Category Archives: Cello

Spring Concert Announcement, 40th Anniversary Edition!

Huzzah, it is spring! This means that yes, the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra’s spring concert is on the near horizon! This concert’s theme is a celebration of the orchestra’s fortieth season.

So circle Saturday the 14th of April on your calendars, gentle readers. (That’s this Saturday!) At 19h30 in the Valois United Church in Pointe-Claire (70 Belmont Ave., between King and Queen), the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will present the following works:

    Mozart’s Serenata Notturna (Serenade for Orchestra No. 6 in D major, K. 239)
    Corelli’s Pastorale from the Concerto grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 8 (Christmas Concerto)
    The Lonely Maiden (traditional, arranged by Andres Gutmanis)
    Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll
    Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

Admission is $10 per person; admission is free for those under 18 years of age. The concerts usually last approximately two hours, including the refreshment break. There are driving directions and public transport info on the church website. I usually encourage people who are vehicle-less to find someone who has a car and share the cost of the driver’s admission to the concert among them. It’s more fun to enjoy the evening in the company of others, after all. And it bears repeating that children of all ages are very welcome indeed.

We’d love to see you there!

In Which There Is Hope For Cello

I made the decision to get to every rehearsal between now and the upcoming concert (April 14, gentle readers) to preserve my sanity and help shore up my self-esteem in matters musical. I’m still fumbling through lots of the Beethoven, but I feel a lot better about it after having a conversation with some of the section and our conductor. Apparently the cello section of the youth orchestra he also conducts does the fifth symphony as sectional work every year to keep it sharp, otherwise it would fall apart when they eventually get to programming it. I find that incredibly reassuring. We’re coming to it cold and chipping away at it in a couple of months. It also helped a great deal to have the conductor look at me and say that we were actually in a pretty good place, all things considered.

For some reason, the Wagner falls more easily under my fingers than the Beethoven, and I never thought I’d say that. I’m fine in the first and final movements of the symphony, but the middle two are just gah. My fingers keep tangling up. Sometimes I think Beethoven is the sole reason cellists should memorize scales. I’ve reminded myself that in my first years with the orchestra I would only play the first note in a sequence of four eighth or sixteenth notes in fast passage work, and I’m allowing myself to default to that on the fly. It helps a bit.

I got an hour to practice on my own this weekend, while HRH took the kids and… did something with them, possibly watched a movie. No idea. It was just me upstairs with my cello, and a lot of frustrating sticky notes and pencil scribblings on my music, sounding pretty awful. But I was marginally better at rehearsal, so it obviously did some good.

In non-orchestra material, I’m working on Allegro Moderato, the last piece in the third Suzuki book, and it’s fine… all except bars 30 and 31. I just can’t seem to internalize the modulation so that I have the note firmly in my head before I shift, and because I don’t know what the note is supposed to sound like I’m not secure in my shift and I miss the intonation by almost a semitone. I can play the notes separately in separate bows in first position, but as soon as I move to slurred notes and playing in position (I’m using the alternate fingerings), it all goes out the window. Gnarr. I have no idea if I’m playing a solo in the June recital or not, but if I am this is it.

Our conductor gave us a preview of what the July concert will be like. It’s to have a northern theme, with the Ruslan and Lyudmila overture (nooooo!), the Peer Gynt suite, and other things I missed because I was too busy having a conniption at the R & L overture part. I really enjoy playing the Peer Gynt suite, though.

Catch Up

The flight was fun, and Sparky was thrilled with it all and very well behaved. Apparently he handled it all like an old pro. (Genetic memory?) Owlet travelled decently on our drive down to join him at my parents’ place, but needed me back there with her for the second half of the trip. Coming back was easier (though I expected it to be harder balancing two bored, cranky kids) because Sparky entertained her by just being himself and giving her company. There’s a whole different rhythm to travelling with a baby that I’d forgotten about — you stop every ninety minutes to two hours just to get out of the car and feed them, give them a change of environment, that sort of thing. Good thing she’s half on solids now, because nursing was pretty much a washout as there was way too much to look at. Naps go right out the window, because you gauge your rest stops by if baby’s sleeping, and inevitably they wake up five minutes after you pass one and the next isn’t for another hour… but all things considered, it went well. Sleeping went okay at my parents’ house, too, after the first night where she spent all but the first hour or two in bed with us. The last night she did her usual two wakeups to nurse and went back to sleep in her own bed each time. Of course, back home she was all off again, waking up every hour or so the first night and finally spending the last few hours in bed with me. And there was no morning nap the next day, despite trying twice. But it’s okay; we’ve been going with the flow and are slowly settling in, riding out the bumpy bits that are appearing at odd times.

We had a lovely trip. The weather was great, and the kids were cheerful and well behaved. We saw my cousin and his family (who are moving to BC this summer, so we won’t get to see them often any more). We ate piles and piles of my mother’s delicious food. On Sunday Sparky went with Nana to the aircraft museum where my dad works so HRH, Owlet, and I got to do a quick run to the used baby clothes store and score some stretchy leggings that fit her because suddenly none of her pants are big enough. (PSA: Just give up on buying 12mos size clothes, people. Grandma recently bought two gorgeous 12mos tops for Owlet, and one barely fits, while the other — the one I like more, which figures — doesn’t at all. Both looked plenty large enough, so I give up.)

She’s not the only one whose clothes need replacing. Thank goodness the weather has turned and the boy is wearing splash pants and his raincoat, because his snowsuit is shot. Today we had to send him back to his room twice because both the original pair of pants and the second pair he tried to put on were too short. At least Owlet has boxes of summer dresses waiting for her, which I may switch her into early and put leggings and long-sleeve shirts underneath.

In news about me, I have a fully functional Mac mini again, thanks to the tireless efforts of HRH and the Mac tech at work in combining the one with the failing logic board and the slower, smaller one. They maxed the RAM, which pretty much balances out the slightly slower processor. I have a new to me monitor as well, thanks to Molly Ann. It is such a relief to be able to sync my phone and back stuff up again. The only down side is that the optical drive in the Ariadne mini burns CDs only, so my stack of DVD RWs isn’t much use to me any more. In other news, my client finally got back to me after I sent them a formal message about invoicing them for the work I broke my back to get them on deadline day and to which they didn’t respond at all, and I think I’ve been sidelined. Their reason for not responding to me for two weeks was that they were moving, and the things they asked for quotes actually needed more work, and if they needed me they’d let me know. Whatever. I just wish I hadn’t turned away the project from my publisher because the new client indicated they only needed approval and a purchase order number for the important book-length project before I started on that. It would have been tight time-wise, and frustrating because I’d have been working on the rickety, crashy laptop, but I’d have had work and money by now.

I miss cello dreadfully. I remember now that there was a gap of no-cello-at-all when Sparky was born because I either couldn’t fit practice time in or couldn’t practice because he’d wake up. The location of Owlet’s bedroom and the small footprint of our house means that I can’t practice upstairs or downstairs while she’s asleep, and she only sits and listens to me for about five minutes if I plunk her in a chair upstairs and practice with her right there. Having to drop my private lessons to every two weeks and then stop entirely has depressed me and is eroding my skills, and doing orchestra only every two weeks because we can’t afford the gas to get me out there is awful. I’m walking out of every rehearsal pretty demoralised because I just can’t stay on top of things, and we’re playing stuff that demands a lot of focus and precision. I think I’m going to try to make every rehearsal from now till the concert (which is is ONE MONTH, peoples: April 14! mark your calendars!), just to make sure I absorb as much direction as possible. Part of me wants to give it up to eliminate the stress, but then I’d be giving up the one thing left that I have to get me out of the house sans baby, and also the one cello-related thing left in my life at the moment, and I’m too stubborn to do that.

Our bulbs are poking their wee green heads up in the gardens, and we are very much looking forward to actually gardening this year. Go spring!

Okay, baby’s awake. Off we go on errands.

A Random Number Of Things Makes A Random Post

1. Still haven’t heard back from the new client about (a) the project I edited for them, (b) the second quote I did for them, (c) the third quote I did for them. Now I think they hate me and I made horrible, glaring APA mistakes in the project I killed myself to get to them.

2. On the other hand, it’s just as well for the moment, because…

3. The Mac mini still has not had its USBs fixed. In fact, when HRH brought it back home after taking it in the second time, it wouldn’t start up at all. On the eleventh try it did, and I haven’t turned it off since then for fear it won’t start ever again. I keep expecting it to just roll over and die.

4. Now it’s lost its sound output entirely. All the options to turn it back on are greyed out. It’s definitely a hardware issue. I give up.

5. In the Good News column, I get the new-to-me Mac mini on Monday afternoon. I am not thinking about the nightmare of transferring the contents of my hard drive from one to the other.

