Category Random Musical Encounters
The 11 Year Old Pianist
“Hey E, you know I play the violin?” “No, I didn’t.” “I know you play the piano.” “Yeah.” “For how long?” “About 8 years.” “Wow!” “Yeah.” “I hear you’re pretty good. Did you start with Suzuki or Yamaha?” “When I started I just had this little red piano.” (smiling and gesturing about 18 inches with […]
A Musical Independence Day
As I lay in bed yesterday morning prior to getting up, I started thinking about music representative of American Independence Day, and immediately John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever popped into my head. When I overcame the inertia of the bed, I grabbed coffee and made my way to the internet, where Google’s Independence […]
Self-Confidence? Ego?
A colleague and I led a discussion last night on reconciling the concept of self-confidence with the Buddhist notion of anatta, or “no-self.” Most of us, it’s safe to say, value self-confidence on some level, and those of us who’ve been lucky enough to come across some of the ideas embedded in Buddhism tend to […]
Musical Kata and Maya Angelou
Last weekend we wrapped up a big fundraiser for my school, and part of it was a karate demonstration/performance. For one piece, a group of us worked up the below synchronized musical kata (simulated battle), choreographed by my friend as a tribute to the late poet Maya Angelou. In it, our moves and James Newton […]
Racing Music
Yesterday morning at 7:30 am I was standing toward the front of a pack of about 750 people in the middle of Sheridan Road at Lincoln St. in Evanston, the nearest north suburb of Chicago. We were all raring to run the 15th Annual Ricky Byrdsong Memorial Race Against Hate, scheduled to go at any […]
Jam of the Day
I have a friend who, for a very long time, sent out an e-mail every day with a little write-up of a song and a link to its video. It went on for years – he called it “Jam of the Day,” and we subscribers were “Jammers.” I signed up for his musical daily the […]
Precious Cargo
A friend on Facebook linked to a CNN story about Zachary De Pue, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster, who refused to check his 1757 Gagliano violin into a US Airways plane’s cargo hold for a quick jump to Fayetteville. What did De Pue do? Why, a tarmac recital, of course: Turns out De Pue is right on the […]
The Limitations of Da Da
So now that I’m playing songs that I recognize, I’ve tried to tell people about them with mixed success. These are not tunes that are known by their titles – Minuet 3 and Happy Farmer mean nothing to anybody except those of us who have played through Suzuki Book 1! I do not have the […]
Impact
As I stepped out to drop the trash down the chute yesterday afternoon I ran into our neighbor across the hall, a generally nice veteran in his 80s who of course mentioned my violin playing. He has complained to me before about noises on our floor, so I know he can be a bit sensitive […]
Joyful Noise
About a block and a half from my condo there’s a tiny little one room church that rents space out of a building that also houses a convenience store and a hair salon. Sometimes I go on a little walk on Sunday mornings, and I often see people entering the church – smiling young families […]
Ryan Libel 