yarn tootin'

Huapango

     Every night this week, and twice on Saturday, my orchestra is playing a series of free Cinco de Mayo concerts in various high school auditoriums all over town.  For some of these concerts we are joined by high school Mariachi bands and at others there are dancers.  At every concert we play a program of songs and dances of Spanish and Mexican origin.  As you might imagine, this sort of thing is a big hit in San Antonio.  The grand finale of the concert is a piece called Huapango by the Mexican composer Jose Pablo Moncayo.  Over the course of any season, we play Huapango quite a lot.  This season alone, we've played it five times and it will be played at least ten more times before we break in June.  The people of San Antonio love Huapango.  I like Huapango too, but I can't play it without remembering my first experience with the piece.   

     I wasn't always a violist.  Once upon a time, I was a lowly second violinist in the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphony (GTCYS, pronounced GIT-sees).  Some of my contemporaries look back on their days in GTCYS with nostalgia and the memories leave them feeling warm and fuzzy.  These were the chosen people.  I however,  look back on my GTCYS experience and I'm amazed that I ended up playing in an orchestra for a living.  Needless to say, my experience was less than fabulous.  Most of this was due to the combination of the evil conductor who seemed to make it his mission to terrify a generation of young musicians in the Twin Cities, my somewhat rebellious attitude, and the fact that I refused to kiss up to said conductor.  This was probably why I wasn't one of the chosen favorites.  It was not because I was a bad violinist, or in later years a bad violist.   

     Back in the day, GTCYS consisted of a complicated hierarchy of orchestras.  You started in the "Little Philharmonia" when you were 8 or 9 and progressed through the "Junior" orchestras with the goal of someday making it to the "Symphony."  My first year in the Symphony was my sophomore year of high school and I spent the most of that season sitting with a girl named Karena on the very last stand of second violins.  In most youth ensembles, sitting on the last stand is not something that's great for a kid's self-esteem, so Karena and I coped by placing a row of Skittles or some other candy on our stand to make the rehearsals a little more bearable.  This may have had something to do with our last stand status, but that didn't occur to us at the time.  That season was also the first time I  played Huapango and I will never forget it.

     There is a section of Huapango near the beginning where the second violins have to strum a series of chords guitar style in a rhythm that's not particularly difficult, but it was probably new and different to a group of teen-aged Minnesotans.  The first time we rehearsed it, most of the second violins couldn't play the passage at all and we got yelled at by the evil conductor.  The following week, the passage was still sounding terrible, so the evil conductor decided to "go down the line" and make everyone play it one by one.  After the first two or three people failed miserably, the evil conductor delivered a monologue on how horrible we were and how we should all be able to play Huapango.  He then crossed his arms, gave us his scariest and most threatening glare, and asked if anyone else wanted to give it a try.  I had looked at the part and I knew I could play it flawlessly, but for some reason I couldn't raise my hand and volunteer even though I desperately wanted to.  I have always regretted that I didn't stand up and play that passage of Huapango and to this day, I can't play the piece without remembering the incident. 

     In case you're unfamiliar with Huapango, here is a video of the Berlin Philarhmonic playing it.  I know that Berlin is a great orchestra, but I'm afraid that when it comes to Huapango, they just don't get it.  You can almost hear them counting every eighth note and their rendition is just a little bit wooden.  The San Antonio Symphony on the other hand, does a rockin' Huapango, second violins and all.

Bling

     On Wednesdays I teach a pair of brothers ages 7 and 13 and they are almost always good for a couple of laughs.  The little brother usually has the first lesson and then the big brother comes in for his lesson.  The time in which they are both in my studio is when the good stuff usually happens.  Both brothers are very chatty and they unpack and pack up their violins rather leisurely while telling me their news of the day.  Today the big brother came in and promptly showed me his "bling" which consisted of about six ordinary plastic beads on a piece of string.  The little brother seemed somewhat agitated by this and loudly announced "It is not bling!"
     The little brother then drew me into the mix by asking "Mrs. Courtney, do you think my brother's necklace is bling?"  I really didn't want to get involved, but I had to answer so I said that I thought that all jewelry could be bling if the wearer wanted it that way.  The little brother then informed me that I was wrong and that bling is limited to big gold letters or dollar signs on fat gold chains.  He was also made it clear that beads are not bling.  After that he went into a monologue about sharks.  Did you know that there is a type of shark that can live in freshwater and saltwater?

