A Virtual Homecoming?

I decided to post something here since I haven't in a long time and for no explicable reason I have begun to feel guilty about this. Let's see, since November, I have:

-Gotten my new/old cello! My "e-bay special" made in approximately 1720 in Saxony was restored and I've been playing on it since January. It sounds great, has a big meaty tone, lovely dark varnish, a short neck I've been adjusting to slowly. I'm very happy with it but as of yet have not been inspired to name it.

-Taken a medieval notation class that is a lot of hard work but really fun (it's like solving puzzles!) and mostly enjoyable. I can now decipher really old music.

-Produced a concert by myself. It happened in March and was a whole bunch of beautiful German laments from the late 17th century. It was great fun, I learned a lot, I hope to do this again but maybe not for a while.

-Played in a masterclass for Wieland Kuijken. While I only had fifteen minutes with him due to poor planning, I played the first movement of the G-major Bach gamba sonata fairly well, got some interesting ideas and played it again much better. Nothing life-changing but a lot of people got to hear me play and I got to meet Wieland. Am looking forward to his concert tomorrow night.

On the table right now:

-Am still dating K. This isn't so much of an accomplishment, per se, but it kind of feels like one. It's been almost a year and we're still happy with each other. How cool is that?

-Am preparing for my lecture recital. My final requirement for my master's degree. The topic is the musical symbolism of the gamba. I will trace the gamba's allegorical meanings from the Italian intermedii through Bach's highly specialized usage in his cantatas and passions. There will also be pretty music. Tentatively, the date is May 12th at 3PM in Marsh Chapel at BU.

-Am preparing for the Concentus tour to Japan. Starting to learn St. Matthew bass lines as I will be the cello for orchestra one.

-Am also working on a longer term project of creating a Baroque cello excerpt book. This seems to have snowballed into a gigantic bit of work compiling everything hard for the Baroque cello, finding public domain sources and creating my own edition (possibly for publication!). A second volume of gamba excerpts may follow.

-I will be graduating from BU in mid-May with a Master of Music degree pending me turning in all the appropriate paperwork.

-Hence, I am looking for employment for next year. Also, housing. I'm staying in Boston since I've dug myself a nice little hole here full of friends and colleagues and occassional musical work.
Trying to put together a resume that includes skills other than music. Also, trying to figure out a way to make money that won't suck the living soul out of me. I am open to suggestions, offers, ideas, etc.

-My father is going to build a house on the land he just bought right outside of Ithaca and I'm hoping to spend some time there this summer helping him build and plant fruit trees and make a garden.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I have been terrible about keeping in touch with various people I love so maybe this post will count as something in a small way.

-Z

Octoberings

The leaves have turned and they are falling. No frost yet but the heat finally had to be turned on. This weekend was full of concerts and joy. Caught the end of Blue Heron after my rehearsal on Friday, went out for dinner on Saturday before seeing Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXI at Harvard. Met up with a gamba buddy I haven't seen in ages who drove down from VT for the concert and we drank beer and played gamba together well into the night. I cooked pancakes Sunday morning and had a lazy day before the Cambridge Concentus concert, followed by good food and going to bed early. What I was struck by this weekend is how many wonderful people there are out there whom I really enjoy and how little time I actually devote to seeing them. I've been holed up most of the semester spending a lot of time by myself here at home (and not as productively as I'd like) as well as a lot of time with K. I don't regret this because schlepping around to lots of parties and events is too much excitement for me but I have decided that I'm going to try to get out more. I'm not going to go to extremes but maybe I'll try to do one adventuresome thing a week. One thing I might otherwise not do out of fear, obligation, laziness, anxiety, etc. We'll see how it works out.

In other news, I am scrapping all of my bad left-hand habits and rebuilding my technique from scratch. It's about time and I knew it had to happen but the intonation on the cello recital was just not acceptable and is holding my playing back. I hate the patient and diligent work it takes to change something very fundamental about my playing but there is a masochistic part of me that enjoys how tedious it is, how frustrating. Because it's so obvious when you start to get it right and you can see the results of your work so easily.

But that work will happen tomorrow. Now for an early bedtime before a long (and hopefully productive) day.

Post-Conclave

My Faithful Readers, I have returned! I spent a week in New Hampshire playing gamba, drinking booze, playing more gamba and only occasionally sleeping. It was an intense experience and it took me a few days to recover (not just from the sleep but from being surrounded by people and music all the time). I feel more or less like myself again now (and really, when do I ever truly feel like myself?) and have returned to attempting to chart out the course of my life. I have several competing outlines at the moment, none of which have been fleshed out yet. I'm going to do some research into my options to fill in some holes and help me decide which outline I like best. Some of the plans surprised even me but meeting so many people at conclave who were in different places in their careers and following different paths, I was inspired to be less narrow in what I envisioned for myself.

One of the most exciting things at conclave (and the one I had no idea about) was getting to play on electric viols. One of the people there owns three and had brought them and his whole electronic set-up with him. The set-up included a really fun loop pedal that allows you to lay down multiple layers of grooves to jam over. Messing around on that stuff was pure joy. Also getting to improvise with someone else for the first time in too many years. I'd forgotten what an intimate experience that was and how integral improvisation is to my happiness and musical creativity. I'm definitely going to get some equipment so that I can better record and play over myself.

In other news, K took off for California yesterday and by the time he returns, I'll have left for my last vacation of the summer, so I won't see him until September. It's unfortunate and I'm sure I'll miss him, but conclave has filled me with a sense of purpose and musical drive that I think will keep me entertained.

For now, I will munch on a little more of J's delicious banana bread!

Off to NH!

Bright and early on the morrow I depart for scenic Ringe, New Hampshire. Why, you ask? For the Viola da Gamba Society of America Summer 2008 Conclave, obviously! Seriously though, it's my first time going to this annual event where the whole American gamba world congregates to play consorts and drink booze for a week. I'm pretty excited. Not only will I get to hobnob and drink with awesome dorky people much like myself, I will also get to coach and be coached by lots of different and talented people. I haven't really heard that many different gamba players and I'm interested in seeing their approaches to technique and music. A full report will be made upon my return. In anticipation of bad cafeteria food, I have packed a half-loaf of bread I made yesterday, juice boxes of soy-milk, luna bars, apples and peaches to supplement my diet with. Gotta change a broken string on the gamba tonight and then get some sleep because I'm getting up early!

A Good Weekend

It started off with a quiet Friday evening and me watching a good movie. "Protagonist" is a documentary of four disparate but parallel life stories told through the structured framework of formal Greek tragedy. Great stories, great puppets, I recommend it. Saturday, I cleaned the house. Not quite like a fiend, but there are no longer grapefruit-sized balls of cat fur hiding in every corner. Also, the kitchen has returned to its comfortable and user-friendly status. Went to a Baroque oboe recital that was unbelievable. My friend G is finishing up his DMA requirements and this was his last recital before he moves to Indiana. He is a real character and plays with so much elegance and elàn (out comes the crossword puzzle vocabulary!). A bunch of us went out to a bar afterwards and K came and met me there after he was done bowling in pajamas with a bunch of the Kwifflebee/Oberlin people. This morning, I fooled around on K's guitar (totally cheated by tuning the g to an f# to mimic gamba tuning), managed to sing and play La Folia, figured out some Marais and then wrote a fun progression which I scribbled down in tab for future use. Meanwhile, K had cooked us delicious scrambled eggs with vegetables and cheese, it was sooooo yummy. Then I tagged along to the foursquare game in which I eventually participated and really enjoyed. Playing with people who are fun and not very competitive is great. This was followed by lunch and much browsing in an amazing loose tea store. On my way home, it started raining and I actually had an umbrella with me, so I ambled along listening to the downpour and staying dry from the knees up. I arrived home to the bread I had made yesterday and subsequently forgotten about and even played some gamba!

Stuck in a Rut

Been a while since I've been seriously stuck but here I am again, unable to do anything unless there are people around. I tagged along with K this morning to the Arboretum (where he volunteers) and got to help label various plants. Mostly this consists of leisurely driving around the beautiful grounds, talking about the trees, trying to locate specific plants on confusing maps and then switching out the labels because the sub-species name has changed, or the info about where it is isn't actually correct. We relabeled some rhododendrons and some bamboo. Hearing K and the guy who works there rattling off the family names of various trees and shrubs, talking about the "peak" of the various flowers, tasting immature plums and speculating about various fruit. It made me very happy. Why am I always so excited about the things I don't know? Why am I not excited about early music right now?

Heard a fabulous concert last night of mostly Victoria with lots of my friends singing. I loved hearing Renaissance stuff again, it's been a while and I miss singing. There is so much I should do but don't want to. So many primary sources I should really read, so much technique I should rebuild, so much music I should learn. But when I'm here alone, I don't want to do anything. Yes, I know it's just my weird form of depression, but it never fails to confound me that the moments I least want to do anything are also the moments I want the most. I have so many conflicting dreams, I don't know what to follow. I'm not sure if I want to be the person I've been aiming to become anymore.

I'm sure I'll feel better in the morning and maybe I'll start the work of digging myself out of this terrible hole I've fallen into.

Shostakovich!

Last night, after the frisbee game, K and a friend of his and I went back to K's place and ended up listening to the entirety of the eighth quartet (one of my favorite pieces in the whole world). What an experience! Having failed to listen to any "classical" music post 1750 for the better part of a year, the dissonances and rhythms were so fresh and striking all over again. It was as if I'd never heard the piece before even though I knew what was coming. Re-experiencing the languid sorrow of the first movement, the heart-racing fear of the second, the subversion of the third, the terror of the fourth, and the resignation of the fifth, brought my heart back to places I hadn't visited in a long time. I loved every second of it. And I loved seeing K and his friend both go through their own versions of the ecstasy I was feeling. To see the expressions on their faces when the harmony crunches itself up into a place you never expected it to go, a place you didn't realize music could go. To see the shock in K's features when the lone violin note is interrupted by the banging-on-the-door/gunshot themes, the dawning comprehension when I pointed out the name-theme and when he identified it later on his own. That was pure joy for me. I love music theory, I love science, I love explanations, but I don't want to know Shostakovich's secrets. Somehow, he does things with harmony that no one else can, things I don't understand, can't replicate on my own. He moves masterfully between dissonance and consonance, milking the expressive power of both. He is one of my favorite composers and I had forgotten about him. How happy I am to be reminded!

In Others' Words

Lots of people post song lyrics on their blogs. Today, I offer you translations of two 17th-century Italian song lyrics from a lovely recital I played in last night.

They spoke to a nostalgia and infusion of memories that I've been feeling lately.

Lagrimosa Beltà

Tearful beauty
for whom I longed for so many nights with sighing,
how have you so become?

Who was that savage?
Whose heart, full of contempt,
could have proved harsh against you?

Misery, I know well, and you cannot deny it.
Time, the age of great worth,
has calmed the breast
has silvered the gold of thy beautiful hair.

Lady, see the end approaching,
see that everything is mortal and fades.
In time beauty becomes worthless,
it is the common blow that none may parry.

The rain comes after the calm
and after the lightening bolt, grim thunder;
who is cruel does not merit pardon,
to be faithless to love is a vile outrage.

To such a vision, Ladies, render up your hearts.
With piety and humility,
learn to leave that sumptuous pride and
soften thy thoughts.

Beauty displays its splendor not in such as she,
nor ever did.
Then let she who would have lasting beauty
avail herself of pity.

Amanti, io vi sò dire

Lovers, I can tell you
that it is much better to flee
from a pretty woman:
whether she is cruel or merciful,
whatever the situation,
to die for love is madness.

You need not think
of finding joy in love,
the happiness of love
is a thing of the moment,
and after all a beautiful woman
never bestows roses without thorns.

The hope of enjoyment is based on suffering,
beauty and courtesy
do not go hand in hand,
I can say, to my misfortune,
that love goes together with death.

It would take floods of tears to put out the volcanoes
of a heart in love,
of a soul that is inflamed . . .
Before it reaches shelter,
how often it says: Alas, I am dead!

Believe in one
who can say from experience: I saw, I was:
If you won't believe,
let it be,
it matters little to me,
carry on loving.
In any case,
those who must break their necks
will not escape steep slopes or deep falls.
As the wise proverb always says:
You cannot escape your destiny.

My lady, I know who you are,
Cupid, I know what I am doing,
I'll have nothing more to do with you,
keep your distance, both of you!
If everyone were like myself,
Cupid would be a fool, and not a god.

Reflections on a year in Boston

My roommate requests that I update this now that the recital is over and so I will do it just for her!

The only news of interest is the recital so I'll start there. It went well. Actually, that's an understatement, it went really well. Better than I had hoped. Sure there were mistakes (lots of them, some more serious than others) but they didn't ruin anything and the parts I didn't mess up are really spectacular. Val told me (with tears in her eyes because she had a bad cough!) that I was in a completely different place than I had been a year ago when last she heard me play. Listening to the recording, I hear she's right. I don't know what it is but I sound like a professional who makes a bunch of mistakes instead of a student who plays very well. A strange distinction but accurate. I seem to have developed a poise and confidence in my playing that I've never had before. I don't know how, maybe it was meeting all these people who think I'm a great musician. I think I'm starting to believe them! I know I didn't work as hard as I could have this year. I didn't practice as much as I wanted to. But I played a lot. And I performed a lot. I think I finally got some of the "experience" I was so sorely lacking in Oberlin. I may not like living outside of the Oberlin bubble but it's been good for me musically.

So now the summer officially begins for me. As usual I have lots of ambitious plans I will not get around to or end up finishing but I like having them nonetheless. Proof of my greed for life, a testament to a vision of who I try to be. I have accepted that I want too much, I cannot live all the lives I desire, accomplish all the things I wish I could. So wanting them all will have to be enough and I'll do what I can.

What are your goals/hopes for the summer?

I want to learn a lot of new music. I want to cook new and interesting recipes. I want to play lots of frisbee. I want to read a lot of books. I want to figure out what I'm going to do after I graduate from BU (hopefully get a Fulbright to Europe to study with someone amazing). I want to plan interesting concert programs for next year and get some workshop/teaching gigs. And most importantly, I want to have fun with people I love!

Marais

I've been unproductive recently. This happens to me with alarming regularity, for a few days I just won't be able to do anything useful that's not scheduled. This used to be less of a problem back when everything in my life was scheduled and had due dates. Now that I'm supposed to be self-motivated and ambitious, losing days to my meandering motivation is keeping me from doing everything I want to.

So instead of letting today slip away, I went out into the world and got something done. Perhaps not the most pressing or important of things, but it was something. I sat in Espresso Royale for two hours nursing a cup of coffee (that doubled as lunch) and finishing cutting and pasting and writing out the parts for my Marais suite. Then ran back to CFA to scan my fragile constructions and then to the library to wait in line forever so that I could print them out for free. Tomorrow I will put them in envelopes and leave them for my collaborators and that task will be finished. Of course, being able to play said pieces would also be useful, but I have a couple weeks left for that!

I love this weather, if only it would stay like this and never get too hot! The smells of all the flowers opening and the variety of birdsong makes me yearn for picnics and jumping in lakes and bike rides and farmer's markets and rhubarb pies! It also makes me lonely. When did we grow up and get too busy for these things? How did we get tied down, stuck in our ways, confined to our own stereotypes of ourselves?

Best Day Ever!

Good food, good friends, good weather.

Except for getting up early for a 9:30am jury, today was perfect. Boston was warm and sunny today and I wore a dress and sandals to celebrate! Got my plane ticket for Taiwan and had lunch in Chinatown with friends. Spent the afternoon in the sun on the porch cutting and pasting and writing out music for my recital. Practiced (!!!). Cooked delicious coconut rice and Thai curry and even made Thai tea. L came over and we ate and talked about all sorts of things, it was great. Then T (Baroque violinist) came over and I got to feed her too! We all listened to the recording of us from Sunday while sipping scotch and then devoured a mango while listening to all the pieces we want to learn together. It was everything I could ever ask for. And now I get to curl up in my warm comfy bed with a cat or three and tomorrow I get to eat leftovers!

I am a very happy and content Zoe.

Aftermath

I seem to have survived last week and come crashing into this week, which I plan to conquer as well!

I had a very strange experience on Sunday. I am a veteran procrastinator and under-practicer, I rarely get pieces as polished as I wish they would be. However, I don't think I've ever played a real concert (with audience and everything) feeling vastly unprepared before. And yet, despite messing up tons of things I know I can play and not knowing what was coming next, I played extremely well on Leon's recital. It was bizarre. I missed shifts, I flubbed runs, I played the wrong strings, and yet, I was musical and created the beauty I hoped to create. And the audience heard it too. They congratulated me with real sincerity, they truly enjoyed it. It makes me both chagrined and elated. I never want to be that unprepared again for a concert and yet, maybe this marks a new era in my performing life, actually being able to express my ideas on an instrument effectively. I hope so.

J left for Texas at early-as-hell-o-clock this morning and she'll be gone a whole week! I'm not sure what I'll do with myself and the emptiness of our house. I hope to practice a lot but I'll try not to become a recluse. Come over for dinner! Watch a movie with me!

Opera

Well, the opera is finally over! Thanks to T for sitting through 2 hours of early music to support J and I! Did it go well? Yes, in the end it did. Ultimately, the music itself was so good that I think we were all able to get beyond the difficulties we had in rehearsing it and really enjoy ourselves. At least, I enjoyed myself (when I wasn't worrying about my d-string going flat or how hot it was under all those lights!). In the end, I'm proud of all the work I put into it and how it came out. I almost wish there had been a reviewer there because I will stand by my performance. It is rare that I feel good enough about a performance to allow it to truly reflect on my abilities and last night was one of those moments. Feel free to judge me by last night, I made mistakes, yes, but musically, I did what I wanted to do.

Of course, after going out for a drink with the cast and orchestra, I left my bag at the bar (but remembered my cello) and only realized it when we'd walked 20 minutes to the T-station. Kindly, J and a musicologist friend walked back with me to get it and then back to the T where we caught one of the last trains that night and took the final 57 bus home. It was past 1:30 when J and I finally arrived home, me weary and with very very unhappy feet from my performing shoes (I have blisters on the bottom of my feet! Ouch!). Despite this, we had lots of fun telling offensive jokes and making fun of musicology, random drunk students, and ourselves. I haven't laughed that hard and that much in a long time and I am in good spirits today because of it.

Alas, no Friday night for me, I've got rehearsals from 4-9:30. If you find yourself doing such things, have a drink for me!

Acting Professional

I try to do this sometimes and usually fail. More often, it just happens without my knowing it. Last night, I played an opera. It was exhausting, mentally, physically (what circulation to my legs?), emotionally. Tonight, I do it again. There's a masochistic pleasure in putting oneself through such a thing to entertain and share music with others. It's satisfying and the exhaustion after validates how much effort you really put in. Saturday night, I play a recital. Sunday afternoon, I audition for a professional Baroque orchestra on cello and Sunday night, I play a huge concert on both six and seven-string gamba. I'm dealing with the details of going to Taiwan this summer to play concerts and give a masterclass. I just try to get through one day at a time and struggle to do everything I want to and maintain health and sanity. But on paper, here I am being a young professional musician. Very few people in the audience know I'm going to go home and bake cookies while dancing around to Klezmer or Celtic music in my pajamas and singing to the cats. Even fewer know what a struggle it is for me just to practice the instruments I love to play. And that's the rub, isn't it? Even the most elegant and "professional" among us are just people and those of us who are the least organized and competent can appear "professional" to those who don't know us.

The Joys (and Pains) of Consumerism

My roommate, J, and I decided to take yesterday afternoon off from life. After our oft-frustrating Monday class, we went on an MBTA adventure, making our way out to the Chestnut Hill Mall. After determining that the mall was way too upscale and expensive for our tastes, we climbed down a rocky slope (off-roading!) and made our way over to a Macy's where we found lots of things on sale. As usual, we spent most of our time perusing racks of dresses on sale, evaluating the cello-playing possibilities of them all.

Finding things to wear for performances as a cellist is difficult. I envy violinists and singers, the former having only to worry about collars getting in the way and the later entirely free to do anything as long as they look fabulous. The obvious problem with playing the cello is that it requires one's knees to be approximately 2 miles apart from each other. Thus are we ever on the lookout for very full skirts (we can be spotted in dressing rooms as the ones who find a chair to sit in to see if the skirt is wide enough). Additionally, as a Baroque cellist, the lack of endpin means I must be comfortable holding up the instrument with my legs. This is not as difficult as it appears (one gets used to it quickly) but particularly smooth and slippery fabrics make the cello less secure and often distract from the performance. Of course, beads and buttons and other ornaments are problematic because they could scratch the cello or rattle or buzz whilst I'm playing. As if this weren't enough, we must be very careful about straps as the movement of our bow-arm can lead them to fall off our shoulders. This happens to me a lot and at times I've had to resort to taping straps to the back of my shoulder to prevent this (most laughably, I did this with gaff tape at the Kennedy Center to prevent calamity during a performance available by live feed on the internet).

I haven't mentioned shoes yet! The height of them affects how high the cello sits (and thus your intonation) so they must be carefully chosen as well. I also like to test them for "tip-ability," whether they allow me to sit comfortably with my feet tipped at an angle (as I do when I play). Surprisingly, this varies a lot between heels and is impossible to predict. Some thin heels balance very well at an angle while some chunky ones do not.

Despite all these restrictions, I managed to find a lovely black dress that you can see if you come to my performance Wednesday or Thursday night. I'll only wear it one of the nights, so leave a comment to vote which night you want to see it!

