make it, no lights but my pillar candle. I haven't had a time like that since the last time we turned Cats up as high as it would go and gyrated Jellicly around the backyard in ears and tails, preceding our yearly howl. Guys, there should be something like this once in awhile at least. One of the most satisfying things ever to be done. Burn down the music with your brain. Then eat a fudge popsicle. Or watch a few seconds of beautiful colors. I must be a sensual hedonist.
Now, off I go to appear in a piece in Anthony Coleman's concert.
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