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Day 120. Beethoven and Marais.

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

I’ve had little time to properly rip some discs the past couple of days. Busy working on finishing up a recording project, and today was also Celia’s 5th birthday. We started the morning out with ‘Birthday’ by The Beatles (don’t think she would like the Sugarcubes as much yet, though I might be surprised). I’ve also been making sure to keep up on some exercise, and I will be releasing a small piece of software soon that accesses your iTunes library, and let’s you make mixes that are keyed to your running pattern. I’ve been running / walking to Led Zeppelin the past couple weeks, and for the most part it works nicely. Though some tunes a poor choices in hindsight. ‘Achille’s Last Stand’ is fine for running AFTER the first 40 seconds of fade in droning guitar. ‘When The Levee Breaks’ = worst running song ever??? But the best cool down song is five minutes of walking home to ‘The Lemon Song’ and playing air bass.

So I went ahead and added some purchases from the past couple of months tonight. These included a couple discs of music for viols by Marin Marais and Pollini and Abbado’s set of Beethoven piano concertos. The Marais is wonderful music, and can sound quite different to ears that haven’t heard much viol music. The viol (viola da gamba and friends) has a more nasally sound, not quite as resonant as the cello. It also is a little slower to speak. Much of the music also tends to have longer, more sweeping lines (this is a generality I probably shouldn’t make, but I think most people who have heard music for viols would probably agree with me that this is the music it played best), and can be very lyrical and emotional. One of this discs though is a set of suites, and some of it really moves. Some of the articulations (which even survived in French music to the present day) are quite snappy, even surprising after hearing such long drawn out attacks in slower movements.

The Pollini set was a big surprise to me. I don’t dislike his solo Beethoven sonata recordings, but don’t really like them much either. Mostly, I was indifferent about them. But the concerto recordings were done close to 20 years after the other recordings, and as a pianist Pollini has grown amazingly. He may be one of the best living pianists today. And Abbado, as he was nearing the end of his time with Berlin, had also grown and learned probably as much from working with such an amazing orchestra as they learned from him. These recordings are wonderful pretty much all around. I’m going to throw on the fourth concerto right now I think before I go to bed… or maybe the middle movement of the ‘Emperor’. Either way, I know it will be a good way to end the night.

Tags: Beethoven, Marais, Pollini
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Day 115. Some mix-discs.

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

So tonight when I took Celia downstairs to look for some CDs, out of (what I think is) nowhere, she asks ‘Daddy? Do you have a tape player?’ Now, I’m a little surprised that she would even know what a tape player is, but don’t think too much about it and say ‘yeah, but I think Popi has it…’ and I keep looking for CDs. Then she picks a tape up and says ‘then I think you should do this one tonight’ and it is a mix tape from over ten years ago from my friend Charles. Then it occurs to me… ‘Celia… how did you know that was a tape?’ and she says ‘I just know’, then she turns around and heads upstairs (and I can tell she is quite pleased with herself). Then, there in my hands, is the ONE redeeming reason for cassette tapes to exist. The mix tape. Really, what a horrible medium. The sound quality was horrible on these things (especially compared to records!), over time the sides would start to bleed together, but that was only if some tape machine didn’t eat the damn thing first. All those moving parts as well made for many points of failure, and then there were the compromises manufacturers had to make to get more time onto them (thinner film or added weight which would lead to MORE chances for the thing to get eaten). But by the early ‘90s the 90 minute tape seemed to be pretty ideal for friends to share music with each other (still well before file sharing and mp3 reached any popularity, and CD burners were still VERY expensive, as were the discs to burn onto.

So, 12 or 13 years after the fact Celia finds a mix tape from Charles. And this reminds me that it is also time for me to get my yearly mix disc going. Charles and I worked together at the Tower in Berkeley for a couple years in the mid to late ‘90s while he finished his undergrad degree in English. We became pretty good friends, and have kept in touch here and there. Actually, I really need to write to Charles and see what he is up to. I miss talking to him. But one thing both of us have done, pretty much since we have known each other, is pulled together mix-tapes (then mix-discs then mix-downloads that we know will fit onto a disc) just about every year. We share them with other friends as well, and though Charles may not know this he is one of the main reasons that I still make them. The other reasons are that for Tamiko and me it has filled the role of re-exploring our music collection about once a year, and the other is my friend Colin. So, while I know that other people do listen to some of my mix discs, Tamiko, Charles and Colin are the three people who I really feel a need to impress. This last year, I had a little making up to do in the mix disc department (Mira being born shut down the mix disc making for a year for obvious reasons… ‘Wow… I’m tired and Mira and Celia are asleep at the same time! I can start making a mix-dis… >snore<‘).

