My New Fav

I can't seem to get enough of "Crush" by the Dave Matthews Band. I have heard "about" this band for several years, but didn't know their music until I heard this one on the radio and fell in love with it. I like the words, his voice and especially the flute and violin solos. I like the way the song builds, too. (Sorry -- at the end of the song, I accidentally recorded the beginning of another tune -- The Witch's Ride from Hansel and Gretel -- enjoy!!)

Theories of Practicing Music

Ok, it's the New Year. Among my many resolutions is this one: to practice the violin and the piano every day. I will accept a minimum of 30 minutes per day per instrument, but, of course, more time would be preferable, if possible.

I became convinced of the importance of practicing every day after I interviewed Adolph Herseth, who, during his long career as first trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and who was known as "The World's Greatest Living Trumpeter". He told me that he practiced every day, without fail, no matter where he was and no matter what the season. He carried his mouthpiece in his pocket. After that, I began to practice every day and I noticed the vast improvement in my playing. In recent years I would say that I was able to practice for an hour on about 3 or 4 days out of 7. That worked pretty well, but this year I want to do even better. For example, my string quartet wants to do some ambitious music so I want to get into shape and learn the music, as well! At my age, my muscles can become sore (from disuse? or some other reason?) so that's another reason I want to keep my muscles toned.

I'd like to mention two other theories of practicing music. First of all there is a great rule: if you come across a difficult passage, play it very slowly and perfectly. Then work the speed up. I got another tip from YoYo Ma, in an article about him in Time magazine some years ago: when you make a mistake you must play it perfectly three times in a row. If you play it two times and make a mistake, you must start over on number 1! This is a great method because it trains you to repeat the perfect playings, not the mistakes.

Of course, there are many other tricks about practicing, such as repeating a group of notes over and over, then going on to the next pattern.

Listening to Music With Another Person

On New Year's Eve, a musician friend came to join us. I told my friend how thrilling it was to play Scheherazade with the orchestra. So we played the music as we were drinking. My friend said, "How wonderful it is to listen to music with someone else who understands and enjoys the music as much as I do!" It's true! As you listen with your friend, your eyes and gestures capture and anticipate the music. It's a whole new level to listening -- being able to share it with someone else.

A Day Full of Music!

On Sunday, December 30, a friend and I went to hear the taiko drummers in a free performance. It was totally awesome! We had to sit on the side because the place was packed. Oh, the thrill of hearing those drums! Your whole body throbs!



It was surprising and wonderful to see the young women playing drums, dressed in kimono. Two samisen players from Japan accompanied the drumming at times.



Two young men, naked to the waist, came out to play the suspended drums!



To see more pictures, go here:

Finally, as if that weren't enough, on the way home I heard an amazing street musician in the subway station!! It was "Shannon vs. the Stranger". He sings his own songs. His lyrics and chord changes were amazing!

Here's a little video clip. I accidentally stopped filming before the last line, which was, "My life is full of disappointment, but I'm so full of life."

I bought his CD for $5. Here is the song I heard him sing in the subway, "Full of Life". You can hear the whole song here on this player.

Le mystère des voix Bulgares

The mystery of Bulgarian voices! Again, the magic of a capella voices -- here a woman's chorus singing "Sableyalo Mi Agontze" -- "The Bleating Lamb", just one of the songs from their album. "Mountain music" is one word that could be used to describing the eery and sometimes harsh voices in this traditional music, so beautifully arranged for chorus.

NOTE: If you hear electronice music in the background, it's from my entry of December 9, Karlheinz Stockhausen. Just scroll down to that player and click on the "Pause" button. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Layers of Memory

Recently, my best friend from high school shared a touching story with me: her elderly mother, who is in her 90's and has advanced Alzheimer's disease, rarely speaks anymore and rarely interacts with people. But, the other day, my friend sat down at the piano and played Christmas carols. Her mother joined in, singing all the words to about ten carols! It seems that Christmas carols must be contained in the earliest layers of our brains. As Alzheimer's rages through the brain, the Christmas carols might be the last thing to go.

Humor in Music!

There are many kinds of humor in music. For a long time I have been interested in finding representations of laughter in music. Even in Mozart, you can find laughter! It goes like this: high, short notes, descending, sometimes cascading up and down.

Then, there are the obvious ones like Victor Borge, Spike Jones, P.D.Q. Bach, and the Hoffnung Festival. Victor Borge is my particular favorite. He had many musical ways of making people laugh: first, by mocking the ways that people play their instruments -- for example, he would fall off the piano bench or he would instruct the singer as she rested her hand in the curve of the grand piano, "Don't touch the piano, please." The second way he used humor was to make new arrangements of familiar music -- changing wildly into a new key all of a sudden or starting with one piano piece and changing into a pop tune suddenly.

Here is a great rendition of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody.