October 10, 2005 at 4:49 AM

I have never in my life had to sign an autograph for turning pages. I don't mind being a page turner, I actually quite enjoy it, you get to be close up with the musicians and meet them and how cool is it to be sitting a foot away from an amazing pianist or amazing violinist while they are playing? It's neat, right? But why do I get recognition for turning the pages? Why was I asked to autograph a cd that I don't even know where it's produced, nevermind I wasn't present at the recording or even competent enough to turn pages at the time of it's production. Aren't page turners supposed to be unnoticed people who are just there to aid in the ease of a performance?

The concert itself that I turned pages for was fun. It didn't consist of pieces that were ones that made me say "I want to go see that concert!" but for the average, classical music loving (and even not!) person it was a really fun way to hear some classical music. The violinist and pianist wrote a script for their own story about this "Golden Violin" and it's travels around the world and the composers and pieces played on it. Probably my favorite part of the program was the FAE sonata. The set up was a lot of fun though, lots of short-ish, approachable, fun pieces to listen to. The performers had colorful costumes to suit the theme and time in which the violin was currently at in it's travels (along with music to match) and it was all aided by a couple of stage props and some really neat pictures put up on a projection screen. Classical purists I'm sure are going... AH! How can you do that to classical music but I thought it was done with a lot of taste and professionalism and the performers were really enthusiastic, genuine and approachable musicians.

The next morning the violinist did a masterclass that I participated in. I opted to play the Bach G minor fugue. That was a little scary having not played the piece for very long and only having had a couple of lessons on it. I was suprisingly not nervous though, probably partially because of having met the violinist the night before and knowing he was a really nice person. My performance went pretty well all factors considered and I got a couple of good suggestions.

It's a long weekend here and school has been cut short for the moment while teachers are on strike which has bidded well for practicing. I've managed to get a lot more done this weekend than I have for awhile. Last weekend I was really dissappointed about being sick and not feeling well enough to practice so I'm happy to have gotten as much done this weekend as I have. I really have missed the hard-core practice lately so it feels good to get back into it!

We had some family over last night for Thanksgiving dinner and that of course means an opportunity to play so one of the things I tried out was the Barber concerto. I've been working on it obsessively almost trying to get rid of every little blemish in sound and clean all the shifts and strokes up as best as I can. It went really well and felt so easy to play and that was a really rewarding feeling. I felt pretty motivated today in terms of practicing so decided to tackle the last movement of the Barber again and work on some of it. I haven't worked on it hardly at all since being at Domaine so I thought it deserved another look at, I did have it to 160 at one point so it would be a shame to lose too much of that just because it had been a long time since I practiced it. After doing some rhythm practice on the first page I for fun set the metronome at 185. Ouch! I managed to get about 5 lines in but that is hard to be so cooridinated and articulated at such a tempo nevermind shifting or string crossings.

I am going to take off here now!

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October 10, 2005 at 4:49 AM

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