6. I have been horribly sick the past two or three days. I’ve been achy for most of the week, but yesterday things got so bad it hurt to lie down. My throat is horribly sore, I’ve been alternating between chills and sweats, and lethargy and awful headaches have been dogging me. So yesterday just before supper I handed HRH the baby, took a hot bath, fell into bed and slept through two feedings. Poor Owlet has been out of sorts as well, so I’ve been dosing her with Tylenol regularly, too. I feel marginally better today, so much so that I was well enough to take Sparky to his cello lesson this morning. Still achy and throat sore and headached, but almost tolerably so.

7. In cello news, I got my copy of Suzuki book four this morning! I am very excited. I’ve played the Breval before; in fact, it was my last recital piece with my first teacher… um, fifteen years ago (oh my gods, I now officially feel way damn old). (Because mention of long ago inevitably raises the question of how long I’ve been playing: I started as an adult beginner in 1994.) I’m still off private lessons until I make money, but we have a group lesson tomorrow and I get to provide accompaniment for the kids’ half of the afternoon as well my parts in the adult pieces later.

8. I am underwhelmed by the new Tim Hortons’ lattes. The one I tried today tasted like scalded milk and old coffee, despite sweetening. I’ll give it one more go, next time a mocha latte because chocolate makes everything better, but I suspect I’ll be sticking with iced cappuccinos from that particular chain.

9. This weather is wrong, wrong, wrong. We’re averaging about one degree above zero, and the snow is almost all gone (not that there was very much overall accumulation this winter to begin with), and while it’s nice for walking with the baby, it’s awful for the ground water and the coming growing season. We already have bulbs a centimetre above ground in the front garden. It’s wrong, I tell you.

10. Owlet is working out the crawling thing. She can lift her front half; she can get her rear in the air and try to tuck her knees under her hips. Unfortunately, she can’t do both at the same time, because when one end goes up the other goes down. Hilarious.

11. Oh, the candid pictures you will get when I can get them off my phone and camera!

12. Speaking of pictures, two weeks ago we all went and sat for a formal family portrait at the local department store. The deal was a free session and free 10 x 13 print, and anything else was up to you. Owlet and I went and saw the proofs the other day, and they were wonderful; I was shocked that everyone looked so good at the same time. And while I really, really couldn’t afford it, I managed to wring some money out of my Visa and pick up prints of the two family poses. We’ve never had formal photos taken, ever; the last ones someone who is not a family member took of us were at our wedding thirteen years ago. The lady even slipped in an extra sheet of prints for me. When I have a printer that connects to a real computer again I’ll scan one and post it for you all. I shall also scan and print more for family and friends.

Okay, that’s about it on the update front. Bedtime.

Slogging

Things have been pretty cranky lately. The boy was sick last weekend, which necessitated cancelling a much-anticipated outing to see Real Live People whom we hadn’t seen in ages, and it’s still trailing on; he’s got a cold and is carrying a low-grade fever that’s not high enough to keep him home, so he goes to school, and then it’s higher when he gets home from school but is low enough to send him out the next day. He’s also dealing with a lot of social stress, both from friends and bossy/manipulative kids at school and here at home while he works through growing-up stuff.

He’s not the only one carrying a lot of stress. Financially things are pretty much stretched as taught as they’ll go; I logged back on as an active freelance copyeditor with the publisher again at the beginning of January, three months later than we’d planned, but nothing’s come my way yet. I’ve had to drop cello entirely for now, though I’m hanging on to orchestra every two weeks as my single get-out-of-the-house-and-see-other-adults time. Nana has made it possible for the boy to continue his own lessons, for which we are very grateful. Owlet is charming but wearing on us all, as she’s working through a lot of her own developmental stuff plus her two lower incisors are taking their not-so-sweet time about breaking through the gums. Her sleep patterns are all over the place (today she didn’t sleep for more than ten to fifteen minutes at a time, and is just as disagreeable as you might imagine as a result). Our nights are still broken a lot, and I don’t do at all well on fragmented sleep. Basically, I’ve run out of what energy I had in reserve, including the new-parent adrenaline that sees you through the first couple of months, and I’ve got nothing left.

In good news, the boy got his spot in the International School we were hoping to transfer him into. Now we get to angst about the social stress of switching him into a new school that’s full French immersion. In not so good news, the USB ports on my computer have decided to stop working, and none of the permission-resetting/PRAM resets/redownloads of updates have worked so far. I can’t sync or update my iPhone, use my printer, or back up via Time Machine to my external hard drive, and the USB receiver for my wireless mouse only works some of the time. All of this makes me pretty crazy, as my computer is my sole method of accomplishing work, and if I can’t work I can’t… no, I’m not even going there. I could always use HRH’s computer for work if I have to. In the meantime, Berny is very kindly talking me through repairing permissions and PRAM resets and reinstallation of updates, just in case it’s something along those lines, but nothing’s worked so far. Next up is upgrading to Snow Leopard, something I hadn’t done because it came out two weeks after I got my Mini and I wasn’t going to risk botching something that worked perfectly well. (Yes, years of Windows updates have scarred me.) HRH is going to talk to the certified Mac repair guy at work to see if he has any ideas or solutions, too.

