Unfunny

I would write about the hilarity of the Living Christmas Tree gig, but I'm really not in a funny mood, so it'll have to wait.

Probably not worth reading

Let's face it, nothing much interesting happened today.

I've been listening to Weezer's Maladroit recently. When I first heard this album I really hated it, but then, wasn't that the situation with Pinkerton?

I looked up some stuff on fancy music schools the other day and was amazed to see all of the big names that teach at these places. I suppose that's great an all, but learning to play viola is really becomes a journey of self-discovery at a certain point, so it makes you wonder how far a really, really great teacher can take you if you're not going involve yourself? I don't know that that made much sense, but I really don't care.

I donate blood on Monday. That's exciting.

Atmosphere

I've been thinking about atmosphere lately. Mostly how it fits into musical performance and such, but I was in awe at the atmosphere at Cobby's Deli today. I've never been to Cobby's before, but my dad was paying for lunch today, so I went nuts. It got a fantastic meatball sub, but the best part was the atmosphere the the shop, I call it a shop because "restaurant" and "fast-food" don't suite this place as I saw it. The wood floors and walls, the high counter so that you couldn't see all the carefully sanitized unprepared food, and the cash register, hidden off to the side, giving you full social disclosure the person running it. Trash cans were artfully hidden so that you knew where they were, but could only see them if you looked. I would love to work at a place like this... for about a day, then I'd hate it.

Anyway, atmosphere in performing is, I think, incredibly important to creating a great performance. Some of the best performers are able to whip you up in the music so that the sterile scientific perfections of the music hall melt away and your environment becomes the music. Barring that ability, some performers will add nice ambiance such as plants and... I dunno, persian rugs to the performance in an attempt to give it a kind of atmosphere, but what I want to be able to do with music is to reach out and pull people out of the concert hall and into the story of the Walton Viola Concerto. That would be lovely.

Atmospheres that should not be propagated include the one that I'm apparently playing at this Friday and Sunday. That is to say, The Living Christmas Tree. Now, I have never personally played this gig, but I've heard horror stories. The good news is, I don't have to rely on anybody but myself to take on this gig, as there are no rehearsals I'm aware of. That was, by the way, a shameless shot across the bow of my remarkably sketchy quartet. One of them confided in me yesterday that she wasn't going to take Chamber next semester. I suspect she did this because she assumed that I was fed up with quartet as well, but the fact of the matter is, I love quartets and I love playing in them, I just despise the people in this quartet. Maybe if I'm lucky they'll all give up and Mr. Purdy will have no choice but to place me in a non-sketchy quartet. Oh, or maybe some Dvorak Quintet w/2 violas action will be happening! I only wish...

I've finished all of those papers I should have done over break, so that's pretty exciting. Maybe now I can focus my attention to activities that interest me more, like making friends and fixing my bow arm.

Nothing

This Tuesday when I see Linda for my lesson she will ask me what I did over my Fall break. I may or may not pause the think, but the answer will be "Nothing". Because really, I didn't do anything over the break. How lame is that?

Today I went in to work and was not surprised to discover that my boss had already left. Not so easily deterred, I called him and asked about my raise. It's supposed to be on the next paycheck, but that's how things have been for the past month or so. Seriously considering not showing up for work on Saturday if paycheck on Friday is not satisfactory. Mostly just sick of all the crap I'm getting from that place.

John Williams Viola Concerto

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!

This is pretty exciting. I love John Williams' music, it's just so exciting. I don't know that it's fun to play, as I've only ever played lame High School arrangements of his popular movie music, but I once heard Yo-Yo Ma playing some of his stuff (on a CD) and that was cool. Besides, it's another addition to the viola repertoire, how can I complain?

I went to observe my group of D&D players again today and should be writing the ethnography now. Maybe it's not really as bad as I though. I dunno, maybe I'll post my ethnography up here, but I doubt it. Right now I just want some cheese and crackers. We got some Wheat Thins with dried tomato and basil seasoning recently and I've been gobbling those down with sharp cheddar and apple juice!

Tomorrow I'm going to gather my resolve and demand respect from my boss! Just kidding, I'll probably crumple and just go about business as usual. Gah! Some people at my job just drive me insane.