So this year I pulled together three discs, and released them as downloads over the course of three weeks. The first was an homage to the first mix-disc (post-tape compilation) that I got from Charles in 1999. Charles’ 1999 mix-disc was called ‘Wood and Smoke’ and pulled together an amazing collection of quieter acoustic tunes, with some choice cuts from The Spinanes, Smashing Pumpkins and Neil Young. ‘Wood and Smoke’ also established the ‘double-album mix-CD’ format for Charles with the sound of a needle dropping, followed by five tracks (about 20 minutes) repeated four times to give the impression of four sides to a double-album. I absolutely love that Charles includes the needle drop, and that each side is thought of as a whole… the tracks expertly arranged into their own little entities. Charles told me a couple years back that I’m his only friend that really appreciates this effort, and I was shocked. I told Charles his other friends didn’t deserve to get copies of his mixes. Anyways, my first of three mixes paid homage to ‘Wood and Smoke’ with ‘Tinder and Soot’. ‘Wood and Smoke’ is probably the most played mix-disc that I have, and I had to see if I could do something just as good with the ‘rules’ that Charles seemed to lay down. I like ‘Tinder and Soot’, but after about 10 listenings I don’t think it stands up as well as Charles’ original.

The second mix-disc of last year was really for Tamiko. She commented to me once (quite accurately) that women singers make WAY too few appearances on my discs. Looking back at my compilations over the years, she was dead on. I hate to say it, but if I was analyzing my mix discs from the outside, it would even appear that the appearance of a woman singing wasn’t exactly token, but a female voice’s appearance was rarer. It was usually a highlighter, a rare enough occurrence so that when it happened, it took on a special significance on its own. A Yo La Tengo song with Georgia singing was common, but other then that there was just an Ella Fitzgerald song or someone soulful or Nico here and there. So ‘Black Dress On’ was, as Tamiko put it, my ‘chick disc’. All female vocals, starting of with Hildegard leading into Ronnie Spector singing ‘Be My Baby’ followed by Sonic Youth (‘Kool Thing’). Unlike ‘Tinder and Soot’, the more I have listened to ‘Black Dress On’ the better it has gotten. I actually think it may be the best mix-disc I ever made, and there is little that makes me happier then throwing it on and watching my girls dance around the living room.

The last disc ‘Born To Gaze Into Night Skies’ follows my more typical mix-disc formula. Lots of genre jumping that attempts to connect what seems to be unrelated music into the musical consciousness that is my musical world. This can frustrate Charles all to hell at times, but I insist that it all works. This would be my radio station if I had one. Why not go from Iron & Wine into Sly and the Family Stone? Throw in some Kenny Burrell, Marc Ribot and The Five Stairsteps, and while the music may hop from genre to genre, it’s all good.

So, these were the discs I put on the server tonight, along with the other mix-discs of mine that I have made over the past 10 years or so. I’ll need to dig out the tape deck and get the ones that Celia wants as well sometime soon, though I wonder if it would be easier to just find the tracks and re-create it that way… but then the tape hiss would be missing, and if Celia is going to get the true experience of what a mix-tape was, that part will be needed. Better start digging around for that old tape deck…

Tags: mix discs
Posted in Celia, Rock / Pop, Tamiko | No Comments »

Day 114. Paganini.

