I've been having trouble for the past couple weeks with my top-of-staff F# through A. They've been squeaky and overblowing and generally not cooperating. I realized today that my tongue position was the culprit (or, at least, that changing my tongue position solved the problem). Tongue further back in the mouth so that the tip touches the reed = happiness.

I have always loathed the practice of grocery stores in recent years of displaying prices in the form of mathematical equations. 10 for $10, 4 for $7.00, 20 for $4.00, etc. You don't actually have to buy 10 to get the special $10 rate. You can buy 1 for $1, 2 for $2, etc.

I took 3 years of college-level math, but I really shouldn't have to do division to figure out how much an individual item costs. But whatever. That was a rant of 3 years ago. I've gotten over it, though it still bugs me.

However, the latest pricing scheme at the local Vons nearly put me over the edge into a screaming, maniacal rage. The price on Yoplait yogurts was as follows:

10 for $7.50, but if you actually do buy 10, they're 70 cents each. (I don't recall whether it said "70 cents each" or "total of $7.)

So, after all that, it's 10 for $7.50, unless you buy 10, in which case it's $7.00.

GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

Last night I went to sleep as follows:

"Concerto is going really well, but ZOMG I'M JUST BARELY GOING TO FINISH IT IN TIME I WISH I HAD AN EXTRA DAY"

Then an email from LBCC comes in that tonight's rehearsal is strings only.

Which gives me *tonight* to finish writing and *tomorrow* to polish and print. Which works for me.


In other news, I'm just finishing my contrabassoon concerto. I'd originally intended to make it more of a concertino, perhaps 8 minutes in all. It's spiraled to about 20. And I really like it.

Time-wise, my estimation is about the same as it was for Castleventure... I guessed about 8, it ended up about 20.

The premiere:
Lesley Frey, Senior Bassoon Recital
Saturday, November 22nd, 1PM
Daniel Recital Hall, CSULB

I've been having some trouble with the second movement of my contrabassoon concerto. I had, for some reason, decided that the recurring bass line in the passacaglia should go D E F G A G F G# A G. However, with all the humming I'd done of the tunes that fit with it before that, everything fit really well with D E F G# A G F G A G. I've been trying to shoehorn it all into the one with the G# later rather than earlier, and it was making figuring out fun harmonies a disaster.

Swap where the G# goes into the spot where it (ZOMG) sounds right, and it's all better. Huzzah!

There was just a commercial on about debt reduction. Regarding having buttloads of credit card debt, it said:

"It can happen to anyone at anytime[sic], and it's probably not your fault."

Wait, really? Seriously? I mean, unless you're looking at it at a societal haves-and-have-nots meta-level, I'm pretty sure that being in debt because you bought things on credit is, in fact, your fault.

"The only person who ever looked good in a mullet was MacGyver."

I've been really bent out of shape recently about a bunch of stuff at my work. I think I get too emotionally invested in things like that, and I can get really fussy as a result.

So I've decided to put my attention, as much as possible, only toward the stuff I'm looking forward to, i.e. things other than my current work. Writing music. Playing music. Going to grad school. Starting my business. Eventually getting a job with summers off.

Since it's what I'm around for a third of the day and half my waking hours, I think I've gotten too caught up in what's going on at work, trying to change how things go at work, being bummed out by things at work. So, while I'm at work, I'll be going out of my way to find ways to make work more likeable... little things, things that don't need to change how stuff works, things that are easy to do rather than uphill battles. Start up conversations. Find people to take a walk with. Hide little happy fun things around the office.

If my long-term concerns are focused on what cool not-this-work things I'll be doing and how to do it, and my short-term concerns are focused on how my work can be a little more fun, I think I'll be all right.

I had a thought about conducting the other day.

So many conductors will insist that their orchestras play "with me." They expect performers to play their instruments to match a visual reference. The performers are apparently supposed to read the conductor's mind and be able to tell when the stick is going to hit, and ALSO have the same interpretation of when the stick hits as everyone else in the ensemble, despite great variances in visual acuity and attentiveness, all the while playing instruments with varying means of sound production that take different lengths of time to speak.

