tears & tiaras!!!

Yes, I did wake up at 4 am on "29 April."

Yes, I did jump on Ben at 4:15 am to let him know that Prince William had arrived.

(no, he does not seem to have any recollection of this...)

Other then the entire rest of the wedding, my favorite parts were when each of them arrived. They looked nervous! Which I thought was very sweet!

Tears as she walked down the aisle!!!! Can you imagine how GORGEOUS that orchestra & choir sounded INSIDE the abbey??

I love this photo! He is saying "You look beautiful" as her dad watches!

Loved Pippa's dress!

Loved that a priest did cartwheels down the aisle after the crowd had left!

The royal next morning...

Makes you reflect on your own loooooove...!

The world needs bright happy spots to distract us from all the gloom sometimes!

Ahhhhh...fairy tales. Definitely going to bask in this one for awhile!

xo

MIA

Sorry--I've been neglecting el blog-o.

I got busy. Simultaneously, I got sick.

Cold symptoms lingered for about 3 weeks.

Now I'm okay.

But...this week was rough.

Unfortunately, the picture above isn't too far off from an incident this week, which I suppose I shouldn't detail on the internets.

I'm okay now, though.

Despite unrelated-to-clarinet drama, I have been keeping busy, musically.

How exciting!!! Two weeks ago I adjudicated a solo/ensemble thing in St. Paul. Those things are INTENSE because the kids only have 10 minutes to play, get a verbal comment, and written comments.

The rubric was pretty good--detailed descriptions, and was based on a 5- point scale in each category...

I heard later that one of the students mothers was upset with her student's score of a bunch of 3s and 4s. Ugh. What is up with people these days?? If my kid was a developing musician in middle school, I would expect to see intermediate levels of performance reflected in the grades (3s and 4s!) unless my kid was AH-MAAAA-ZING (i'm biting my tongue right now from further remarks about the exceptionality of my future children...) anywho...for the record I gave a couple of 5s to well-deserving students, but out of the group of about 30 kids, most of them fell into the middle category, which I KNOW is a normal result.

Hello, if I learned anything in grad school it was about that bell curve deal. Whatevaaa! Hahhaa! I don't think my girl Steph reads this blog, but she will tell you, I was PRETTY impressive in the graduate Research Colloquium class. PRETTY impressive!!! Off topic. Sorry...

Anyway...I was dead after that adjudication. I looove doing it, but it is damn tiring.

NEXT....in the suspenseful life of myself...

BAND CONCERT!

Yes, last weekend Bob and I, and a couple of our other clarinet friends from MPO agreed to play in a band concert at the last minute. We went to one rehearsal and the concert. We played in this CUTE church on University Ave in Minneapolis. We met a lot of interesting people, which I suppose I shall not detail here, as much as I would really love to. Keeping it classy, folks.

We played AWESOME band music such as: Paradiso, Alleluia Ladamus Te, Bolero, Valdres March, and Ravel's Pavane. And yes, I wanted to die in Bolero. I can't handle that one. That is definitely THE LINE.

AND THEN...dun-dun-DUNN!!! Shostakovich 9 in an orchestra rehearsal. I am filling in for clarinet buddy for two rehearsals of above mentioned symphony and Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.

I practiced Shost SOOOOO MUCH. I went through like a PACK of cigarette papers...

Wait, what??? Non-clarinetists: you gotta fold that shizznit up and put it over your bottom teeth so your lip doesn't get impaled by your teeth when you practice a lot. Always I am too embarrassed to buy it myself (you can't buy it if you're a girl without the most asinine comments when you ask for rolling paper at the gas station or liquor store...not worth it...so i do make Mr. Weidman purchase it or my lovely brother when he's in town.)

Anyway...I ended up practicing the solo in the 3rd mov't the most. I even recorded it. But every time I pressed RECORD, I screwed up. Every time I DIDN'T press record, it was FINE.

SO. FRUSTRATING!

Guess what's even worse...WE DID NOT EVEN PLAY THAT MOVEMENT.

FML.

Today I am feeling a million lifetimes better than everyday the past three weeks. I was sick, pissed off, plus...the incident which I shall not discuss here...(I know, I hate when people do that, too...)

But I am now very rested, and PLUS...Bob's coming over soon!

Today we attack Krommer Double Concerto and revisit our old friend, Il Colvegno.

Everything is good again in the world!

And...as I let all 150 of my students know yesterday...my birthday is coming up on MONDAY. (I like flowers, dark chocolate, cats, cool pens, coffee, and money. absolutely no metals.) i kept forgetting about my own birthday in the midst of my overwhelming excitement with regards to the ROYAL WEDDING next Friday, but since I have now remembered, I cannot wait until my annual multi-treks to my favorite CAFE LATTE. wine wine wine, chocolate chocolate chocolate.

xoxo

oh boy

Shostakovich 9 Rehearsal

Coffee

Sniffles & Sneezes

REFRESH--part 2

Hello !

