Eric Edberg

Wall Street Journal on Improv--and DePauw!

2008-11-28T10:27:00.004-05:00

[Note: this is cross-posted with my new combined blog/website at www.ericedberg.com. All the posts on comments from this site have been moved there; please update bookmarks, links, and/or RSS feeds.]

Today's Wall Street Journal has a feature article on the return of improvisation to classical music performance and the training of classical musicians. A good bit of it features what my DePauw University students are doing. The online version includes several photos of DePauw students in action, and video footage from DePauw.Today's Wall Street Journal has a feature article on the return of improvisation to classical music performance and the training of classical musicians. A good bit of it features what my DePauw University students are doing. The online version includes several photos of DePauw students in action, and video footage from DePauw.

Welcome, if you did a search on my name after reading the article and found your way here!

I'll be posting more about what we do at DePauw over the course of the weekend, and one of the students is working on getting our most recent Improvised Chamber Music concert up on YouTube. Meanwhile, you may enjoy checking out my writings on improvisation at Improvisation for Classical Musicians, and listening to some of my own free improvisations.

Much of what I do with my improvisation teaching has been shaped and inspired by the work of David Darling and Music for People; those sites are well worth checking out, too.

"I no longer recognize marriage."

2008-11-27T05:50:00.002-05:00

[Note: I'm in the process of moving this blog and consolidating it with my website; the blog is the new homepage at www.ericedberg.com. I'll keep cross posting for a while to give everyone a chance to redo bookmarks and links.]

The passage of Proposition 8 in California (which amended the state constitution to recognize only marriages between a man and a woman) has energized the LGBT community in a way I haven't seen for years. The anger, indignation, and determination I see--from LGBT people and straight allies--is inspiring.

Sometimes it's a bit scary. I've had mixed feelings about all the name-calling, boycotts, people who made contributions to to support Prop 8 being forced from jobs, etc. Am I just too wishy-washy? Do I have too much residual internalized homophobia, as some would suggest, that I don't believe that everyone who supported Prop 8 is a bigot? Are deeply held religious views on this issue by defiition bigotry and ignorance rationalized, as some insist?

Or maybe I just find denouncing others distasteful and unloving. I'm not against protests; I'm all for honest self-expression of anger, hurt, betrayl, outrage, and all the other very human and understandable feelings that have been evoked. We sexual minorities have been demonized and given second-class status for far too long, and the "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" energy that Prop 8 has unleashed is the force that will carry us into the next phase. I'm gay; I want to be able my partner (although it's a moot point at the moment since I don't have a partner). And I want the countless same-sex couples who are my friends and acquaintances to be able to marry.

Demonizing opponents can be effective politically, but also further polarizes the situation and can make those with whom we disagree so defensive that constructive dialogue is impossible. So when I found this post by Tom Ackerman, it seemed like just the sort of way to disrupt the assumptions in a way that can start to shift the paradigm.

I no longer recognize marriage. It’s a new thing I’m trying.

Turns out it’s fun.

Yesterday I called a woman’s spouse her boyfriend.

She says, correcting me, “He’s my husband,”
“Oh,” I say, “I no longer recognize marriage.”The impact is obvious. I tried it on a man who has been in a relationship for years,

“How’s your longtime companion, Jill?”
“She’s my wife!”
“Yeah, well, my beliefs don’t recognize marriage.”Fun. And instant, eyebrow-raising recognition. Suddenly the majority gets to feel what the minority feels. In a moment they feel what it’s like to have their relationship downgraded, and to have a much taken-for-granted right called into question because of another’s beliefs.

Just replace the words husband, wife, spouse, or fiancé with boyfriend, girlfriend, special friend, or longtime companion. There is a reason we needed stronger words for more serious relationships. We know it; now they can see it.

There's more, and it's worth reading. I'm going to try this out.

Video: Self-Expressive Improv, Part 1

2008-11-20T23:15:00.004-05:00

An invitation to explore self-expressive "free" improvisation, in which, as we say in Music for People, "there are no wrong notes." (I blogged about the comedy of errors I experiened making these videos here.)

Video: Self-Expressive Improv, Part 2

2008-11-20T23:14:00.002-05:00

Priming the pump of the creative imagination by improvising just one note at a time.

Video: Self Expressive Improv Part 3

2008-11-20T23:10:00.002-05:00

Cresting an extended improvisation (longer than one note, anyway!), listening inside yourself for the first note, then the next and the next.

So let's just make some quick YouTube videos . . .

2008-11-20T21:45:00.005-05:00

Short version: I can't believe the comedy of errors and mounting frustrations that ensued as I tried to make some YouTube videos on how to get started improvising. (Emily over at the Stark Raving Cello Blog knows what I'm taliking about; she's encountered smilar frustrations.)

Long version:

Many regular readers of this blog know that I am an improvising as well as a classical cellist, and I do a lot with free, self-expressive improvisation (much of it inspired and informed by approaches developed by David Darling and Music for People) in my teaching at DePauw and in workshops I occasionally give elsewhere.

And there may be some new readers coming to the blog (if you're one, welcome!). A features writer from a major newspaper contacted me earlier this fall about a story on improvisation she was developing. We did a long phone interview and I suggested a number of other people to contact. She eventually decided to visit me at DePauw, where she observed me coach improvised ensembles, interviewed some of my students, sat in on classes of my colleague Scott Spiegelberg (who uses improvisation in his theory and musicianship classes) and did a long interview with me. Her story comes out tomorrow (Friday), the last I heard. I don't know how much of it will deal with the work I've been doing; I'm a bit on pins and needles waiting to see. She took a lot of video footage that might be used on the website, and the paper sent a photographer to Monday night's concert by the improvisation students I've been coaching. (If we make it in, I'll certainly be linking to it!)

Self-expressive improvisation, expressing yourself through sound, not worrying about conforming to the conventions of a particular style, is something that anyone can do at any time. It's made such a difference in my life that now that I'm a bit past 50, I'm clear that more than anything else I want to support and encourage others in this extraordinary process that's made such a difference in my life. One of the things that I grateful for is that DePauw has welcomed this, allowing me to create an improvisation ensemble and to teach an improvisation unit in the team-taught seminar the School of Music has for all our entering students.

In anticipation of some possible new publicity from the story in which my work at DePauw may or may not be highlighted, I thought it would be a good idea to make some videos that encourage other people, especially other classical musicians, to give free, self-expressive improvisation a try.

So I'll just set up the video camera, I thought, plug in a a good microphone, take some footage, upload it onto my MacBook, use IMovieHD to make short videos, and post them. Should take two or three hours. After all, I had led a class of first-year college students through the process of making YouTube videos with their MacBooks earlier in the week, and in a little over half an hour many of them had made a video and posted it.

First, though, I needed to make a set. I wanted to be in front of the fireplace in the front room (parlor?) of my 1888 house. But that room was filled with all sorts of junk, and first I had to clear enough away that there was an area to shoot. So that took close to an hour.

Then came camera angles and microphone tests. I was using my parents' digitial camcorder, which is higher quality than mine. Found the camera angle to use, cleared more junk away so it wouldn't be in the frame, etc. Connected a good stereo mic to the mic input, listened to the playback through headphones connected to a jack on the camcoreder, and it sounded good.

But I wanted to put the mic closer to me, on a boom stand out of view. So I added an extension cable to the short cable that comes with the mic (an AT822). That was fine, except it made a buzz.

So then I tried connecting a mono cable to the mic with an XLR conection ending in a quarter-inch mono plug, with a miniplug adapter. Fine, except I heard sound in only one channel on the headphones. Drat! I lookked around and found a stereo miniplug adapter, and that worked fine.

Then I tried the same thing with a different mic. Listended back and forth. Decided I liked the ATT 822 best. With the long mono cable ending in the stero adapter, I hear great sound from the camera in both ears of the headphone. OK, another hour or more has gone by.

With everything set up, I film 45 minutes of footage, realizing as I go that I really should have written a script or an outline, but thinking I could probably edit enough to get something. Doing 45 minutes of footage probably took 90 minutes.

Take the camera, hook it up via firewire to the MacBook. Download some video. Play it back. There's sound in only one channel.

OK, no big deal, I should be able to just copy the audio from the left channel and paste it into the right channel.

But you can't do that in IMovie, I discover, after an hour a going through the help menus, watching video tutorials, and Googling around. Only thing to do is to extract the audio, open it in another program, fix it there, then reinsert the audio. Shit, that sounds like it would take a week to learn to do. No way.

OK, maybe it's the connection between the camera and the MacBook, or the MacBook itself. So I try it with my DePauw laptop rather than my personal one. Same problem.

I try putting the tape in my own camcorder, not my parents'. Same problem. I hook the camera up to my home theater. Beautiful sound in both channels. What gives?

I try some test footage using the built in mic in my parents' camera. Transfer it to my MacBook. Sound in both channels. So it's not the camera, it's not the computer, it's something about the micing. (Now I could have decided to just use the built in mic, but I wanted better sound and was going to have it!) I suspect it has to do with usuing a mono cable with the stereo minijack. So I go back to the original short chord that comes with the AT822 and record again into my parents' camera. Same problem.

I try just using the camera in my MacBook, which is actually pretty good. The mic's not bad either, but it ads a high-pitched beeping, and the audio input jack doesn't seem to work (so now a trip to the Apple store in Indy is on the agenda, just what I want!).

Then on a whim I try it with my camera. Works perfectly. OK, so we'll have good sound with lesser visiual quality.

And now it's what, midnight or something. And no more time until Wednesday afternoon to work on this.

Wednesday afternoon rolls around. Now I spend an hour and a half trying different lighting setups, with and without some cheap spotlites from the hardware store and settle on soemthing that I think looks good (but later turns out to be over lit).

Fianlly I shoot some videos, writing a script between each one, knowing the points I want to make. I don't read the script, but I know what I want to say and illustrate well enough that I make the three videos, each one only about twice as long as I thought, but still well under ten minutes each.

I give up on any idea of adding titles, fade-ins, or other special effects. Just get the footage into IMovie, trim the beginning and end. And use the "share to YouTube feature" that my students found so easy to use. The first video is processed, then uploads itself to YouTube, then gives me, after about 15 minutes, an error message, and says I should try again. I try again and the same thing happens.

I want to scream. Maybe I did. (Express yourself through sound and all that!)

I give up, export the movie to a folder on my hard drive, and upload it from YouTube. Once that finishes I find a list of all my videos under "Account" and it turns out the first one did upload just fine, so the second two uploads, which I've now spent the beter part of an hour on, have been rejected as duplicates! (Thanks for the error message, IMovie!).

I edit the second video, export it and upload it through You Tube, and then do the same thing with the third.

The thirs looks funny, and I eventually figure out I accidentally set it up to be in widescreen mode, which means it has cut off a portion of the top and bottom of the frame, including part of my head.

So I have to redo the third one, going through the whole process again. It's getting late by now. But I see the process through. And I watch the third video.

And to my horror, I realize I had forgotten there was a false start. I'd started off well, then tripped over some words, said "Oh Shit!" and started over. That was all there up on YouTube.

So that gets deleted pronto. And I go and reedit the video and reexport it and reupload it.

Meanwhile, the video qualty on YouTube looks grainier and more washed out than it does in IMovie. Sound is pretty good though. I give up.

Now I find it funny. About 10 hours of work to make less than thirty minutes of YouTube videos. Much of it was learning by trial and error, and I learned a lot.

I love my MacBooks, my personal one and the DePauw-supplied one. But I will say that I switched because Macs are supposed to be so much better with audio and videos, or so I heard, than PCs, and in all honesty I found Windows MovieMaker to be a lot easier to use than IMovie, and more flexible, too.

We live in such a do-it-yourself age. Being one's own videographer and sound engineer does add an element of independence and freedom, but it's also a lot of stress.

Portland Cello Project: Holiday Sweater Project

2008-11-11T08:51:00.005-05:00

The Portland Cello Project has some of the most innovative programming and marketing you can find. Their website has some of the most interesting cello photography anywhere. As a matter of fact, there may be more interesting cello photos on their site than anywhere else on the web.

When we're getting trained in classical music, at a conservatory or college/university music program, the underlying cultural assumption is that if we get good enough, people will hire us to perform. With a modicum of people skills, networking, and professionalism (i.e., returning phone calls promptly, consistently showing up early rather than at the last second or even late, etc.), this actually works to a limited extent, especially for freelance gigs. And of course some of us succeed in winning a full-time position in an orchestra or on a music faculty.

If you don't end up with a full-time gig, or have more free-lance work than you can handle (and I know fewer and fewer people with more free-lance work than they can handle), the key is to be good, do something innovative and interesting, and MARKETING and PUBLICITY.

Which is the members of the Portland Cello Project are my heroes.

Their next project is the Holiday Sweater Spectacular. Fabulous poster!

Fleming cello didn't sell, so maybe I still have a chance

2008-11-07T11:03:00.004-05:00

I had really wanted to buy the "Fleming" Stradivarius, which was in an online auction at Tarisio.com (Tarisio is like a very high-end Ebay for selling stringed instruments). I'd like to have a Strad cello, if only for a while.

My strategy, which was a long shot to say the least, was to win the Hoosier Lotto or the multistate Powerball. Neither came through (surprise!), so I wasn't in a position to bid.

Turns out the submitted bids (highest was 1.35 million dollars) didn't meet the reserve price, so if a successful negotiation isn't completed between the highest bidder and the Fleming estate, maybe I'll still have a chance. I'll keep spending a few bucks a week on the lottery. Yes, it's probably a waste of money, but at least I'm not buying cigarettes (which I gave up 10 years ago).

Both the thought of winning the lottery and using the proceeds to buy a Strad are delightful fantasies, in any event!

Always more to do than can be done

2008-11-06T02:56:00.003-05:00

Well, I missed posting two days in a row by about three hours. it's about 3:00 Am, and I'm just finishing up some overdue work.

Like many college professors, I live in a constant state of having more to do than can be done. This isn't unique to my profession, of course. For a long time it made me quite anxious. I recently read somewhere that this is how it is for many people; we often have so many projects and appointments and meetings that it's just not possible to stay on top of everything.

Since I accepted that as a reality, two things have happened. First, I relaxed a good bit. Second, I began to feel less overwhelmed, and started getting more things done.

Today had a class, a coaching, a ton of advising meetings, and hours and hours on a overdue course proposal. It's submitted, and now I surrender for the night.

Students Creating an Audience

2008-11-04T07:43:00.005-05:00

(Via AMK's Journal, I've learned this is National Blog Posting Month, which promotes writing a post every day, including weekends. I'm climbing on the bandwagon a few days late, but will give it a go--I'd love to be blogging regularly again, and this seems like a good motivation.)

I'm teaching a first-year seminar class for music majors at DePauw. My section, in which the learning is project-based, stresses, among other things, using creative ways to develop an audience. The twelve students have been divided into three teams of four, each team responsible for building a larger-than-usual audience for the final fall semester concert of one of the large ensembles (the concert band, the choirs, and the orchestra). We've been brainstorming ideas for using Facebook, YouTube, posters in unusual places (there seems to be a consensus for bathroom stalls), getting influential people (particular faculty, adminsitrators, and student leaders) to come, etc. I'll let you know how it goes.

Greg Sandow recently posted about how he and his wife worked with a faculty chamber ensemble at Florida State to use non-traditional ways to make their New York recital an event wth enough buzz that they might have a chance of getting a review in the New York Times. It's the way of the future, and I'm excited to see what my students come up with. Reading Greg's blog and interracting with him over the last few years online and off (including his visit to DePauw a year ago) has been a big influence on what I do with with my students.

Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians

2008-09-11T10:00:00.004-04:00

I see that Greg Sandow gave Jeff Agrell's book a great mention last April, calling it " a complete delight, radiating both love and deep understanding of music from every word." I wrote my own review of Jeff's wonderful book last February for Connections, the Music for People newsletter. But I neglected to post it here!

Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians: 500+ Non-Jazz Games for Performers, Educators, and Everyone Else by Jeffrey Agrell
Chicago: GIA Publications (2008). ISBN 978-1-57999-682-6

Jeff Agrell is one of the few classical music professors in the country who actively improvises, who passionately advocates for improvisation, who encourages and nurtures the improvisational spirit in his students, and who has succeeded at the often challenging task obtaining institutional support for a non-jazz improvisation course. After 25 years in a professional orchestra, Agrell became the French horn professor at the University of Iowa, and like many other classical musicians at midlife, was ready for a creative change. Having improvised and composed on the guitar since his teenage years, he finally began improvising on the horn. Most of us reading this article had a similar experience and found ourselves drawn to David Darling and Music for People. As he explains in the Preface to his recently released Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians: 500+ Non-jazz Games for Performers, Educators, and Everyone Else, published by GIA, Agrell found his musical guide and collaborator right at home, in the pianist Evan Mazunik, then a junior piano major at Iowa. For both it seems to have been a “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear,” with the ironic twist of their formal roles in the university. The two began improving together, and that work blossomed into concerts, recordings, and workshops, and the “Introduction to Improvisation” course Agrell offers regularly at Iowa (Mazunik now lives in New York).

Anyone who has been to a Music for People workshop would find Agrell’s teaching studio in Iowa surprisingly familiar, as I did one Saturday afternoon last November; it’s cluttered with the djembes and assorted small percussion instruments so rarely found in the offices of classical French horn professors yet so common in the MfP world. I sat down with him, two of his colleagues, a student or two, and the saxophonist George Wolfe from Ball State University, and we began improvising. “One of the great joys of being an improviser,” as Agrell quotes cellist Matthew Barley, “is that I can play with practically any musician in the world. It is like being fluent in dozens of languages.” And that was our experience; it was the magic of free improvisation as the University of Iowa School of Music’s 2007 Contemporary Improvisation Festival (at which I was one of the guest performer/clinicians) began.

Although the National Association of Schools of Music, which grants accreditation to college-level music programs, mandates that all music students have experience in improvisation, most institutions pay lip service to the requirement without truly embracing it. Classical music professors, unless they specialize in early music, tend to ignore improv, seeing it as something irrelevant to their mission, and many jazz professors look askance at improvisation which isn’t jazz. So it’s often a lonely mission for people like Agrell, who really gets the value of improvisation for music students, who truly grasps how the process of creating music ties everything together.

I’ve met many former classical musicians who got burned out and turned to improvising as an alternative, healing mode of making music. How many of us in the MfP culture have said at one time or another that we are “in recovery” from our classical training? We find ourselves improvising instead of playing classical music, and it’s a wonderful, liberating, and healing new era of life. It’s release! It’s an explosion of self-expression and creativity and connection with other people. Classical music, for some of us, becomes a former lover with whom we were once intensely but toxically involved, and from whom we’ve had to move on. Our new, passionate love, improvisation has taken its place, but enough hurt remains that it’s hard to “still be friends” with classical music.

Maybe this is one of the reasons why it’s rare to find people who regularly perform on a high professional level as both classical and eclectic (i.e., non-jazz) improvisers. Jeff Agrell has managed to integrate the two into his musical and teaching life. He clearly understands the central role improvisation played in what we now call classical music until the late 19th century, and he sees that improvisation can and should be part of the central, core experience of classical musicians.

All this is articulated extremely well in Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians. At 354 pages, including several indexes, the book is both a manifesto making the case for improvisation in the training of classical musicians, and an wide-ranging encyclopedia of starting points for improvisation. He makes an excellent distinction between the notation-based, “literate” approach of the traditional classical musician and the “aural” approach of the improviser working without notation. “The two approaches—literate and aural—are complimentary, not mutually exclusive. They balance each other, develop musicianship skills, and promote health and sanity. To achieve the comprehensive musicianship so vital to a contemporary musician, both approaches need to be cultivated to the highest level possible.”

Agrell uses the term “games,” he explains, because of fear of mistakes which blocks the creativity of so many classical music students. I’ve had a copy for several weeks now; as I plan the sessions for the improvisation ensemble at DePauw University, where I teach, I find it a valuable resource, although I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. Agrell’s suggestions for structuring a college-level improvisation course are excellent, and will be of great value to colleagues at other institutions. And there are so many ideas for structuring improvisations! Warm-Up Games, Rhythm Games, Accent Games, Dynamics Games, Melody Games, Form Games, Harmony Games, etc., etc. The list of chapters goes on and on. What did they call the old Sears catalog? The “wish book?” It’s like that, an improviser’s wish book, except you don’t have to spend money (once you’ve bought the book), just creativity. There are so many games included that I find myself overwhelmed if I try to read too much in one sitting; it’s an encyclopedic desk reference that I’ll be working through for months to come.

Many of the game descriptions are brief, and I find it sometimes takes me a while to work out in my imagination what he’s suggesting. Clearly Agrell has worked to include as many games as possible, so brevity has been a priority. And he’s obviously avoided overly defining, and thus limiting, what are meant to be improvisations. So be warned: using this book requires the reader’s patience, thought and imagination. But the rewards are many.

Without a working knowledge of classical music terminology, much of the book might be hard to follow. But for classical musicians interested in improvisation, especially those of us who lead workshops and teach courses, it’s an excellent, welcome new reference, which makes an excellent compliment to classics like Return to Child, The Listening Book, and Free Play.

Zoë Keating on how she does it

2008-09-06T11:12:00.006-04:00

The fabulous looping cellist Zoë Keating explains it all.

Well, not in as much detail as those of us who also do cello looping might like, but it's a great WNYC Radiolab podcast, with lots of music. Zoë does looped cello compositions; my own looping is mostly improvised or quasi-improvised. (Of course she also improvises, and the podcast ends with an imprvisation.)

I love her stuff.

And she makes some insightful comments in the podcast on how much more comfortable she feels playing her own music than the compositions of others. That resonates with me. I'm hopelessly addicted to playing classical music, though, and since much of my job is teaching it, I have to keep doing things like playing the Arpeggione Sonata and driving myself nuts. There are times, though, when I'd like to leave the classical stress behind. Yet the joy of performing classical music, when it goes well, is--what's the word?--oh, right, addictive.

Back to Zoë. Here are the tech details from the bio page on her site:

The cello is amplified with an AKG C411 contact condenser mic. I run it through a few looping/sampling devices: two Electrix Repeaters, Ableton Live and a plugin called SooperLooper. I control the sampling and various other audio parameters with my feet, using a midi foot controller.

I bought ProTools SE this summer, with some faculty devlopment money that had to be spent before July 1. The package, which I have yet to open (due to being obsessed with all those shifts in the Arpeggione sonata, which I'm performing again Monday), is supposed to include a stripped-down, "lite" version of Ableton, about which I hear only great things. I'm going to need a foot controller, I know, to start really exploring it. But I'll start thinking about such post-classical things Tuesday, post-Arpeggione.

(photo by Jeffrey Rusch, from Keating's site.)

Worlds of Warcraft, for College Credit

2008-09-06T09:51:00.006-04:00

What triggered the need to blog this morning was a blog post titled My Cello Feels Neglected . . . , in which Justin G. (aka "zoomicroom"), a student at Vanderbilt University, comments that, "It’s very difficult to find a good balance between playing LOTRO and practicing the cello. Still working on that." My sympathies to Justin--it's hard to find a good balance between practicing the cello and other responsibilities, even when they include teaching the cello (hence my previous, slightly self-pitying post).

But what the heck is LORTO?

So I kept looking through his post, which had nothing else to say about the cello (what are his prioirites, anyway?) and then started exploring the blog on which he posted.

It turns out Justin is writing on a class blog for one of Vanderbilt's first-year writing seminars, ENG 115F Worlds of Warcraft, perhaps not the first class at an elite university to focus on a popular video game, but certainly the first I've come across.

(If you're wondering how I came across Justin's comment on a blog I wouldn't usually read, here's the answer. I have Google alerts set up for "cello" and "cellist," among others, and get a daily email with each new mention of those words anywhere Google finds them on the web.)

The course not only incorporates blog technology but also an ITunesU podcast. (There's a direct link to the course's podcast in the blog's sidebar.) The students aren't just playing games and listening to Itunes; they're reading books, making connections between the virtual gaming world and actual literature as well as gaming theory, and doing a lot of writing. I'll leave it to others to debate whether a first-year writing seminar which requires significant amount online gaming is a sign of the end times, or an innovative way to teach critical-thinking and writing skills by capitalizing on a passion shared by many new college students (and evidently some of their teachers, one of whom is the Chair of English at Vandy). (I'd be interested to see if Margaret Soltan, an English professor herself, at University Diaries has any thoughts.)

I imagine my avid-gamer son, while happy to be a sophomore at Grinnell, would have seriously looked at Vanderbilt had he known about this course.

I'm still not sure what LORTO is. That's OK, I don't really need to know, and I'm sure my son, to whom I'll email a link to this post, will tell me anyway.

And may Justin G. make the time to practice his cello. It's a struggle, but it's worth it, dude.

Blogging in bed

2008-09-06T09:32:00.002-04:00

When school starts up (classes started here on August 27), life suddenly feels overwhelming, at least for a while. The mental energy to blog evaporates. Or at least it did for me.

There's tremendous emotional energy that goes into starting a new course, establishing teaching relationships with new cello students, and reestablishing relationships with returning students. And there's the really time consuming, and often frustrating, task of working out lesson times for cello students (time that most also work for their accompanists) and finding times for several chamber music groups to have coachings.

You think it's all set and then someone stops by and says, "Did I sign up for Fridays at 1:00? I don't know why I did that! I have a class then." And then the whole intricate system, or portions of it, may collapse and have to be redone.

But now it's all done. Or so I think. And the urge to blog is slowly returning. It's enhanced today by whatever it is I'm coming down with--a scratchy throat and now a cough--which I'm using as an excuse to spend most of the morning in bed. Between last night and this morning, I've skimmed through the last four days of the New York Times (actual hard copy editions!) as well as last Sunday's. I've browsed the web, watched YouTube clips and others I won't mention, and right now I'm sick of reading and watching and feel lke writing.

Bucket Drumming in the Union Square subway

2008-08-28T10:13:00.005-04:00

As I was writing my previous post, I was remembering my absolute favorite NYC subway musical experience: a young teenage boy doing fantastic drumming--I think it was at the Lincoln Center stop--on a white bucket.

And I just found a bucket-drumming video (different drummer) from director taikieatssushi, who made the beatboxing flute and cello . Fantastic!

Turns out there are loads of bucket drumming videos on YouTube.

In the Union Square subway station

2008-08-28T09:21:00.005-04:00

One of the delights of visiting New York City is the music one encounters from time to time. I've heard fabulous stuff in there. I wish I'd encountered beatboxing flute player Greg Pattillo with Eric Stephenson on cello, filmed here at the Union Square subway in NYC. This is way cool, with great camera work:

Here's Eric's bio from the The Project site:

An exceptionally versatile cellist, Eric Stephenson’s style ranges from classical to jazz to rock and folk. He is currently a member of the IRIS Chamber Orchestra in Memphis, Tennessee and the Colorado Music Festival. Eric served as Principal Cellist of the Canton Symphony Orchestra from 2002-2006 and was a regular substitute for the Cleveland Orchestra.

As a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, he served as Assistant Principal Cello of the Aspen Festival Orchestra from 1999-2004. He has appeared as a soloist with the Cleveland Institute of Music Symphony Orchestra and the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado.

Eric earned his Bachelor and Master of Music Degrees with Honors from the Cleveland Institute of Music and was a recipient of the Ellis A. Feiman Award in Cello while a student of Stephen Geber.

", , , ever since I first heard the cello I wanted to play it."

2008-08-25T08:45:00.005-04:00

A Naples Daily News profile of 13-year-old cellist Jared Blajian. “I think it’s something I was meant to do” he says, “because ever since I first heard the cello I wanted to play it.”

The cello is Jared’s lifeblood, his release. If he has a stressful day at school, he’ll come home and, within a half hour, he let it all out in through the vision of master composers.
. . .
Jared practices almost three hours a day, every day. He sits in the study and plays, barefoot, in a T-shirt and shorts with brown hair falling lazily across his forehead. He methodically works his way through at work, tilting his head slightly toward the strings as if he’s listening to words no one else can hear. Hours later he emerges from the room to grab a bite to eat or to watch a video of an orchestra performing. Then he returns to the study.

The awful noise that started a career

2008-08-25T08:39:00.004-04:00

The Lousiville Courier-Journal has a great profile on cellist Ben Sollee (his website) who got off to an unusual start:

When Ben Sollee's elementary school band teacher first put the bow to the cello in his third-grade classroom, she struck the wrong note. But it was still the right chord for Sollee.
"She played all the different instruments for us, and she was a violinist and didn't necessarily know how to play the cello," Sollee recalled, laughing. "She went to bow the low string, and it made an awful noise -- which I loved. And I was like, 'I'm playin' that!'"

". . . if you have to decide between a really terrific European cellist and a really good American cellist, you lean to American"

2008-08-25T08:27:00.004-04:00

Visas are harder and harder to get since 9/11, which is helpful for American soloists, at least in Phoenix, although the IRS is creating headaches of its own affecting the cause of the Americans:

"But with all the visa malarkey, and trying to get guest artists into the country with enough confidence to include them in our season brochure - well, we are looking at more American artists," Christie says.

Even the IRS gets into the act, says Maryellen Gleason Phoenix Symphony president.

"There is a new rule about federal withholding tax," she says. "It's not a deal killer, but if you have to decide between a really terrific European cellist and a really good American cellist, you lean to American, which is good for the American, but it's another step for our bookkeeping department, and we have only so much time.

"We canceled a guest conductor for next season for the exchange rate. We're looking at a Chinese conductor instead of a European one."

On the other hand, American orchestras touring Europe can be paid in euros, and the currency conversion imbalance can help them make up for a loss in corporate sponsorship. A poor economy has left several orchestras with empty pockets that corporate donations used to fill.

The entire Arizona Republic article is here.

Life carting a cello around has never been simple.

La Demoiselle et le violoncelliste/Lalo Cello Concerto

2008-08-25T08:15:00.003-04:00

Via Animation Blog, Jean-François Laguionie's beautiful 1965 animation, La Demoiselle et le violoncelliste (The Maid and the Cellist). The score is excerpts from the Lalo Cello Concerto, with beautiful, old-school playing (anyone recognize this recording?).

Orlando Cole Turns 100

2008-08-21T09:55:00.004-04:00

Eric Shumsky has written a tribute to the legendary cellist and teacher Orlando Cole (Wikipedia article and ICS interview), who turned 100 this past Saturday. I heard Cole give a masterclass and speak on a panel 4 or 5 years ago at a Cello Congress; he was sharp and articulate.

Is cello playing and teaching good for longevity? Greenhouse is in his nineties and giving masterclasses internationally. Starker is in his eighties and still teaching nearly full time at IU.

I hope so. The way the stock market has been going, I may need to keep teaching until I'm 80 or 90 myself!

Matthew Barley

2008-08-21T09:37:00.004-04:00

Strings magazine has a new profile of Matthew Barley, including this photo by Viktoria Mullova (well, I'm assuming it's that Viktoria Mullova).

I'm a Barley fan myself. He's a great role model for young musicians in a "post-classical" era. His career is diverse, he has numerous self-initiated projects, and one of the best websites in the business. As a matter of fact, I think his site and Mullova's are an excellent contrast. His is eye-catching and interactive and not having seen it for a while, my reaction was "wow!" When I saw Mullova's, I thought, "well, that's nice."

He's also into improvisation.

I was sorry to see on his website that he's been having problems with his left shoulder and had to cancel a number of performances. He's scheduled to start performing again in September.

Amy Leung

2008-08-18T10:56:00.003-04:00

I love this photo of Amy Leung, who has a Kennedy Center gig tonight.

Update: Carl Banner, founder and director of Washington Musica Viva, likes her a lot, and says so on his blog. He's included audio files from a rehearsal of the Brahms clarinet trio.

IWS

2008-08-18T10:31:00.002-04:00

I'm suffering from IWS: Internet Withdrawl Syndrome. I'm staying in a guest apartment at a retirement/disability facility where a good friend libes. No wireless! Ack!

My friend does have a beautiful IMAC that I'm able to use for short periods of time. But we're busy with a lot of stuff, so there's not much time for blogging. And it's interesting to observe myself wanting to web surf at night. But I can't do that in my room.

On the other hand, there's cable TV in my room, with about 100 channels. So even as I experience IWS, I've been experiencing CSRS: Channel Surfing Relpase Syndrome. And having a great time with it. I had cable turned off at my house as a way to avoid the problems of Channel Surfing Syndrome. It helped a lot, AND it is fun to induldge in my guilty pleasure for a few nights.

More cello news soon!

Casals, "On an Overgrown Path"

2008-08-15T10:31:00.003-04:00

On an Overgrown Path, a beautifully-writen blog new to me, has a great story about Pablo Casals, and doesn't shy away from mentioning the views of Casals's detractors. It's mostly cellists who read my blog, so I don't need to highlight all that made Casals such a great cellist and cello revolutionary (for his time). I did find this Stravinsky quote so wonderfully bitchy that I''ll post it here:

His sometimes reactionary views left Casals an easy target, and after watching a television programme programme about him, Stravinsky remarked: "That was an interesting programme. In one scene the cellist and a sort of Hungarian composer, Zoltán Kodály, are seen together with their great-granddaughters, at least that's what one supposes until one learns tat they are their wives. And what were the two racy octogenarians talking about? Well, they were saying that the trouble with me is that I must always be doing the latest thing. But who are they to talk, when they have been doing the same old thing for at least eighty years! Señor Casals also offered us an interesting insight into his philosophy - for example playing Bach in the style of Brahms."

It's a subject for another post, and will be part of my improvisation book whenever I get it done, but that last sentence speaks to what I think was a really damaging idea, or nexis of ideas. forcefully promoted by Stravinsky and picked up by others. Implicit in the remark is the notion that there is (correct) Brahms style, that one can know it, and that there is also a correct Bach style, and one can know it, too, and that all works should be played exactly as the composer wrote them and in their style.

Casals made music in his ow voice, in his own style, and did so with the greatest of love and respect for the composers and music he loved. The 20th-century modernist movement, of which Stravinsky was such an important part, was obsessed with the fantasy that musical works, including pieces written before 1900, could somehow stand on their own, were in essence fixed and permanent, and that the personality and voice of performers should, in effect, be obliterated or at least avoided.

This caused much frustration, since a piece is inevitably reborn and to some degree or another transformed with each performance. When you write a piece for other people to play, you write a piece for other people to play. They are going to play it like themselves. More later.

"Weird" cello groups

2008-08-15T10:15:00.002-04:00

A "weird concert alert" about an upcoming Rasputina radio gig in Albany.

The story also has a link to a MySpace fan page for Maston Jones, a group with two cellist/vocalists. The page describes the group in the past tense, so I don't know if they are still together. Probably not; a quick search didn't turn up any recent links.

Middle-aged rant: I find most MySpace pages visually confusing. I don't know if it's an aging-boomer thing, or that they are just visually confusing. Dark blue links against a darkish gray background? I couldn't read them even with my glasses on.

My Chord Space

2008-08-14T09:05:00.003-04:00

Kimberly at My Chord Space Blogs sent me a nice note. I've been enjoying her classical-music blog, and am looking forward to exploring the rest of the site.

Current Cellist of the Day

2008-08-13T23:00:00.002-04:00

Erin Snedecor of Crofton, Maryland.

And who knows? Maybe she'll be famous in the future.

I like what her friends say about her:

Annapolis High senior, Erin Snedecor, 17, of Crofton, says she likes the cello because it speaks another language.
"You play music composed by other people, but you put your own voice to it," said Erin, whose friends joke that her instrument has become an extension of her body because she never puts it down.

Famous former cellist of the day #2

2008-08-13T22:51:00.004-04:00

Famous former cellist #1 is Walter Mondale.

No. 2: Olympian Lolo Jones, who played the cello all through high school. This Chicago Tribune piece tells her inspiring story.

But which is more terrifying? An Olympic meet or playing a cello recital?

As if we have to ask.

Walter Mondale on Giving a Cello Recital

2008-08-13T22:28:00.003-04:00

Giving a cello recital? Terrified?

Relax, it's natural. Turns out it's even worse than giving a Presdential acceptance speech at a national political convention, at least according to Walter Mondale. He's probably the only living person to have done both.

"I guess you could say I was anxious,'' he said [referring to his speech].

But not terrified. For example, giving that huge speech wasn't nearly so terrifying as playing a cello recital when he was growing up in Ceylon, Minn.

Mondale says one issue was, "I was no good on the cello.''

Hah! I know plenty of cellists who are at least, well, somewhat good on the cello (and some who are really good) and it seems we all get terrified from time to time, no matter how well other people may tell us we play.

(For the younger ones amongst us, Mondale was Jimmy Carter's Vice President and the 1984 Democratic candidate for President.)

The view from my practice room

2008-08-12T15:41:00.005-04:00

Andrew Sullivan posts a daily "view from your window" pic sent to him by a reader, a feature I, along with many others, enjoy. So here's a pic "from my practice room." This is the deck of the house of quasi-relatives in Cold Spring, New York, overlooking the Hudson River. Yes, it was a wonderful place to practice!

If you find yourself playing cello in a beautiful place, send it to me and I'll be happy to post it.

Greenhouse live! And Steve Isserlis's bow arm . . .

2008-08-11T09:29:00.005-04:00

I thought my beloved former teacher, Bernard Greenhouse, now in his nineties, longer performed in public. But he will be participating in a benefit concert on August 23 on Cape Cod, near his home. Mr. G gives masterclasses all over the word, of course. I'd love to hear him play again, with that incredible Strad of his. If I didn't have to work on August 23 (the opening of new-student orientation at DePauw), I'd find a way to get there.

And Steven Isserlis's bow arm gets a review. I'd paste the quote I like, but I'm working on someone else's computer and it won't let me, for some reason.

Pete, my son, and I are in Cold Spring, New York. We're taking the train later to Manhattan to have lunch in Chinatown and see a show. There are three Broadway shows that perform on Mondays--a good idea, I think, since everyone else takes Mondays off. And there's always Monday Night Magic in the village. My guess is we'll end up at Spring Awakening if we can get tickets; I think it's the one a 19-year-old college student would mst enjoy.

Strange Toys

2008-08-09T05:15:00.004-04:00

I don't need to embark on a major fund-raising campaign to gain access to the former Kronos cellist Joan Jenenraud's new looped-based album Strange Toys, which I came across through this review (". . . listening to this darn CD is keeping me from getting my work done. Damn you, Joan Jeanrenaud.").

As a matter of fact, I downloaded it from Amazon while writing this post. And youn can listen tom a number of tracks on Joan's MySpace page.

I love looped-based improvisation. And the way that improvs can grow into pieces, as is evidently the case with many of the tracks on this album.

Cello Eye Candy

2008-08-09T04:59:00.004-04:00

Wow! This is the back of a 1717 (mostly) Strad cello, being sold by the estate of Amarylis Fleming through Tarisio.

Acorrding to the Tarisio page, the back and sides are original, while the top and scroll are the work of José Contreras. I'm infatuated. I want it.

The New York Sun says the estimate is estimate of $1.75 million to $2.3 million. I'm definitely going to start buying lottery tickets (grin).

(And what a beautiful photo. I've learned how difficult it is to take a good, glare-free photo of an instrument.)

Coming up: August 15 in Chatham NY

2008-08-08T17:39:00.003-04:00

August 15 , 2008
8:00 PM
St James Catholic Church
117 Hudson Ave.
Chatham, New York 12037

Columbia Chamber Players
Robin Becker, dance
Eric Edberg, cello
Lincoln Mayorga, piano
Akal Dev Sharonne, flute

Admission: $20
reservations: 518-392-2130

I'm really excited about this gig! I haven't played with Lincoln before, and from the information on his website, it looks like it will be a wonderful experience. He and I will play the Schubert "Arpeggione" sonata, and I'll also perform the first Bach Cello Suite, with Robin dancing in some of the movements. Robin will also be dancing to a solo piano improvisation by Lincoln, who will play a Chopin set as well, and a multi-track quasi-improvised piece with me, which we call "Autumn." Akal Dev--who has one of the most beautiful flute tones I've ever heard--will perform Michael Harrison's "Oh, Beloved," and she and I will play a Teleman sonata and an arrangement of the Ibert Entr'acte.

