Author Archives: Autumn

A Sudden Abundance Of Live Music, And Thoughts Deriving From It

I’m tired, but there are things worthy of noting.

Invisible completely and totally rocked the house on Friday night, with a double set and a terrific cohesive sound. Every one of them keeps getting better and better. There was much dancing, and I don’t normally dance. There was much singing as well, and I hope I didn’t drive Jan too crazy with it. It was terrific to see people I haven’t seen in forever, too. Also, I had a very good margarita. “You really seemed to be enjoying yourself,” HRH said on the way home. “I think it’s important to obviously demonstrate to a performer that you appreciate what they’re doing,” I said. “There’s nothing worse than being on stage and seeing a sea of dead expressions in front of you, applause or not.” Sure, I could have sat there unmoving and enjoyed myself just as much, but the music was good and it moved and what the guys were doing on stage for us moved me.

Did I miss being on stage? Yes. But not enough to throw myself back into band. I miss the times when it was going well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go well most of the time. I miss it when we’re actually making music, not talking about unrelated things or wasting time. I certainly don’t miss the amount of energy that went into it. Or rather, I prefer to have that energy to put into other things, like living my day to day life (thank you so very much, FMS). I’d like to get back into band someday. Someday is not soon, however. We’ll all be different people somewhere down the line and that will make a positive difference as well. I’d like to explore other kinds of music in a small ensemble too, at some point, with different people.

The evening before I enjoyed Marc’s vocal recital, presented by all his teacher’s students. (Live music two nights in a row! I don’t think I’m greedy, just starved for culture.) There were about half a dozen of them and they all sang three songs, ranging from Broadway to pop to chamber songs and opera arias. It was great, and I saw a handful of the people who I would see again the next night, but in an even more relaxed atmosphere. We kibbutzed outside for an hour after the show was over, and that was just as wonderful as the recital itself, in a different way. I took a moment to look around both on Thursday and Friday night, and saw people with whom I’d stayed in touch for fifteen to twenty years as well as those I’d met within the last ten or so. I really miss my friends, and it was felt really, really good to be with them.

There’s this quirk that I have: My eyes tear up suddenly when I’m really enjoying something musical. It doesn’t mean I’m particularly sad or happy or overcome by what the music is communicating. It actually has more to do with appreciating the fact that the performer is offering something, similar to what I outlined above. Marc was the first one up at the recital, a position that carries a lot of responsibility, and he sang “On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady. About a third of the way through the first verse I had that tearing-up response, and I thought about what was happening. I was experiencing a surge of emotion, not as a response to the music but a response to what Marc was doing: he was reaching out to his listeners and offering them something, and I was moved by it. It seems to be an empathic response. It’s not in response to the words, or the music itself. It’s in response to the performer. It does have an emotional connection, of course, but it’s not primarily an emotional reaction.

This happens when I imagine performing myself. It doesn’t happen while I’m actually performing (or it does, but extremely rarely); rather, it happens when I visualise performing certain pieces of music. I have a very strong ability to visualise, and I invest a lot of emotion into it. It’s one of the ways I practise when I can’t be at my instrument. I’m also very good at imagining several different lines of music simultaneously, including my own line. (I think this is one of the reasons why I love working in an orchestral setting so much, and also one of the reasons why I get frustrated very easily in small ensembles without a coach; it’s hard for real performers to live up to what’s happening in my head.) In these cases, my response seems to be connected to the visualisation of the joint act of the performers in the ensemble reaching out to the audience. And this too may be one of the reasons I was dissatisfied with band: I very rarely felt that reaching out-ness happening, or a sense of the audience being moved by what we were offering. There was a lot of struggle that never felt like it resolved or settled into an actual delivery of something.

I’ve thought about this response a lot, and I still can’t quite put it into the right words. There’s something about the simultaneous identification with the performer as well as being an audience too, but I can’t pin it down yet. There’s also something about receiving and returning energy, which I know I’ve talked about before in lectures and discussion and very likely at some point in this journal as well.

I don’t have the opportunity to experience live music as an audience member very much, so this past week has been extremely precious to me. I’m very proud of everyone who performed, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. I hope they all know that. And I hope that somehow I managed to communicate that I appreciated what they offered.

What I Read This May

Night Work by Laurie R. King
Wizards At War by Diane Duane
Micah by Laurell K. Hamilton
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
With Child by Laurie R. King
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
Holy Fools by Joanne Harris
French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano
Broken Chords by Barbara Snow Gilbert
jPod by Douglas Coupland
Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir
Mozart’s Sister by Rita Charbonnier
Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
City of Ashes by Cassandra Claire
To Play the Fool by Laurie R King
Enchanted Inc by Shanna Swendson
The Bee’s Kiss by Barbara Cleverly
Because She Can by Bridie Clark
Austenland by Shannon Hale
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (reread)
Dancing With Werewolves by Carole Nelson Douglas

See Autumn join the local library! See her books-read lists grow exponentially!