So, um, yes. Things are hard, and weary, and I can’t get up here to write much at the moment. There’s Owlet’s six-month post coming up later this week, though!

2011 In Photographs (And Some Words)

January 2011:

First loose tooth:

Starting cello:

The new spinning wheel:

February 2011:

The new spinning wheel, finished:

The boy’s first ever self-directed school project with no teacher input: He planned, designed, and executed a three-dimensional model of a penguin.

March 2011:

Oh hey, by the way, we’re going to have a baby around the end of July:

This is what 1.5 km of Polworth singles plied into a two-ply yarn look like:

April 2011:

We planted a crabapple tree:

Spring sprung in our backyard:

May 2011:

The crabapple actually bloomed, bless it:


Book reports:

HRH made his stage debut as bassist with the band known as Invisible:

June 2011:

The boy’s last day of kindergarten:


Sparky’s visits La Ronde, our local Six Flags amusement park, for the first time:

The boy’s first cello recital:

At which I also played, of course, and loved what I did:

Six years old!

July 2011:

We buy the boy his very own cello:

Eight months pregnant made playing in the Canada Day concert a challenge to say the least, but it all worked, even though I looked like a poster child for How To Not Play The Cello:

I knit my first real lace project that involved more than one line of pattern, a cap for Owlet:

August 2011:

We had the baby!

Who wore the lace cap:

September 2011:

The first day of Grade One:

Owlet had a tongue tie clipped after five weeks, which made nursing so much better:

October 2011:

Owlet with her owlet:

Owlet greeeeew:

HALLOWEEN!

November 2011:

Cute baby was cute:

December 2011:

Someone was a walking cliche for his sixth Christmas. Suggestions on FaceBook for snappy comebacks when people sang the song at him were, “You should see the other guy,” or “But the puck went in, so it was worth it,” courtesy of Rob:

We tested the “babies get bonuses to cute when dressed in overalls” theory:

We decorated the tree:

Owlet received a delicious Lamaze toy for Christmas from Nana and Grandad:

And a very, very special commemorative dish made by Birdsall-Worthington Pottery in Mahone Bay, a partner to the plate Aunt Wilma gave to Sparky when he was born (Sparky’s has a family of three ducks on it, Owlet’s has four):

You know what else happened in 2011? HRH finished the existing attic to give us both an office space. We’re finally assembling pictures from that odyssey; stay tuned!

Behind

I’m never going to catch up, not with everyone home from school and work. I’m going to try to finish the draft post I’ve had dragging on for two weeks this afternoon, but we’ll see how successful that is. I just don’t want it dragging over into the new calendar year.

I haven’t had time to tell you that the boy lost his other upper front tooth, so was a gleeful personification of “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth,” or that Christmas was an absolutely lovely day with all the family here, that I cooked a knock-down brilliant turkey, or that this is the Plague House because everyone has the flu or horrible colds and so everything social we’d planned or planned to plan this week has been cancelled. I haven’t been able to sit down long enough to say that both the boy’s goldfish, (known as Goldie One and Goldie Two) died this past week, or that he has discovered Angry Birds, or that he adored the Star Wars Lego advent calendar that Ceri and Scott gave him, or that Owlet’s first solid food was a piece of homemade pancake, snatched off my plate then blissfully sucked and gummed into a soggy mess yesterday morning.

I haven’t been able to sit down and rail at you about how I discovered that my washing machine, my year-old washing machine, “saves energy” by substituting half of the water in a hot wash with cold water and how that was the underlying problem with washing the cloth diapers (that is NOT A HOT WASH and I don’t know in whose mind it possibly could be). I haven’t even mentioned the Christmas recital and how well it went (music-wise, that is; I did mention that Owlet had been prepared for the cello playing, but not the first crash of applause that freaked her out, and so HRH spent the recital in the church basement walking her so she wouldn’t wail after every piece). I haven’t been able to crow that I got my box of author copies of the bird book, and rhapsodize about how gorgeous it is (I knew it would be pretty, having seen the full-colour galleys, but it’s stunningly beautiful and I love holding it).

I have photos to post, too. Maybe I’ll just kind of throw a series of mini-posts up this afternoon while Owlet naps. If she naps for more than twenty minutes, that is.