We are often sooooo busy LEARNING (to PLAY) music that, at least in my case, I rarely have the time--especially now--to sift through the actual repertoire. Frankly, though, if you remember your school music library, a lot of it is CRAP, but there are definitely some gems that don't get their deserved attention. Do you dare to disagree? ;)

The videos below are interesting. Many I have never actually heard--just heard OF. So for what its worth, give a listen and educate yourselves, my fellow clarinet geeks, on some lesser known's!

These have all been lifted from Bob's collection. We discovered at the end of our second Clarinet Music Day that his collection of rep consisted mainly of cool secret clarinet music and my rep is totally standard. Plus about 50 copies of Mendelssohn Scherzo. <---Which still sucks.

Here you are, from Bob's pile:

Herbert Howells "Sonata"

Jean Jean "Carnival of Venice"

Ralph Herman "Clarinet on the Town"

Jules Mazellier "Fantasy-Ballet"

Tartini "Concertino"

Enesco "Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1"

Carlo Pässler "Concerto con Variazoni"

Artie Shaw "Concerto"

Hindemith "Concerto"

John Adams "Gnarly Buttons"

F. Devienne "Sonate"

Bozza "Fantasy Italienne"

Vaughan Williams "Six Studies on English Folk Songs"

Giampieri "Carnival of Venice"

Prokofiev Op. 94 "Sonata"

John Ireland "Fantasy Sonata"

Sean Hickey "Portage IV"

Honegger "Sonatine"

Miguel del Aguila "Concerto"

Skrowaczewski "Concerto"

Krommer Concerto op. 36 E-Flat

Cahuzac "Variations Sur Un Air Du Pays D'Oc"

Rossini "Sonata No. 3"

Herbert Howells Clarinet Sonata

pianissimo

Morning :) I have been fighting a cold the past week. I side effect of 150 students x 5 days per week. And colds are NOT fun if you are any kind of wind player. Pain. So, instead, I play piano. Lots of piano. It is my other love. But you have to do it right.

Step one: make some fresh, hot coffee.

Step two: try and move the cat. Yes, this is my cat Grishko, named after, well...the Grishko company. We call him Grishi. I love the cat.

Step three: Indulge.

Step four: Play until your back hurts.

Step five: Close up shop.

My favorite things to play are anything from a ballet class...Chopin, Tchaik, Prokofiev, even Beethoven. How do I know? I recognize the first three every time I take class, but anything I don't know, I seriously go up to the piano player at the break in the class and ASK. Haha! They're always a little surprised anybody cares what they just played, but...I DO! Then I go home, find it, play it, love it.

Did you know there is a SWEEEEEEEET app on the iPad called PIANO SCORES Master's Collection and it is magical. Has everything from Albeniz to Webern. You can search categories--Baroque to Modern-and it has hundreds and hundreds of pieces. It also has a metronome button and a YouTube button on every piece. So if there is a recording on YouTube of the piece you're working on--you can tap it once and LISTEN!!!

Other favorites are Tchaikovsky "Seasons" op. 37b, especially

March "Song of the Lark" ("The field shimmering with flowers, the stars swirling in the heavens, the song of the lark fills the blue abyss." A. Maykov)

Aaaand May "Starlit Nights" ("What a night! What bliss all about! I thank my native north country! From the kingdom of ice, snowstorms and snow, how fresh and clean May flies in! A. Fet)

And of course, June "Barcarolle" ("Let us go to the shore; there the waves will kiss our legs. With mysterious sadness the stars will shine down on us." A. Pleshcheyer)

Sorry, one more. Different composer. Ottorino Respighi. I discovered this piece when my dear, dear, dear friend performed it in a summer piano recital series in 2009. Of course, I prefer it at half the tempo, just like everything. ;) You HAVE to listen to this piece:

Happy Sunday, loves! Hope it goes nice and slow for you and it is filled with cats, coffee, and pianos!

xo

giant REFRESH button--dedicated to allison

Status update from #####:

"I really really hate the Nielsen concerto. Dear Clarinetists out there, any recommendations on pieces to play that make you LOVE the clarinet instead of despising it highly?"

Ahhhh, yes. Haven't we

all been there?? Kind of like in high school when you are required to read GOOD stuff, but you don't even bother because you have been TOLD to do it??

I get stuck in my own music pile. I think...ugh...this is so boring! I have ALL the major rep (I don't) and still everything sucks and I don't want to play any of it. AND it's the same crap I had 5 years ago. And 10 years ago. And...yeah. You get the point.

"So many clothes, and yet, not a single thing to wear!"

Sometimes we all need to press the giant REFRESH button on our music collection.

Last week during Spring Break, I spring cleaned

my clarinet music.

That means that I took the giant pile of music from one corner of the room and combined it with the other giant piles in other corners and went through it.

