Monthly Archives: May 2015
Heart Harps and Public Spaces
Pause is a project in San Francisco that seeks to create innovative public spaces. The Exploratorium, a science museum in the city, is responsible for the installation we happened upon during our visit last weekend, at the intersection of Market and Yerba Buena. It’s a two-piece sound-based installation that requires its viewers to participate – […]
A Milestone
My memories from when I played the violin as a child are limited and specious – I very much wish my recollections of those third through sixth grade years were stronger. But one thing that sticks well in the brains of humans is anticipation, and as a youngster, I definitely remember anticipating this important thing […]
That Was Some Break
I’ve been traveling with friends, so my last post was 6 days ago. I also haven’t played since last Wednesday’s lesson, when Teacher left with my bow to take it in for re-hairing and repairing. We returned to Chicago Monday night, so yesterday morning before work I headed out to the suburbs to get the […]
Hardware Update
Teacher was heading out to the burbs to see the luthier yesterday, and she generously offered to take my bow along. I’m so grateful – it saves me a trip out there! I needed to get the grip re-wound, as the leather has deteriorated with age and is splitting. The wire wrapping is also starting […]
The Minnesota Orchestra Goes to Havana
I’m thrilled this week to be reading of a special tour The Minnesota Orchestra is currently undertaking. The ensemble has, as of yesterday, become the first American symphony to travel to Cuba since the lifting of the travel ban recently. I have always loved goodwill diplomacy of the type musicians and athletes are sometimes able […]
What’s an Octave?
An octave is an interval in music. The concept forms the basis of Western music’s notation – A B C D E F G A – 8 notes. In this example, A and A are an octave apart. Though we don’t know which “As” I’ve specified, we can know that, if written in ascending order, […]
Dinner Music
Very few restaurants provide dinner music – I’m not sure if it used to be more common or not. While music can be loud, and one of my complaints about restaurants can be ambient noise levels that make conversation difficult, I enjoy the presence of live music when it’s done well. Last night after a […]
Musical ABCs
We started in on the Progressive Scales book yesterday – a book by Linda Rose that’s all about teaching Music Proper. I had already started reading it – the book opens with a description of all of the scales, majors, minors, relatives, melodic, harmonic, natural (apparently some are considered enharmonic) – it’s all a bit […]
Practice Notes
The postural changes I worked on in the lesson last Wednesday have done a number on my ability to be in tune. Keeping the shoulder rest at the new angle brings the violin forward a bit for me, impacting the angle at which my hand approaches the strings. So I have to figure that out […]
Ryan Libel 