Wireless Ramble

I'm taking a practice break here at Drake University, watching the goldfinches dart between the trees in the quad like little yellow torpedoes. The semester must have wound to a close this week as all the rooms save one are unoccupied. Just a lone class piano student hammering away at Chopin's E-minor Prelude. It's the same one I memorized for one of my class piano juries.

The practice rooms here have these great big back-sloping windows which look out over the campus. They make me feel like I'm on the bridge of a destroyer or in an air traffic control tower or something. The rooms have a good sound but are very leaky. If someone is practicing next door it is like they are playing right into your ear. Still, aside from the sound proofing and the distracting view, I would rate them among the best I've used.

This evening I've booked myself so tight that after finishing a concert at the Hotel Fort Des Moines I'll just have time to stuff my horn in my gig bag, bell sticking out, and race 7 blocks to the civic center for a Tchaik 4 rehearsal. For some reason I love when things like that happen. Running from one downtown venue to another. I wish every day could be that packed with communal music making. And usually it isn't 7 blocks but 7 counties between gigs. I swear I'm paid much more to chauffeur myself around than to play horn.

To give you some idea of how much driving is entailed in freelancing in the Midwest (outside of Chicago, that is), yesterday I put new tires on my car. This is the second set in 16 months and I ran them near bald. They will be paid for by part of my tax refund which itself is largely due to 30,000 deducted business miles last year. And keep in mind I don't do much work related driving in the summer so that comes to about 10k miles every three months or about 100 miles a day. If you want to do this kind of work you had better enjoy your car... a lot! That's enough stream of consciousness for today.

Faux Fab Four

We played a couple bogus-Beatles pops concerts in CR a few weekends ago with these guys. I like the Beatles but I'm no expert. I talked to some people who are big fans and their assessment was that these guys are exactly like the original band; the same vocal inflections (they are all Americans faking the Liverpool accent); “Ringo” had the same drum fills as the real Ringo; They looked a lot like the fab four and wore “historically accurate” costumes throughout the show. I even think they interacted with the audience consistently (Harrison saluting, Lennon waving, etc.)

It was the second time in a year that I got to play with these guys (once last July with the QCSO) and I think all were the best pops shows I've ever played. The audience, obviously being taken on a nostalgic roller coaster ride, was ecstatic at each sold-out show. I think this was the first time I've ever seen a symphony orchestra audience wave their lit cellphones back and forth during a concert. (It was during “Hey Jude”. Well, okay. The conductor had to egg them on by getting his out and waving it at them first. But he had a symphony-concert-cellphone taboo to overcome!)

I'm certain this was the first time I ever did the twist on stage during a concert when the entire orchestra cut loose during one of the encores. Well, almost the entire orchestra. One horn player and the trumpets and trombones were being wallflowers. But everyone else was twisting and shouting with their cellos, clarinets, violins and each other. The audience loved it. ("Ha-Ha! Lookit the stuffy orchestra acting all silly!") We should have tried it again during the last movement of Tchaik 5 the next weekend. And props to our principal trumpet for the season, AC, who nailed the piss out of the "Penny Lane" solo every freakin' time.

One unfortunate side affect: I wasn't able to get “Let It Be” out of my head for days... and they didn't even sing that one!

Neglected Blog

"The sky is clearing, the thermometer is rising (slowly) and the water in the basement is falling (even more slowly). The European starlings outside my windows are busily gathering dry long-grass for nests. Jays are screeching, robins are worm-hunting, red-wing blackbirds are dive bombing and cardinals are belting it out, divas that they are. (Or should that be "divos"? The males do all the coloratura.) Spring is here! "

I've been neglecting my blog quite a bit this spring. This is easy to do since I don't have an Internet connection from my country home (other than email/some web surfing through my cell phone). I try to frequent a Hy-Vee in whatever town I'm in (they sometimes have wireless in the deli) but those visits can be spotty. I do write posts but they often don't seem to make it past the editing stage and eventually they become too dated to bother publishing (e.g. this post's opening paragraph). I will do better. Honest.

In reality the sun is setting after a hot May day in Des Moines where I am rehearsing all week for the season closer (Tchaik 4) this weekend. I'm enjoying the amenities of this second home, including wireless so I should be able to make up for lost blogging time over the next few days. In consulting my archives it seems I've come full circle and not really gotten anywhere!

Soooo I might as well post some old stuff even if it isn't current. Like NBC used to announce when they were trying to flog viewers into watching repeats: "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you!"

Can This Ugly Mug Be Saved!?

I'm slowly going blind as a bat. But I don't have to look square doing it. Vote for my new frames here! If your choice is selected you'll win 20 points and an ice cold Coke.