I'll be using the Luis and Clark carbon fiber cello, since it is the instrument I have hooked up with a Realist pickup mic.

Peled Plays Prokofiev

2008-08-08T08:45:00.005-04:00

Two rave reviews of Amit Peled playing the Prokofiev Sonata in Seattle, here and here. The other performers on the concert get rather short shrift. Was the Prokofiev that spectacular, or is it something about the star-quality, personality-driven aspect of classical music coverage?

Square cello

2008-08-08T08:41:00.001-04:00

A square (well, rectangular) cello in Tulsa. Wonder what it sounds like?

Medici.tv/Alisa Weilerstein

2008-08-08T08:21:00.004-04:00

My friends at CelloChat have introducd me to medici.tv, which has an astounding array of classical-music videos, some downloadable for a fee, others available free, for a limited time at least. It was post about this Alisa Weilerstein rectial that brought me to the site, which I found a bit confusing to navigate at first. I'm still learning my way around, and while I see Flash sites are the new thing, I still prefer html sites.

Weilerstein has an unconventional bow hand, which she makes work just fine. When Robert Mann was my quartet coach at Juilliard about 100 years ago, he told us something like, "Any competent vilin teacher will tell you it is physically impossible to play the violin the way I do. But I know exactly what I want to hear and I make it happen."

There are a lot of terrific players with unorthodox techniques. Both Rostropovich and Yo-Yo Ma spring to mind, in different ways and to varying degrees. To me, this underscores the fundamental principle that the essential element in making music is knowing what you want to hear. The more exact, the better. When that's in place, the body finds a way. Or as a colleagues years ago told me Rostroovich told him, "When imagination is clear, hand can do impossible things"

I love the freshness and very alive music making in this Weilerstein video and look forward to exporing the site.

Ben Sollee

2008-08-07T09:41:00.003-04:00

Fascinating NPR World Café interview with cellist/singer Ben Sollee. When I try to sing and play, it usually gets all "chuffed up." So I'm in awe of guys like this. (David Darling is terrific at it too, in a completely different style.)

The Sexy Cello

2008-08-07T09:30:00.002-04:00

Electric News: "His interest in music started in Secondary 1 when he found the cello a 'sexy' instrument to master."

I agree the cello is sexy. But trying to master it seems more masochistic than sexy. Unless you're into S and M, I suppose. If I ever master it, I'll let you know if it's sexy.

Curent mood: "chuffed"

2008-08-07T09:08:00.004-04:00

"Takapuna's Claudia Price is chuffed to be playing the cello in her home suburb, in Auckland Philharmonia's Tea and Symphony concert series," writes The Auklander.

Chuffed? Had to look it up. Now I'll try using it in a sentence: "The audience at last night's beautifully-played Greencastle Summer Classical Music Festival concert, with Indianapolis Symphony musicians Jayna Park and Ingrid Fsher-Bellman and pianist Eugenio Urrutia-Borlando, left feeling quite chuffed."

And I really am quite chuffed to have learned the word.

Warning!

The English-to-American Dictionary (you'll have to scroll down) cautions not to confuse the adjective "chuffed" with the verb "chuff," (or the noun or swear word). Or you may be in a chuffing mess, should you be in the US and anyone knows what the heck you'e talking about.

On the other hand, I look forward to being in the car with the kids; sooner or later the opportunity will arise to ask, "Who chuffed?"

Portland Celo Project: more and more

2008-08-07T08:51:00.005-04:00

I posted about the Portland Cello Project not long ago. In the last 24 hours there's been a small blizzard (hmm . . . is "small blizzard" oxymoronic?) of online coverage:

Portland Mercury:

It's too late for another article about how "the Portland Cello Project brings classical instrumentation to the masses." Judging by a slew of collaborations with high-profile Portland musicians, a recent sold-out show at the Doug Fir, and this week's release of a full-length record, it's already been brought.

"It's funny being interviewed now," the Portland Cello Project (PCP)'s Doug Jenkins tells me, "because we used to get asked, 'Why the cello?' Now everyone wants to know, 'What's the business plan?'"

Just Out:

In the great big field of contemporary classical music, Portland Cello Project stands stalks above the rest.
So it’s great to announce that their self-titled debut disc is a totally excellent mix of everything from Beethoven to (gulp) Britney Spears (I think Doug Jenkins’ arrangement of Spears’ “Toxic” might yet become legendary), and the Project kicks off the disc’s national distribution with a Friday night gig at the Aladdin Theater (3017 SE Milwaukie) with a boat-load of friends and collaborators like 3 Leg Torso, Loch Lomond and Laura Gibson.

Way to go, PCP!

Climbing every cello mountain, a decaptiated cello, and the D.C. metro

2008-08-05T08:42:00.005-04:00

Autumn Hiscock has been looking for a 7/8 cello, and in a moment of serendipity has been lent a beautiful, albeit currently decapitated, unlabeled old German cello which is not quite 7/8 but close enough. She had recently tried some cellos in a shop. "I tested the two 7/8s and as I noted before they were lovely and balanced, smooth, and very easy to play in the higher positions. I would be happy to own either of them. But I didn't fall in love with them enough to rent one." (emphasis added) That's the key to choosing an instrument--you have to fall in love with it.

And how did Autumn's beautiful "mystery cello" get decapitated?

Here's another story on the mountain-climbing "Extreme Cellists, who also have a blog, and I couldn't help but think that with all that climbing, one of their cellos is at risk of decapitation, if it hasn't hapened already. I hadn't noticed in the articles I posted Thursday, but they raise money for charity with their climb. And they sound quite nice in this video:

And finally, KateR (aka "pooplord") has a nice post about traveling with a cello on the D.C. metro: " . . . apparently on a weekend train, it's a conversation starter. Not even necessarily for conversations with ME so much as everyone else's individual conversations." Worth reading.

Haydn B Major?

2008-08-04T09:31:00.003-04:00

Hey, did someone discover another Haydn cello concerto and not tell me about it?

In an interesting article about the summer festival lives of St. Louis Symphony players, Post-Dispatch critic Sarah Bryan Miller tells us about Bjorn Ranheim's experiences as principal cellist of the Colorado Music Festival.

The festival performed the nine Beethoven symphonies, plus Beethoven's Violin Concerto, in just eight days. Ranheim played all of the cello solos, while preparing Haydn's B major Cello Concerto.

B major? Maybe Bjorn's just playing the D major concerto up a third. Or the C major concerto down a second. (Wow--that would be a challenge now that I think about it.)

What would life be without typos?

I knew Bjorn slightly when he was a student at the Interlochen Arts Camp and I was teaching there (he was working with Pamela Frame). He was a wonderful, dedicated, and hard-working kid, and it's great to see he's grown up and landed a great job. Or two great jobs, actually, one in Mississippi and one in Colorado. (And could anyone possibly look more Scandinavian?)

Gimmicky stagecraft?

2008-08-04T09:15:00.003-04:00

Is classical-music stagecraft inherently gimmicky? This reviewer seems to think so:

Next came R. Murray Schafer's 1981 String Quartet no. 3. Schafer is one of the most distinguished quartet writers of our time, though one of the quirkiest as well. The majority of his quartets have gimmicks of one sort or another. The Third, for example, begins with the cello alone on the stage, soon to be joined by the other three instruments, each doing its own thing without much regard for the others.

But on the other hand, maybe this sort of thing is better understood as "post-classical" than "classical."

There's an element of theater in any live performance. It's definitely there in a standard formal classical concert, with the dress of the performers, the placement of musicians on the stage, the lighting, the entrances and bows, etc. And the gyrations of the players, or the conspicuous absence of body movement . . . there's always a theatrical element. The standard concert ritual is so familiar that we become blind to it. Some pieces, some performers, purposely challenge the standard ritual by embracing the theatrical element more overtly.

Cello News of the Day

2008-08-04T08:58:00.002-04:00

Yo-Yo Ma talks to the Boston Globe's Jeremy Eichler about his Montagnana.

Alban Gerhadt (who has a terrific website) remembers being told by his quartet coach to "Go home and take a shower!" after a not-so-hot quartet concert in his student days. He goes on to make some very insightful comments on developing (or not) interpretive ideas.

I had a very interesting discussion with the students in front of my dressing room; we talked about interpretations and me being annoyed with realizing that most young players don’t manage to come up with anything on their own but just being far too heavily influenced by the known recordings. . . . told them that I don’t listen to recordings at all anymore, and very rarely to other cellists, just because I don’t have much chance to hear them - yes, I love going to concerts, but very rarely I have the chance to hear a fellow cellist. And one student asked me if I thought that I wasn’t being a bit closed-minded. She believed I should listen to other cellists to know what is going on, to maybe get inspired, new ideas etc. She had a very good point, I thought, and actually whenever I heard somebody, I took something from it, either how to do or how not to do it. But at the end of the day you can learn that from any performer, and for a cellist I think it is m ore inspiring to listen to singers, or, at the end of the day, just a great musician, never mind the instrument. And to listen to the great musician not to copy what he is doing, but to understand what and why he is doing it - which I find easier with music I am not playing.

Greencastle? Boring? Turns out it could be worse.

2008-08-03T13:16:00.007-04:00

I didn't know how well off I am.

I've always thought that Greencastle, aside from everything that goes on at DePauw, must be about the most boring place in the world. In recent years, it's seemed that more and more of DePauw's faculty have been choosing to live in Indianapolis or Bloomington. (I tried it for a while myself, but with children in Greencastle, it just didn't work.) With gas prices rising, perhaps that will change, and maybe property values in Greencastle will go up. Somehow the cheap-mortgage housing price bubble never hit us, but on the other hand, we had no bubble to burst.

But there's exciting news about Greencastle! As the Terre-Haute Star points out, we are only the 14th-dullest college town among those in which the 368 "top universities" listed in the latest Princeton Review are located. Wow---there are 13 other towns with good colleges where non-academic life might be even duller.

The Star's headline-writer and the author of the article seem to be of different minds on whether Greencastle or Terre Haute is duller. "The Haute may be a boring college town, but we’re slightly less dull than Greencastle," the headline proudly states, but the article says, "Also, we’re only slightly more dull than Greencastle, the 14th-ranked home of DePauw University." From the body of the article, it seems that the headline writer engaged in a bit of wishful thinking, but hey, that's hometown pride for you. (Thanks to University Diaries, one of the few blogs I read daily, for the Star link; for some reason DePauw didn't post the good news that we're only the 14th dullest college town on it's home page.)

The truth is, though, that as small towns go, Greencastle is a terrific place. During the academic year, there are more events at DePauw than any person could ever attend. And in the summer, there's a concert in the park every Tuesday evening, a classical concert in a church every Wednesday evening, and very enjoyable productions at the Putnam County Playhouse. And if you like to walk, there is nowhere better than DePauw's Nature Park, which is open to the public from sunrise to sunset every day.

Cello is my new favortie instrument

2008-08-03T12:23:00.004-04:00

Of course, it already was mine.

But producer Mike Null is a new convert. "Cello is my new favorite instrument," he writes after his recent work with the wonderful and versatile cellist, Kristen Miller.

Now, not to knock classical musicians, I myself grew up classically trained… but when I’ve dealt with many trained string players in the past, there is generally a lack of flexibility. It’s not their fault, they are bred from a young age to be reading machines and are often not required to do anything but. So, if you ask them to improvise, or to change the way they play something, or to just play something “out” or weird, they give you a blank stare that reads “can not compute”.
[That's spot-on in my opinion and experience, and why I'm committed to getting everyone to do as much improv as possible in music school.--EE]

Kristin is more than your average classical player. Not only does she have the technique and intonation of a first chair cellist, she also has the intuition and the ear of a jazz musician. She’s the kind of player you can let loose on a track. With little direction, she played some of the most beautifully articulated lines on par with any professional recording. In addition, she was able to turn right around and play noise. She created sounds that sounded like she was channeling Jimi Hendrix himself and it was all done with utmost taste and sensitivity to the song.

There are audio clips from Kristen's albums on the music page of her site. Hmm . . .on my Christmas list. (Which means I'll probably buy an album today, oh me of little sales resistance.)

Edberg's Positivity Blog

2008-08-01T09:39:00.005-04:00

Except it's not by me.

Henrik Edberg writes the increasingly popular Positivity Blog, well-worth checking out if, like me, you are into self-improvement/personal responsibility/personal transformation ideas.

He is almost certainly no blood relation, since my great-grandfather was assigned the name "Edberg" by the Swedish army in the late 19th century, and soon thereafter emigrated to the U.S., but I would be happy to appoint Henrick an honorary relative. Who says you can't choose your relatives? LGBT people (like me, I have no idea about Henrik) have been creating families of choice for years, especially when biological families are unaccepting/unaffirming. And it's not just LGBT people; there are plenty of straight people who treat me as family, and vice-versa.

So there. He's now "cousin Henrik," like it or not. (My father declared the tennis great Stefan Edberg "cousin Stefan" when he first became famous, and we used to joke about contacting "cousin Stefan" about investing in a Strad, which he would then lend to cousin Eric.)

"Cousin" Henrick's blog is great. He's even found great sayings from Mozart to riff on.

I have been a fan of self-improvement literature since my teens, and it's great to see someone (especially an Edberg, even if I don't actually know him yet) working to inspire and empower people, and doing well with a blog. Judging from the ads, he must be making some decent money from it, too. Way to go.

Portland Cello Project

2008-08-01T09:05:00.003-04:00

Just discovered the Portland Cello Project, via largehearted boy, a legal free music download blog (which I also just discovered).

