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Eight years ago today
This was followed by the St Ben’s orchestra rehearsal, most of which I read during. I still only have one of the pieces that I’ll be doing, and we spent a lot of time on material I won’t be doing. The big event was Matt asked me to conduct the beginning of next week’s rehearsal. I have a feeling that my view on conducting is a bit more exacting than his is. I’m going to want to spend some time before rehearsal reviewing the scores...
Monday, 11 March 2002
”Damn Yankees” rehearsal was a bit odd: Half the orchestra was absent for a run-through, so the director attempted to take on the piano parts, but between his playing and not directing, it was very hard to stay together. Somehow it managed to function anyway and now I know what happens (vaguely) in the first act.
Nine years ago today
This morning at Holy Name, we had a very good mass. Sal is on vacation, so we had a substitute organist.
Once home, I was exhausted and ended up taking a very long nap. On awakening a bit of piano practice, but not much else.
Sunday, 11 March 2001
Yesterday: A decent enough bass lesson and then a mad rush to get to Westchester to celebrate my Mom’s 60th birthday. Loads of fun. Saw, for the first time in over a decade, a couple episodes of Dr Who. That brings back memories of playing in my brothers’ band, “The Sons of Gallifrey.” We played science fiction-related music at nerd conventions.
Random blast from the past
The lesson went well with Greg more pleased with my progress than I am. One thing he gave me to work on is a sonata by Benedetto Marcello. This is more for the week after next than next week, and seems like such fun that I’m going to place it at the end of my practice agenda so that I have something to motivate me through the practice session (no Marcello until you’ve finished your Simandl, young man).
The evening was spent at the Goodman theatre seeing Alan Ayckbourn’s House. Quite entertaining, although I was pretty wiped out from what felt like a very long day. House is part of a pair of matched plays which take place in the same time frame, with the same characters but different locations. As an added bit of fun, the theatre had a “bazaar” happening in the lobby after the performance staffed by the actors (mostly in character) from the two productions. I ended up buying five used books (proceeds going to charity). One of the actresses primarily in Garden (the other of the two plays which I’ll see on Friday), was familiar to me from the Shakespeare Project, a series of staged readings of Shakespeare’s plays. It’s always kind of fun to recognize an actor in one of these productions. Even more fun, as in this case, where the actor recognizes you.
Saturday, 27 January 2001
Arrived at my bass lesson a bit late, but this wasn’t a problem since the previous student was also running late. I got to listen to a bit of his lesson and was quite impressed--overawed even. He’s a senior at Northern, a music major, and preparing for an audition for the Chicago Civic Orchestra (the CSO’s training orchestra). Light years ahead of me in his abilities. He seemed surprisingly curious about my own activities.
Monday, 22 February 2010.
Got a small amount of bass practice in, but my fingers were too weak to make it as much as a page into Simandl. It’s a pity since my tone was sounding fantastic. But better to come at these things slowly and re-build my strength. From the fact that my case was still on the bass with the music binder in the back pocket, I can deduce that the last time I played the DB was for the December Pax Christi mass.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010.
Ash Wednesday. Took my banjo and a bowl of green curry with winter vegetables to the Catholic Worker. I thought I might be able to play with the finger picks but quickly disabused myself of that notion. My fingerstyle banjo is, I’m realizing, rather defined by my self-taught classical technique, using the thumb and three fingers to play the strings. A few people complimented my banjo playing, but I think that I have a lot of work to do yet.
Monday, 25 January 2010.
Started working on the Clawhammer Banjo from scratch DVD. Only got about 15 minutes in on the first bout, much of which was especially basic, although I did get a touch of RH technique for frailing.
Thursday, 21 January 2010.
Got some mandolin practice in tonight, working on the Beethoven Sonatina for Mandolin. I feel somewhat listless and directionless in my mandolin practice at the moment. I really should find an instructional book to work through.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010.
Spent some time on the first lesson of the Victor Wooten bass CD. Not terribly impressed so far, at this stage, it’s mostly working on getting the skills to use the right thumb kind of like a guitarist uses a pick. Still, it’s a useful discipline to work on, and I think will be handy for using the thumb pick on the banjo.
Sunday, 18 October 2009.
Ended up being the solo musician providing music for Pax Christi again today. Brought the keyboard and a guitar. I remembered a mic, but forgot the mic stand (oops). Played fairly. I really need to spend more time on keys to deal with my sloppiness there.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009.
Got a couple birthday presents early: A Deering Goodtime 2 banjo and an Eastman A505 Mandolin.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009.
Stopped at McCabe’s for the first time ever. My mission was to look at banjos and mandolins. They had the Eastman mandolin that was recommended to me, but not the Gold Star banjo. I did get a chance to try playing a mandocello and the Taylor ABG.
Saturday, 3 October 2009.
Pax Christi Regional conference today. I played piano, but not always as well as I would have liked. More practice would have been a good thing. John August was not always able to follow on violin: Next time, we need to have some rehearsal beforehand.
Wednesday, 23 September 2009.
Courtesy of Jill Sobule, I got to go to the concert/discussion to launch The Best is Yet to Come, a tribute CD to Cy Coleman. I first heard one of the songs from the CD courtesy of the KCRW Song of the Day podcast and I immediately fell in love with the music.
Cy Coleman is one of those composers that everyone knows but few realize that they know him. His best known song is “Witchcraft,” but it turns out that he also wrote the music for the first Broadway musical I ever saw on Broadway (and, as it turns out the only one), Barnum which starred Jim Dale and Glenn Close, neither of whom I realized were famous at the time (perhaps they weren’t yet famous: This was before Fatal Attraction or even Garp.
But I digress.
The evening was about half panel discussion, half performance. There were a few illuminating bits in the discussion, but the performances were divine. Pianist Dave Palmer opened with an instrumental version of “A Moment of Madness” and closed with a Coltrane-inspired version of “Witchcraft.” Julianna Raye performed “I’m Gonna Laugh You Right Out of My Life” (which I had heard previously in an inspired version by Holly Cole), Jill Sobule did “I’ve Got Your Number” channeling Blossom Dearie in her onstage demeanor. Sara Watkins pulled out her violin to play “Seesaw” and “Too Many Tomorrows” (the latter was the track that made me fall in love with the album, the former isn’t on the album at all), and Perla Batalla (whose voice I had come to love from her contributions to various projects but I had never seen what she looked like until tonight) performed “Hey Look Me Over” and “The Colors of My Life.” In all a fantastic evening.