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

After playing the Beethoven violin sonatas a bunch today, Celia really seemed to be getting into violin playing. I put on some of the Paganini violin / guitar duets after breakfast (wafflepalooza for dads) this morning and Celia really liked those as well. She also learned the word ‘violinist’. So I went downstairs and dug up the rest of my Paganini for tonight. And as I started to listen to more and more of his work (I have a stunning amount of Paganini CDs it turns out) I started chuckling to myself more and more. There really are time in his music that are just simply ridiculous. Like – how in the world did anyone think of putting that many notes down at one time for a single instrument to play ridiculous. Like Bugs Bunny playing Liszt with both hands and ears ridiculous… and that is when I made a connection. Celia (and Mira) are going to love this music. It is fun, flashy and just a little silly sometimes. At others, it is operatic. Sometimes very serious, and sometimes SOOO serious that it becomes comic again. Music historians have often compared the early romantic period virtuosity of Paganini and Liszt. It broke away from the classical restraint that so much music of the late 18th and early 19th century sometimes had, and pushed the virtuosic into another realm altogether. So it is no wonder that this music would show up in Looney Tunes, which both of my daughters have taken a serious liking towards. And the fast, joyful playing of Paganini’s violin, I imagine, doesn’t strike Celia as too different from the music she has been hearing in those cartoons.

Of course, as a musician I also find this work fun from the technical standpoint. It really is pretty crazy at points, and having tried to play some of it I appreciate how amazing any of these players are. Even more astounding to me is that, even in Paganini’s music that seems to be just for light entertainment (the violin and guitar duets, or the guitar quartets), I’m surprised at the demands placed on the players. And while so much of the writing is flashy and showy, it is also very musical. Technically it is amazing, but that is only after it is amazing musically.

This is a point of frustration to me with so many composers today, especially in academic circles. There seems to be a need (or expectation) that music should be challenging and difficult (to play as well as listen to). And I certainly think new work should push the art along. But often what I hear that is challenging isn’t that engaging. There are composers who explore complex approaches to composition but want the work to sound un-complex (then why do it???) and there are others that want to write something that just isn’t playable. Just because we can compose out of time, subdivide rhythm into impossible ratios and pitch into minute distinctions doesn’t make the music good. However, if the music is good and requires that such demands are made, then that is a different story. In Nono’s string quartet ‘Fragmente Stille, An Diotima’ there is a wonderful chord that happens about 2/3 of the way through the piece, and I know that Nono knew it. It lasts longer then just about anything else in the work (including the long rests), and when I was doing an analysis of the piece I was surprised to see how it was built. Within the piece, it is a moment of clam beauty. On the page, it is built with quarter-tone dissonances which, from the sight of it, should be jarring. But within the context of the whole work, it is a shimmering moment of beauty that had to happen. I have no way of knowing for sure how he came up with this chord, but it is the perfect one. And it is challenging to play and tune. It is technical complexity that comes from a musical need, and I see a connection between this and the demands Paganini placed on his performers. To make it worse, the result of these passages needs to feel effortless. Virtuosic performers can make it sound like their fingers know where they are going, but virtuosic musicians will make it sound like there is simply no other way to do it.

Tags: Paganini
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Day 108. Ravel, Debussy and Mahler.

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

After last night’s Pascal Rogé fun, as promised I searched for the other recordings of his that I have. The disc with the violin sonata took some time to find. It was literally the last place I looked in the back row of discs, at the bottom of a shelf. Didn’t find the piano trio disc yet though. Along the way, came across his Debussy London two disc set. And I also saw (by other artists) a number of Ravel chamber music discs, piano concertos, and scattered about, a number of Mahler symphony recordings. So I grabbed those for tonight as well.