This Sure Beats Blinding Blizzards

We had marvelous thunderstorms a few nights ago here in Zwingle, IA. First ones of the season. The vantage point from my little house on a hill was perfect for viewing the lightning as the cells swept by. For a few more shots of the deadly bolts go here. Aside from the weather, life has been pretty calm. I've been trying to crank up the marathon training (just under two months to race day) and salvage as much from my decimated winter schedule as possible. The combination of (1) super frigid, windy, snowy weather, (2) lots of traveling, (3) low motivation, and (4) sore knees made for some pathetic weeks. I could handle any one or two of these potential excuses but when all four raise their ugly heads I often caved. So I'm about ten miles below my projected weekly mileage, my long run is three miles under what I would have liked it to be by this point and my pace is still about 20 seconds/mile slower than goal race pace. We'll see how things progress as the weather continues to improve.

Inspired, in part, by Raleigh's decision to practice more, rather than date, I have begun to experiment with cranking my own practice time up. I've always been a believer in the canonical "three well-spaced hours a day" for brass players. However, the odd story of horn players putting up big numbers (I heard JL say she was playing 10 hours a day before winning principal here, and legend has it AU was doing six hours a day before his CSO auditions, though I have it on pretty good authority that some of that time was longtones while watching March madness) coupled with the intense work ethic of string players and pianists makes me a little curious about the 4.5 to 6 hour/day practice regime.

In the spirit of experimentation, then, I am ramping up my daily hours very gradually and will plot my progress here over the coming months. I've known of several players who have suffered from overuse injuries and therefore will be extremely cautious every step of the way. That's all that's going on here. Time to get to bed so I can wake up early and get a jump on my taxes... during practice breaks, of course!

Fit To Be Shot?

Three weeks, three dates and about 200 emails later, Raleigh has given me my marching orders. She's too busy with audition prep for anything serious and I came on way too strong. I feel like Barbaro, not a quarter mile outta the box and -snap!- broken ankle. A rather dubious debut back into the dating world some years after the big “D” but I shan't mourn long.

Even though Raleigh was scary close to my dream woman -she's absolutely gorgeous, wicked smart (likes to read books on, and ponder, quantum mechanics), hilarious (“You live in Zwingle? That sounds like a Swedish potato chip!”), and completely driven when it comes to her music- apparently an essential quality must also be that she miss me when she's away! Failing that test, I got the boot. Seriously, I think it was just a combination of bad timing and the result of her being the unfortunate focus of my years of pent up romantic tendencies. It all came a'gushin out like the Love Canal had breached its levee! Hurricane Heartthrob made landfall on the coast of North Carolina! Typhoon Swoon wooed the waters of... aah, I got nothin'.

In other news along the same depressing line, I didn't win the summer gig for which I was hoping. Another musically unemployed summer is a desolate thought. Although I've managed to sock away loads in savings. Probably enough to last two summers. Still, I'll try to get some paying chamber music off the ground to alleviate the draw on funds.

On the up side, I had the great pleasure to play with RA (formerly of the Cologne Symphony) in the LSO last week. He's newly relocated from Germany to Wisconsin. A wonderful horn player with decades of pro experience and a modest, decent guy to boot he said he's suffering big time from orchestra withdrawal. It was nice of him to slum with us for a set.

It was my last set of the season as co-principal with this orchestra and I felt pretty good about it despite some inexcusable fracks in Debussy's, Trois Nocturnes. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't gotten the “let's just be friends” call the day of the Friday show. Oh, the spices of life. So it goes...

The Snow, I mean, the Show Must Go On.

Some are already calling it the blizzard of '07. Hundreds of miles of interstate closed, dozens of cars and trucks stuck in roadside drifts; throngs of stranded motorists; whiteout conditions for stretches long enough to recite significant portions of the Catholic rosary. But the show must go on. The people need their classical fix. They must have their Galway. And so we traveling musicians, we road warriors, we happy few, we... band of brothers (and sisters), risk life and limb and car and instrument to make that happen.

Therefore this addition to "Sights from the Road" is from the most recent commute between my little house on a hill and a DMS rehearsal 200+ miles away. Now keep this in mind: the first singular thought upon embarking on this drive was self and vehicle preservation, not travel documentation. As a result I probably missed what would have been the most striking images.

For example, at the very beginning of my journey as I was waiting for a safe gap to get on to highway 61 from my country lane, no more than a quarter mile into my trip, I was confronted with the sight of an overturned, snow swept SUV lying in the median; driver's side door still ajar, wheels in the air, looking like a bloated wildebeest carcass lying hooves up on the Serengeti yet to be scavenged.

Or when a semi-truck started to pass me on the left while we were going up a hill and then slowed to my speed boxing me in just as we crested. After cursing the driver for his indecision, I saw the sight he'd seen from his vantage few seconds earlier: over half a dozen trucks and cars strewn every which way on the down side of the hill. The sight made everyone coming over that hill rethink their travel priorities and recalculate their ETA.

By far the most dangerous parts of the trip were the numerous complete whiteouts caused by blowing snow. In Iowa there are lots of wide open areas without a trees for miles. There is no reason to believe, upon entering such a blindingly opaque environment, that you will be exiting it anytime soon. You can't brake because the asshole tailgating you. The only rule: keep any oncoming traffic on your left.

All in all, the trip was more exciting than anxiety provoking but I hope it's the last one like it I'll need to make this season. Oh, and the people seemed to like Galway. He's an audience ham and a lot shorter in person than I thought.