yep. never know what the

2 Comments on “yep. never know what the”

1. scott says:

   well?
   What did it hold?

   April 24th, 2003 at 8:49 am

2. steve says:

   an adequate amount of plan-modifying!

   we had an extremely productive rehearsal, for the first time in probably six months. productive enough that i’m no longer bored and dissatisfied with the string ensemble. and … and .. the best part is!! .. i know it’ll continue to be this way (and improve) b/c the aforementioned turmoil involved booting out the lowest members of the totem pole; moving them, actually, to a rehearsal on a different night, so they can struggle with their massive problems in simply playing the notes far away from those of us who are struggling with less basic problems.

   [aside: i'm still really new on the instrument. i'm not saying i'm good. but i can play an e-flat if you tell me to. it won't be heifetz-level perfect, but it'll sound like an e-flat. we're in the ballpark. the people we booted out, so much rehearsal time was spent just working on that.. is this the note? no..much too flat. this? no..much too sharp.
   ..
   the very good musicians who had to sit next to these people with a very limited concept of intonation started complaining that it was affecting their ability to play. they were given many, many opportunities to improve. for months they'd been told they need to work on these serious, serious problems and nothing changed ("but i practiced for an hour and a half!" is, to my mind, meaningless when you still sound like you're running your cello along a belt-sander) many hours were wasted talking about this with them in rehearsals that had grown increasingly boring and frustrating. i stopped practicing my parts b/c it made no difference when i was up against the 'industrial machinery' motif in the cello section. my sight-reading (hah!) was GOOD ENOUGH and i'm really not exaggerating!
   ..
   ultimately..what it really came down to was a bad attitude on their part, a refusal to take a lesson or fix the basic problem or, finally, accept that they don't belong in a group, with the way they sound, where everyone else runs the spectrum from 'pretty good beginner' to 'professional'..]

   so i’m really excited about the string ensemble again. i won’t be embarrassed to invite my friends and family to our performance this time. [aside: last time, after it was over, i apologized profusely to my guests for the cello section, for turning our nice stab at the third brandenburg concerto (my personal favorite piece of music ever) into an unfortunate crime against poor bach.] we played through everything either without stopping or to receive some minor feedback. intonation was mentioned once or twice. dynamics, once or twice. musicality, lots! (wow..who knew!) and for the first time, near the end of the rehearsal, in something of a personal breakthrough for me, i started to become actually satisfied with my tone on the fiddle! [segue: hooray!]

   late in the evening we made to the most remarkable place - a 24-hour russian deli! delicious borscht, some excellent ukrainian cabbage rolls..

   [segue: i also got an icq message while i was out from the most unexpected individual..i will leave it up to you to guess who.]

   April 24th, 2003 at 11:39 am