Another Monday

Well, here we are again, back at the beginning of another busy week. I'm playing in an opera (concert version), a recorder recital and L's harpsichord recital (don't be deceived, I'm playing some really hard solo rep on it!). I've also decided to take an audition for Boston Baroque. I have very little time to prepare and I don't really expect to make their sub-list but I haven't played many auditions in my life (I hate them!) and it will be good practice for me. To pre-reward myself for all this, I've decided to take the afternoon off and go shopping. Silly as it is, having something new to wear to one of these events will motivate me to practice more.

I made rosemary focaccia and lasagne last night for a bunch of friends and L came over too. It was fun to watch people I love who don't know each other enjoy themselves together. I also got to play with construction paper and make posters for L's upcoming recital (for which T miraculously created an origami harpsichord!).

See you at the end of the madness!

On Cutting (and Pasting)

Sometimes playing early music consists of actually playing music, but very often it involves a lot of arts and crafts. This comes from one of the hypocrisies of the historical performance movement. We perform at historically approximate pitch, with historically informed techniques and off of facsimiles of manuscripts and historical editions, and yet we hold ourselves to very modern standards of performance.

Take intonation for example, I find it likely that standards for intonation were very different in the Baroque. In string playing, eighteenth-century musicians would not have had access to as reliable strings as we do, they couldn't control the temperature or humidity of their environments as well as we do, they didn't have electric tuners (or even tuning forks until 1711) as we do. There are treatises that complain about poor intonation which I read as proof that musicians were often out of tune. They may have wanted perfect intonation (as we aim for) but I doubt it was possible, especially in large ensembles.

Another example is the Baroque trumpet. During the early music revival when pioneers were first exploring valveless trumpets (which are limited in range to the natural harmonic series) they deemed them "impossible" to play well and added holes to improve the intonation. Even the best and most famous historical trumpet players today all have these holes because it's agreed that without them, too many "mistakes" occur for modern audiences (and conductors!) to accept.

This brings me to my current peeve in early music, the fable of unity and continuity throughout a larger work. I think this notion was probably born in the mid-19th century (does anyone actually know the history of this?) when "music-as-high-art" really got going. If you go to the symphony today you will be looked at derisively if you are so uncouth and unknowledgeable as to clap between movements. This wasn't always the case. People used to clap after every movement and if there was enough applause, the movement would be played again (remember, there were no recordings). This practice holds over in opera where people clap after arias despite the interruption of the plot.

Music in the Baroque was entertainment (and I don't mean this pejoratively at all!), whether it was music for dinner or dancing or for the stage, it was functional. We have copies of the scores people performed off of and there are page turns in the middle of movements (!) marked, "turn quickly." No one had page turners, they didn't line up four stands in a row so that they wouldn't have to pause to turn a page. So it seems to me that our modern aesthetic of continuity is behind the hours I spend cutting and pasting parts together for myself to eliminate or abbreviate all page turns.

I played a recital last week where I taped four or five sheets of paper to each side of a large piece of cardboard in order to avoid disrupting the flow of a cantata by shuffling my pages. I routinely turn pages while playing an open string (a good trick!) and toss them on the floor because I have no time to place them elsewhere. As a 20th-century being, I appreciate dramatic flow in a work, unencumbered by the often messy reality of playing it. But I don't think this was a priority in the Baroque. Surely they turned pages, surely they tuned between movements. In a rehearsal yesterday, I had to keep tuning between movements (in a rehearsal!) and the conductor asked me why I had to tune so much. I told him I had put on a new string (which was true) but I wanted to say, "Does it matter why? Would you rather I play out of tune? This is the reality of playing on temperamental gut strings during the lurching forward of Spring weather!" But if we want to appeal to a modern audience, we must perform up to modern standards and make compromises in our historical accuracy. At what point are we compromising too much? When do we lose sight of the point of what we do?

Ourselves in Parallel Universes

Yesterday, while venturing out into the world to grab food between rehearsals, my roommate J, L (a harpsichordist), T (a Baroque violinist), and I got to talking about other professions we'd like to dabble in (gardening, massage therapy) and eventually posed ourselves the question: if you had to choose a career unrelated to music, what would it be?