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Auditions

     For the last two years I have been hired by the symphony I work for on one-year contracts.  This happens in orchestras when permanent, tenured members take leaves of absence or in the case of my orchestra, after the organization goes through some sort of financial turmoil.  If an orchestra goes dark for a period of time (i.e. there are no concerts or paychecks) members will leave town or pursue other endeavors, and once the orchestra is back on its feet (which can take years), those folks are usually given a year or three to decide if they want to come back.  In the meantime, the show must go on, so someone has to fill those positions. 
     For the last several seasons there have been as many as 10-15 players on one year contracts in my orchestra.  Now that the organization has regained its health, people who have gone away are either coming back to their jobs or deciding not to come back and resigning.  When it is determined that a person isn't coming back and a position is open, there must be a national audition (for more on orchestra auditions, please refer back to this post).  By contract, the orchestra can't just hire the people who have been doing those jobs (even if we are fabulous and beloved) because most of us never really auditioned.  Before I was hired for the first one year contract, I played a quick little audition of sorts for the conductor and the first stand of violists in the green room one night before a concert.  It was short and sweet and when it was over we all hugged each other and went on our merry way.  I wish that this was how all auditions worked, but unfortunately, real auditions are a little more grueling.   
     I know I've been quiet here on the blog lately.  I realize that my posts have been few and far between and a tad mundane.  It's just that I've just been a little bit busy and stressed out because I was preparing for a very important audition.  For the last two days, I've had the somewhat surreal experience of auditioning for my own job.  Guess what?  I won.  Fair and square.  The job is mine and I still can't quite believe it.  I had braced myself for the crushing disappointment of not winning the audition because auditions are a bit of a lottery in and of themselves and you just never know.  I have taken many, many auditions and I usually don't win or even come close, but that didn't happen this time.  This time I won.  I think I'm going to go order some post audition celebration yarn.  There are new colors up on the Blue Moon Fiber Arts website and I think that this one is most appropriate for the occasion.

I Feel Old

     As many of you know, I play the viola.  I had an audition today that made me feel very old.  For some reason I can't quite pinpoint, I've decided to apply to the DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) program at UT Austin.  Whether or not I actually enroll in said program remains to be seen, but if I want to have more school as an option next fall, I have to apply to the program.  As with all music programs, an audition is required.  Today I played said audition and it went okay, but I'm pretty sure I was the oldest person auditioning for the School of Music today.      
     They do graduate and undergraduate auditions on the same day, so there were a lot of high school seniors running around with their parents, all of whom looked nervous.  Once upon a time, about fifteen years ago, I went to a few music school auditions with my parents, but the memory has become somewhat vague because now I am SO OLD.   I think I must have finally gotten to the point where I actually look bit older than most of the applicants because while I was washing my hands in the ladies room, somebody's mom asked me "Do you teach here?".   I just said "No," and offered no further explanation.  This didn't stop the woman from introducing her daughter (a singer) to me.  I wished the girl good luck and fled back to the safety of my practice room.
     So I played the audition and it was okay.  Some things went better than others and nothing went terribly wrong.  What many of you may not know about classical musicians is that many of us take drugs before high pressure audition and performance situations.  The drugs aren't serious, just 10 milligrams or so of Indirol or Propanalol (beta blockers) which isn't much, but it takes the edge off and makes a person feel less like pressing the crap out of their viola with their bow.  For those whose hands shake or sweat, it tends to diminish this as well.  For me, it just keeps my anxiety at a manageble level and it allows me to make a pretty sound rather than a scratchy one.  I love my performance drugs and I will never take another audition without them.  The only downside is the wicked Indirol hangover that I experience later in the day.  I now have a big fat headache and my plans to sit and knit and drink beer and eat delicious treats may have to be postponed in favor of an early bed time.  Oh well.  I did it and it's over (and after the audition I went to Hill Country Weavers AND The Knitting Nest!) and I do not intend to practice tomorrow. 

