Skip to main content

Small Triumphs

It’s the little things.  When we were first starting out in Chicago, I had a minimum wage job in a bagel shop.  In the evenings I played with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, working with renowned conductors and stretching my musical abilities to their limit, but every morning I was back in the shop, making bagel sandwiches and ringing them up on the register.  My husband had a similar job down the street, and the disconnect between our goals and our reality absolutely grated on him, but I sort of enjoyed the work.  I tried to make nice bagel sandwiches, and to cut them neatly all the way through so they didn’t rip apart in my customers’ hands.  I wrapped them tightly and marked their contents tidily on the packages.  And every now and then a customer would notice, and would thank me for my excellent work, and I would feel a tiny thrill of pride.  I knew it was just bagels, but I was pleased with the job I was doing.



I am playing education concerts this week with the Kalamazoo Symphony, and having a terrific time.   We close with the Overture to West Side Story, and at the beginning of the piece it has this weird time signature - 4/4 plus 2/4.  In other words, every other measure is a different meter, and the copyist didn’t want to write it out for my convenience.  So the second bar, for instance, which looks normal, actually only has 2 beats in it, and the bars after I play start with a 2 and go to a 4 then a 2, etc.  Now, I was never in danger of missing an entrance here, because this particular music is IN MY BLOOD, but I admit that the first few run-throughs I kept catching myself counting nonexistent beats or noticing that the baton was not doing the same thing my brain was in those 11 bars of rest.  Since I started to pay better attention, I have found it tremendously fun to count through those measures, and I must admit that every time I hit the 3/8 bars exactly with the rest of the orchestra I feel a tiny thrill of pride.

It’s the little things.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate.  You can find that  HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts.  And it's little wonder.  Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home.  The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose.  More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull.  A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inc...

Zoe's Musical Beginnings

I've mentioned before that I started out on the piano by figuring out melodies.  Connecting notes and trying to learn how they worked.  I'm fascinated to observe that Zoe's initial approach to the instrument is totally different from mine. She sits at our new piano and plays random notes, and tells us what to feel.  If she is playing slowly then the music is sad, and we should cry. When we are "crying" she either gets up and hugs us so we feel better (so awesome!) or bangs faster, to indicate that the music is now happy and we should dance.  Her other piano game is accompanying herself - she plays "chords" in alternating hands while she "sings" the ABC song or Camptown Races or Sesame Street.  She makes us sing along.  She loves it when we clap at the end.  When I was little I wanted to know how music worked. Although I make my living as a performer now, I learned about the interpersonal aspects of music later.  Her immediate interest is in ...

Exciting Upcoming Concerts

The South Bend Symphony has a great concert this weekend that I've been really excited about. If you are in town you should definitely try to attend, as it features Prokofiev's thrilling Symphony no. 5 AND our marvelous concertmistress, Zofia Glashauser, playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. However, I will not be there. This Friday and Saturday I am playing Strauss's Ein Heldenleben with the Milwaukee Symphony , and loving every single minute. This orchestra sounds spectacular, and here's why. They rehearse. They have plenty of time to really listen to each other and get things right. This morning, our service was a wind sectional, which blew my mind. Almost 2 full hours with only the winds and brass, just on this one 40-minute piece. The conductor worked with us on every detail. Intonation, articulation, ensemble, balance, style. And still we have another full orchestra rehearsal tomorrow as well as the dress. I haven't sat in a winds-only rehearsal...