What a great example of a "post-classical" approach to music making, marketing, highly eclectic, multi-genre programming, alternative venues, etc. And, reading the member bios, some great examples of dual-career musicians: doing something else you also love for much of your living, and playing music professionally.

Largehearted boy Portland Cello Project links
Portland Cello Project MySpace page

Cellists in the news

2008-07-31T09:54:00.004-04:00

These UK cellists (articles here and here) give new meaning to "scaling the heights" of cello playing. I would definitely take the Luis and Clark carbon fiber cello were I to follow their footsteps!

And here's a nice tribute to Eugena Slezak, retiring from Concordia College. "She made us laugh, she made us cry, she made us proud to play cello. Ms. Slezak was probably the best teacher I had. She was tough and that’s part of what made her great. I learned much more than cello skills from her." What more could any teacher want to hear from her (or his) students?

First recital with the Pallotta

2008-07-31T09:35:00.004-04:00

Had my first recital with the restored Pallotta (pics in recent posts) last night. I'd really practiced my rear end off for this, and it went quite well overall. Russell Wagner, who did the restoration work, came to the recital, and it meant a lot to have him there.

[Update: rereading this, I see I forgot to mention that the cello sounds fantastic, and carried marvelously in the hall. Pallotta is a little-known maker, and we don't know for sure if the label is genuine or not. But that's not such a bad thing. For a player, as opposed to an investor, the best fortune is to find an incredible-sounding instrument that, for reasons like this, is affordable. If I could spend millions of dollars, it would be a different matter. But that might be what it would take to get a better-sounding cello.]

For some crazy reason, I programmed the Schubert "Arpeggione" sonata. This is one of the most awkward pieces in the cello repertoire. It was composed for a "guitar cello" with six strings, and much of it is, well, less than idiomatic for the cello. As "Zambo," an LA Phil cellist who is a regular poster at Cello Chat recently wrote, "The Schubert is one of those pieces that I periodically swear never to play again, then, forgetting the good reasons for the decision, drag out again." I never forgot the reasons that prompted me to swear off it, about 20 years ago. Nevertheless, I decided to do it this summer as a stretch. The vast majority of it went very well; a few passages had a finger slip or two. For my first performance of it in 20 years, it was pretty good. Still, I have newfound appreciation for something my former student Kevin Bate mentioned to me on the phone earlier in the week. "I read that some famous French cellist said that the Arpeggione is a piece one should learn but never perform."

The Arvo Pärt "Spiegel im Spiegel," which opened the concert, and the Chopin sonata, which concluded the concert, both went well. Only that darned double-stop passage in the Finale of the Chopin gave me problems. There really is no good fingering for it, and I'd experimented with too many fingerings, and changed the one I was going to do the day before the concert, so it was a bit out of tune. Drat!

More pics of the restored Pallottaa

2008-07-29T12:34:00.002-04:00

Last night, I started posting pics of my restored 1790 Pietro Pallotta cello. Photographing instruments is difficult! Last night I took some indoors with a flash; this morning outside in the sun (very briefly in the sun, I must say!). Clicking on the pics expands them so you can see more detail.

Neck: old and new

2008-07-29T12:18:00.008-04:00

Russell and I discussed the advantages and disadvantages of replacing the neck, which was original. An original neck is usually something worth preserving, but it had some cracks, gouges in the side, and had been grafted into a new block rather unartfully. We finally decided that it would be healthier with a new neck, and that this was the time to do it. He carved the new neck himself (I'll post pictures of that soon). The graft of the original scroll onto the new neck is amazing; it's virtually impossible to spot.

Two shots of the old neck:

And the new neck:

C string side detail, before and after

2008-07-29T12:14:00.003-04:00

Lower a-string bout, before and after

2008-07-29T12:11:00.004-04:00

Daylight (outdoor) shots: top

2008-07-29T12:04:00.004-04:00

Some outdoor shots of the top of the restored cello (before pics are below).

The Pallotta is back!

2008-07-28T23:13:00.004-04:00

About a week and a half ago, I picked up my 1790 Pietro Pallotta cello from Russell Wagner, perhaps the most highly regarded cello restorer in the United States.

In the spring of 2005, the cello, which my parents purchased in 1980 from Hary Duffy Violins in Coral Gables, developed a bass bar crack, running nearly the entire length of the top. After consulting with a number of colleagues and dealers, I settled on Russell to do what was at first going to be just some repair work. We ended up deciding to have redo all the previous repairs, many of which had been done quite crudely. (In the photo is he is working on removing old glue.)

I'll be posting more photos soon, including ones of the restoration process (meanwhile, there are some great restoration-process photos on Russell's site). For now, a few before and after shots are in the posts below, the before shot on the right. Click on the photos to see expanded versions with more detail.

The lighting conditions were quite different--the before shots were taken in Russell's shop with natural light and no flash (if I remember correctly); the after shots were just taken in my living room, with a flash. I wanted to get a few up tonight because I just saw that there's a story on the DePauw website about my first concert reunited with the instrument, on Wednesday night here in Greencastle. I'll work on getting some natural-light shots up soon.

Base of top

2008-07-28T23:09:00.003-04:00

Top, upper half

2008-07-28T23:07:00.004-04:00

You can see the amazing work Russell did with redoing the patch.

Top, full view

2008-07-28T23:06:00.004-04:00

Two articles worth reading

2008-07-28T12:39:00.003-04:00

This is the best single article I've ever read on the ordeal of searching for an instrument, the challenges of determining an old instrument's authenticity, the strange world of instrument pricing, and what an instrument means to a player. I wish Brinton much luck. (via Cello Chat)

And this essay by Roger Ebert is a poignant look at a late-career professional transition, and (as he looks back at his relationship with Gene Siskel) captures beautifully how a true friendship can include exasperation as well as love. The best relationships exist in a context of a love so big it can encomapss every emotion.

Blogging for LGBT Families Day

2008-06-02T20:04:00.004-04:00

Just in the nick of time, I've learned that today, June 2, is the 2008 Blogging for LGBT Families Day. So here I go.

My family has evolved into a nice gay-straight alliance. My kids, both straight, have always been supportive, and dealt with their own coming-out issues beautifully. They had to come out as the children of a gay man, which wasn't always easy. But they did, and have stood up against homophobic remarks. My daughter has been relentless since she was in elementary school about insisting that any kid who used "gay" as a slur knew that he or she would face her wrath.

They also had to come out to me as straight, but I was accepting. We can't all have the gift. I only did a little of "are you sure?" and "have you tried going out with a guy [or girl]?" In all honesty, I would have preferred to have at least one of my kids be gay; I wanted to give someone the kind of accepting parenting I didn't get when I was young. Eventually a surrogate gay son, an exchange student, came into my life, and that's been something special.

My ex-wife was always more accepting of my same-sex attraction than I was, and our divorce was amicable and we remain great friends. Everyone thought we were crazy to get married, and we were--the marriage didn't last. I was pretty "out" before I met her, yet loved her so much, and loved the idea of a traditional family so much, that we thought we could make it work. Yet out of it came these two incredible kids, who are healthy, smart, talented, accomplished and very giving people. My ex-wife and I work extremely well as co-parents, live close to each other, and remain best friends. So maybe we did make it work after all, just a bit differently than expected.

My father used to be the most homophobic person I know, but at some point he totally flipped and became very accepting and even supports same-sex marriage. My mother found it hard to accept when I was in college and she found out I was gay, but she became accepting pretty quickly.

I'm a gay man, I'm a good father, and my kids are great. They are the best thing in my life. And I love that being gay is a non-issue with them, with my parents, and my extended family and friends.

The thing that's important in a family is love and support and commitment to each other. LGBT familes have that as much as any other, sometimes even more, because the commitments are made so consciously and so often in the face of social pressure.

Why I don't Have Much Personal Stuff on Facebook

2008-05-29T11:52:00.000-04:00

Greencastle Summer Classical Music Series

2008-05-15T18:23:00.003-04:00

The 2008 Greencastle Summer Classical Music Series begins this coming Wednesday. It's about as traditional a classical music series as you can get, so there's some irony that it's organized by someone (me) who is a fan of Greg Sandow, a believer in alternative and innovative concert presentation, improvisation, etc., etc. There's a warm and appreciative audience for classical music in Greencastle, and the culture of our small town is such that "classical" is a selling point, not something to call by another name, not something that needs to be transformed into a post-classical something else.

It started three years ago with six bi-weekly concerts as a way to keep me playing and practicing during the summer, and I played on most of the concerts. Now it's grown to fourteen concerts, from the week after DePauw's Commencement until the week before classes start, and while I play "support cello" on a number of them, only two or three really feature me in a significant way. When I started it, I didn't want it to be too much of an "Eric Edberg and friends" sort of thing. There's an aspect of that to it, of course, but hey, I am the one putting it on! This summer, so many colleagues and friends wanted to play it was hard to fit everyone in. The original plan was twelve concerts, so I added another two.

It helps that we're not trying to make any money. The performers get small honoraria; we all are just happy to have a place to play or sing. The administrative costs are zero; I donate my time organizing the concerts, and the church where we hold them provides some secretarial support. (The piano tuner usually makes more off the series than anyone else.) So we do just fine with donations from a few businesses in Greencastle and about 40 individual donors.

Audiences range from 40-120; there's a feeling of intimacy, and informality. OK, there's where I'm untraditional, I suppose. No black or white tie--usually no ties at all. And the performers talk to the audience about the music during the concert and with them after.

It's going to be fun.

206.5 and, once again, falling

2008-05-13T12:01:00.006-04:00

206.5 on the scale this morning, my lowest yet. Six months of low(er)-carb eating has (have?) done a lot. I was 263.5 when I started keeping track, and my memory is that I was 270 at some point before that. 270 stuck in my mind because I misremembered it as the "seventh of a ton" that the narrator Archie Goodwin suggests is his boss's weight in the Nero Wolfe novels, which I read insatiably during middle and high school. I just checked and 285.7 is the actual number. Good thing it didn't take until I'd reached that point that to get my real attention. No way would I let myself stay as heavy as Nero Wolfe!

People I haven't seen for a while don't recognize me at first. I wear size-36 pants rather than 42. And my home blood sugar readings are in the normal range (the most powerful motivation through this all was diabetic-range blood sugar readings last fall).

My weight loss had slowed down a bit, and I was stalled for weeks bouncing around between 209 and 212. I had grown a bit lax about what I was eating. Allowing myself more carbs, I was having more-than-occasional rolls, and occasional sugary desserts, especially when eating out. And eating Dove "sugar-free" chocolates too frequently. They have a lot of malitol, which, I've learned, raise many people's blood sugar and insulin levels almost as much as sugar.

Sigh. They are delicious.

In the last couple of weeks, I got strict with myself again about sticking to vegetables, berries, and only small amounts of high-fiber bread as my carb sources, and the weight is coming back off. (And only one of those little Dove chocolates, very infrequently.) The 209 barrier has been broken.

A growing number of physicians are supporting low-carb approaches, and studies keep coming, too. I keep track of it all mostly through Jimmy Moore's amazing blog.

Final goal weight? I'm more interested in getting rid of the rest of the flab around my belly than how much I weigh. Now that school's out and the weather is improving (we had an unusually cool, damp, and gray spring), more walking and, OK, OK, strength conditioning.

David, Jonathan, and Allison in New York

2008-05-13T11:33:00.006-04:00

While Tim Nelson's gay-themed production of Charpentier's 1688 David et Jonathas (which I would love to have seen) received mixed reviews in the Washington Post and today's New York Times, both Anne Midgette and Vivien Schweitzer praised the orchestra. Midgette called it "the strongest part of the show" and Schweitzer wrote, "the highlight of the evening was the strong performance by the Ignoti Dei Orchestra, led by Mr. Nelson, which did justice to the beauty of Charpentier’s enchanting score. It deserves to be heard more often."

My beloved ex-wife Allison Edberg, a fantastic Baroque violinist, is a member of the orchestra. You go, girl!

The Post also ran a feature article before the D.C performances. Pro-gay theologians and preachers often use the Jonathan and David story as an example of an at-least-probable gay love depicted in the Bible; others (mostly anti-gay) contest that. It's great that Nelson made this project happen. I'm a definite fan of affirming the reality of same-sex love.

Rufus Cappadocia

2008-05-04T11:36:00.001-04:00

Wow.

Rufus Cappadocia - "Transformation" from Velour on Vimeo.

More Rufus on his site.

Rzewski on Improvising in Beethoven

2008-04-30T09:20:00.004-04:00

This time of year is SO busy that I often forgo the Sunday New York Times, since there's not time to read it. But this week I did get it, to read the magazine article on young gay married couples in Massachusetts in the comfort of my own bed (perhaps because it would be nice to have a husband in there with me).

Had I not bought the paper, I likely would have skipped the story on pianist/composer Frederic Rzewski, and would have missed this wonderful portion of the article, which I'll comment on in another post. First question that comes to my mind is what his reaction would be if other pianists inserted cadenzas into his music?

No question, Mr. Rzewski likes to keep listeners guessing. When he plays other people’s music, he can raise hackles by improvising cadenzas in the middle of such untouchable masterworks as Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” and “Appassionata” Sonatas.
“I do it because I think it’s authentic,” he said. “It’s what I think Beethoven would have done. A few years ago, after a concert at Bard College, a musicologist came up to me and told me very sternly that you could do that at parties but not at a concert. Usually people don’t hire you at all if they think you’re going to go in for such shenanigans.
“And maybe they’re right. My Japanese friend Yuji Takahashi, the pianist and composer, says: ‘It’s redundant. All the irrational stuff is already there, in Beethoven’s writing.’ I do whatever I think is right at the moment. One thing is for sure: You shouldn’t prepare it. Improvisations have to pop into your head then and there, or there’s no reason for them.”

