The Year Ahead

Looking forward:

Mid-January will mark a half year of cello-ing.

• Hold off further work on the Swan until I get vibrato down.
• Work up Allegretto movement from K.564, Mozart Piano Trio for chamber piece.
• Work on Bouree (M1) for solo piece.
  
• Memorize Suzuki Bach Minuet accompaniments so I don't have a stand in front of me when playing SMA concerts.
  

Looking backward:

Start work on Suzuki Book One. Erk. Ah well, it was bound to happen. RC thinks I should go through the discipline. Since I'm driving almost an hour each way to visit SMA I might as well learn something.

A Gift

I received this gorgeous watercolor from a nice fellow from Spain via Drawspace this evening. It's rendered from a photograph I took in Botswana last year.

Drawing Frenzy

Been busy drawing as I had to finish the "Secret Santa" project I signed up for at Drawspace.com. Also needed to get some reps of my work online. I haven't drawn anything for so long, I can't even find any samples of things I've done in the past. Here's a quick sketch I did today which my husband thought quite nice.

Today's Recital

Less said the better. Lost my place, hit bad notes, etc. etc. Some days you can do no wrong, today wasn't one of them.

Last Day of School

I didn't even bother studying for today's test in Human Growth and Development as it's all about the middle ages and old-timers. Afterwards celebrated getting an "A" in Music History Class and went out for sushi buffet lunch with a classmate and my husband.

Tonight I finished my long standing web project for a client. He wanted his website upgraded a year ago and I kept putting it off -- afterall the old one was working fine and pulling in lots of hits from google. I've been working on it on and mostly off for the past six months. Changed the site to CMS (Content Management System). I've been moving most of my clients towards this system as it allows me (or permitted users to update) their website from any internet access point.

Final recital tomorrow and then nothing till January 8th when chamber music starts up again. I'm going to start counting my cello practice in weeks instead of days. Makes more sense at this point.

Girlfriend told me her husband is skipping town for a week in mid-January, so I'll go visit her and have a mini-vacation.

My husband's Romanian stamp show in June needed booking. I found a decent hostel for $40 a night private room in the center of Bucharest. Beats paying $140 for the "official hotel". Still have to book the flights. Looks like most require TWO changes. The only ones I see that are ONE change of plane get you into Bucharest at 11pm. That's too late to arrive.

Having lots of fun with my new cellular -- got a USB cable so I could backup my contacts onto my computer and spent a long time looking for software that would work with my phone. Tonight ordered a car charger and headset. The LG Rumor LX260 phone is really nice for CNN news, google docs/maps, weather, email, blogging and photo sending, texting and facebook.

Starting reading "Water for Elephants". My sister-in-law left the book when she was here last month. It's an easy read.

Day 150

After we finished taking our final in Music History Class, Ayin (a violinist from my chamber music class) and I played some of the Suzuki Book arrangements of Bach Minuets together. Ayin made a recording with his mp3 player. My husband says it sounds like it was created in 1902. Our performance is certainly not note perfekt, but there's a certain charm.




Boring stats: Sad to say, 15 days of No Practice (NP) this period.
17 days of not playing. Things should be better now that classes are almost over.
2007.10.04 Day 112 - 113 Sick
114-Scales CGDA, F Blfat, Eflat, Arpeggios, Octaves, Thirds
Bow Exercises (BE), Pachelbel
115-116 No practice (NP)
117-BE, Chamber pieces (CP)
118-119 NP
120-Scales, BE
121-BE, Swan
122-NP
123-Review, Scales, BE, CP
124-Xmas
125-NP
126-127 Xmas, CP
128-BE
129-130 NP
131-134 Xmas, CP
135-NP
136-137 CP
138-140 CP
141-Xmas, Minuets
142-147 NP
148-Xmas, Minuets
149-NP
2007.12.17 Day 150-Minuets

SMA & MDC

Saturday, I played with SMA at BCC Library and managed to hit most of the important notes despite not having practiced all week. Folks told me that the cello sounded nice. I have another week to rehearse for the next concert.

RE: MDC's production of "The World Goes Round", I suspect only the first two rows in the audience actually heard me play the banjo. There was talk of getting me miked but it didn't happen.

A cell phone photo

Just testing the photo upload function.
This is Unsung - a korean girl I met in one of my classes.

New Toy

First posting via my new cell phone

Upgraded my old cell phone to a LG Rumor. After an hour with tech support finally got the internet access up and running.

Many moons ago I had a palm clone phone. What a difference a few years make! Especially the price! This phone only cost me $50 and internet access is only $15 a month.

Don't Block

Another practice session with the SMA yesterday. A few pointers -- hold down the B (1st finger on the A string) when reaching for the G on the D string. When playing the G on the D string, don't play the 4th and 3rd finger at the same time aka blocking the fingers. Watch that D sharp, its too flat. Other than that, I sound pretty good accompanying the six year olds playing the Bach minuets.

Have dress rehearsals for the musical at MDC, Monday and Tuesday night, then actual performances for Thursday and Friday night. Then Xmas concerts for the next two Saturdays.

Finished the Survey of Musical History Online Course today. It was fun. I should have also taken the Psychology and Human Growth Development courses online as I didn't find the live classes very rewarding.

The regular Survey of Musical History course continues to be challenging -- For example, we have to write an essay on the characteristics of opera seria, baroque dance suites and the three types of instrumental concertos.

Cormorants on the Beach Near Woods Hole

Thanks to Maricello. Her blog entry about "Drawspace" got me curious enough to join.

Here's this week's entry which is based on a photo by Maricello. My husband liked it a lot.

Chicago

Ah Chicago, not the city this time; I mean the musical. I've been drafted to play the banjo part to the song "All that Jazz" from Chicago for the local community college. This afternoon was spent pasting chords onto the score. Not much time to practice though, the concert is next week.

Tomorrow is my chamber music class recital -- playing Violin III on Lutoslawski's Silesian tunes, the cello for Pachelbel and cello for a couple of movements from a Telemann Trio. Tried not to overpractice today. Don't want my fingers to get sore for tomorrow.

A Deafening Concert and A Good Rehearsal

Yesterday, I was dragged off to a mystery concert by a friend.
It turned out to be a percussion ensemble which consisted of Xenakis' Persephassa for six percussion -- which I felt didn't have the proper acoustical setting since the piece is supposed to surround the audience, followed by a harmless melodic piece by an Argentinian composer whom I don't remember but name rhymes with MEOW and begins with a "V", and George Antheils' Ballet Mechanique.

Ballet Mechanique.

Since I had my earplugs with me, I survived.

Pleasant rehearsal today with the SMA. I think I shall go ahead and commit to the hour drive every Saturday as I feel there is much benefit to be had playing in the group setting.