farvel, mor

My mother died monday. Her heart finally had enough with the kidney failure.

Running for the Drum

OMG! OMG!
Buffy's new album is on the way from Canada! I can hardly wait. Anne Linnets nyt album er også ude nu. Jeg også venter for det.

This has been a really good semester. My music research professors are looking for potential awards for one of my research papers, an overview of the douçaine. I'm also feeling really good about my larger paper, the historiography of the douçaine. I got my own copy of Barra Boydell's book on crumhorns yesterday and I am inspired to do a similar book for the douçaine farther down the line. I spent a little time on the method book yesterday. I can't imagine that too many people would want to play anything in Eb minor on the douçaine, but I think it is good practice in dealing with the difficult forked fingerings. That type of practice really helped me in a concert on Monday, where I did the cantus parts on some Landini ballatas. I found a couple with the right tessitura for tenor douçaine with lute playing the tenor line. Joe is a great improviser, so the role reversal worked out great.

Congratulations! You are: a Medieval!

I took a goofy on-line philosophy test. It had remarkably bad grammar and spelling. I have never seen anyone refer to Bach as medieval. It's only a few centuries off.
At any rate, here are the results

The Medieval
25% Ancient, 31% Medieval, 31% Modern and 13% Post-Modern!



Medieval philosophy is probably more pessimistic than any other. One really gets the sense that medieval thinkers lived in a cold, dark, unreliable world, where pleasure was so hard to find that the desire for it became nearly uncontrollable. This is a world where the sinner is clearly divided from the saint

I tried to write the test in such a way that you didn’t have to be a religious person to get this result. The medieval way of looking at the world is not simply religious. It’s a serious, hierarchial, compulsive worldview, with a moral seriousness missing from some other eras. Medieval philosophers include some brilliant incisive minds, like that of Thomas Aquinas. What makes medieval philosophers unusual is the direction of their inquiries--they turned their gazes inward, to examine themselves, or upward, towards God, but hardly ever outward, towards the world around them.

Some medieval philosophers: Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Maimonides, Abelard, Erasmus

Some medieval artists: Dante, Chrétien de Troyes, Christine de Pisan, Rabelais, Chaucer, Bach

Typical medieval art forms: the morality play, war stories, contrapuntal music, the sermon, scatological humor, romantic poetry

Historiography of the douçaine

Well, its time to buckle down on the research papers. The 10-15 page paper for the music research class is in pretty good shape. It will only take some tweaking. It's just an overview of the douçaine and I doubt that it will have any chance of being published. Now I need to get busy on a 30-page historiography. I need to at least do an outline today. It will be interesting working with the etymology, as I have found 31 spellings so far for double reed instruments derived from the Latin word dulcis. Fun.

Jeg har det godt

I think I have my bearings now. Grad school is actually going well. I'm happy with my writing and looking forward to next semester's classes. After a few days of seeimg to not play a single note in tune, I've been scraping on the douçaine reeds, rediscovering my embouchure, and finding that I really can play the thing. My research on it has been going well. I like the tone of the first paper, so I have high hopes for the historiography.
My last couple of rehearsals with Jen have seen me playing douçaine instead of bass clarinet. Things started coming together really nicely today. Our first faculty recital of the season at NNU is coming up in less than two weeks, and for the first time, I am doubling on both instruments. We are doing some medieval dances, 5 Machaut ballades and virelais, some di Lasso ricercari, and the Hert setting of O Rosa Bella. With bass clarinet we are doing a few works from our CDs and some South American music. She asked if we could do some medieval music with me on BC (to help sell some CDs) and I agreed, but I came home and arranged some Bozza to do on douçaine. It will be a really fun program.
I'm looking forward to her getting a vielle, but In the meantime she is refitting a viola with gut strings and some other adjustments.

I had a great time playing some landini with Joe on lute today. It's nice to be able to play the top parts on some of those. I'm usually relegated to tenor or contratenor parts, which is fine.

I also commissioned a douçaine and organ piece from Ray this week. I asked for a piece that we could do in mass, at the AGO convention in 2011 and on my graduate recital.

very fun stuff...

well, it's been awhile

July was the last time I posted and it seems so long ago. The Sun Valley Summer Symphony went fine in August. I just had to come home on my days off for an emergency root canal. $2000 later, I just got my permanent crown yesterday.
I am actually in grad school, finally! I'm working on an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies: Early Music and History. I'm paying out of pocket when I already live hand to mouth. Time to fill out a damn FAFSA for next year! I'm taking two methodology classes, Historians and Historical Interpretation and Intro to music Research. Of course, I'm in the early music ensemble, where we are mostly playing medieval music.