Bouland's Vist with Scarlatti

2008-04-30T09:16:00.002-04:00

Read it here. It's the occasional posts like this (and the one below from University Diaries) that make the time I spend slogging through eveything in my Google Reader worthwhile.

Suing Students

2008-04-30T08:39:00.002-04:00

Margaret Soltan, at University Diaries, has posted an amusing forwarded Gawker account (with a few succinct comments of her own) of a (former?) Dartmouth instructor suing (or at least threatening to sue--it's all very confusing, as the instructor seems to be confused herself) both the college and former students for discrimination. The Gawker story points out:

The details of the discrimination and harassment? Students didn’t pay attention to her, complained about her to her boss, and accused her of not “accepting opinions contrary to her own” and said she would “lower the grades of students her disagreed with her.” In other words, the exact smarmy complaints all entitled college students level against inexperienced teachers.

University administrators live constantly with the fear of having to spend time and money defending the institution from lawsuits, many of them silly. I've leaned from my dad, one of those honest lawyers, that while genuinely ethical attorneys won't file unmerited lawsuits, there are plenty of opportunists who will. An upset client is easy to take advantage of; get her or him even more worked up, then start filing litigation. The client ends up with rapidly mounting legal bills. And there's always the hope that the university will just pay some money to make the whole thing go away. As far as I can tell, DePauw, my employer, will take everything to court. It's an institutional strategy that discourages frivolous litigation.

So I wonder if the issue here is more with the instructor or her lawyer(s), assuming that the case is indeed as sily as it appears from a quick scan of Margaret's post.

It's not just miffed instructors who get taken advantage of. I have a friend going through a difficult divorce. Her husband has an income close to $300,000 a year; it seems obvious to me, anyway, that his lawyer will do just about anything to run up his bill. The legal fees grow astronomically, yet have done nothing to better his position in the custody issues.

My ex-wife and I were lucky. Since neither of us had any money, there was non to waste on acting out the psychodrama of our relationship in court. We read up on our rights, sat down, decided what was fair and how we wanted to co-parent the kids, and had a lawyer draw up the papers.

I have to admit that sometimes I wish I could sue some of my cello students. Not for disagreeing with me; that's part of the fun of teaching. I'd like to sue some of them for not practicing! That's cello-teacher hell--giving lessons to kids who haven't practiced.

So much for retiring to Manhattan

2008-04-19T09:48:00.003-04:00

My fantasy of one day being able to retire from DePauw, move to Manhattan (the real one, in New York), and attend concerts and theatre at night while visiting museums in the day is rapidly fading. $801,000 for a basement storage room?

Art-class models? Or a message to practice more?

2008-04-18T08:11:00.004-04:00

I woke up a bit after 4:30 AM because the bed was shaking. "What the hell is the cat doing?" I asked myself. Then I realized the cat was outside. Were they blasting at the quarry south of town this early in the morning? Did something explode? Could it actually be an earthquake?" But this is Indiana. We don't get earthquakes.

I fell back to sleep. Around 7:00 AM I spoke to my daughter. "Did you feel the earthquake last night?" she asked. Turns out it really was an earthquake. How exciting. Centered in southern Illinois, the 5.4 rumble was felt as far as northern Indiana, Chicago, and even Wisconsin.

And here I was trying to blame the cat.

Someone will be trying to blame someone else, I'm sure. When I was doing doctoral studies at Florida State, we experienced a horrible summer drought. A letter to the Tallahassee paper expressed alarm, outrage, and certainty regarding the cause. The writer had just heard that there were nude models (gasp!) used in art classes at FSU. The drought was obviously God's punishment on the region for this shocking immorality. The legislature must take action at once!

Given the little-if-any damage that occurred from this morning's quake, it was obviously just a warning sign. What was the message?

Why, get up and practice, of course!

Practicing: The Cure for Everything?

2008-04-18T07:47:00.003-04:00

[5/13/08 editing note: I corrected the spelling in the title; I'm sure "pracricing" (as I had mistyped) is great, but I don't know what it is!]

The supportive comments responding to my last post are much appreciated.

During the brief period I had the privilege of studying with Leonard Rose, I discovered that his advice regarding almost any challenge in life was more practice. When I transferred to Juilliard from the North Carolina School of the Arts, I experienced the big-fish-in-little-pond becomes little-fish-big-pond syndrome, and was depressed. "Practice like hell and get good," Mr. Rose told me. He had escaped "that hell hole of Miami" and got himself to the Curtis Institute that way. "And now," he explained, pointing out the obvious in his endearingly and amusingly (to his students) self-praising manner, "I am a very big fish."

And that seemed to be his answer for everything. Couldn't get a date? Practice, get good, and girls will want to go out with you (I didn't have the nerve to tell him it was guys I wanted to go out with). Not enough money? Practice like hell, get good, and you'll get hired for more gigs.

Fast forward thirty-plus years to my first session with my new therapist. After listening to my list of sandwich-generation care taking responsibilities, she asked what I was doing to take care of myself.

I was stumped.

Reminding me that at the start of a flight we are told to put our own air masks first, before assisting others, because passed out we'd be of no use to anyone, she assigned me homework, to come up with something to do for me.

So I decided to start practicing regularly. Including scales and bow exercises and vibrato exercises as well as music my students are working on and, of course, works I'm preparing to perform. It's required some discipline and boundary setting. And it has done wonders.

I went into music because I feel the most alive, the most myself, when I am playing. When I am playing well, I feel fundamentally good about myself, no matter whatever else is going on in my life.

It turns out Mr. Rose was right. Depressed? Practice like hell and get good. (Or better.) It works.

On not posting often . . .

2008-04-16T10:11:00.003-04:00

I realize I have no current goal for this blog; at various times I've had various ambitions for it--build up a big readership with frequent posts, etc. For a while, it was heading in the direction of commentary on cello, musical, and political issues, with occasional personal vignettes.

But I just haven't had the energy for that. Since last summer, I've had bouts of depression and insomnia, some quite intense. Some diet-related (i.e., first way too much sugar, then once I went low-carb, perhaps too few carbs), some writers-block related, and some from being overwhelmed with responsibilities. And it's been difficult to get things accurately diagnosed and get really appropriate treatment/assistance.

There's paying for my son's college-which is actually a joy, but money has been tight. I have too much debt, because I bought some cellos with the intention of reselling them for a profit to help pay for the restoration of my 1790 Pallotta cello, but it turned out I'm not really that much of a salesman! So I have too many cellos now. And not much time or energy to try and sell them (and perhaps some internal blocks, too).

A top DePauw administrator comments frequently that a typical faculty member is expected to work about 50-70 hours a week during the academic year, including professional research or artistic projects, and countless meetings. While his comments are meant more as a description of what actually happens than as a prescription of what each of us "must" do, the workload, and the stress of worrying about challenges one's academic unit faces, really takes a toll. One colleague once said to me, "It's not the time so much,but all the worry."

And my parents moved to Greencastle in late September. We thought it would be great; but my dad has chronic congestive heart failure as well as problems with his blood pressure suddenly dropping (the treatments for which cancel each other out, so it's very tricky to manage), and my mom has some health and memory issues of her own. So while we all thought that they'd move here, start getting to know people in the community, connect with a church, etc., it's turned out that they are pretty much house bound. So I've been their main, and pretty much only, "psycho-social support system."

I love taking care of them, but at other times I resent it, because how do you work 50-70 hours a week and provide a social life and good energy to your aging parents in declining health? I am a care-taker type person; part of me wishes I had the financial resources to take a year or two off or just greatly reduce my teaching load. And at the same time I love teaching, and I love, more than anything, making music.

What's the point of this post? To vent a little, to explain a little to those who follow the blog and used to enjoy regular posts why I'm posting only rarely. And I know there are many other people in what's often called the "sandwich generation" who are finding it a challenge to manage caring for parents, maintaining a career, putting kids through college, and more-or-less failing at having much of a personal/romantic life!

Meanwhile, my weight is down to 209, so I have lost at least 55 pounds since I started keeping track last fall. Over 60, according to my doctor's records. Increasing the amount of carbs I eat to about 15/meal, 60 or more a day (from the 20-30 total I had been eating), seems to have helped my moods and ability to sleep, as has a new anti-depressant. (And yes, there's less libido, but I feel so much better overall that it doesn't bother me!) People are constantly complimenting me on how much better I look, and that's nice.

And today someone sent an email complementing me on how organized I am. I think I'll frame it, because I am chronically, even comically, disorganized in most areas of my life!

Live blogging my ASTA proposal

2008-03-17T20:57:00.007-04:00

As if anyone would be interested:

8:59 PM Proposals for presentations at the 2009 American String Teachers Association annual conference are due tonight by 11:59 PM. That gives me three hours.

I had more than that. So far, I have taken my daughter to her dance class (instead of letting my son driver her), done grocery shopping, answered email, read other people's blogs, corrected the misspellings in my last post, renewed my ASTA membership so I'm officially a member when I submit the online proposal, and moved from the dining room table to the living room couch for more back support. I don't have cable, due to my channel-surfing addiction; I went cold turkey a few months ago. So I put on an old Hitchcok movie (Jamaica Inn) from a box set borrowed from my parents. But my son and a friend just came in, and with my blessing they've switched to Shoot 'Em Up, a bad-but-fun flick with Clive Owen (mmmm) and Paul Giamatti. But what the hell is Paul Giamatti doing in an action movie?

9:08 PM OK, now I've wasted time by blogging. What to propose? Should be something to do with improvisation. Now the last time I went to an ASTA conference, someone else did a presentation on basic Music for People techniques, so there may be competition for that.

9:10 PM "Fuck you, you fucking fuckers." Clive Owen just said that line into the camera. This movie really sucks.

9:11 PM Well, last time I went to an ASTA conference no one did anything on ornamentation or Baroque performance practice. (Of course, this was several years ago. Maybe everyone's doing it now.) But I have taught a course on improvisation in the history of Western art music, and I actually know something about Baroque ornamentation.

9:14 PM The other thing I'm into is using multiple looping pedals when improvising. That could be cool, too.

9:15 PM Clive had another line. "Fuck off." Brilliant writing! And now he's on his bus taking his shoe off.

"You know why a gun is better than a wife?" Paul Giamatti asks his flunky. "Because you can put a silencer on a gun."

I always thought Clive Owen wold make a great James Bond. Daniel Craig was great (and ultra hot), but I still would have picked Clive. Paul Giamatti just shot another woman. "Fuck me sideways." Wow.

9:18 Maybe the technology stuff would be useful. But also a pain in the ass to drag to Atlanta and around the convention location.

9:23 PM But I love playing with all those looping pedals and whatnot.

9:25 PM Clive Just shot Paul. Why would anyone run straight at a guy with a gun pointed at him? Oh, turns out Paul was wearing a bullet-proof vest. He's recovered enough to take a cell-phone call from his wife. (The one you can't put a silencer on.)

9:28 PM Need to come up with some titles. Argh. I don't feel like thinking or creating right now. Suppose that will be easier if I figure out what the presentation is.

9:33 I could do something on improvisation in the history of classical string playing. And the other thing that's really interesting to me right now is using improvisation to become more comfortable with one's instrument and to practice composed pieces.

9:36 Holding a baby, which for some reason Paul is after, Clive is in the process of shooting 20 or 30 bad guys to death. Bad line, certain to include the word "fuck" is sure to come once they are all dead.

9:38 Paul got the awful line. "We really suck, or is this guy really that good?" Geez, they both must have needed money. Or somehow thought this would be another Kill Bill.

9:42 PM Two hours and seventeen minutes to go.

9:44 PM Clive just killed a guy by sticking a carrot in his eye. He really should have been James Bond. I mean, if you can do that, you should be licensed to kill.

9:50 PM Bad guys find Clive making love to the beautiful woman. While staying, er, coupled, rolling around the floor, and eventually standing, Clive kills each of them while bringing the girl to, um, well, you know. Once the last guy is dead, Clive makes the Bondian quip, "talk about shooting your load."

9:55 PM Of course, I could propose the title I usually use, and have used for years when doing a guest improv workshop: "Expressing Yourself Through Sound: Improvisation for Everyone." But I am sort of sick of that title. Two hours and three minutes to go. (What's that Johnny Cash song?)

10:10 PM I'm not much further along. But the movie is getting Bondier, and just featured a skydiving chase.. My son says, "well, he didn't get to be James Bond so he made his own Bond movie." Giamatti does make a good Bond villain. If only he had better lines.

It occurs to me that maybe this live-blogging of my own writing process and a bad movie at the same time isn't such a good way to write a proposal after all.

11:53 PM Got the thing submitted, just in the nick of time. Actually six minutes to spare--pretty good. Who says I'm a procrastinator? "Improvisation as a Mode of Learning: Developing Instrumental Comfort, Musical Vocabulary, and Creatively Practicing Classical Music." Somewhat of an awkward title, but I think the abstract is pretty good and with all the improv workshops and classical experience I have under my belt, I think I have a good shot.

Speaking of shots, Clive, despite the fact that Paul had broken each of his fingers, still managed to kill the rest of the bad guys and shoot Paul through the chest. Earlier, he had shot the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, who had set up a baby farm to grow candidates for a bone-marrow donor, which is why Paul was after the baby.