The Rogé discs are on the speakers tonight though, in more ways then one. Celia wanted some different music for her room, and when I told her about ‘Mother Goose Suite’ she was open to Ravel. So the second disc of that set has been beaming through the house over her room monitor. The high notes are represented quite well. I ripped the disc with the violin sonatas first, and that has been on for a bit already. The disc features Chantal Juillet on violin, and Truls Mørk joins in for the violin and cello sonata. I forgot about the recording of ‘Tzigane’ on this disc which features a kind of prepared piano – the ‘piano luthiel’, which consists of an attachment to the harp of the piano that makes it sound like a cimbalom. Very cool. When this disc came out originally it was only available on Decca which, at the time, wasn’t available in the US. It’s presence was revealed to me by one of Tower’s regular customers named Richard who really knew his classical music (there will be a second Richard story probably tomorrow night… another disc I associate with him was in my ‘ooohhh… look what I found’ stack tonight). Richard regularly bought then returned discs to keep his library rotating, and since he usually bought more then he returned, we didn’t have too much of a problem with this at the Berkeley store. For me, the stuff her returned was always quite good, so from my point of view, we had good music to play once he brought it back. Anyways – Richard picked the disc up during a trip to Europe (I believe for a ‘Ring’ cycle) and let me borrow it. I brought it back to him a week later and was visibly sad to give it up again… but I imagined that since it was on Decca, at some point it would be released here in the states on London. About a week later I saw the release of it announced, but it wouldn’t be coming for another six months! I told Richard about it and that I was excited it would eventually be coming in, and about a week later he brought it back to the store with a post-it note on the disc saying ‘Don’t postpone the pleasure! I’ll get another soon for myself.” I still have the post-it note in the liner notes… it really was a very nice thing to do, and it is still one of my favorite discs that was ever given to me.

The Rogé Debussy is quite well done, and just playing a few tracks tonight was fun. The other discs were a couple of Klemperer Mahler symphonies. The Mahler 2nd (a live recording) is just damn amazing. And the recording of the 9th is still one of my favorite recordings of that symphony. The beginning is just about perfect… pulsing and dying at the same time, until finally the spring of life finally comes out of the strings playing the first melody. Just beautiful. Also in the stack is the soundtrack to ‘Un Coeur en Hiver’ featuring all Ravel chamber music. And for a soundtrack, the performances of the pieces on the disc (the trio, violin sonata and violin and cello duo) are great. It might actually be my favorite recording of the trio and IS my favorite recording of the duo.

More tomorrow as I keep working through the stack of fun…

Tags: Debussy, Mahler, Ravel
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Day 100. Kagel, Liszt and Aretha Franklin.

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

Today marks the 100th day (though not quite the 100th consecutive day) of working on DAC. Since nice round numbers tend to give us pause and time to reflect (10th anniversaries, the millennium, your car hitting 100k miles, etc.), I spent part of today thinking that I should rip something special today. What should be the 100th days music selections? Well – by the time Celia was getting ready for bed, I still hadn’t thought of anything in particular to grab, so we ran downstairs as usual. And now that I think about it, I’m glad that is how it worked out. One of my favorite parts of this whole project has been involving my girls with it, and seeing what they are drawn to. It keeps things unexpected for me as well.

Celia keeping with her visual magnetism to all things pink, went for the Kagel discs I have on Montaigne (nice, bright cardboard packaging) as well as a Rhino collection of Aretha Franklin (because she liked the picture of Aretha on the cover). And next to that was a Vox Box set of Liszt’s ‘Years of Pilgrimage’ with Jerome Rose, so I grabbed that too.

Over the past 100 days, I have pulled quite a few discs onto the drives downstairs, and while not every disc has found me with something to say, I knew the music on those discs pretty well. And so, with Celia grabbing the ‘Sankt-Bach-Passion’ by Kagel tonight, we do have a special first. I have never listened to this CD. I know the story behind the piece, and have been curious to hear it (curious enough to buy the disc!), but have never listened to it. So I thought – ‘well! I’ll listen to it after I throw it on!’ and I still might, but in the mean time I am streaming a Quicksliver Messenger Service disc from my friend Daniel. Daniel has access to my server of music, and thought it was so cool that tonight he set up a Subsonic server for his music, and while I was browsing around on his I saw Quicksilver (an old face from growing up… as I type, ‘Mona’ is chugging away over the speakers. Man – what a great song, and I would be really surprised if the Kagel could top it, so I’m not going to mess with it).

The Liszt though is another one of those discs that Tamiko and I used to play in her apartment in Berkeley. Haven’t listened to it in some time, but I’m looking forward to hearing it. The recording in particular is, well, pretty bad. VERY resonant and blurry. But it is an excellent example of liking the first version you hear of something. I have another excellent recording of these pieces (the Bolet recordings I believe) and they are crisp and clean, and very well played. The Jerome Rose recordings are played well also, though I think there is a lot of pedal, and a lot of reverb (probably from the space). Tamiko and I would put these discs on as background quite a bit, sometimes for when we were eating, and the sound quality of them was perfect. At times, the piano sounds almost bell-like, almost like you are hearing it from across the street. We were also able to hear the bells of the Campanile from where she lived in Berkeley, with a similar sound quality. So even though I have better recordings of these pieces now, this would still be the ones I would put on. And will put on… because the notes might be the same, but it is this music that I remember when I think about Tamiko and I cooking together in her apartment on Arch St.

