Is it Fall yet?

Last week, there was a heat wave, with last Tuesday bringing a heat index of 111 Degrees (whatever a heat index actually means, it was freaking hot). I'm getting into the swing of the new semester, and hoping for some cooler weather soon. I've been having a busy, but pretty good week, and am currently thinking "Oh my God, how am I ever going to get all this done? How many emails can one person answer and when am I going to learn all this new music? Panic!" "La, la, la, I just can't wait for Fall to really begin! Pumpkin Spice Lattes hooray!"

Fall is, and always has been, my favorite season by a landslide. I always pretty much hated Summers as a child, whether from boredom, or too may YMCA day camps where my fellow campers likely went on to careers in arson and petty theft, I was always thrilled to begin the new school year. I loved the whole experience: buying school supplies, meeting the new teachers and students, riding the bus in 100 degree heat; the new school year has always been to me what New Year's Day is to other people: full of possibility. I've taught two full weeks of the Fall Semester at my school now, and even though a lot of students were in lessons over the Summer, I can sense that the students are back in a comfortable school rhythm again, and their practice isn't being interrupted with family vacations or day camps. Everyone knows that it's time to get down to work.

It's fun to pretend that I live in other people's beautifully decorate homes, like this one.

Maybe because I was a public school viola student and didn't get private lessons until much later, I've always thought of Fall as the perfect season for string instruments. Maybe I associate the dark reds and oranges of the viola's varnish with the changing leaves, and the crispness and growing quite in the air seems to be perect for some Vivaldi. One of my all-time favorite composers, Brahms, is consistently described as being "Autumnal", maybe because his music is more thoughtful, reserved, and darker.

Hey, a Takemitsu piece about Fall! I'll have to check it out sometime.

I love cozy sweaters, crispy leaves, butternut squash, hot beverages, pumpkin spice everything, and apple cider. Two of my favorite holidays also occur in the Fall: Halloween and Thanksgiving. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday since childhood, with its winning combination of creativity, not-scary scary things, and chocolate. When I was a kid, my mom explained that in Celtic mythology, on Halloween, the veil between the living and the dead became thinner and more permeable. I didn't necessarily understand what she meant, but thought it was pretty badass. My Halloween costumes included an Ant, an Elephant, Wonder Woman, and a clown. Even in college, our orchestral viola section dressed up as devils and angels (I believe it was divided by stand partners, angels inside players, devils outside players) and I recall performing the second movement of Hindemith's "Der Schwanendreher" concerto in studio class, wearing my devil horns headband.

Thanksgiving is my second-favorite holiday. It's like Christmas without the out-of-control commercialism, unrealistic expectations, and sense of inevitable let-down. Thanksgiving doesn't care that you didn't send a card on time. Thanksgiving just wants you to eat a lot of carbs and watch TV. Thanksgiving understands me. I enjoy cooking as a hobby, and generally begin planning my pull-out-all-the-stops menu sometime in August. Last year I had two pies. This year, I'd like to incorporate homemade ice cream somehow. Since it's just a 4-day weekend, I haven't had to fly for Thanksgiving since 2003, which makes it a much more chilled-out celebration, and an excellent pit-stop before the crazy end-of-term schedules of December.



I do also have a bunch of performing stuff coming up, which I'm planning for, but more about that later. For now, I'm going to go look at my sweater collection and long for the days when I don't fall asleep to the constant din of Cicadas.

It's been a week

Lots of stuff going on lately. I started my new job, teaching a few students at SIUE. I think I may be pretty much out of the woods in terms of paperwork hassles, although just writing that makes me superstitiously nervous. It's strange not knowing any of the protocol or where things are. I think I'll really enjoy my new students at the college. My first day on the job was disorienting. It took me several weeks to get a room lined up, and I finally have my faculty ID (which features only a picture of my floating head, a la Futurama), and I'm hoping I will be able to figure out where everything is, and what I need to do in order to not make some kind of huge gaff. Maybe I should sign up for a campus tour?

Then my new shoes, which were advertised as ergonomic and fit great in the store, literally chafed off several layers of skin and caused my ankles to start bleeding, to the point that I was hobbling around to the various buildings where I needed to drop off paperwork. When I returned home, I discovered that one of the latches on my beloved BAM case is now broken and will need to be replaced. Oh, and my car started making yet another strange rattling/buzzing noise. I'm sure it's fine. I keep reminding the hubs that's it's really only a '98, and it has plenty of life still. Right, little Honda?

I'm 28, so I'm really still adjusting to the idea that I might have something of value to offer older students. Last year, one of my high schoolers drove to her own lesson, which made me feel old. Now I have a student getting a second Masters! Maybe the fact that people have consistently underestimated my age has given me a bit of a insecurity about being taken seriously. I'm also a raging perfectionist, which can cause me to believe I'm less prepared or capable than I really am. In any case, I've been thinking lots of deep thoughts about what I want my students to be getting out of their lessons and have come up with a few of my personal teaching priorities. These ruminations are ongoing, but reawakened by my having to write a syllabus for applied lessons in all of five days.

I'm currently working on developing a handout explaining how I go about practicing and planning for performances, which is nerdy fun, but also strangely anxiety-inducing. I'm supposed to be a good role model now? I don't even have enough I think one of the myths I've been gradually learning and re-learning in my teaching is that the teacher does not earn respect from having everything all figured out. I used to assume that any uncertainty or confusion on my part meant a dire lack of competence, which would cause any and all students to assume they were not getting their money's or time's worth and immediately call me out as a fraud, perhaps even calling my boss, who would look ruefully at me and explain to the student that sorry, they weren't aware they had hired an idiot... Anyway.

I reality, teachers who don't show any vulnerability or doubt are cold and inaccessible. In a way, since I'm teaching how to acquire various skills, my students need to be able to imagine themselves as I once was. If I'm some perfect viola machine, they won't be able to do that, and they probably will be too intimidated to ask questions. Music is a communicative art, after all, and part of being a good performer is being open to new ideas and constantly seeking out and incorporating new information. To cease to grow is to die. In general, I think we trust people less when they act like they have it all figured out, because we know they really can't.

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of "good ego" that my teacher at Eastman would always talk about. It is something most people really struggle with on some level, the idea that we need to claim our space on stage and that we deserve to be heard. He described it as a "me too" attitude instead "me and therefore not you". For example "Sally, you have a beautiful sound. Me too." I suppose I have needed to claim my space as a teacher too, both affirming what the students are doing and staking out my role as an adviser and benevolent dictator of practice assignments (although I haven't handed down any executions yet). Looking back, I can now see how even some of my great teachers did leave out some important information, or didn't strike the right tone with me or with other students, but it doesn't make me respect them any less. They were doing the very best they could (and really, it was quite good. I'm very lucky), and now I'm doing the best I can.