I've settled on titles for my research papers.

A Historiography of the Douçaine: a Problem of Etymology and Nomenclature

Demystifying the Douçaine: an Overview of the Cylindrical-bored "Still Shawm" of the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Here I go, setting the world on fire. Until I started the history class, I didn't even have the words historiography, etymology and nomenclature in my vocabulary.

med ren

I had a blast at Sonoma State. I got a lesson with Rotem Gilbert and played in two of Peter Maund's groups. I really want to work with them again! I finally got to meet and play with Margriet Tindemans! She is so nice.

I wish I could play more douçaine right now, but I am mostly practicing clarinet for the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, where I am the only one in my section who is not in the San Francisco Symphony. After that I'll dive back in to the douçaine, start grad school and teaching at NNU and C of I.

If you are going to San Francisco be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

Well, alrighty then. I was not accepted to the Vancouver thing, so I am going to the Med Ren at Sonoma State. I leave this weekend and expect to have a great time. My friend Tom from Piffaro is going to run it next year and wants some feedback. I am really thrilled to get to meet a few west coast people, as this will be really practical for me. Margriet Tindemans, who was Shira Kammen's teacher, is coming down from Seattle. I am thrilled to get to work with her! I'm really looking forward to seeing Rotem again. I didn't get to work with her in Madison last year, but she was really nice and was very complimentary of my douçaine playing. I will be working a lot with percussionist Peter Maund. I love his work with Ensemble Alcatraz.
I am taking no fewer than 12 reeds on this trip. How dorky. The handful of players I know (Debra Nagy and members of Piffaro) would be quite happy with two reeds in an altoids box. I am going in different directions with this, however, and am having this time of my life experimenting with reeds and a wide repertoire. I wanted to share some of this stuff when I played at my mother's retirement home today for her birthday, but I went with a more conservative clarinet/bass clarinet with a former student.
I'll take the douçaine and play Machaut virelais and a few dances next time.

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves

I absolutely loved playing all that Machaut on douçaine yesterday! The pop tunes that gave me great pleasure were Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves, Downtown, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, Penny Lane and Those were the Days. I hate to admit it, but even Afternoon Delight was kind of fun. I also played Matador and Duerne Flyver, by Bent Fabricius-Bjerre, although Amercians would not have known those. I will take another look at the Icelandic tunes as well. I really like the work of Skarpheðinn Þorkelsson, Sigvaldi Snær Kaldalóns and Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson. I just need to be more selective. I will put some of the Italian dances back in, just not the long ones. I was concerned about fatigue, since it was a three-hour solo gig. It's odd that douçaine does not kill my sinuses (like clarinet and oboe) with the whole cleft palate thing. I actually started a few minutes early, went a few minutes late and did not take any 15-minute breaks. The swabbing and chatting with listeners were enough of a break. A few friends dropped by, like Curtis Stigers, Mons from the Scandinavian Triplets Band and Ray from church. He even brought me coffee!

no kidding

It's not a good sign when my 42 x 30 britches feel tight . I have been doing crunches for the last few days so I at least look a little less blob-like. I actually thought about walking home from my gig yesterday, but 90+ minutes in the sun without sunscreen did not seem like a brilliant idea. Besides, I had already been on my feet for three hours playing solo douçaine at the Saturday market. That was a fun gig! I found myself wanting to do more medieval music and Danish national song treasury while being annoyed at most of the handful of pop tuness that I brought. I only had about a dozen pop tunes but did not play them all. I thought I would enjoy the Abba more. I had Chiquitita and Fernando, for heaven's sake! I was also not playing much of the Icelandic stuff, and I brought a lot. I do, however, love playing that stuff with Jen as Darkwood Consort. Bass Clarinet and viola takes a little of the cuteness out of it tonewise, but the quality and entertainment value are definitely there. Our Icelandic program is actually one of our favorites, so I was surprised to be so annoyed by some of the same material yesterday. I guess the difference with the Danish tunes is that a lot of them go back to the 15-16th century when the douçaine was still around. my early ornamentation skills work really nicely there. Even in the 19th century Weyse, they seem to work and I love them on the douçaine.

mandag, mandag, baa daaa, baa da daa da

Vores islensk koncert var godt. Vi spillede godt for et godt publikum. Efter det gik jeg til Leslie's recital på BSU. Her er BSUs ny assistant klarinet professor. Jeg gik med Erin, vores ny Pr. klarinet i BP, (som også kom til Darkwood) og Donovan. Efter det spiste vi med Kirk og så Brokeback Mountain. Det var første gang for Kirk!

