Author Archives: Ryan Libel
Minors, Movement, and Mutes
I’m working on a new etude, a largo piece from the Wohlfahrt book in A minor. In addition to being my first A minor piece, Teacher brought it out because it will help me practice my bowing angles, which have been giving me fits. Long, slow bows are what the piece is about, and that’s […]
Spymonkey’s Deaths
A four-piece band – bass and tenor sax, trumpet, and drum – struck up a New Orleans procession-style dirge “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” the tone at once celebratory and sad. A graveside marker, faux floral in cheap white nylon, descended from the rafters and bore the name of the departed, “Fly.” The insect’s […]
Composing While Female
Recently I went to a performance of the Chicago Sinfonietta, an organization that was created in the 1980s to inject some diversity into the classical music scene in Chicago. While I’ve long wished that the world of the music I love best were more representative of the breadth of humanity and applaud intentional efforts to […]
Time and Angles
When I started playing over three years ago, my practice sessions wouldn’t last more than 45 minutes, but as the months went by I started to increase my practice time. I worked up to days when I kept it up for over two hours. But then in July of 2015, I had a pretty significant […]
Violin Dreaming
This morning I broke free from one of those odd dream worlds that can appear when crossing over from sleeping to waking. The dream was about the violin – not about playing the violin, but just a strange little scene with the instrument itself. It was unsettling – I generally don’t remember dreams. Upon returning […]
Happy Wreathing
The 25th annual wreathing of the famous Art Institute of Chicago lions, apparently a holiday tradition for some, was a chilly spectacle yesterday morning. At 10 am on Black Friday, hundreds gather on the steps and sidewalks in front of the Art Institute to participate in the annual rite. Until this year, I had never […]
Practice, and Thanksgiving
I had my first lesson in the new place this past week, but the room where I will likely land to play permanently, a sunny corner of the dining room, is currently our staging area and the only remaining room that’s encumbered by boxes. Instead, I set up for our lesson in a corner of […]
Sountrack for a Revolution
Yesterday my organization held a screening of the great PBS film Sountrack for a Revolution, which documents the music of the civil rights movement in the American 1960s. It’s produced by Danny Glover and features many civil rights activists telling their stories of nonviolent protest in service of an end to racial discrimination. I am […]
Moving and Winter
My playing has suffered as settling into the new place has taken precedence. I did practice for a bit one of the first nights we were here, last Saturday – it was lovely to stroll around our empty new place and play the violin. But since then, the movers came and went and we’ve been […]
Ryan Libel 