Then of course, there is the chaos going on in Ferguson, which has been appalling and disorienting. St. Louis has been on the national and international news every night this week and last, and it hardly seems to be getting better. The scenes remind me of the 1960's, with an almost all-white police force appearing as an occupying army in a majority-black neighborhood. It's disturbing. I've only lived here for two years, and I was aware that St. Louis is one of the most segregated cities in America, but I hadn't seen racial tensions explode like this. It's hard to just hunker down and get work done when there is this kind of awfulness just a 20 minute drive away, and maybe it should be hard. I'm trying to help in what little ways I can, but it's very sad and frustrating. It has gotten to the point where a lot of people are rightly outraged, but we don't have an appropriate channel for that, so it turns into Facebook "slacktivism" and righteous anger, which is generally click-bait oriented, and sometimes from random non-news websites with no fact-checking whatsoever. I've recently learned about the concept of "stealing another group's pain", and I think it can apply. I can be sensitive and empathetic and upset, but as a white middle-class girl, I can't pretend that I truly understand what the people of Ferguson are going through, and I also can't pretend that I have all the answers. And patting ourselves on the back for "getting it" in regards to various social issues isn't necessarily all that helpful.

There have been some small and encouraging signs. The Kickstarter campaign to feed Ferguson-Florissant district students on free lunch while they were out of school was widely successful. The crisis has raised a dialogue about various issues that deserve our attention. I know that I have been made more aware of the blatant racial profiling that goes on in the name of law enforcement, a topic I am generally able to comfortably avoid as a white female. As someone who teaches for a living, I'm hopeful for change. I've definitely been dead wrong about students who have done a 180 in lessons, and I hope that St. Louis, and America, can do a 180 too.

Adventures in Suzuki-Land

Wow, it's been a while. Time flies when you're having fun, right? At the beginning of the month, I spent 9 days at the Chicago Suzuki Institute, which is referred to, without a hint of irony, as CSI. I was completing my teacher training in Suzuki Books 2 and 3 for violin. I'm a violist, but the first 3 books are interchangeable with violin, and if I want to continue, I'll be able to take some viola units in different places.

The institute was all I could have hoped for and more. Over the week, I spent 16 hours of class time learning how to teach the pieces, techniques, and concepts presented in Suzuki Books 2 and 3, and an additional 20 hours of observing other teacher's lesson or group classes. I got so many new ideas that I literally ran out of paper on the last day, and I had trouble sleeping at night, as my mind turned through all the ways I could apply the new teaching concepts. It was fantastic! I mean, not the sleep deprivation, of course.

Speaking of, did you know that at this time of the year, the sun rises at 5:20 in the morning? I, with my musician's freelancing schedule, had blissfully forgotten that little fact of the earth's journey on its axis, but my dorm room window faced due East. So, I spent much of the institute in a slightly fuzzy-headed, dreamy daze. In my general stupor, I even thought I glimpsed the TARDIS on a walk. Sadly, it was a shed. Then I thought, wouldn't it be cool to get in the TARDIS and meet Shinichi Suzuki? I have some questions I'd love to ask him.

I guess my biggest takeaway from the week was the idea of small steps and review. I went to a lot of upper level lesson classes, where students were playing concertos and real repertoire pieces, and I was surprised that even with these well-set-up and advanced students, a teacher might take the entire lesson to work on bow hold or play a one-octave arpeggio to listen for the tone. I think in my attempt to squeeze every possible benefit from a student's 30-60 minute lesson, I can tend to get a little bit hyper hamster and move too fast through the different concepts. I wouldn't say I'm a steamroller teacher, (and trust me, I've seen students who have been steamrolled through the repertoire by their former teachers), but returning to teaching since the institute, I've been trying to allow for more breathing room in the lessons, and tried to be OK with just really working one thing, instead of trying to cram in too much.

Seeing a sorry lack of violists at the institute, I've also been cogitating about some team-building, viola power-ish stuff to do. I've got a lot of plans. It would be great to do an informal recital at a retirement community or group home, because music isn't just about playing for your parents, kids. I'd like to do a Viola Christmas. My ultimate goal is to host a Violarama/Viva la Viola/Violapalooza/what else could we name this thing? day. I sometimes get overwhelmed with all the things I feel like I should be doing, so much so that it can be paralyzing. Maybe this is a lesson for me too. Maybe I need to concentrate more on the small steps and not stress too much if my students are not all having magical musical experiences and playing the sunset every day.

It was great being at the Suzuki institute and seeing a very high level of student performance across every level, but it was also hard to reconcile this with my own teaching experience. I feel that my students are, for the most part, playing on a high level, but there are always challenges. I'm not in a situation where I've started everyone and they're well set up when they come to me. It's sometimes difficult getting everyone on board with regular practice, which is frustrating.  We got a chance to talk with one of the students and her family who graciously offered their time that week for us to observe her lessons. She was really a model student. Very conscientious, diligent, seemed interested. One of those kids who makes me think "Gee, what can I do to help my students be that excited about and accomplished at the violin/viola?" When speaking with her parents about finding time to practice, their answer was "Well, we homeschool."

To be fair, the Suzuki Method was created during a time when practically every family had a stay-at-home mom who could practice with her child. Is there a method for kids from single-parent homes who can't have a practice partner all the time? Are there more ways to foster independence and self-motivation for these kids? I was not one of these Suzuki kids, my parents didn't practice with me, and I didn't get lessons until late in the game (and actually, neither did Shinichi Suzuki), so how to you explain the success of people like me? Or, for that matter, all woodwind players, who can't start until age 8 and up to due to mouth development? I think that any method can become a liability if you're not careful. We can convince ourselves that we can socially engineer the perfect student through our own efforts as teachers, or through the efforts of a parent, when, in reality, there will always be kids who inexplicably hate the instrument, or just want to play soccer, or whose parent just don't have the time to practice with them every day. That reality is part of my ongoing journey as a teacher too.

I really appreciated that our teacher trainer was very balanced and realistic about how to work with different kinds of students, and we had a large chunk of time to discuss various issues in our teaching. The other members of the class were very open about their own issues in their studios, which was reassuring (what, I'm not the only person with students who forget their music all the time?). I feel like there should be some kind of teacher's support group in every town. Teaching can be strangely isolating, because I don't get much direct, outsider input on how I'm doing, and it's hard to see a student's slow progress over time. Wouldn't it be great if there were also courses for non-Suzuki teachers in how to teach, for example, the Solos for Young Violists book pieces, or how to teach shifting, or how to motivate students? I found a treasure-trove of resources at the last ASTA conference, so I know that there is professional development out there.