Jeg er katolik, men stemte jeg et valg for Danmarks ny biskop. Yuzuru skrev til mig at sige Poul Joachim Stender, som var sognepræst på Kirke Såby hvor Jen og jeg spillede i 2005. Stender var den første at give Yuzuru et job i Danmark. Det var meget svært for Yuzuru om en eller to år i Danmark. Yuzurus mand Anders har været organist på Kirke Saaby i mange år. Yuzuru spillede få år på Værløse (hvor vi også spillede) og nu på Nørrebro.

Philharmonic var lykkelig sidste uge. Vores gæst direktør (jeg glemte det rigtig ord for conductor) var dejligt! Jeg glemte hvad hedder ham, men han var fantastisk. Vi spillede en Daugherty stykke Red Cape Tango om Superman!

Jeg har meget at gøre i dag. Jeg har en ny saksofon eleve på klokken ti og en prøve på BSU kl.12:30 og undervisningstimer fra kl. 15:30 -18:00. Jeg også skal til banken, øve og arbejde på Biotzetik musik.

jeg spiste for meget

Kirke lavede spaghetti og jeg spiste for meget.

Jeg forsøgte at spille med Joe's lille Academy of St. Giles i formiddagen. Vi spillede 4 eller fem stykker men det var lidt som herding katter. Joe er væk om få dage i Carribean.

Min islensk koncert med Jen skal blive dejligt! Vi skal spille på The River radiostation fredag. Darkwood er stadig fedt, men vi skal spille på en bryllupfest show i 2009. Vi vil gerne spise noget.

Jeg fik en kalde fra kunstkommissionen i Mountain Home i dag. Jeg var på toilettet med splatter ass, men jeg altid svar telefonen. Vi Skal spille en koncert og residency i Mountain Home i marts 2009.

Min egen MySpace går stadig sindssyg. Jeg får omkring 20-40 spiller hver dag!!! Jeg har 6 douçaine soloer. Det går skide godt på EMA hjemmeside også.

Det er bare nok!

Jeg er færdig med min engelsk blog. Jeg var en svin. Jeg elsker mine venner som bruges en gaffel som en kniv og spørges Where AT og gå mellem et rødt lys. MEN....jeg kan gøre hvad jeg vil.

Jeg lærte 6-8 elever og hat to prøver men øvede ikke. Jeg var næsten syg siden klokkken 3 og nu er jeg bare træt ud. Jeg var for træt eller glemte rosenkransen om en uge. Det er forkert og trist. Jeg savner Maria. Jeg tror at jeg kan bare bede en gang når jeg er træt.

Min Myspace går gangbusters. Jeg skulle gøre en link her, hvis jeg er ikke for dum.

Methodists don't have cathedrals

In the immortal words of Nina Simone,

'nuff said

Where am I?

Not that anyone would care after reading my blog this week, but if anyone wants to know where I am, do not ask where am I AT. I hate that. Not that I am an expert on grammar or anything, but that one is just wrong and ugly. Sometimes ending a sentence with an incorrect preposition is so colloquial that it sounds stilted to reword, but WHERE AT just annoys me and it has annoyed me since I was in high school. I feel uncomfortable correcting anyone's grammar (or table manners), but I do have these few pet peeves to get off my chest. I'm doing it all in English this week before returning to the relative anonimity provided by writing in Danish.

Jaywalking Anarchists are losers

What sense of entitlement it must take for people to think that a red light does not apply to them. Green means go, red means don't go, don't walk means don't walk. I get irritated when people assume that I will just run out in front of five lanes of oncoming traffic with them. It's exhausting always being right. (yes, that's tongue-in-cheek).

Forks are not Knives

Knives are for cutting.
Forks are not for cutting.
Cutting with the side of a fork is, vulgar, lazy, crude and the height of rudeness.
Where did the confusion between these utensils begin?

There! I did a post in English.