Random observations:

Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir: Thank God, I finally finished this. I liked the story (I’ve always liked the Jane Grey nine days’ queen thing), but it was slow. I think I prefer Weir’s non-fiction; it moves faster.

Dancing With Werewolves by Carole Nelson Douglas: This was dull. I love Douglas’ Irene Adler series, and I enjoy paranormal/urban fantasy, so I logically thought that I’d enjoy this. Wow, was I ever wrong. It felt like it had been whipped off without much thought, and different magical talents/abilities kept being assigned to the protagonist one after another in a much too convenient way. I won’t be following the series.

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks: Not what I wanted it to be; a bit too medical-condition-ish. I preferred Daniel Levitin’s This Is Your Brain On Music.

French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano: This book kind of bored me; it took me forever to get through it. It’s likely because I’m not the author’s target audience. I already do most of what she was pointing out should be done, so it was mostly useless for me. Still, it a had one or two good be-in-the-moment philosophical observations in it that came at a good time.

jPod by Douglas Coupland: How have I lived so long without Douglas Coupland? Maybe it’s my generation, or maybe it’s because I worked for three months in a room with a game-design team, or maybe it’s just my sense of humour, but I loved this book.

…

I finally got through to the luthier this morning. The 7/8 I was going to book for a week-long home trial sold last week.

Olivier has promised to order another one in for me to try. He has no idea when he’ll have it, though.

I’m either numb or unmoved by it. A bit disappointed, but mainly because I’d made sure my principal was going to be at orchestra this coming week to look at it. Now I won’t be able to run it by her until September. But then, I’m not having much of an emotional reaction to anything these days. I’m really run down and I just don’t have the energy.

Now What?

Today has been busy. I dropped the boy off at daycare, drove through traffic to the West Island, got my hair trimmed, picked up groceries (managing to forget liquid laundry detergent, fabric softener, and iced tea yet again), drove home, checked news and such, sent out queries regarding final details for both projects, ate lunch, and finished/fixed/polished/proofread everything.

It’s one-thirty, and I have just uploaded/submitted all of my work to the various editors and co-ordinators. Yes, all of it. I appear to be done. Pending any further tweaks requested by the clients, that is.

So now that my work time is my own again, naturally my brain is rebelling at actually working on my own writing, which it has been thinking about longingly all week while I’ve been working on things for other people. It has specifically been tugging at me to work on the newest YA novel I outlined last month. Oh, wait; there’s that essay for the anthology I should finish up for Monday. And there’s the workshop outline I need to plan out as well as a bio to submit for the Hamilton festival this fall, also due Monday. Maybe I’ll work on those this afternoon.

One Of Those “Ah!” Moments

Something a lot of people don’t understand is that singing while playing the cello is hard. People sing while playing guitar all the time; why can’t cellists sing too? Despite how easy Jorane makes it look, it’s really a challenge and it’s something I’ve never really been able to articulate to other musicians other than to say, “No, it’s just hard.”

I finally figured out why, thanks to a thread over at NewDirectionsCello.com. Someone asked why it’s so hard, and why guitarists can do it with greater ease, and someone hit on the answer. It’s because the physicality of playing the cello is more involved and complex than that of playing the guitar. Basically, the movements required and the muscles used include those of the muscles one would use to sing.

To expound: one uses one’s ENTIRE body to play the cello, to especially include the diaphragm and body core (EVERY muscle is highly active in cello performance, to include even the legs and feet). Breathing is extremely important with the cello, ergo a conflict may ensue between the cello and voice.

And that’s a huge part of it. To begin with, it’s hard to sing sitting down, because your torso has less room to expand and there’s less support for the column of air. It’s difficult to keep the muscles in the centre of the body relaxed enough while playing to use them to sing as well. Sure, you could play standing up (again I point to Jorane as an example), but that requires learning an entire new style of physically playing the instrument. Your angles are different, the weight distribution is different, and so forth. And basically it’s hard to use muscles for two different things at once, when each requires so much energy. One might as well ask a saxophonist to tap dance while playing, for example.

Apart from that, other musicians on the thread (who play both instruments) pointed out that the cello seems to take more attention to play. This may be because of all the frequent and freakishly minute muscular changes constantly required to balance movement and direction in both hands and arms, for example. Some say they can sing along only if the cello line is simple enough (and, one imagines, the key). Others have problems with the rhythm of the vocal and the cello lines being different. It’s all food for thought, and provided me with an “Aha!” moment. I know how involved my torso muscles are when I play, and I wonder why I never made the connection before.

Cautiously Optimistic

I think I may have just finished fixing the previously-known-as-the-hearthcraft book to reflect the title change.

And apart from doing some creative paralleling (see me verb your nouns!) in the introduction, it’s pretty much intact and has preserved its dignity. As for mine, well, chances are good no one will even suspect there were changes made. Even you, faithful readers, should you ever read it in published form.

I’m so tired, and the damn headache is killing me. I’ve been taking Tylenol on and off all day, and I can’t bear to listen to music, which is somewhat appalling. It will also make orchestra tonight very interesting.