Anyway, I have two more weeks of teaching left for the summer session, and I'm stressing a bit trying to make sure my students are ready for their various youth orchestra and honors orchestra auditions. In the end, it's up to them to do the work, and I suppose it's good for me to practice the discipline of not rushing through materials, and taking the time to work in depth. I think society encourages a kind of busyness attitude that's fairly toxic to actual learning. That as long as we're doing things, we must be productive. But on reflecting more about when my students have their best lessons, they are usually more relaxed and focused on one or maybe two overall points. That's the goal anyway.

It's different when you build it

This has been a very busy, but rewarding week. One of those weeks where I'm eating a lot of PB&J for lunches, and granola bars for dinner because I'm working and gigging a lot and would rather practice than cook. This week I started 8(!) new students, all of whom I think I'm going to enjoy teaching. I don't know if I've gotten better at classroom/lesson management, or if the CMS has magical fairy dust that repels bratty kids and obnoxious parents, but I've lucked out in a big way with my studio. I was recently reminded of this at the beginning of the month when I had to say goodbye to two students who are moving out of state.

One of those students came to his first lesson two years ago and told me he wanted to play Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter. Now, this might not be obvious to those who aren't string players, but that's actually a fairly sophisticated song in terms of the left hand position. Where my beginning students all start with a stable hand frame and only play simple diatonic melodies, Hedwig's Theme is half-step city, and the fingers have to move all around to get the right notes. I gently told my student that this song would be a goal, and after looking at the part, figured out that he would have the skills to play it once he was past a certain song near the end of the book. This kid asked about the Harry Potter song all the time...for almost two years.  The last song he played from the Suzuki book was "Etude", so I decided he was ready for Harry Potter. I gave him the part at his second-to-last lesson and we finished learning it at his last lesson. Both he and I felt he had accomplished a goal he set for himself and it was a special moment. He also gave me this lovely handmade card, which is now on my fridge.

Perhaps the part that makes me happiest is that he got the note heads facing the right way. My work here is done.

As a teacher I work hard to set up a student to have a balanced posture, healthy sound, good bow hold, and reliable left hand position. Particularly with my younger students, there is a lot of detail work and nagging guidance. Then at a certain point, they come in and they've developed their own voice and opinions about how to play something, and they have a sound that's not necessarily my sound, but it's good. And I kind of sit back and say "Wow, when they first came in, they didn't know which hand to hold the bow with, and now they're making beautiful music, and I don't have to tell them anything." I wouldn't say that at this moment I feel a sense of personal pride or accomplishment for the work I've done (though I'm an effective teacher), because now these skills belong to the student, not to me. It is a very satisfying feeling, watching students take ownership of their playing and turn into thoughtful, engaged listeners.

I've been reflecting a lot on the past year, and on my future goals. When I moved to St. Louis almost two years ago with the now-hubs, I had no job, no students, and a few phone numbers to call. As of now, I have around 40 students, a regular string quartet, several periodic orchestra gigs I get called for, and a neat list of concerts I've performed in. I've been unbelievably lucky to meet people in the musical community here who were willing to help me get acclimated to the scene and I'm grateful to them for welcoming me. I have also worked a lot to make my own opportunities and get more students and gigs, and I'm happily getting busier and busier.

Our string quartet gave a concert on Tuesday, which was quite successful and fun and combined two of my most favorite things in this world: music and ice cream.

I drew this!

This is the first concert we've put on all by ourselves (we had previously played at the Tavern of Fine Arts, who promoted the concert a bit and made the programs for us). One of our violinists handled the ticketing online and we sold tickets at the door. I coordinated details with the church we played at, and promoted it heavily. We had over 45 people, which is awesome for a new unknown quartet playing on a weeknight. We didn't even know all of them! After the concert we provided ice cream bars and chatted with people, who were very sweet and expressed to us how much they had enjoyed the concert. I always love hearing that. With the constant cycle of practicing and rehearsing, it's easy to feel like I'm just playing for myself much of the time and it's great to hear from someone else that they enjoy the music too.

With the quartet too, which I helped to start, I feel like at a certain point things started to click and we fell into a rhythm of collaboration and mutual goals. And it's just a ton of fun. I LOVE string quartets. I mean, where else does the viola ever get the melody? Seriously. Right now, we're planning a lot of stuff for next year, which is exciting. Being part of the quartet feels different from when I played in per-service orchestras, because I helped to build the quartet and we each have ownership in its success. As much as a I enjoy orchestral playing and think orchestras are important cultural institutions, I understand that now that I'm not in the Erie Phil, they have easily found someone to take my place. It was slightly weird for me, too, that after playing in Erie and Binghamton for two years, I never met a single audience member. Who were these people? I have no idea. Why were they at the concert? Did they enjoy it? Did it make their day? Not a clue. Part of what I'm most interested in building is musical community. If we're playing music for people, we should maybe know the people. Or at least be interested in the people. Or say "hi" to the people. I know that most orchestras have some form of outreach, and maybe if I had stayed longer, that would have happened, but I wasn't exactly going to go up to a concert-goer in the parking lot and say "Hi! I play in the back of the viola section...No, not the violin...I was the one wearing black...Hope you enjoyed the show! Will you be my friend?" That's creepy.

When I was in college and grad school, it seemed that everyone's goal was either to get a lucrative and stable orchestra gig or win an international solo or chamber music competition. Although Eastman also emphasized entrepreneurship and unconventional career paths, we all took a ton of auditions and practiced excerpts constantly. I'm glad I did all that work, and it really improved my playing. Statistically it's impossible that everyone will win one of these auditions, but always felt it a slight source of shame and disappointment that I hadn't attained the golden trophy of an orchestra job. Not that I felt teaching was "settling", but I constantly worried that I wasn't living up to my supposed potential, and was a disappointment to my teachers. Now I feel differently, because I realized that some folks who do have those jobs aren't necessarily happier with their careers. Orchestra musicians have only middling job satisfaction rates among employees (behind prison wardens and flight attendants).