Two Thumbs Down

       If you're considering going to see August Rush, I urge you to reconsider.  It's two hours of your life that you will never get back.  If you know nothing about music it might not be offensive, but if you're a musician of any genre, don't go there.  I'm all for cheesy movies about music.  I loved Mr. Holland's Opus and I got all misty eyed over Music of the Heart, but August Rush is just ridiculous.  Even Felicity couldn't save this movie from its preposterous storyline.  The one redeeming quality was the fake conducting done by Freddie Highmore (August Rush).  The kid's not bad.  He must have at least observed a conductor or two because he had a few classic conductor gestures down pat.  I wish the director had gone to a concert or even consulted a musician because there were a lot of stupid mistakes (soloist on the wrong side of the podium, soloist facing the wrong way, conductor conducting during solos etc.) that didn't need to happen.  Is it really that hard to try to get it right?  If nothing else, Bob and I had a good time laughing at the movie.  I'm just not sure it was supposed to be funny.   

Statement of Purpose

     I spent most of the afternoon trying to write a Statement of Purpose for my UT application and I realized that in the years I've been out of school, I forgot how to write that sort of thing.  I can yammer on and on with no purpose whatsoever here on the old blog, but when I'm expected to actually have something to say, I draw a blank.  I have no purpose.  The truth is I'm applying to the DMA program because I might want to enroll.  I  also very well might not.  The program doesn't start until September of 2008 which is more than nine months away, but the deadline is Saturday, so if I want to have the option next fall I have to come up with a purpose today.   I think I'd rather be sewing seams.

Longhorn Orange

     I went up to Austin today to play for the viola professor at UT.  I'm thinking about doing a Doctorate, so I thought I'd go up there and meet the viola guy to see if he has valuable knowledge to impart.  It's been years since I've had a real lesson at a school with a teacher and it felt so weird.  While I was waiting outside the teacher's studio, I felt like I was about a million years old, but then this kid started talking to me like I was a student so I just went with it and chatted with him until my lesson time.   My lesson was really good and I liked the viola guy a lot. 
     I've spent the better part of the last ten years either playing in an orchestra or preparing for an audition for a job in a better orchestra (or an orchestra closer to Bob).  Orchestra auditions have very little to do with music and a lot to do with being perfect.  They tend suck the life and the music right out of a person and after taking close to 30 auditions, my playing has become tight and expressionless.  I play all of the notes and I'm capable of being very precise, but the notes don't really mean anything.  When the viola guy asked me what I don't like about my playing, this is basically what I told him.  He agreed and we spent an hour breathing (literally) the life back into my Bartok Concerto.  Viola guy gave me a lot to think about and I'm sure I'll go back for more lessons even if I decided not to pursue a DMA.

     One of the UT bookstores is quite close to the music building, so I stopped in there before heading home.  I've always loved college bookstores.  I love the pens and notebooks and backpacks and most of all, the gear.  I bought a tiny t-shirt for a friend's baby and this shirt for myself.  I think that the UT-Austin logo is one of the very best college logos.  I love longhorn orange and logo itself is simple and cute, and if you put holiday lights on it, it's even cuter.  I managed to avoid both Hill Country Weavers and The Knitting Nest on this trip, but I had to buy this shirt.

Who is That Androgynous Child?

      Day 5 is rough.  I intended to save this little gem for a day when I was truly desperate for NoBloPoMo fodder, but after a long day of teaching, here it is on day 5.  The androgynous child is me.  I think I'm probably about four in this picture.  I know that the violin is my 1/16th size because the fingerboard is all bleached out.  Most fingerboards are black, and I have no idea what happened to this one.  I don't think I played that violin for more than a year or so, but I don't really remember, so I could be five in the picture.
     There are several things that I like about this picture; first, my outfit, second, my haircut (it was 1979), third, my horrible bow hold, fourth, the expression on my face (don't I look thrilled to be playing my violin?), and fifth, the expression on my grandma's face.  That's my grandma there behind me.  It looks like she's trying not to laugh.  I must not have sounded very good.  To this day, my mother maintains that I always played in tune and with a good sound, but now that I teach several children myself, I know this can't really be true.  Even the good ones play out of tune about half of the time and I'm positive that there is no such thing as a 1/16th size violin that sounds good.  Still, it's nice to have someone who is convinced that I've always played in tune.  Thanks Mom.

