April 2004

April 29, 2004 04:13

Off to Valdosta Symphony gig. Yay five hour drive with a coupla other violinist buddies. I really hope we can find an adaptor for my CD player, or we're all gonna learn to love the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack.

My lesson with Valerie Gardner last night blew my little mind. I haven't had lessons this detailed in a long time. Ever had those lessons where the teacher hears you play, gives you a sidelong glance for about ten seconds, takes a breath, and says, "Did you wear...orange socks yesterday?" "Why yes I did." "Ach! Well no wonder your intonation sucks."

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April 25, 2004 05:15

Ever gotten an A on an exam after christmas-treeing the multiple-choice scantron? That's how I got the contract with the Macon Symphony yesterday.

Yeah. The drive-thru audition. McAudition. Played the Bach that I haven't touched since I recorded it two weeks ago. First and second movement of 'Symphonie Fantastique'. That's all they had time for, for each of us.

Lessons with Valerie Gardner means I don't look at repertoire for the next coupla months, just 2 hours a day of her homespun etudes (my frog bow-change looks like a duckhead now), and orchestra music.

But now I never practice excerpts from beginning to end. Two notes here for a wacky shift. Six notes there for an awkard entrance. Four notes there for a scratchy string-crossing. And yet it worked. I love her etudes.

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April 22, 2004 03:28

Saw "The Pianist" at my flutist friend Maureen's dorm last night. Wow, now I know why all of my Serbian/Croatian friends loved it.

Had a bad attack of the guilty-asian-child-sydrome at my last gig in Rome. After dress rehearsal, which is the same day as the concert, the woman who'd gotten me the gig told me, "You weren't playing all the notes for that section in the (insert symphony). You really need to practice that, you're supporting the whole second violin section." A pang shot through me, and while the rest of the orchestra got drunk (what else is there to do in the pulsing heart of Rome, Georgia?), I spent 2-1/2 hours working on the harder sections of two of the pieces we were performing.

I could argue that they had only given me the music the night before, but...bah.

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April 16, 2004 07:47

Any of you New Yorkers know a Kristin Lee, studies with Perlman? I'm playing with the Rome Symphony this weekend, and she's soloing the Tchaik concerto with us. Her run-through last night was really good.

I've got stack-o-music to learn for upcoming concerts and orchestra auditions. The worst is the Chattanooga opera, they must've killed _two_ trees to run off copies (of which, I noted, only one excerpt was from an opera. The rest are symphonies). Not that I'm complaining, I'd much rather do Marriage of Figaro again than something wacky like Richard Strauss.

Had my first lesson with my new teacher, Valerie Gardener, yesterday. Wow, she has such a different approach to practice, she's so focused on playing relaxed and with a good sound. I was kinda freaked out, cuz I had arrived with a buncha Bach memorized, and the first thing she asked was, "Play a four-octave scale? Ok, three-octave. Good, now double-stop octaves. Good, now thirds, four to a bow. Good. (this is me cringing at my bad intonation) When I had my first lesson with Brodsky, the first thing he asked of me was fingered octaves. I was 16. He didn't want to work on scales with me, he just wanted to see what I would do. It tells the teacher a lot about the student."

Dang.

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April 8, 2004 21:13

Is there a performance ratio of size of your audience vs. how great you sound in the practice room?
y=performance quality
a=audience size
P (practice room quality)=1
r (percentage y is reduced when about to puke on shoes onstage)=.045
y = 1(1-ra)
So if I had an audience of two, that would be:
y = 1(.91)
So I would play at 91% of my practice room quality. Assuming this is a linear equation. What if my playing suffered exponentially from the feeling of wanting to puke on my shoes? Then it would be:
y = 1((1 - r) raised to the a power)
y = 1((1-.09)squared))
y = 1(.8281)
So I would play at about 83% my original quality. BEHOLD THE POWER OF GEEK.

Yay, played the two new Bach movements for my Tech friends, plus the Paganini (a tad undertempo), and didn't choke. Well, I stopped for a few seconds in the fast Bach, but only cuz her cat was about to puke on my music. Bah.

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April 4, 2004 16:05

Mel Gibson's "Passion" film has had a big influence on the passion play I'm playing for this week. At the very end, the pastor spent twenty minutes explaining in graphic, medical detail what sort of torture Christ had to undergo after getting arrested. Seriously. "The Scripture says he sweat blood. According to medical journals, this occurs in extreme cases of stress where the capillaries burst underneath the skin..." I was waiting for the powerpoint presentation, but they probably didn't want to detract.

And the audience loved it. They loved hearing about the violent account. I've never worked with an American passion play like this before, it's so Shakespearian.

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April 3, 2004 11:42

Yummy sight-reading! So Gina and I raced into our first rehearsal for a passion play last night, ten minutes late, and I notice that the entire orchestra is there except the concertmaster. I survey for a second, then go, "Oh, I'm concertmaster." I thought I was section violin, so I didn't look at any of the music beforehand.

The music wasn't hard, and all the solo stuff was pretty and everyone liked it. Still, on principle, I feel guilty, even though I didn't make mistakes. (...insert fanatical laughing on the way to the bank).

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April 1, 2004 11:35

Got to spend time with a lot of good friends last night. Stayed up late snacking with Olga and Maureen, the flutist ex-roommate who just got into Temple. She's so happy. She has her final jury in two weeks, hasn't learned half the music yet, and her truly-evil-fire-breathing flute prof said, "Eh, whatever."

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More entries: May 2004 • March 2004