Now, I can't speak to individuals' experiences, and I have friends who are in full-time orchestras and having the time of their lives and are very satisfied. But there are also orchestras where misery and apathy seem to rule. I don't think this is because the musicians are lazy or don't care (or they wouldn't be there to begin with). I think part of the orchestral malaise may have to do with a lack of personal ownership and involvement in the organization. Yes, there's a musician's committee, but in any given year, one doesn't have much control over the music performed, the concert schedule, or practically anything else. You just show up and do your job. In the very short career I've had, I have played Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony SEVEN times. Now, I love that piece, but let's just say variety and new music is not standard in the orchestra world.

With the quartet and the private studio, I feel like I'm building something. I'm creating a supportive performing atmosphere and viola love for my students. I'm helping to provide reasonably-priced and enjoyable chamber music concerts to folks who might not schlep out the see the Symphony. I get to make decisions about what kind of projects I take on. I recently had a long chat with a talented student who wishes to major in music, and I tried to be both realistic and practical in that discussion but not scare them off with the realities of the profession. Truthfully, you never know where you'll end up with a music career. When I was 17 I wanted to be a public school music educator, but was crippled with shyness and insecurity and couldn't stand in front of a classroom, so I switched to music performance. Then I went to a top performance school for grad school and won some regional orchestra auditions. Now I mostly teach. I have no idea where I'll be 10 years from now, but I'm trying to enjoy the journey.

Adulting Things

This week, I'm on a bit of a break before the summer semester starts and I get to greet my 40 students again. I have a few students who had to take the summer off due to scheduling, but I gained 8(!) new students, many of whom are only on for the summer session, so this will be interesting. For now, I've been doing a lot of sleeping and catching up on cleaning and household tasks I had been putting off in the recent onslaught of recitals, rehearsals, and gigs. Feels nice to have a cleaner office and laundry done. Speaking of household chores:

I just finished reading Adulting: How to Become an Adult in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, which was a fun read. The author is a humorist, and her writing style is quirky and entertaining. In some sections, I was able to pat myself on the back: "I have a job and a business card!", "I know how to make small talk!", "I get regular oil changes!" Others were, um, enlightening, including pretty much the entire chapter on cleaning, which I plan to re-read.

As a child, I remember the concept of adulthood slightly horrifying. Anyone else feel that way? Perhaps as a side-effect of being an only child and naturally curious, I realized early on how stressed out my parents were, overhearing them talking to landlords, balancing checkbooks, and dealing with car issues. I had no desire to tear myself away from coloring books and naps in order to join their ranks. In one of the more reassuring conversations I had with my mom in middle school, she admitted that she never reached a point where she said she felt like an adult. "I don't know, I feel like the same person I always have." 

Similarly, I tend to feel that I'm never quite a grown-up. Maybe it's the fact that all of my relatives are taller than me. My mom is 6 feet tall and family doctors always projected that I, too, would be in the upper 98th percentile of height. I kept waiting for one last growth spurt which never happened, and at my current 5 foot 5 inches, felt cheated of the height that was rightfully mine as a Haig. One of my favorite things as a kid was when I would see shorter women ask my mom to get them something off of a top shelf at the Wal-Mart. She was like a helpful giant and I would beam with pride at her elusive-shoe-reaching superpowers. Needless to say, I'm not going to be providing that service to others. As my Stepdad is also tall, holiday visits often include at least one instance where I have to climb on a chair to reach the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard. Then, of course, I majored in an instrument that, for obvious reasons, attracts albatrosses. I was one of the shorter people in my studio at Eastman, and in most of the viola sections I've played in. It's hard to feel adult-like when I'm constantly looking up at people, including, now, many of my middle school students.

Speaking of my students, I don't have a job where I have to wear a blazer jacket. I always kind of thought I would wear a blazer jacket when I was a grown up. My mom wore a blazer jacket and she went to meetings. I go to meetings a few times a year, which usually include complaining about parking and jokes about reed knives. I wear business casual clothing to work in order to not be mistaken for a student,  but it's not like I would get fired for wearing jeans. I also don't go into work until 2pm most days. I do work at home during the day, but am I an adult if I could, technically, sleep until noon multiple days a week and nobody would be the wiser? I've had this discussion with my husband, who is technically not required to go into the office at all this summer, but is nonetheless slaving away at his research every day. I'd like a boss to report to now and again. Maybe even some T.P.S. reports as a confirmation of my entrance into the working world. 

Currently, I tend to kind of rate my personal level of maturity based on whatever is going on at the moment. It's like a mental point system, with more points for higher levels of adult responsibility and deductions for little fails. For example, about a month ago, I went to two different offices with 4 pieces of official paperwork in order to renew my license plates (Missouri has a penchant for useless red tape). As I did this first thing on a Monday morning, I feel that this task added around 100 points. I had even had to plan ahead of time to get the car inspected and keep all my documents in a little folder to avoid losing them. I was an adulthood VIP! Later in the week, I planned out the grocery shopping so I saved a ton of money at Aldi. Plus 30 points. However, in that same week, I ran out of socks due to a laundry planning oversight. Minus 40 points. Then I missed the recycling collection day and found a check I should have cashed a month ago. Minus 10 and 30 points.  So you see, adulthood is like entropy. I'm constantly fighting to do responsible things, running away from the event horizon on the black hole of mediocrity. Does the bi-daily morning workout offset the eating of my feelings in the evening? I'm compulsively organized when it comes to work duties. Does that offset the swirling chaos of my closet? These questions beg an answer. Or, if you'd rather relive your childhood memories, I found this video of 80's/early 90's kids t.v. shows. 

Busy vs. Productive

I am so unreasonably overjoyed about the weather. Around 80 degrees is pretty much perfect for me. I know many people call that "too hot", but for this Kentucky girl, the ideal room temperature point is where the air is giving me a humidity-filled hug.

Last weekend we took advantage and walked around Forest Park for a few hours, which was just exactly what I needed after a long week. Both the hubs and I are trying to be more intentional about setting aside "downtime" so we don't turn into cranky, caffeine-addled zombies. I think it's tough sometimes being a musician because we generally blur the line between work and lifestyle and fun. I generally look forward to practicing and I have been known to make viola arrangements for my students for fun, but I think it's still important to set aside "off-the-clock" time, to step off the hamster wheel of productivity for a while and recharge. And just about nothing is better than spending some time outdoors looking at pretty nature-y things.

I've been thinking a bit about my evolving work process lately. Back in college, and now in my moments of poor judgement, I would follow this work pattern, which I'll call the binge-and-purge model:

1. Work, study, and practice every waking moment, including during meals, with pretty much no breaks ever.

2. Feel unreasonably guilty when I inevitably waste time on Facebook or zone out.

3. Gradually begin to resent work.

4. Feel guilty about resenting work.

5. Work, study, practice more.

6. Eventually collapse into a coma-like state, only to be revived by 10 hours of sleep, a pint of Ben & Jerry's, and a Doctor Who Marathon.

