Monthly Archives: October 2014
Musical Me: An Anniversary
One year ago today I started Musical Me. It was a Monday, a normal day off for me, and I remember sitting on the couch pining over the loss of our cat Mischka, which had occurred just over a week before. I was also bored, and trying to come up with something to write about. […]
Nostalgia and Ignorance
The CDs I ordered from my 20th high school reunion (which I did not attend) came last week. As I listened to them yesterday morning, I knew every single song. For some it took me a moment to remember, for several I had to look up the artist. But there they are, every single one […]
Paganini Will Wait
Last week I posted about Paganini being next. He is – The Witch’s Dance is the next song in Book 2, and I am itching to get going with him. In Wednesday’s lesson Teacher asked me if I was ready to move on or if I wanted another week with The Two Grenadiers. I was […]
Closing the Book on the Lipinski Heist
Earlier in the year I wrote about the theft of the Lipinski Stradivarius, currently on loan to Frank Almond of the Milwaukee Symphony. The instrument was recovered and the responsible parties identified as Universal Knowledge Allah and Salah Salahadyn, previously reported as Salah Ibn Jones. Allah was sentenced earlier in the year to 3 ½ […]
Lear and Sinatra
King Lear has long been my favorite Shakespeare – I love a raging family drama. The Barbara Gaines production of Lear at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre last night conjured others – Eugene O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, Anton Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin […]
Mutes
I mentioned a mute to Teacher in my last lesson and she pulled a couple out of her case for me to try on. One was a practice mute – a piece of molded rubber that’s available on the cheap. It slips over the bridge, and when I played with it I was quite surprised […]
Paganini Is Next
In yesterday’s lesson I made it through the rest of Schumann’s The Two Grenadiers, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s the first piece I’ve learned that contains a key change – the song (and yes, it’s really a song) starts in D minor and changes to D major a little over halfway through. D […]
Ryan Libel 