Wonder if he's seeing anyone?

What laptops are good for

2008-03-17T17:51:00.007-04:00

One of our students made this interesting observation in her comment on my previous post: "But on the topic of [laptop] computers in classrooms, I find no problems with computers in an actual classroom setting- mainly because you can not pay attention just as well without a computer as you can with one."

Good point. I found many ways not to pay attention when I was in school, long before anyone ever imagined laptops and Iphones and text messaging.

In defense of laptops in the academy, I admit that mine helps me get through dysfunctional faculty meetings. College professors will argue, endlessly, about the most trivial of issues, going around in rhetorical circles. Someone disagrees with your position? Must be they didn't understand your argument, so make it again, at greater length, with more intensity. They still don't get it? Repeat ad infinitum until someone calls the question.

I find that by multitasking during our nearly three hours of music faculty meetings per week, I'm able to follow the conversation, participate when appropriate, get something done when some of my colleagues are in listening-to-themselves-talk mode, and remain calmer and less frustrated than I was in the pre-laptop era.

The Music of the Laptops

2008-03-13T13:52:00.001-04:00

Clickety clack. Tap tap tap. Clickety clack. Taptaptaptaptap. Clackclackclackclackclack.

I looked around. What was that noise? Where was it coming from?

It was fairly dark in Kresge Auditorium. I had arrived at the University Band concert a bit late, pleasantly surprised that they were between pieces, so I had been able to slip right in, neither having to wait (impatiently, it would have been in my case) outside the door, nor being tempted to violate the classical-music tradition (and School of Music rule) that one enters a concert hall only between pieces.

I’d been delighted to discover that the next piece was Music for Winds, Piano, and Percussion by James Beckel, principal trombonist of the Indianapolis Symphony, a marvelous composer, and an adjunct faculty member here at DePauw.

The music started and so did the noise. What the hell was it? As my eyes adjusted to the dark I looked around and saw the culprit.

A young woman at her laptop.

DePauw requires every incoming student to purchase a laptop, loaded with University-selected software (some proprietary to DePauw). And we pride ourselves that the entire campus, even the concert halls and theatres, is wireless. The dorms, the lobbies, the bathrooms—I don’t think there’s any indoor space where one cannot connect to the Internet. And with so many wireless transmitters in so many buildings, many of the outdoor spaces are wireless-accessible as well.

So there she was, typing away. But how was she making so much noise doing it? Most keyboards, especially on the University-mandated laptops, are very quiet. But this was a very percussive sound.

She was sitting a the far left end of the row in front of me, and there was no one else to the left of me, so I quietly walked over (we were towards the back in a relatively unpopulated area), and quickly had my answer: four-inch nails, which curled forward. They were making the noise as they hit the keys.

I whispered to her, with my professorial and paternal authority-figure energies combined, “I’m sorry, but you are making too much noise. You need to stop typing or go outside.” The trick in this sort of situation, where you don’t have any official authority (or aren’t sure that you do) is to speak with total confidence. She gave me a look that combined surprise with who-the-hell-do-you-think-you-are attitude. I whispered, “thanks,” and walked back to my seat, hoping I hadn’t whispered so loudly that I had created more distraction that I had stopped. The young woman evidently decided that I might be whoever the hell I thought I was, and/or that I was right about the noise. After a bit of consideration, and a quick bit of typing (probably signing off to whomever she was exchanging instant messages with) she closed the lid of her laptop.

Beckel’s piece was wonderful, as was the rest of the program. But every once in a while thoughts of Margert Soltan, of University Diaries, and her frequent diatribes against laptops in the classroom, floated into my mind. I must write a blog entry, I decided, about the four-inch nails and the instant-messaging student. Here's to you, Margaret.

(Maybe the nails were only two inches.)

It's not not over until it's not not over

2008-02-10T22:13:00.000-05:00

And while it's not over, it sure isn't not not over yet.

By which I mean that while so many political commentators are fussing over the role the Democratic "super delegates" will play this summer, it's far from a given that neither Obama or Clinton will have won a majority of delegates before the convention. With Maine, Obama has won four in a row and is gaining momentum.

I've been undecided between them for a while. Even though I was giving Obama money for quite a bit, I was leaning towards Hillary. She is smart, tough, knows how to work Congress, and knows how to play hardball politics (which is going to be very important in winning the election). But Clinton fatigue has set in already, and I find myself looking for someone who can inspire and unite the country. I don't think I'm the only undecided, formerly Hillary-leaning voter experiencing this evolution. I think things are swinging in the Obama direction and that his majorities will continue to increase. If I was a betting man, I'd put a good deal of money on the notion that Obama will win the nomination without needing the super delegates, despite the proportional nature of the Democratic primaries.

Fleisher Agonistes

2008-02-10T16:40:00.000-05:00

I haven't seen Leon Fleisher in years, but I still love him the way a grateful student always loves an important teacher, and the way a grateful music-lover loves a favorite artist. When I studied at the Peabody Conservatory, I had several coachings with Fleisher when I played sonatas and other chamber music with his students; not only did I always learn a lot, but I also felt he was one of the few people who really recognized and acknowledged whatever my musical gift is, and was much more interested in affirming it--something I really needed--than trying to change me (or his own students) into some sort of surrogate for himself. (Which is how so many otherwise fine teachers destroy the individual musical personality of their students.) I also had the privilege to be the principal cellist of the Annapolis Symphony during the final few seasons in which Fleisher was its music director.

This recent Washington Post op-ed piece by him, which my colleague Scott Spiegelberg pointed out today, is another reason to love him.

219.5 and still falling . . .

2008-01-25T10:09:00.000-05:00

I just got back a couple of days ago from a concert tour in China with the DePauw Chamber Singers "plus cello." It was an amazing experience, about which I'll write more and post some photos. Beijing, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Shanghai. Absoultely incredible.

Before I get the photos downloaded, I'll mention that I was surprised to see that my previous post, "229.5 and falling" received more attention than I expected. Lovely comments from Terry and Emily (who is writing in amazing detail these days about holding the cello bow on her blog), a couple of emails, and a mention on Jimmy Moore's "Livin' la vida low-carb" blog, which I consider to be "the mother of all low-carb blogs."

And today I stepped on the scale and wow!--I'm down to 219.5. It was quite easy to eat a low-carb diet in China. Our meals were served family-style, at round tables with lazy Susans in the middle. I ate lots of meat and veggie dishes, and only small amounts of rice and noodles, sometimes none. And we did tons of walking during the tourist-adventure portions of the trip, so I got plenty of exercise.

229.5 and falling . . .

2007-12-22T12:43:00.001-05:00

No refined sugar, no flour, very few starchy vegetables. Lots of "real food"--eggs, dairy, meat, fish, and fresh vegetables. Lots of walking (although my exercise commitment has not been as steadfast as my dietary one). My goal was to be down to 230 (from 263.5) by Christmas. 229.5 today, with 3 days to go! Final target, derived from the BMI charts, is between 170-180, so there are 50-60 pounds still to go. I'm a third or a bit more of the way there, so here's a pat on my back.

Jimmy Moore's low-carb blog, which if sometimes a bit hysterical in tone nevertheless constantly supplies encouragement and loads of excellent links, and Gary Taubes' increasingly influential book Good Calories, Bad Calories, have been major supports. As has been my (self-diagnosed) OCD streak.

Some folks on low-carb diets eat a lot of "low-carb" ice cream, muffins, sugar-free candy, etc. The sweet-tooth, sugar-high addiction was a big part of the problem for me--stress eating. So I just plain gave up dessert items (with an occasional planned exception, such as Thanksgiving Day and probably Christmas Day). I didn't want to do anything that might reinforce those old cravings, plus there is plenty of debate on the safety and efficacy (in terms of blood sugar reactions) of the sugar substitutes. I will say that the holiday season is a very difficult time in this regard, with so much temptation to resist. "No virtue without temptation," I read somewhere recently. Evidently!

What If You Gave a Non-Traditional Concert and No One Clapped Betwen Movements?

2007-12-22T12:10:00.000-05:00

Gavin Borchert argues in a Seattle Weekly review that non-traditional concerts, with applause encouraged between movements, are not the innovation that will save classical music. He contrasts the experiences of two Chiara Quartet (website motto: "chamber music in any chamber!") concerts, two nights in a row: one in the traditional Meany Hall, one at a bar. Despite encouragement to do otherwise, the small audience at the Tractor Bar was quiet and reluctant to clap between movements, even when reminded by the quartet's cellist that they had permission to do so.

So what have we learned? Well, maybe people behave the way they do at concerts not because it's an artificial standard imposed by ironclad tradition but because the music sounds better that way. Maybe listeners feel classical music most deeply when they pay quiet attention to it. Maybe sometimes not clapping is OK, and we don't need to rush in and obliterate every silence. Maybe true innovations in concert presentation—new ways of getting music and music lovers together—will be concerned not with questions of formal vs. informal, loose vs. uptight, but with what setting best allows music to work its magic.

He makes some good points, and the article is well worth reading. Of course, generalizing from one or two experiments doesn't provide much predictive value. Despite having experimented with a concert in which the audience was encouraged to clap and dance whenever they wanted, I like quiet while I listen. Applause between movements? Well, with some works, such as Romantic symphonies, we know it was the standard practice of the time and expected and often encouraged by composers. So it feels extremely artificial to me to keep people from clapping after the rousing, bombastic finish of a first movement. But that doesn't mean I would prefer noise during the music.

One thing Borchert doesn't address is how many of the 40-50 people he says attended the Tractor Bar concert were people who don't otherwise attend classical concerts (which he couldn't know unless there was a poll taken). If most of the audience were Chiara quartet or general classical-music fans who are already part of the traditional audience concert culture, it's no surprise they behaved as we've been trained, regardless of the alternative environment.

The dilemma is this, it seems to me. The current audience of regular concert goers likes things the way they are. The question is what do we do to bring in new audiences who really are put off by the formality of the concert environment. Borchert is right that informality in and of itself is not the answer, and that quiet listening is a good way to experience classical music. "[T]he fidgetless focus of the thoroughly absorbed," he accurately calls it.

My intuition, and that's all it is at this point, since I'm unaware of any data on the subject, is that there nevertheless a very powerful long-term role that informal, interactive concerts can play in building a wider, or additional, audience. That doesn't mean we need to do away with traditional, formal, concerts with silent (especially during the music!) audiences. But neither should we dismiss alternate-format experimentation. "Chamber music in any chamber." I like that.

An interesting improv discussion

2007-12-09T16:28:00.001-05:00

Greg Sandow was one of the great speakers at DePauw's Post-Classical Symposium last weekend, and earlier this week he blogged about his visit, including some very positive comments about the short concert my improvisation students gave. There were a number of interesting comments posted to the thread, including one by me and another by one of the students, Sarah Wachter, who explained the benefits of improvisation for classical musicians about as well as it can be explained. The entire thread is well worth reading.

Jury Duty

2007-12-09T16:03:00.000-05:00

My old Tanglewood friend Roger Bourland blogged quite a bit about his jury duty out in LA. There's another kind of jury duty we college music professors do: listening to the end-of-semester juries played by applied music students. (By the way, now that classes have ended I may be blogging quite a bit, at least until January 10 when I leave for a tour in China. And what I'd like to know is how the hell Roger has the energy to keep blogging so frequently while being a new department chair and actively composing.)

If you haven't been a college music major or a conservatory student at some point in your life, let me explain. The applied-music "jury examination" is the equivalent of the final exam. The student plays a program (at DePauw, where I teach, about 15 minutes long) for a committee (or "jury") of faculty. In some smaller schools, the entire music faculty may listen to all the juries; here at DePauw, we do it by department. We had about 35 string juries to listen to yesterday, in a marathon which lasted from 9:00 AM to about 6:00 PM. The students play, and the string faculty write comments on their performance and their progress. At some schools, the faculty also grade the jury. There are both advantages and disadvantages to that. At DePauw, in the string department, we just write comments, which the students can read in the music office the next week or the following semester.

I always approach these jury days with some trepidation. Will I be able to maintain my concentration and write coherent, useful comments once we get to hour five or six? Will I be able to remain positive and supportive in attitude, while also giving honest feedback? Will my right hand hold out after hours of writing, when it dos so little of writing-on-paper anymore?

I used to resent the time this took when my college teaching career began, but now, to my delight, I find I enjoy it. Most of the students play at their best, rising to the occasion, and most of them are making good progress. It's great to hear how well they are doing and to see the good work my colleagues are doing with them. And I found it a pleasant intellectual challenge to write really good comments. I love to write, when I have time and intellectual/emotional energy. So it was like blogging all day long, except in longhand.

There were no disasters. No one fell apart, and no one was unprepared. A few students were underprepared, as happens, but nothing horrible. And many students played just beautifully.

I've been off of sugar, flour, and starchy vegetables for around two months now. My energy is higher, and my moods more stable. I found myself able to sustain my concentration throughout the day, which used to be a struggle back when I was eating a more conventional, unhealthy American diet. Plus I've now lost 30 pounds or so. There are about 50-60 more to go, according to the BMI charts. So far, though, so good.

I never feel more given to than when you take from me

2007-11-23T09:04:00.000-05:00

A Music-for-People friend sent an email yestraday including the following poem and quote. The Bebermeyer poem sums up so well why we musicians need audiences, why we teachers need our students, and why we all need friends. The Nin quote ties it all together.