OK, I'm exaggerating on that last one. Kind of. You see, I was using the binge and purge method of productivity. A similar, funnier example, from Hyperbole and a Half. I feel that the world encourages this model. How many times have we all been on Facebook and been greeted with the following status update:

"Coffee, practice, coach some students on their amazing and life-changing chamber music rehearsal, eat lunch in my car while on the way to a gig, more practice, teach all the students, playing a concert tonight. #blessed!"

I get exhausted just reading these things. Sure, I often have days like this and it can be fun doing a lot of things, but those aren't necessarily my most productive days. Sometimes I get more quality work done if I'm not worrying about whether I will have time to eat dinner.

Now I'm working more on this model:

1. Practice, teach, work, etc. Look logically at each day to figure out how I can get my optimal practice time in and fulfill my various obligations. Prioritize and try not to flip out if I don't get everything done on my to-do list. 

2. Look ahead to when I will have an opportunity to take some downtime, which is sometimes on the weekend, sometimes not, if I have a lot of gigs.

3. Plan a fun activity for when I'm done with the work. For example: on Saturday I will be done with my big practice tasks and boring e-mail tasks, and I will go to the library, take a walk, visit a museum, catch up with a friend, etc. Thus even if I'm having a tough week, there is a "light at the end of the tunnel", so to speak. 

4. Once I've taken, say a few hours or an afternoon off, I feel regenerated and refreshed, and excited to get back to work again.

I think of it like budgeting. On my budget, I get certain amount of discretionary income per month. If I don't blow it on lattes at the Starbucks located unfairly close to my my teaching studio, I can feel OK spending money on a CD or book I've been coveting. Similarly, if I keep my head down and work, I can "spend" my relaxation time however I want, guilt-free!

I need lots of reminders.

OK, this new system probably seems rather obvious to most people, but I find it's easier to say than to implement. There's always just "one more thing" as well as the nagging existential grief of not wanting to waste one's life with laziness and frivolity. It takes an especially type-A person to worry that an afternoon walk in the park is a slippery slope to personal and professional failure. But I'm working on it.

Tuesday is the new Saturday

I slept in until 10am this morning and it was amazing. I really never sleep in that late unless I'm sick, so I think the reason must have been the odd hours I've been working lately, coupled with the fact that it's approaching the end of the school semester. I've been trying to eat right and work out, which helps a LOT. Mooch is very encouraging of my wellness efforts.

Yes, she did lie there, two feet away from me the entire time I worked out.

I have a lot of gigs this month. This doesn't happen to me all that often, so I'm kind of excited that it seems I'm getting my name out there a bit, since I'm still pretty new into town. Between now and the middle of June, I have two concerts with the Illumine Ensemble, one string quartet concert, four concerts at the Fringe festival, and a wedding, for which I'm the contractor. Oy, it seems much worse once I actually write it down. I'm very grateful though, especially because all the music is good and it's not all weddings. If you haven't watched this video before, I believe it aptly sums up how I feel about people's choice of music for their weddings.


We played the first of the Illumine Ensemble concerts last week and it actually went even better than I expected. We were at the Missouri History Museum, and had created a show that went along with the museum's STL 250 exhibit. I was just super relieved that my PowerPoint went well. I find it pretty funny that I seem to be the most tech-savvy of our group (even though I really don't understand Windows 8). We're doing another show this Saturday at the Tavern.


 In an interesting twist, as I played my solo piece, there was an eccentric, possibly mentally unstable (?) person seated in the front row who did an interpretive dance in her seat the entire time I was playing. She apparently has some kind of record in Illinois for slashing people's tires, but seemed innocuous enough during the concert. Rather than being distracted or annoyed, I surprisingly found it to be kind of fun. I could see her in my peripheral vision, and it was interesting to see how she flapped her arms about in different parts of the piece, like the visualizer on iTunes. I think I've gotten better at rolling with the punches in performances. The oboist in our group actually knew her from other gigs she has done, and this woman apparently has the nickname "Dance of Life". I did a search and immediately found she has over 2,000 videos on YouTube, so has apparently been even busier than I have.

This past Sunday, I played a Schubert Mass on very short notice for a UCC church in Webster Groves. The choir and soloists sounded great, although the whole experience was a bit confusing. You see, when I've played masses before, it's in a Mass, and we play the Mass parts, you know, to go along with the Mass. But since this was a non-liturgical church, we just kind of played the whole thing in one go after the sermon and had awkward page turns. Also, at the very beginning of the service, it's their tradition to pass around these hand chime things and "ring into worship" (as their priest said), and since I didn't know this, and since the chimes were, let's say, less than diatonic, I turned to the second violinist at this point and said "Is that the tornado alert?" Oops, not very tactful, Eliana. The church folks were very friendly, even though it was clear I was being paid to be there, and I got some free and very good coffee.


I'm already thinking ahead to Sunday, when I will have one extra concert checked off of my list and actually have a full day off! How will I spend it? What wild and crazy things will I do? Last weekend, I finished sewing my very first skirt. Kind of weird fabric that I got for $3 a yard, but I think it fits pretty well. I'm going to do a much simpler project next. I don't even really like pencil skirts, but this was part of my craftsy.com class, and I learned a bunch of helpful skills by making it.

Summer Reading

I have many friends and colleagues who work in academia or are grad students, and I keep seeing these kinds of posts: "Only two papers left to grade before sweet freedom!" "Just need to make it to the end of the week, then I'm done!" "One class and a final before vacation!" Now I am happy for these people... deep inside ... I promise. I remember well the bleary-eyed, semi-comatose state I was in by the end of the semester, when everything in my life had somehow conspired to be due on exactly the same day. I get it.

But you see friends, my husband just finished grading his finals, and he won't teach another class until the end of August. I, on the other hand, have three weeks left, after which I have a week of make-up lessons, and then am pretty much back into my normal schedule, minus two students. Needless to say, I sometimes get a bit jealous of my friends who are on the academic schedule and either have months of time on their hands or are off to some picturesque summer festival, but when I pause to really consider, I wouldn't want the whole summer off. A couple of weeks and I'm desperate for a routine again. The hubs is staving off his own vacation restlessness by volunteering at the Animal Protective Association, the shelter where we got our wonderful cat, Mooch. Nothing takes the edge off trying to publish like visiting the puppy room.

