Feeling the Music

Last night, my string quartet got together. We started playing at 7:45 p.m. A little later, I glanced at my watch. It was 10:00. We had completely lost track of time, having been so absobed in our playing.

There were powerful, magical moments last evening, as we practiced a Mozart quartet and read through a quartet by Brahms. There were intense moments when we played together and felt the music together. We were wafted into another world on the wings of music. These were only moments, not extended time periods, but they were precious and wonderful!

I thought about my dreams as a young woman in college. I played with a string quartet there and I thought how wonderful it would be if, when I became an adult, I could play in a string quartet, always. My dream has come true!

So Much Music!

The other day, I spent about two hours talking with some young people (early 20's) who I met at a Japanese conversation group. I could barely understand anything because my knowledge of Japanese is quite rudimentary, but I could tell that the young American guy had begun listing his favorite groups, in response to my rudimentary question in Japanese, "What's your favorite music?". Whereas I consider myself "fairly" knowledgeable about pop music, I did not recognize one of his groups! The truth is that there has been an explosion of music in recent years. Many, many new groups have sprung up. And some of these groups are in secret little niches within certain narrow genres. "Indie" music is one such category. Some of the music I enjoy (Josh Woodward, Stereomovers, etc.) are not generally well-known. Then there are the super groups, like Coldplay, Green Day, etc. that everyone knows. As for me, I have become fascinated by lots of older groups, such as Cheap Trick, Crowded House, and Nirvana.

The Amazing Power of the Internet

Recently, I was chatting on Skype with my friend in Europe. We were discussing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. Not only were we talking about how to play the opening chords (as written, they are impossible to play), but I was able to send him a sound file (through Skype) of our orchestra playing this piece. And then he sent me a pdf file of the score! All of this took only a few minutes. I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming about all of this!! Pictures and sounds are immediately accessible over long distances!!