Matching a complex multi-part sound production apparatus to a vague unpredictable visual reference. Yeah, that'll work.

Our reflexes just aren't that fast, and we're not equally good at anticipating things.

Some of this can be alleviated, many groups find, by coming to an informal agreement of a delay after the conductor's baton. Conductor hits an ictus, approximately x 32nds later everyone plays.

However, what I think is REALLY happening when they do that is that the group finds other cues that are actually RELATED to sound production. Such as breathing. Breathing has a subtle audio component. If everyone breathes together, the point is not that they are all "doing something at the same time," but rather that it is a translation from a visual into an auditory reference. All of a sudden, everyone can play "with you" because they have a sound and a feel of when something is happening, rather than just a visual.

When a conductor claps time for an ensemble, the ensemble is usually suddenly very effective at playing in perfect time with each other, because it is infinitely easier to make a sound "with" another sound, rather than to make it "with" a visual. You have instant feedback on whether your sound was actually with the sound, whereas the only feedback you have on whether the sound is with a visual is an angry conductor.

This is why click tracks are so effective.


So, my theory...

All music is chamber music. All music should be played by listening to the other musicians, rather than looking at someone and attempting to translate an indefinite visual into a definite audio. Ideally, all music could be played without a conductor.

However, there are a lot of things to do with music that require some sort of visual or audio cuing. Perhaps we want to slow down here, or all get quieter, or pause a bit. In chamber music, we make eye contact, or decide on it at a break, or someone just decides to kick the tempo up a notch and we can follow because there's only, say, 5 of us. We can all play together, in time, and we can change things up as we like.

This doesn't work well for an orchestra, because there are too many people. If it's a clarinet solo, the clarinetist can kick the tempo up a notch. If you want to kick up a passage that's played by the entire string section, you're SOL.

Enter the conductor. The conductor is a facilitator for everything that is logistically difficult for a large ensemble to do. They don't even actually "make" the tempo slower, as playing under numerous guest conductors has shown. The conductor doesn't make any sounds, and if the orchestra doesn't like the conductor, they can completely ignore all the flailing about.

Instead, the conductor indicates to the entire ensemble that the tempo should slow down here, and by approximately how much. The ensemble then sees this and does it, all listening to each other to determine what it all means.

The conductor can also convey a sad or happy or goofy face. The kind that the clarinetist might make during a particularly nerdy bit of Reicha... the rest of the quintet can see the clarinetist cross his eyes if they're paying attention, but the rest of the orchestra can't. That's the conductor's job. Perhaps a good conductor will even see the clarinetist crossing his eyes, find it amusing, and pass that amusement on to the rest of the orchestra.


I think many of the problems in orchestras today come from conductors that consider themselves the focal point for everything in the orchestra, and that everyone should base everything they're doing on what s/he says. Insetad, the orchestra should be primarily listening to each other, with the conductor providing everything that is logistically very difficult for the orchestra to do otherwise.

There's a new politician/musician in town!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/01/sarah-palins-beauty-pagea_n_130901.html

Went to the Pacific Symphony tonight for some orchestra and organ music.

Got our cheap seats (season tickets), in the choral terrace just behind the orchestra.

Best. Seats. In. The. House.

We were less than 10 feet from the organist, in the back row, and could see everything, even his feet. Never realized how much cool stuff an organist's feet do. Practically a tap dance during the Dupre. I can't enumerate how many cool things were about the organ, about being 3 feet in front of the organ, about the organist's playing, etc. Suffice it to say, good stuff.

Having been in the actual worst seats in the house (top tier), I was pleasantly surprised by the behind-the-orchestra seats. Very nice sound. The violas are pointed at us, so the balance is quite good.

The Saint-Saens organ symphony was excellent. Having never seen it live, I was surprised that some particular sections had no organ at all, but rather were very cleverly orchestrated. That, and the Piano 4 hands was cool. I also especially liked the heel-to-toe action for a downward scale on organ, and the very nonchalant look of the organist while he held some quite loud notes just with his feet on the pedals, looking like he might not be playing anything at all.

I'm still in shock that these were the $22 seats.

Also, we chatted with some cool trumpet players that were playing fanfares on the balcony pre-show. Fun!