So, I'm in the midst of planning for my student's final recitals, doing a lot of paperwork and admin-type stuff, and general multi-tasking that I won't bore you with. I've lately found myself in constant state of hyper-vigilance over all the stuff I have to do, and last night I had a nightmare that a bunch of people ate my pie (truly scary stuff). To keep myself happy and productive, I've been focusing on the most exciting part of the summer, which is, always and forever, my summer reading list. This year, I'm getting organized about it and anytime I see a book in a store or in the library that looks good, I snap a picture on my iPhone, and load it into Evernote. Did you know that Evernote can turn your photos into notes right in the app? I should have Evernote sponsor this blog, seriously.

Here are just a few of the books I'm interested in, snapped creepily at my local bookstores:

Some of these books, like Musicophilia, people have been telling me to read for years, and I haven't gotten around to it. Some were recommended on NPR, and I believe the Jim Henson biography needs no explanation, if you know how much I love the Muppets.

You may have noticed that they're all non-fiction. The hubs teases me that he's a fiction boy and he married a non-fiction girl. What am I reading now?
Goedel, Escher, Bach, a book about number theory, philosophy, and well, Bach. What did I just finish reading? The Confidence Gap, which seeks to understand the difference in confidence levels among women and men.


I don't know why I'm more drawn to non-fiction than fiction. I've tried fiction, and have loved many novels that I have read, but current events, popular science, and sociology just always catches my eye. I like learning about the world and stuff. I like reading stories that I know are basically factually accurate. I used to worry that my proclivity for realism made me dull or unimaginative, but now I figure, Hey, teaching 7 year old and playing the viola all day, I use my imagination all the time. Maybe in reading we escape into what is not situation normal for us.

So, my list stands at around 20 so far. Have I left anything out? Do you have any novels or short stories you think I might actually be interested in?

All The Feels

Wow, it has been a pretty eventful couple of weeks. Today is Derby Day! I'm from Louisville, Kentucky, so I grew up celebrating the derby as an official holiday. I believe we got Oaks day (the race of the female horses the Friday before derby) off from school, and I have fond memories of the chow wagons, the hats, and people turning into gambling and horse behavior experts overnight (*cough). On Derby day I get the uncontrollable urge to make a Derby pie, so that's what I'm doing today. Fun fact: the title "Derby Pie" is proprietary to this one baking company in Kentucky whose name escapes me, so if you see recipes for it elsewhere, it's referred to as "Kentucky Pecan Pie", "Race Day Pie", etc., but it's the same beautiful concoction of chocolate chips, pecans, and, of course, bourbon. If you would like to experience happiness, click here.

Last week my parents visited us in St. Louis, which was fun. And it happened to be a great time for me to cut back on practicing a bit because I was a total tree-pollen-histamine-zombie. I park on the street and have had to use the windshield wipers to get the yellow powder off my car every morning, so my allergies were going berserk last week, and I would wake every morning around 5:30am, when the pollen bloom tends to happen. We tried to show them our favorite places in St. Louis so far. I also ate my first cannoli EVER (I got diagnosed with celiac before I had tried one). There is an awesome bakery in the Delmar Loop that has them.

That's my mom with her GF Cannoli! They are really good, she just hates having her picture taken.

This week, I've been practicing for a gig coming up on Thursday at the Missouri History Museum and the following Saturday at the Tavern of Fine Arts. We are playing an interesting concert which ties in music with 250 years of St. Louis history. I'm playing Bright Sheng's "Stream Flows", AKA "Concert Etude in the Extreme Upper Register". OK, it's not really called that, but it should be.

I'm also continuing to work on the new Britten Suite, which has become my fun project lately. Each of the movements has a very specific character and complex variations within that character and no piano part to play off of. I find that I like to be very specific when I'm trying to decide what a piece is about. "Happy" or "Sad" doesn't cut it for me, so I found this handy list from a psychologist's website.

I don't think I've ever played a piece of music that I would describe as "lecherous" or "hungry", but a lot of the words help me get there. I've been thinking a lot lately about emotion in music. I can be very analysis-minded and focused on technique and one of the tricky things in music performance is to get beyond all that to figure out what the music is trying to express. It seems like there's an endless checklist of stuff to clean up in the actual playing, but it should, ultimately serve to tell a story or express a feeling or a picture.

My husband came up with a term that I like to use to describe a common ailment among classical musicians: music jocks. Music jocks all about fast, clean, and in tune. Now, don't get me wrong, those are all crucially important. But, I've been in chamber music rehearsals with these types of folks where we get everything lined up rhythmically, tune the chords like crazy (you have to do that a lot in string playing), and then they're like "Well, it sounds good. Maybe let's do some dynamics." But that's not musically satisfying. My teacher at Eastman used to say "In tune and in time. That's the beginning. Of course you have to have that. What do you do with the music then? That's what makes for a great performer."

Speaking of performances, I went to a fantastic recital last night at the Tavern of Fine Arts. The singer is actually a branch coordinator at the school I teach at on. I love voice recitals and I'm always impressed with how open and emotionally vulnerable singers are. I took voice lessons at Eastman for free for a semester as part of a pedagogy class and it was horrifying. I had to sing. In front of people. About feelings. And I didn't get to hide behind my viola. Singers often talk openly about the feelings and stories behind the songs they are singing, and don't seem to feel awkward about expressing extreme emotion on stage. It's part of their job, after all. Now, I'm not suggest that I do the kind of emoting that singers have to do, but it might be a good mindset to explore, even if internally.

Also at the recital, I got a free bookmark, which I'm excited about, because it has the names of the songs she did, so I can go look up the ones I didn't know before. Hooray!

Spring Things

I'm looking forward to Easter candy, which I've squirreled away for Sunday so I don't raid it now. And I'm looking forward to the weather getting warmer again. There were snow flurries while I was teaching on Monday and I died a little inside. Luckily we took advantage of the high of 75 or whatever it was last weekend, and went to the Botanical Gardens for the first time with our friends Juri and Ben from WashU. We definitely will be going back. Of course, the musicians had to stop by and play with the bell sculpture.

This has been/is continuing to be/will be a slightly crazy week. Not super crazy, just slightly crazy. And as a freelancer, whenever this tends to happen, I can hear this little voice, like a demonic Tinkerbell saying "You did this to yourseeeelf, Eliana..." I'm playing for two Easter Masses this weekend (one of which is the vigil that lasts 2+ hours), because our church's organist is impossible to say no to, and very sweet.