I never feel more given to
than when you take from me-
when you understand the joy I feel
giving to you.
And you know my giving isn't done
to put you in my debt,
but because I want to live the love
I feel for you.
To receive with grace
may be the greatest giving.
There's no way I can separate
the two.
When you give to me,
I give you my receiving.
When you take from me. I feel so
given to.

by Ruth Bebermeyer

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until
they arrive. ~Anäis Nin

Best Thanksgiving Joke Ever

2007-11-23T08:49:00.000-05:00

We (my kids, my ex-wile/best friend, her dad, my parents, and a former student visiting town) at a great Thanksgiving, held at our next-door neighbor's house, where there were 5 more adults plus two small children. And at some point after dinner, two more families dropped in. Lots of great food, wonderful company, when the 6-and-under population was highest, plenty of noise. No Thanksgiving is complete, I told my former student (who studied with me in middle school, later in college, and now is just a couple of months shy of 30 and prematurely bald, which reminds me of how middle-aged I really am), with old people, screaming children, and an eccentric gay uncle or two. (My former student had taken temporary refuge with us from his sister's house with the screaming baby.)

I purposely went carb-crazy and allowed myself to overeat. It was wonderful. And I gained 2 pounds, although (I'm quite thankful for this) my blood sugar is the same as it was yesterday morning.

There aren't many Thanksgiving jokes, but this one my friend Claude sent to many of his friends is the best one I've ever heard:

A man in Phoenix calls his son in New York the day before Thanksgiving and says, "I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough."

"Pop, what are you talking about?" the son screams.

"We can't stand the sight of each other any longer," the father says.

"We're sick of each other, and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her."

Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone.

"Like heck they're getting divorced," she shouts, "I'll take care of this,"

She calls Phoenix immediately, and screams at her father,

"You are NOT getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back, and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?" and hangs up.

The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife.

"Okay sweety," he says, "they're coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own way."

Marcio Mattos

2007-11-21T23:49:00.000-05:00

This guy is cool, too. Obviously I've gone off the deep end. (And the water is fine, thank you!)

Zeno Gabaglio

2007-11-21T23:30:00.000-05:00

Found this guy on YouTube as I've been exploring the other cello improv videos there. I love the spaciousness of this soundscape piece. And the camerawork is cool as well.

Demanding wounded vets return their signing bonuses?

2007-11-21T23:05:00.000-05:00

I've never understood those who say you can't be opposed to the war in Iraq and simultaneously "support the troops." Thanksgiving Day is less than an hour away as I write. I feel profoundly grateful to the men and women who put themselves on the line. Even if this war was a colossal, tragic mistake, those who serve when called by their country do something few of us have the courage to do.

So it is a genuine outrage to see that those who serve, get wounded in action and discharged, are being asked to return their signing bonuses.

I have a 19-year-old son. I am grateful he is not at risk. And at the same time, I'm actually in favor of resuming a draft for military service. It is far too easy for those of us who don't have family members in the service to sit by and shake our heads. Everyone in the country should take responsibility for the mess that has been created and for creating a climate to bring it to a responsible, sane end.

Iowa Concert Parts 2 and 3

2007-11-18T19:42:00.001-05:00

U of Iowa Improv Performance, Part I

2007-11-18T11:10:00.000-05:00

After a good bit of trial and error, I have finally managed to get video from my camcorder all the way to YouTube. Here's the first part (2 more to come) of the solo improvisation set I did at the University of Iowa School of Music Contemporary Improvisation Weekend two weeks ago (November 3).

Raspberries and Cream

2007-11-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

As of today I have lost 20 pounds following an Atkins-style low carb diet. 263.5 at the start, now 243.5. That's a BMI (body mas index) of 32.1, considered "obese" (ick). People tell me I don't look obese, but I definitely have a ginormous belly! My target weight is around 180-185, which would give me a BMI in the upper end of the "normal" category. So there are still 60 or so pounds to go. But, wow, if that means I need to lose about 80 pounds total, I've done 25%.

Before I ran out of testing strips for my blood-sugar meter, my fasting blood sugar levels were running in normal ranges (they had been up in the pre-diabetic range).

It's been about 5 weeks, I think, maybe a touch longer. It's been extremely low-carb so far; meat, fish, eggs, and leafy green vegetables and salad. No potatoes. No bread. (Well, I think I have had half a piece of bread once, maybe twice.) And absolutely no refined sugar.

It hasn't been all that hard. I just have to stay away from the bakery section, and by now I've lost the bread and ice-cream cravings, and am learning other ways to deal with stress than giving myself a sugar high.

I'm now absolutely convinced that I have the sort of metabolism and body chemistry that is not able to deal with refined sugar, white flour, starchy root vegetables, etc., well. So I see this not as a diet to lose weight, but as a life-style change meant primarily to keep my blood sugar under control. The weight loss is actually secondary, although certainly more visible. I do find my mood is more even, that I have more energy, and that I have greater mental clarity.

The weight is coming off fast enough that I am going to add more vegetables and an occasional bit of fruit. So I celebrated tonight with some fresh raspberries and cream.

Improv Concert Video Coming

2007-11-07T22:01:00.000-05:00

The concert at the University of Iowa on Sunday night went well. The (smallish) audience was quite enthusiastic, anyway. And my son Pete, bless him, who is a freshmen at Grinnell College, an hour down I-80 from Iowa City, came and videotaped the event for me. The concert had three "sets"--I played solo (with looping pedals) for about 25 minutes, then George Wolfe did a set, and then we finished with some ensemble improvisations including faculty and a student from U of Iowa.

I'm going to post my set on YouTube, as soon as I overcome certain technological challenges. I switched from PC to Mac lat spring, and it turns out I have no idea how to edit in IMovie (it seemed blissfully easy in Window Movie Maker). I thought all these Mac programs were supposed to be child's play, but it isn't intuitive for me, anyway. I did figure out how to import the video from the camcorder this evening (it involved a trip to Wal-Mart to buy a new Firewire cable).

Evidently I have to actually read the book. Or just ask one of my students!

In the paper and on the road

2007-11-04T09:20:00.000-05:00

I was extensively quoted in an article about cellist Truls Mork in the Indianapolis Star. And this weekend I am in Iowa City, as a guest performer clinician at the University of Iowa School of Music 2007 Contemporary Improvisation Weekend. The other main presenter/performer is saxophonist George Wolfe.

For some reason, I was under the impression George was based in Arizona, and he thought I was based in New York. So we were surprised and delighted to realize we both live and teach in Indiana, he at Ball State and I at DePauw. Just a couple of hours from each other, we look forward to some regular musical collaboration.

Last night (Saturday) we each gave a presentation and than had a panel discussion, with more questions from each of us to the other, it turned out, than from the audience.

I started by telling my improvisation story. While I'd been trained by two of my teachers (Denis Brott and Stephen Kates) to take a very expressive, creative, and imaginative approach to performing classical music, especially Romantic cello music, I'd never felt I had what it would take to improvise or compose. I had a roommate, Philp Manwell, for a couple of years, who could improvise a fugue on the organ. While that had shown me that classical musicians could improvise, not being at the fugue level, I gave up before starting.

Some years later, in a time of personal crisis, I started improvising atonal, aleatoric-style, highly dissonant, angry pieces as a form of therapy. It was an extraordinry release of emotion, and my passion for improvisation was born. I moved on to improvising calming, modal, chant-inspired pieces, and eventually to using electronics, including a looping pedal.

I focused much of my presentation on ways in which we can use improvisation to become mor comfortable with not just ourselves, but our instruments, the vocabulary of (in my case, classical) music, and also as a way to explore and practice actual composed pieces.

So often we tend to think of improvisation as an alternative to classical, composed music. To me, it is a wonderful compliment to it, and has done much to heal my relationship with classical music.

George has developed a motivic-based approach to improvisation, including a book, “Motivic Improvisation: A New Approach to Improvising in the Classical Style” with a play-along CD, which can be ordered here. While the style of his music is not Hindustani, his philosophy and approach are very much influenced by his study of Hindustani music. He's an extraordinary player, and it was extremely stimulating to hear his presentation and demonstrations.

Tonight we share a concert, and will (we expect) be joined by our host, Jeff Agrell, the horn teacher hear at the University of Iowa. I can't wait!

When Bad Luck Turns Out to Have Been a Blessing

2007-10-26T17:04:00.000-04:00

This is a great example of the glass half-empty-or-half-full phenomenon.

Monday afternoon, driving back to Greencastle from Chatham, New York (where I performed our Rumi music/drama/dance gig on Saturday), I got off at the Greencastle exit. Just as I stopped at the light, there was a horrible noise from the passenger-side front wheel of my car. I thought perhaps I'd blown out a tire, and as I was stopping there was a screeching sound, as if I had slammed on the brakes.

It was disconcerting! When the light turned green, though, the car went ahead just fine. Maybe some gravel or something and kicked into the tire well, I speculated. Then as I started to slow down for the next light, as soon as a put a slight bit of pressure on the brake, there was a horrible noise and the brakes locked as the car screeched to a halt. Luckily there was little traffic. The car wouldn't budge for a while, but finally I was able to get it off on a side road, where eventually it was towed to Greencastle (just 7 miles) to be repaired.

At first I was upset that I had a big car problem, and that I had to reschedule a couple of lessons. About a day later it dawned on me how fortunate I had been. The brakes locked when I was stopping anyway, at the bottom of an exit ramp.

What if this had happened when I was driving almost 80 miles an hour on I-70? (The speed limit is 70 now in Indiana, which makes the de facto limit 80). That could have caused a major accident, perhaps seriously injuring me and others.

As it was, it happened not far from home, no one was hurt, and all's well that ended well. The more I think about it, the more I realize how extraordinarily fortunate I was.

Saturday's performance

2007-10-21T23:56:00.000-04:00

. . . went very well. I'll write more about it soon. There was one audience member comment I want to (self-servingly) record while I remember it. "It was the most delicious cello moment I ever experienced," he said. Or maybe it was "most delightful." Whatever it was, he really liked it, and that made my day.

Oops, I did it again . . .

2007-10-21T23:18:00.000-04:00

Ate at Cracker Barrel that is, for the low-carb menu. And just to make sure that it's really OK, I searched the Human Rights Campaign website. HRC's March 2003 "Lawbriefs" [pdf] says CB's board unanimously approved the addition of sexual orientation to the company's non-discrimination policy.

Nevertheless, I don't think I'll apply for a job any time soon; my DePauw gig pays better, I'm sure. And what would be the fun of a job without tenure, where you can tell your boss off without getting fired? Even better, we have included "gender identity and gender expression" in our policy for years now (something I'm proud to have had a hand in). DePauw is one of the best employers for LGBT people in Indiana, or the entire country for that matter.

Meanwhile, my blood sugar, which had been bopping up above the "this is diabetes" number of 126 on occasion, has been pretty consistly under 100 since I gave up bread and potatoes and everything with sugar in it and started walking a lot (a resumption of strength training is next on the agenda). Some of my vegetarian friends are, well, horrified by the carnivorous aspects of my Atkins-based approach, but everyone is happy that I'm losing weight and the blood sugar is under control.

I'm reading Gary Taubes's Good Calories, Bad Calories, which is beyond being just the buzz of the (new-to-me) low-carb blogosphere. It's as if the golden tablets had been discovered, or a Youtube video of Jesus walkng out of the tomb materialized. "We are vindicated!" seems to be the general reaction. Taubes first became a low-carb hero with his 2002 New York Times Magazine piece What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?. More on all this in another post.

The birds, the trees, and me

2007-10-17T23:16:00.001-04:00

The drive today from Erie, Pennsylvania to Chatham, New York was spectacularly beautiful. That section of I-90 has to be one of the most beautiful roads in the country; the splashes of color were worth the drive.

I listened to an odd assortment of music. The Ipod does that, even when not on shuffle; you find things you forgot were on there. A bit of Rostropovich, most of Zoe Keating's One Cello X 16 Nations: Natoma (which got turned off by mistake), a Joel Osteen podcast (OK, he's intellectually shallow and kind of goofy, but he's also energizing and comforting for someone recovering from years of self-hate; he radiates an optimism that needs no scholarship to be powerful), and a bit of a Nero Wolfe novel borrowed from my parents.

What a contrast Keating and Rostropovich make, especially back to back! Two incredibly different worlds.

I arrived at my friend Robin's house about 5:30 PM. She has a beautiful home, secluded in the woods, with a deck overlooking the forest. As soon as I arrived, I just took the cello out to the deck, and played for over an hour until Robin arrived. After a long drive, which was stressful in addition to beautiful, it was perfect to sit out with this incredible view and improvise. That led into some actual practice and a some Bach. It cleared everything away and brought me back to myself.

I actually ate in a Cracker Barrel

2007-10-17T08:30:00.000-04:00

The Cracker Barrel restaurant chain used to have a policy of "firing employees who fail to "demonstrate normal heterosexual values." Many LGBT (including me) and supportive people boycotted the place for years. Eventually they changed their policy, and I believe added sexual orientation to their non-discrimination employment policy, but my ill will lingered.

Now I'm overweight and have "metabolic syndrome," a form of prediabetes. My blood sugars were running way to high and I'm on a low carb diet, which turns out to be an incredibly effective way to get one's blood sugar under control and loose weight. (And yes, I'm exercising quite a bit, which also helps a lot.) In just a couple of weeks, by blood sugar level has come down to a very healthy level. Jimmy Moore has an excellent low-carb blog, where I discovered the Cracker Barrel still has a low-carb menu. So I had dinner there last night: seasoned catfish, turnip greens, and green beans. It was good and my dietary virtue remains intact while on the road.

Diets, like politics, make for strange bedfellows.