Musings on bad playing and Bach (J.S.)

My brother is playing the violin in the middle school orchestra. He's practicing downstairs right now. I don't really have a problem with him practicing, but does he have to do it in the one place where to the sound projects throughout the entire household? He's playing one of those poorly done renditions of famous tunes from a book. I think it's something from The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky is pretty awesome, but this is murder.

For Christmas I'm getting my professor Scott Slapin's recording of the Bach Solo Sonatas and Partitas on Viola... that's right! None of this violin stuff, it's all hardcore solo viola! You can read all about it on his web site, but I think it's refreshing to see works not originally intended for viola being played in that context. If you think about it, back in the Middle Ages there was really no indication of what instrument should play what part, it was all about whatever was handy. While there are plenty of pieces that are clearly meant for one instrument or another, there's not reason why it can't be played in another context. If that makes any sense. Bach is important to us violists, though. I mean, we pretty much base our entire existence off of some sketchy quote by one of his sons who alludes to Bach's favorite instrument being the viola. It's kind of sad how people sometimes forget the good music is still being composed today.

My brother's still practicing. I wonder how string teachers, or really just about any music teacher, can stand listening to this all day. It must mutilate your soul to lie and tell these kids they're doing well. I wonder if the truth would be any better?

Lame

I wasn't supposed to work today, but I ended up getting called in. This doesn't happen frequently, but it usually happens in such a way as to ruin my entire day. For instance, I was going to do enormous amounts of practicing today, change my oil, and... ok, so that's it. However, I was totally unable to change my oil and by the time I got home I was so pathetically tired that I only got a miserable half-an-hour of practice in. Lame!

Getting called in to work should go something like this:

My Boss: Nick, we really need you down here! We're dying without you!
Me: Well, ok. But what about that raise I was supposed to get a month ago? And didn't I tell you that I could work all week even though you only gave me 9 hours this week? And didn't you say that there just weren't enough hours to go around? And didn't you give all of this weeks hours to the two people who bitch about having to work lots of hours every other week? But once we get these things sorted out, sure I'll come in.

It actually turned out like this:

My Boss: Nick, do you think you could come in and help us with lunch?
Me: Sure, I'll be down in a few minutes.

Lame.

I also went to the Capitol High benefit concert tonight. It was pretty cool, the first two orchestras (because Capitol has 3!!) were mediocre, but the Chamber Orchestra was exactly the kind of kickass orchestra I wish I had in high school. I ran into my old HS director there too. She's the second worst conductor I've ever worked under, Peter Covino holds the honor of the first. Craig Purdy, my current conductor down at BSU, was the guest artist. He played some flashy double concerto thing with one of his students. It was pretty awesome, but possessed little musical merit as it was mostly all about showing off. But that's ok. Mr. Purdy is the best conductor I've ever had... in my broad expanse of conductors <---- Sarcasm.

Being lonely sucks.

lame

Comments and Visitors

Oh!! I have a visitor from Florida! This is exciting because I was born in Florida. That's about it though.

Now, it seems as though I have at least four consistent visitors, so how come nobody leaves comments? Comment on this post to tell me why you don't comment!

I'll start, I don't comment because commenting on my own posts would be redundant.

Ok... GO!

Badass

In order to add quality to my blog, I've included a picture of a serious badass below.

If you're still alive after seeing something that awesome, congratulations! This is Eric Ruske, he plays Horn, he played a Mozart Horn Concerto with the Philharmonic recently, it was probably the best performance I'll ever see.

It wasn't great because of the technical skill with which Eric handled the horn though, although that was awesome too. It was awesome because of the ease with which my buddy Eric sat up on stage and enjoyed the performance. And that meant that you should enjoy it too! Or else! Apparently Eric started playing the horn in middle school band after all the trumpets had been taken and this was the last instrument left. That it totally how I want to be. I just played viola because I didn't want to take choir or band in middle school and I didn't start taking lessons from Jen until the middle of my Junior year in high school. None of this child prodigy crap for me! Eric is awesome, I'll have to have coffee with him some day.