Squirrel

     A long time ago, I had a great friend called Kate .  One summer afternoon a few weeks before we were to head off to Oberlin to go to college, Kate and I were enjoying lunch at the McDonald's near her house, and we started talking about the possibility of changing our names when we got to college.  We weren't considering legal name changes, we were just looking to reinvent ourselves, to start fresh.  Little did we know, the fact that we were going to college together as the dynamic duo that we already were would make this next to impossible.  It's kind of hard to be someone new when you go to school in a tiny town in Ohio and you hang around all day every day with someone who knows you better than you know yourself.  We didn't know this yet and we were young, naive, and silly, so we spent that lunch devising our aliases.

      In an effort to come up with a new persona for Kate, I suggested Kat (clever, I know) and then followed up with Kitty.  I found this to be hysterical because Kate really wasn't the kind of person you'd meet and think, "Kitty!".  Kate was suitably horrified by my suggestion and said that if she was Kitty, I was going to be Coco, a nickname I already had, but didn't particularly like.  Several lame suggestions later, we gave up on finding new names and decided that we'd just stick with Courtney and Kate.  The only problem was, I couldn't stop calling her Kitty, so she kept on calling me Coco.  When we got to Oberlin a few weeks later, I was still calling her Kitty and she was calling me Coco.  By the second week of school, most of the people in our freshman dorm knew us as Kitty and Coco.   At some point,  Coco lost its appeal and it went away, but Kitty stuck and now I have a great friend called Kitty.

     Kitty and I have a long history of saying the exact word or words at the same moment.  The most notable example of this happened at some point early in our college years when Kate was lamenting the fact that everyone on campus thought her name was Kitty.  She told me that it was all my fault and that I needed a small furry creature nickname too.  A few seconds later, we turned to each other and said "Squirrel!".  It was so weird, but it's the sort of thing that happens to us.  Ever since that day, we've referred to such occurrences as "total squirrels."  Squirrels aren't limited to verbal outbursts.  If she calls me from New York and asks what I'm up to and I tell her that I just opened a bag of Skittles and discovered that a white Skittle is currently replacing the purple Skittle, chances are, she's got an open bag of Skittles on her desk and was just thinking about the creepy nature of the white Skittle.  It's bizarre and strange, but it happens all the time.

      Last spring, Kitty and I were both preparing for major orchestra auditions.  We spent hours on the phone during those weeks bitching about orchestral excerpts, auditions in general, and telling each other how awesome we are.  The you're awesome, no YOU are awesome game is an essential part of audition preparation.  One afternoon while browsing on Etsy, I came across the cutest little pocket squirrels in Maritza's shop.  I immediately bought two, one for me, and one for Kitty and I thought that we could keep them in our viola cases and they'd be our good luck charms.  I call my squirrel Don Juan with the hope that he'll bring me a little extra luck where I need it most.  I think Kitty calls hers Sergei (as in Prokofiev Classical).  My orchestra is playing Don Juan this weekend and I think we're totally rocking out.  I bet it has everything to do with the squirrel.   

Perlman

     Have you ever heard of Itzhak Perlman?  This question is not for anyone who is a musician or a member of my immediate family.  Chances are, the vast majority of the American population has no idea who Itzhak Perlman is, but I can tell you that he is one of the very best violinists there has ever been.  Tomorrow (actually, later today) he will be playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the San Antonio Symphony.  This means that I will be playing my viola on stage while Itzhak Perlamn is playing his violin.  Granted, he will be the soloist, and I will go unnoticed on the third stand of violas, but I will still, in some small way, be playing with Itzhak Perlman .

     When I was a kid, my mom took me to see Itzhak play with the Minnesota Orchestra just about every time he came to town.  Even though the concerts seemed very long to me and I sometimes fell asleep during the symphony, I always liked Itzhak because I'd seen him on Sesame Street.  I always wished that there would be more than one vignette with him and was disappointed when the show ended and there was no more Itzhak.  Today, more than 20 years after the first time I saw him on Sesame Street, I can see him on YouTube whenever I want.  This is one of my favorites...