I sorted through and divided by solo, orchestral excerpts, chamber music, and misc. crap.

I even purchased crates to make the organization PERMANENT:

It has taken me roughly 20 years (in other news...OMG, I think I'm coming up on my 20 year mark of playing...???!!!!) to organize all my music.

Anyhoo...I discovered A LOT. Music I didn't know I had, stuff from forever ago that I still have memorized, that I forgot I had memorized, weird music that I probably ran through once, then put it in the giant pile, etc., etc.

Then--Bob came for Clarinet Music Day. We had wanted to educate each other regarding our own repertoire libraries in an effort to find NEW pieces for ourselves.

Bob showed up with a huuuuuuge bag of music. It was really an interesting afternoon because I really had not heard of a lot of stuff in that bag. That might have a bit to do with the fact that Bob loves to scavenge for more obscure clarinet pieces. More on that later. (Bob: send me your Garden recital rep list!)

SO...this list is Part 1 from Bob's bag-o-music. We took 2 hours chatting, ahem, "dorking out," over clarinet music, and got 1/4 way through our piles.

Here's what I wrote down from Bob's list of music I need to get/try:

1. Alexander Manevich Concerto

2. G. Meister "Erwin Fantasy"

3. Paul Reade "Suite from the Victorian Kitchen Garden"

4. Reinecke Trio for Horn, Clarinet, and Piano <---duh

5. Cavallini "Adagio-Tarentella" <---oldie/goody, have no idea where mine went...need to replace!

6. Ewazen "Ballade"

7. R.M. Endersen "Pepperino"

8. Muczynski "Time Pieces"

9. Schickele "Elegies"

10. Arnold Cooke "Sonata in B-flat"

11. Elliot Carter "Gra"

My music refreshments are:

1. Leslie Basset "Solilquies." **Esp. for Allison. This is a solo piece and it is CRAAAZY, but FUN, and interesting to hear.

2. Joan Tower "Wings" although this probably will make you hate the clarinet

3. Jean Jean "Arabesques"

4. Milhaud "Duo Concertante" <---LOVE

5. Lutoslawski "Dance Preludes" <-- from Bob, too

6. Babin "Hillandale Waltzes" <--from both of us, harder than it should be!

7. Martino "Set" <---MMMMHMMM! whatever! actually, I like this piece, but it SUUUUUUUCKS to learn

8. Sarasate "Ziguenerweisen" ("Gypsy Airs") for clarinet & piano

9. Debussy "Rhapsody" and "Petite Piece"

10. Sutermeister "Capriccio" <--I don't know why I'm including this piece. I have a serious love/hate thing with it.

11. Hindemith "Sonate"

12. Finzi "Bagatelles" <--nothing will un-burn-you-out like some good old Finzi!

13. Gershwin "Preludes" transcribed from piano--fun! challenging

14. Osborne "Rhapsody" LOVE! Thought I'd hate it, but had fun with it

15. Milhaud "Caprice" LOVE

16. Weber "Intro, Theme, and Variations" AWESOMEEEEEE <---is this originally for clarinet & string quartet?

17. Various Klezmer music will un-burn-you-out, too. I'm lucky to have quite the binder that **the only** Jewish guy in Rochester (MN...obviously) put together for me years ago.

18. Debussy transcriptions of "La fille aux cheveux de lin, etc..."

19. Ravel transcriptions "Pavane for Dead Princess" etc

20. Kreisler violin transcriptions

21. Bach violin/cello transcriptions <---this has saved me more than once from certain doom

22. Horovitz Sonatina **siiiiiiiigh**

23. Piazzolla "Tango-Études"

A Few Pieces of Standard Rep that will not make you suicidal:

1. Copland Concerto

2. Poulenc Sonata, or as I say Pou-Pou

3. In my opinion, all Weber

4. Rossini "Intro, Theme, Variations'

5. Saint-Saens "Sonata"

6. Rabaud "Contest Piece"

More to come, as Bob & I are doing Part 2 of Clarinet Music Day tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to get some sweets from this fine establishment prior to our festivities. And let me tell you: clarinet Sunday is soooo awesome. I wish every clarinetist had the opportunity to just sit for a couple hours every week and talk and play.

So...refreshing!

xo

natural habitat

I have a little porch room that I turned into my clarinet room...here is a peek. Here is where the magic happens. Hehehehe...

I call this, "Organization."

Chamber Music & Etude crates

Reminder that I went to college.

And an "I Love Cats" coffee cup.

Geeta & Ann! And those are my Gonzalez FOFs on the table...

I still like 'em

I love my bulletin board...ladybug tacks, old recital poster, notes from students, and a baby picture of Ben wearing a baby fur coat, etc., etc...

Fancy tickets to the MN Orchestra, bottom center, and fancy wedding invite :)

One of my favorite notes from a student... The "Teacher-Friend" note!