Mediocre

I had an awesome idea for a blog post at some point in time this morning, but I forgot it, so you'll just have to do with this mediocre blog post.

I was promoted (though I'd hardly call it that) to night manager a few weeks ago at my crappy job. Mostly this was because all the other night managers were fired or quit due to near-death experiences. I was also supposed to get some kind of raise to accompany this whole extra work thing, but that doesn't seem to have gone through despite my protests. I'm usually not one to follow trends, but I may just do what all of my former coworker friends and stop showing up. Better yet, I may fabricate a story about moving away to... I dunno, Denmark and cite the unusually long commute as my reason for leaving. I bet they'd buy me a cake too.

I am now the proud owner of a shiny new bow. It's pretty cool, a lovely red color with wonderful handling and tone. Linda approved. Now excuse me while I go wallow in a pool of my own mediocrity.

Career Aspirations and Weezer

Hm, I perform tomorrow in studio class. Exciting! I think I'm playing Bach GM Courante. I've got a general plan charted out for this song. Yeah, I know it's not actually a 'song', but when I'm a college professor I'm still going to call them songs just to piss people off. Really though, if that bothers you then you really need to lighten up.

I was recently searching online for more random Weezer recordings to satisfy my Weezer fix and discovered a wonderful cover of the Turtles' "Happy Together". Normally this song is so cliche that it annoys me, but listening to Weezer playing it and considering the usual context of Weezer's music I actually enjoyed, as it reminds me of the pathetic charade that was my first relationship, but that's a different story that won't be told on my blog!

Unfixable Bow

I got a call from Telford's today. Apparently they can't fix my bow without rehairing it as well. That would bring the total cost of repairs up to more than I payed for the bow in the first place, as such, I'm in the market for a new one. Now I'm stuck with my crappy minimally-haired bow for the next few weeks while I try to convince my parents that I do actually need a bow the play the viola and that Christmas has, in fact, come early this year. What, haven't you heard?

The numlock button is never on on these school computers, that's annoying.

I'm fairly excited for this whole Fall break thing coming up soon. Personally, I hope we don't have Turkey this Thanksgiving, but if we do, I'll cope. Really though, if you're going to eat to celebrate you can at least have something better than a mostly tasteless fat bird. I usually dump salt on mine, but I'd really rather have some kind of beef action going on. Or maybe pasta. Seafood's an option too. But turkey? I suspect the only reason why we buy turkey is so that we have oodles of leftover to help us survive the winter! To the food stores!

Exploding Bow

My bow exploded today.

It really sucked. I suppose the phases of bow explosion reaction include freaking out and wondering if you'll ever be able to play for the next week, counseling oneself with the knowledge that Linda will know what to do, then finally lamenting you exploded bows fate and waiting anxiously for the stupid people at Telford's to fix it and take your money. I am very much interested in getting my bow back, but now I'm sincerely freaked out that it will explode at random and ruin everything, so I started looking for a new bow. The problem is, new bows cost money, lots, as it turns out. I wonder if my viola has a warranty... I can't wait for Christmas! I hope my parents are feeling generous.

I installed a handy little app from google the other day to monitor traffic on my blog! It revealed four fantastic visitors. One comes from Provo, UT... and there's only one person that can be. One is me. I suspect Jen is another of the Boise visitors, but that leaves and unknown Boise visitor lurking through my blog. Who are you?

All your songs man, they're in a minor....

I just want to make it clear to everybody that this song is really awesome.

Went to an Alexander Technique workshop at Linda's urging today. It was kind of nice, but contained a lot of fairly blatant advertisement for AT lessons. AT is really all about being aware of what you're doing with you body and making it has relaxed as possible, or something like that. I dunno, look it up on Wikipedia, that's what I did.

Weird as hell

I woke up this morning, that was pretty exciting. Scooted on out the door and attended a cello master class at BSU. The cellist looked totally different than he did in his promo picture... better, actually. In the promo picture he looks kind of like a vampire and his hair is really greasy, but after getting a good look at him in real life I determined that he was mostly human.