L admitted to a deep passion for horticulture and a dream of being a landscape architect. T considered a life as a photographer. J surprised me saying that she'd enjoy a career in advertising and marketing. At the time, I claimed I'd probably go into something science-related. But thinking harder about it, that really isn't the right answer. Science was my back-up plan in case music didn't work out, another discipline I enjoy and am good at. But this is the hypothetical world we're talking about, a place where I can choose a career based on what I like unbound by such silly things as talent or practicality.

I think I would enjoy being involved in theater or film. No, I don't dream of being a movie star (although, who doesn't occasionally?). I might direct, or make costumes or sets, reinterpret great works, write new ones. Perhaps this latent desire to write is a forgotten gift from my parents. Because one cannot want to do what one's parents do, I never considered writing a possibility, never thought my love of words and books ran deeper than a childhood immersed in them. Maybe I could be a restorer of old books, a reader of dead languages. In the hypothetical it's never too late.

Alternatively, I think I'd run a diner or a B&B, or maybe a bakery. I often joke about this, but I really love the slow pace of small town life, the people stopping in to chat and have coffee and a muffin, the familiarity of everyone in the community, the small scale, the allowance for whimsy. Maybe I'd have a vegetable garden out back I'd use as ingredients, maybe I'd use my space to host concerts and poetry readings, square dances and weddings. Or just invent new recipes that people would enjoy.

In the end, I am a people-person. I like to work with them, provide for them, teach them, learn from them. If I have people with whom to ponder silly things, debate serious things, create things both great and small, I will be happy.

If you had to pick a career unrelated to the one you're currently in or aiming for, what would you do?

Too Many Rehearsals!

I love my chosen profession. I even love rehearsals. But I don't love these long days of running from one rehearsal to the next with hardly time to eat and certainly no time to learn the music.

I don't like the way I'm playing, it's sloppy and not nearly as good as I know I can play. Also, I'm not prepared for any of my rehearsals, I don't have time to warm-up or to look at the music beforehand. I scramble my way through trying to hit all the notes and hardly bothering to be musical.

I like being busy, I am happier when I've got projects and deadlines. But this week is insanity. I left the house this morning at 10:30 and got home 12 hours later having done nothing but attend class, rehearse, and grab some food. Tomorrow involves only 5 hours of playing spread over 7 hours, although four of those hours will be spent being told what to do by someone I usually disagree with.

Lest I spend an entire post complaining, here are a few upcoming concerts (all free!) with my parenthetical commentary:

--Thursday, 6:30pm at First Church Cambridge: Sarah Bellott's Recital.
(she's a really good soprano and is singing a lot (a lot!) of wonderful French Baroque stuff, the music is great but hard for me and is exhausting)
--Friday, 7:30pm at Beacon Hill Friends' House: Janey's Recital.
(come see my brilliant and intrepid roommate tackle the hardest Bach cello suite on a five-string-baroque-cello-beast and win! she also will play a sonata and some cantata arias for which I play accompaniment)
--Sunday, 3:00pm at First Church Cambridge: Cambridge Concentus
(this is going to be an amazing concert, we're playing Brandenburg 2, the one with the crazy hard trumpet part, and another concerto grosso by a guy named Heinichen, both have hard but awesome cello parts that I will be rocking out to)

That's it (it!) for this week, tune in next week for more crazy Baroque adventures!

Singing

Listening to the recording of J's Spanish Renaissance concert, I was struck by how enormously nostalgic it made me. Not just because all five voices belong to friends whom, with the exception of J, I haven't seen in a long time, but because I miss singing. And it's more complicated than even that. I have recordings of lots of the music I love. I was subbing in a church choir in the fall but didn't enjoy it and have been turning down their offers. There is something primal (for lack of a better word) about singing. Rather than grappling with an instrument you ARE the instrument. And to lose yourself in the sound created by a group of people singing is the most wonderful experience imaginable. It is odd that this should be the case for me. I am a good instrumentalist and I enjoy playing in ensembles but that only approximates the joys of group singing. I am not a singer. I am under no delusions about my voice, it is not particularly beautiful, nor do I know how to wield it particularly well. I have no plans to change my life and attempt to become a singer but oh, how I miss it! The wash of harmony and the intertwining of individual lines. The feel of the words in your mouth, who cares what they mean! The physicality of the resonance and the connection to people who are experiencing the same ecstasy as you. It's intoxicating. Almost enough to start a choir of extremely musical non-singers to sing purely for pleasure! Maybe after I finish the millions of other projects I'm already working on. For now, I will listen to the Tallis Scholars with the yearning of an addict who can only watch others get high.