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 […]
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 – […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 – […]
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 […]
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 