Author Archives: Ryan Libel
Day of Rest and Beauty
I think of Mondays as my day of rest. I have a Sun/Mon weekend as a rule, so Michael and I spend Sundays together – Monday is my day to myself. I always play the violin, typically for a good while. Yesterday I played twice – once for an hour and a half in the […]
The Minors
In yesterday’s lesson we made it through to the end of the final piece in Book Three. This Bach Bourree is beautiful, but it will take me a few more weeks to get it up to snuff. Bourree Two (the piece is two back to back Bourrees) is a minor variation on Bourree One – […]
The Pros and Me
Last night Michael asked me, in the sweetest way possible, what it is that Teacher and (since we were listening to the Suzuki CD) folks like William Preucils do that I can’t do that makes their playing sound so good. My immediate reply, conjuring the unsupported-by-research figure of Malcolm Gladwell, was, “Thousands of hours of […]
Perfection: The Enemy of the Good
I practiced yesterday, but only for about 45 minutes. My long day at work kept me from it until after 7 pm, so I decided to play for a few minutes while Michael was making dinner. I’m not much into playing after 8 pm – it seems that the earlier in the day I play […]
Book Four
Suzuki Book Four arrived yesterday – I ripped the CD into iTunes but have yet to listen. I hope to get to that tonight after I get home from a long day at work. The book opens with some tonalization exercises, including the well-known Brahms Lullaby, which looks totally approachable. Teacher hasn’t spent a lot […]
To Shun the Heaven?
I have listened to Rufus Wainwright’s new album all the way through just once – on Monday as I ran on the lakefront. While not giddy with anticipation, I have been interested to see what the singer/songwriter came up with on this occasion of the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death; the album, released a […]
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
The legendary megastar Prince left us behind yesterday, as he so often did with his groundbreaking, extraordinarily prolific career in music. He was a true revolutionary, one of the musicians who defined Pop, while at the same time infusing our hyper-produced recording scene with a refreshing blend of authentic, innovative, artistic and beautiful music – […]
Bach’s Cello Suite #3
The Bach Cello Suites are some of the most well-known and loved compositions for cello ever written. Though composed prior to 1720 (the provenance is not as great as most of Bach’s work), their popularity is a decidedly 20th century innovation – we owe their existence in the modern cello canon to Pablo Casals. While […]
The Chicago Community Chorus
Chicago has a number of community choirs – I’ve written before about experiences with a couple of them over the years, most of which are organized for and by people who just love to sing; many take up donations for some charity or another. Last night I had the pleasure of attending a performance of […]
Ryan Libel 