But, I got an exciting delivery in the mail on Monday: the new sheet music of Britten's 3 suites for solo cello arranged for viola by Nobuko Imai. I'm thinking of sending in a tape for a competition where this is a required piece, because, hey why not? Also, since I'm not interested in taking more auditions for a while, this will be a good goal. I'm very goal-centric. Maybe it's because I'm super-type A, but if I don't have any pressing obligations coming up, I start to experience a lingering sense of enui, which, if I'm really not busy, can spiral into a minor existential crisis. Those are both links to cat videos, by the way.

I have a system for practicing music that I have to say has enabled me to calm down a bit and enjoy the process, while feeling more prepared. I'm sharing because I'm curious what system others use to learn music, and I'm constantly trying to fine-tune and improve my productivity. I find practice kind of fascinating, as you can tell.

For the Britten, I had to wait 10 days for the part to arrive in the mail, since it's very new (November 2013) and only being printed in the U.K. Since I didn't have access to a part, I spent a lot of time that week listening to the piece every day. I even made a few "listening maps" because it helped me to listen actively and figure out the structure away from the score. Knowing that I am planing for a recital in September, I planned backwards starting in September and figured out when I would need to have each part of the pieces ready. I'm pretty detailed, so that took about an hour. Since I've gotten the part, this week is devoted to the unending tedium of deciding on fingerings.  Next week, I will make a square bracket around all the hardest parts, and practice those first, with the goal being that I make a ton of decisions, mark out the bow distribution, figure out the shifts, link notes, etc. I basically want nothing to be vague or left to chance. Even if I end up making a lot of changes, I think this is still a better approach, because I spend less time in that wishy-washy uncommitted stage.

For a piece this length, it will take a couple of weeks to memorize the square brackets, but after that I will focus on the circle brackets, the second-hardest parts. After that, the remaining parts will be pretty much sight-readable. The more fun part of this process, is I get to decide on structure, phrasing, and musical meaning, which I also try to settle on early. Here is a cool video from CelloBello about the importance of figuring out what the music is saying early on.

The beginning stages of learning a new piece are always a little frustrating, but I'm super excited about this piece. I love stealing repertoire from the cello and violin. Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of the viola repertoire, and it just keeps getting better with new composers writing for it. Thinking of playing this piece by Shulamit Ran sometime. But some of our pieces are...eh? Hoffmeister Concerto, Stamitz Concerto, some other pieces I could do without. We're lucky that we can easily transpose pieces both from the violin and the cello!

On Giving it Away for Free

I have a lot of goals and a lot of projects coming up after Easter. I'm almost finished designing an interactive educational concert for the Missouri History Museum, which should be fun. I made a PowerPoint (which I finally taught myself to do and it's so damn easy I'm kicking myself for not learning it earlier) and I need to send out e-mails and such to promote it. I've got my student's studio recital in June, and I'd like them to play a viola ensemble piece, because I think my violists would all get along and I think community in learning is important. I'm arranging some things for my younger viola students, using MuseScore (It's Sibelius, but free!). The quartet is planning some concerts in June and August, which will be awesome, but again, will involve a bit more planning, learning new parts, and promoting.

I've started using a system called "Getting Things Done". Here's a brief explanation. I've always used a planner and been pretty religious about writing things down, but this has it down to a science and I've found it pretty helpful. I've also recently started using Evernote instead of Google Drive, to better keep track of all the random cool teaching and performing stuff I find online.

Basically, I can tend to overdo it with being a hyperactive productivity hamster and end the week grumpy and incoherent. This week has been especially busy, which is disconcerting because I still have 6 weeks left in the semester, and it's just going to get worse. But, I'm feeling pretty OK, since it's all really great stuff. Lots of viola-playing and practicing, orchestra, chamber music, some of my students are really turning a corner with their playing. It's all very satisfying.

Also helpful in maintaining my personal sanity has been setting better boundaries. I used to be a pushover and made up people's lessons when they missed. Last week I had to respond to an email from a parent where she asked for a makeup lesson because she had overheard another teacher offering a makeup for when the student was sick. Sigh. In the past I might have felt guilty, because my student's family had recently experienced a death in the family, hence the missed lesson. But as I invest more in my teaching, I've been able to assert that my time is important. I sent them this great article about the economics of make-up lessons. I think pretty much everyone who is a private teacher has already read this article, but if you haven't, do it. I don't teach makeup lessons for student absences because to do so would be essentially working for free, since I'd be doubling up on my time. I know some people are more flexible, and given the right situation this can work, but I personally don't do makeups.

In general, I think offering makeups devalues our product for our client, the student and their parents. It suggests that our time is not valuable or that we have no obligations beyond that one student. It puts us one step closer to the role of a babysitter, who may come whenever it's convenient for the parent. And, as I do spend some of my "off-the-clock" time preparing resources for my students, offering makeups takes away from the quality of my teaching.

This week, I also had to turn down playing a free gig "that might help us to promote our other concerts". Nope. In general, I don't believe in giving it away for free, and I sometimes get annoyed that it's even regularly on the table. When I contract other players for a gig, the second sentence in my e-mail is "pay is $n". If I ever suggest people play for free, or under union rate, I make it very clear that I don't expect them to agree if they're not comfortable with accepting that level of pay. Again, I think we, as musicians, need to set expectations for our audience and community members. If we can't expect that for an hour of our hard work performing and bringing music to life, we should be payed half of what a plumber would make in that time, how can we expect people to respect and support the arts? I do play some concerts that are not payed by the audience, but by the venue, in the case of educational concerts, but the audience probably understands that their tax dollars are indirectly contributing to those programs so they take value from the institution.

Being a performing musician, really just starting my career, there is a lot to be said for volunteering to help out, networking, getting your name out there, but I don't think that usually has to involve playing or working for free. I also think that, by setting a precedent that playing for free is OK, it can become an excuse not to work to find sources of revenue that are available. Though the economy is still recovering, I believe there is a space for the arts, and we need to be creative an assertive in getting paid for what we do. If we don't work to earn money, it can eventually devalue our own experience. Because our work is not valued from a monetary standpoint, it loses a sense of importance and worth.

Just a couple of random thoughts on how we musicians make the cash-monies. It's Easter weekend, yay! Ironically, I'm playing two Masses for free, as a favor to our lovely church organist, Dawn, who played our wedding. I'd like to state here that I only play for free when it's for Jesus :-)

Pretty much what happens when I practice. I love how St Francis seems to be covering his ear and turning away as if to say "Oh, not that one again. Can't you play something else?".

