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Friday, November 30th, 2007
I was happy tonight to write an actual piece of music down -- like I am getting notation enough that I can write in it as well as read. Mom helped me out with understanding the rhythm. I will post a picture of it once I learn how to get notation in my computer. (I may even post a sound file of it if I can figure out how to get sound into my computer.) Sort of a happy syncopated fiddle tune -- I wrote about 4 measures but they are basis for this improvising tune that one can play for a long time without tiring of it.
posted evening of November 30th, 2007: Respond
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Friday, November 23rd, 2007
After we watched The Red Balloon today, we all went over to Hannah's apartment for us to get acquainted and try playing a few songs together. It went really well, I must say -- I was a little surprised to find out she wanted me to play guitar rather than violin (or "as well as" violin, but primarily guitar), but when I picked up her guitar it felt very comfortable and famliar. The songs she was thinking about playing sound pretty easy to get hold of; we played The Cowboy Junkies' "Misguided Angel" and then I played fiddle along with a recording of her own song "Smile to Pretend" (I might be misremembering the title -- a lovely song it was.) Very satisfying -- when I got home I took out my guitar for what must be the first time in a year or so and though it needs new strings, I was getting some pretty decent sound out of it.
posted evening of November 23rd, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Music
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Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
I went by Menzel Violins today to get new strings for Sylvia's violin -- nice! Got the strings, got the bridge rounded over a little more than it was, and when I came home Sylvia sounded way better -- the notes ringing clear and loud -- a really noticable difference. And, Maureen was selling lightly-used CD's for $6 apiece, which turned out not to mean $6 per disc, but $6 per entity. So I got a nice box set of 4 CD's by Flat & Scruggs and the Stanley Brothers, for $6. I have not heard such lovely white gospel music since I misplaced the first disc of my Carter Family box set. (Disc 1 is beautiful, the rest of the set kind of annoyingly cutesy.)
The open mic tonight at Here's to the Arts went really well. I got there just before Steve and Rob were going to play, and I played with them on "Key to the Highway", "Jimmy's Garden", "Friend of the Devil", and "Angel from Montgomery". Mike (he who produces the open mic) called me a few days ago to let me know that Hannah is going to be playing a show there in December and wanted to have me play on a couple of her songs. Great! I got in touch with her today and am going to meet up with her Friday evening to try some tunes.
posted evening of November 21st, 2007: Respond
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Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
Recently Sylvia has been learning how to play with her second finger in the low position, mostly in the interests of playing songs in the key of G; her orchestra director and I have both been showing her how to play the second octave of the G scale and she's pretty interested in it. Well tonight we were working on "Etude", which I guess is the first song in Suzuki that uses that position, and she was spending a lot of time on getting it to sound right; then she said she wanted to play something for me, and did "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," in A, using a low second finger -- awesome, she just discovered minor keys! So I showed her how to play with a low first finger, and she could do the whole song in A minor.
posted evening of October 24th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Sylvia
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Sunday, October 14th, 2007
Bob and I went over to Menzel Violins in Livingston today and listened to Eugene Chrysler's band. Great stuff -- Skip, playing the pedal steel, was just phenomenal, and the other musicians were excellent too. Unfortunately no fiddler was with them.
posted evening of October 14th, 2007: Respond
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Saturday, October 13th, 2007
Janis and Bob and I have been jamming together for about 4 years now; today we are playing our first actual gig! At the Meeker St. block party, starting in about an hour. Exciting, we have a set list and everything!
posted morning of October 13th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Jamming with friends
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Wednesday, October 10th, 2007
Sylvia is really interested in transposing music. Today we were working on Andantino, she was playing it in in G, D, and A, moving back and forth -- we were only doing the first half of the song, which is all on two strings, so she was able to do this without moving out of first position. It's pretty neat to watch, like she just discovered you could do that -- I think influenced by watching me play violin tunes on the viola -- anyway it seems like it will be a really good way of building her musical ear.
posted evening of October 10th, 2007: Respond
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Monday, October first, 2007
One thing the sheet music for Farewell to Peter does not include, is the fiddly bits that you hear when you listen to Natalie MacMaster playing it -- grace notes, trills, etc.. I've been trying to get some of these going on, and having a little success with it; but more success when I am not looking at the sheet music.
posted morning of October first, 2007: Respond
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Sunday, September 30th, 2007
Playing that viola feels like having an organ on your shoulder! (No, not like that, get your mind out of the gutter.) -- Tonight I played all of Farewell to Peter, which I have played bits and pieces of but never the whole thing. My music reading is getting better -- playing "the whole thing" meant being able to distinguish the slight differences in the repetitions of the theme, based on their representation on paper. I was transposing from F down to B♭, because I was reading the music as if I were playing a violin -- i.e. where I read notation for "A", I was playing D. This is way easier than it sounds. I should probably figure out how to read viola music straight at some point. Update: Hmm... apparently learning to read viola music straight is going to involve accustoming myself to a new clef. May possibly never happen. ...and Later: Well, I bought a book of music in alto clef today -- 6 Suites for solo viola, by J.S. Bach. Wonder if this will go anywhere.
posted evening of September 30th, 2007: Respond
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Saturday, September 29th, 2007
Last week I bought a viola on an impulse. I was at the violin store for supplies and decided whimsically to look at the violas; and it turned out they had a very cheap student model which sounded pretty nice when I played it. And, well, I've been wanting to play viola for a long time now, and it turns out that was a good thing to want -- playing it is absolutely addictive. It seems to have taken me outside the habits I had fallen into on my violin and is allowing me to come up with a lot of interesting improvisational stuff. Bob and Janis came over to practice this afternoon. (How exactly is the viola jarring me out of my melodic habits? Well there is the change in tone obviously; also the finger positions are very slightly wider-spaced, enough so that I need to pay attention to where my fingers are falling. And, I didn't buy a shoulder rest for it; so my head position is a lot different and it rests differently on my shoulder and my wrist. All this together is enough to make it difficult to play just like I'm used to playing.) (What is it that makes it feel so rewarding to produce sound on the viola, makes it so difficult to put the instrument down once I'm playing? Well the instrument is just so damn resonant, notes will ring a long time from a light application of the bow. Of course there is the simple novelty of it, and the feeling of having waited a long time for it. And somehow the feeling of playing in that lower register just makes me want to keep on playing.)
posted evening of September 29th, 2007: Respond
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