Speaking of real life! Apparently it's lame. Now, I hadn't heard this before, but today it became apparent to me while I was observing a group of Dungeons and Dragons players for the wonderful ethnography that I'm going to write before it's due. I guess it's much more fulfilling to pretend you are some sort of cyborg named Bash who had a penchant for violence and bullying.

Just kidding! I was deeply upset by the degree to which these kids launched themselves into the game. I mean seriously, they were calling each other by their in-game names... wow. I had thought I would write my ethnography in defense of the game, but now I'm pretty sure that it is, in fact, a channel for satanic inspirations! Well, not quite. But really, it's annoyingly violent and freakishly obsessive. Needs more Bach anyway.

Viola Quartet

So I was talking to Linda today about how to make money as a violist without selling drugs. We talked about string quartet gigs, but my quartet if pretty flaky and I don't really enjoy rehearsing with them. We thought about it, and after some thinking (about 2 seconds worth) arrived at the conclusion that the only people I want to play with are violists. So why not start a viola quartet? Seriously, why not? No reason not to!

So I did.

I plan to look for four viola arrangements of stuff soon, and muster the motivation to arrange some other stuff myself. Maybe I can attempt to enlist Linda's help, but I doubt I would do that. So far it looks like Rod, Kara, Henry, and myself are the viola crew. Henry doesn't know yet, but I don't anticipate any problems with that.

I suspect I like a girl I met some time ago over the summer. I've turned Beethoven all the way up, but it won't go away.

Brahms

Today in SWAM (Survey of Western Art Music) we talked about Brahms. Or rather, Dr. Belfy was jumping around the room shouting exciting things about Brahms while I tried to throw in my bit about his viola sonatas. Everybody else seemed generally uninterested in Brahms. I don't understand why though, I've always thought that he was pretty cool, and today's lesson reinforced that. I don't think they like the class. Again, I don't understand why... all we do is listen to music all day and talk about it, which is exciting! I'll admit that it got a little dull when we talked about Opera, but that's probably because I just don't care. Anyway, now that we're back to good music it's exciting again!

I would love to teach a class like this! Probably Appreciation of Music, actually. I'd be the new viola professor stuck with a bunch of kids who are just taking the class because their non-Music major requires it. Most of them probably won't know what a viola is. Anyway, I'd stroll in there on the first day, put on some Tchaikovsky Symphony and run around the room screaming to the poor students about what's happening in the Symphony, you know, to all the characters involved and stuff. And then I'd act really surprised when it looks like he's about to end it but... DECEPTIVE CADENCE! I'll scream at the top of my lungs. Ideally, most of my students will think I'm crazy, but if I can get them to realize that appreciating music has nothing to do with playing and instrument or getting a degree in music I'll be happy. Really, I have no idea how to play guitar, but I frequently air-guitar my way through my favorite solos!

Everyone else is doing it

Yeah, that's my pitiful reason for starting a blog. I didn't actually know that you had to write a post immediately upon creating one though, otherwise I would have just made the blog and promised myself I'd write something until they shut down the internet... or I died, whichever would come first.

So what does one write in a blog post? The ones I've read are usually filled with thoughtful insight and commentary. So, lacking any sort of thoughtful insight and commentary, what do I write? Of course! A bio!

I'm a violist at BSU (they won some big football thing last year, you may have heard about it). My favorite composers change all the time, but I really like Bach, Tchaikovsky, Rivers Cuomo, and Haydn. Also, I don't like Mozart. I suppose that's a mental disorder, but it doesn't seem to have reached the rest of my brain, so I'm not too worried.

I saw La Boheme recently and thought it was pretty ok, it was kind of disappointing not speaking Italian though, especially when the subtitles are not in sync with the music. I guess that's what you get for going to the cheap dress rehearsal.

Anyway, the fantastic blog title above comes from a certain rehearsal in which we were unfortunate enough to be practicing the American classic, Sleigh Ride. For those of you not in the know, this piece contains one of the most boring viola parts ever. But, with a little creativity and an "all on one finger" game we were able to bring out the true masterwork inside of Sleigh Ride. Accuracy of intonation while goofing off was brought up, and it was decided that intonation came after enjoyment, always remember that! There's kind of a deeper meaning, but for now a funny story will suffice.