ICE Concert, Ice Cream, and Other Food Stuffs

Well, last week was eventful. Two local tornadoes in about 17 hours. One of them an EF1 that leveled 5 houses about 2 miles from us. I did finally buy a NOAA weather radio at 3pm on Friday, but didn't get home in time to install it before the next tornado siren went off. We're still getting used to the tornado reality here. Not something one encounter in New York, and I'm sure it spooks me more than people who have lived here all their lives.

Last Friday, I went to an awesome concert of ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble) at the Pulitzer Art Gallery. I definitely want to visit the Pulitzer again, and I'm bummed they don't allow pictures, but New Music Circle, who presented the concert, took a few crowd photos:

The performer is at the bottom disassembling her flute in a "fluxus" performance art piece. We're in the middle.

ICE did a pretty wide variety of pieces, but my favorite was a solo flute piece which utilized a microphone and speakers that would put certain parts on a delay. There was a lot of extended technique and the overall effect, made particularly vivid by the performing space, was of being in a massive cavern or cathedral, with the sound just bouncing and resounding from every surface. It really created a new sound world that I was happy to inhabit for a bit. We went out for ice cream after with our friends Hannah and Juri. I'd never been to the Fountain on Locust before and OH MY GOSH. Best ice cream sundae ever. I want to go back and try all the flavors!

On Saturday I baked the best banana bread ever, thanks to Martha Stewart. Recipe here (I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Flour and added a bit of xanthan gum to keep it together. In the future I may add a bit more baking soda, since it was pretty dense due to the GF flour). Then I went to the Aldi down the street. I don't know why it has taken me so long to get down there, but I haven't actually been to an Aldi since I lived in Austria where they were fairly ubiquitous. I think I will start to do more of our shopping there because:

 -It's very cheap, as in 45% cheaper than Schnucks for some products
- They have basically all the staple foods I need, a lot of organics, and even Fair Trade Coffee!
- The store has a smaller footprint, so I got in and out faster.
- Aldi is apparently a very good employer, paying their employees a living wage, and I'd like to support that kind of behavior with my cash monies, in the same way that I avoid Sam's Club and choose Costco.

Before going, I read a helpful article on saving money at Aldi, which you can find here.

Saving money is kind of a hobby, borne out partially from being a grad student for way too long, and partially from being the child of very cheap Scottish people. Sorry, I'm only half Scottish, and really don't have any ties to the country, so at this point, after 100 years of living in America, our family has only cultural stereotypes and the annual drag-your-kid-to-the-Scottish-Games to go off of. All I know, is my grandfather would go into neutral going down a hill to save gas, and my great aunt hung tea bags on the line to dry out so she could re-use them. Cheapness is apparently in the blood and I get abnormally excited about saving money on canned goods.

I have been doing a lot of practicing and starting a lot of new projects, which had me pretty beat last week, so it was nice to get out and have some diversions. I'll write about my new projects later. Now it's back to work.

Playing in Bass Clef and Adventures With Fat Cat

This past weekend just flew by (and the next three days apparently, as I'm finally finishing this up on Wednesday). I was seriously exhausted from teaching and other general business by Friday night, so the hubs and I went to the library, got frozen yogurt, and watched Hitchhikers' Guide (the movie). If you don't know about Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, it's a kooky classic science fiction book which was made into a popular radio broadcast by BBC. I read the books (it's a trilogy), while spending a year in Graz, Austria. These particular books are somewhat surreal and off-the-wall, and in hindsight were especially appropriate as I navigated another culture with my limited German skills. The movie was fairly true to the book, if short, and was a similarly meandering, bizarre journey. It was fun to see these song lyrics from the book finally set to music:

 

 

Saturday I spent the morning at a follow-up appointment with the vet for our lovely cat, Mooch. I was all proud because we've been more careful about not over-feeding her, but apparently she still needs to lose a pound. I should have known when I walked into the waiting room and an older gentlemen holding a German Shepherd remarked "Wow, that's a biiiiiig kitty!" I tend to get a little overly-defensive about such comments, and the subsequent remarks about Mooch's "fat pelts" from our vet didn't help. Sigh. Mooch was a surprisingly good sport about all of it and even camped out in my viola case after we got home. As soon as I started to tune, she beat it out of there, of course.

 

 

In the evening I got to see my friend and string quartet-mate, Manuela's violin recital, which was great. She played Brahms' 1st violin sonata, one of the few pieces that makes me truly jealous of violinists. She also played a violin-piano arrangement of Bartok's Romanian Dances, which I've played in orchestra several times and is one of my favorite pieces of all time. We got to chat with some people we knew (it was at the Tavern of Fine Arts) and eat some yummy food. I should see more live concerts. Manuela has a beautiful left hand facility that made me want to bust out the Sevcik.


Sunday I had one of the more interesting gigs I've ever played. I got a call last week from someone needing a violist last-minute for a flute quartet concert at a nursing home for retired priests.  In addition to classical music, the priests had requested popular music and show tunes. What I wasn't anticipating was that there were almost no actual viola parts for the entire hour-and-a-half concert, and that I would be reading from piano parts, usually the top notes in the left hand (in bass clef) and sometimes having to switch in between bass and treble clef to make sure all the parts were covered. Of course I can read in bass clef, but it's a little different when playing in a clef which is not one of the two that violists regularly play in, and given that I was sight-reading at the gig, it was actually quite stressful. For one of the two songs where I was given a viola part, I had a deer-in-the-headlights moment of not being able to read in 1st position on the D string. Oy.

The audience was fantastic and consisted of retired priests, some family members, and a whole group of sisters from down the street, who chatted excitedly in a group like teenagers at a Beatles concert. We played a number of hymns to which they happily sang along, the lyrics long since memorized, and afterwards they were very appreciative and sweet. I even got an unsolicited blessing! Can't say that about every gig I play. Although I was kind of in survival mode, and we hadn't all even met each other before the concert, people really seemed to appreciate the music and that we were able to brighten their day. Living in my world of practicing and rehearsing and teaching, it's very easy for me to think of music as something I just sort of do. It's my day job, and not really consider how music can make people feel or how it can enhance people's lives in a meaningful way. It was very special to have people share their reactions so openly. I think it's important for musicians to know their audience and the community that values music. And not just because having that relationship is vital to the enduring existence of our art, but I think it's good for musicians. It's easy to get discouraged in the daily practice drudgery and variable paychecks and to lose the sense that we're not just playing for ourselves.

Spring has finally (kind of) sprung here! My downstairs neighbors planted flowers, which I get to enjoy. Since taking this picture, of course, there was a downpour that included lots of hail 1-inch wide. Oh, St. Louis weather...