This project, and this blog, was supposed to be part escapism for me. And it has served its purpose well. It was given me great distraction at times over these past few months when things have been less then great. It has also given me a new faith in nostalgia, and brought back many happy memories. What has surprised me a little is how intense some of those memories have been. The smell of the air from 20 years ago creeps into this musical moments sometimes. Goosebumps sometimes appear on my arms as I hear something the way I did the first time I heard it.

But another aspect that was important to me with this project was listening again to music that had, for some time, just sat on a shelf. It has given me a chance to remember how much music is out there on the one hand, as well as how much I have to get to know again. And to share. Mira this morning asked to hear the ‘Bunny Music’ (the Barber of Seville overture), and tonight when Celia was getting ready for story time, she asked me to put on Bach (we listened to the lute suites). And in a couple minutes, I bet I can put on the Liszt that I am ripping right now, go sit next to Tamiko, and she will pause her typing for a minute, look at me, and smile. I’m so lucky to have all this in my life, and while I started to realize this early in this project, at 100 days, it is amazing that the coincidence of a number, and the events of the day, shows me how important it is for me to get all this music playing again in my house.

Tags: Aretha Franklin, Kagel, Liszt
Posted in Celia, Classical, Mira, Rock / Pop, Tamiko | 1 Comment »

Day 98. Rossini, Paganini.

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

How did you first hear opera? If you are like just about anyone in my generation that would actually admit to listening to opera, my guess is ‘What’s Opera Doc’ or ‘Rabbit of Seville’ is somewhere in your personal viewing history. And I would also assume this is the case for people in my parent’s generation as well. Here’s a test, throw on ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and see if ‘KILL THE WABBIT!’ gets stuck in your head.

And of course I am passing this fine introduction to opera on to my girls. Mira asks to ‘see bunny!’ and Celia has had a couple years now of occasional Bugs Bunny / Elmer Fudd opera viewings. So when I guided Mira’s box-set grabbing hands towards Rossini today, and she just HAPPENED to grab ‘Barber of Seville’, and then I just happened to put on the overture, I could tell both girls recognized it. They laughed and giggled. As well they should. Rossini is funny. And when Celia is sad at the end of ‘What’s Opera Doc?’, well, she should be, because Wagner’s ‘Ring’ is a tragedy.

Probably my favorite part of the old Looney Tunes and other cartoons that use just about any form of classical music (whether it is opera, or Liszt or Schroeder playing Beethoven) is that in those older cartoons, they are actually performances – recordings of real people playing the music, and often quite well. And, they find ways to make the music humorous (and if you can hear the humor, that also shows you know your music). Humor in music is hard, and the visual cues in Bugs Bunny certainly help, but these are cartoons that can be appreciated. They aren’t childish adult voices singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ is a half yelling annoying voice like so many kids toys today. They aren’t synthesized. They are arranged by real arrangers, played by real musicians, and the cartoons often focus on the music and the virtuosity it takes to perform some of it. Of course Bugs Bunny needs his ears to help out with playing Liszt – anyone who has actually tried to perform his works knows that a few extra appendages wouldn’t hurt. I have heard a couple people say that being introduced to classical music in cartoons is actually bad for kids – it makes them think that the visuals are necessary, or that it has to be funny. I don’t really buy that though.

First of all, music, as something that is performed, is VERY visual. Not enough musicians realize how important appearance and performance are, but when you ask most people what the hard part about a computer music concert is, it is the fact that ‘there is nothing to look at’. And as far as opera goes, while I do love listening to opera, it is as much a visual art as it is a dramatic and musical one. And there are a number of performers who take advantage of the visual element. Paganini used to up light his performances to make his appearance more ‘devil-ish’. Liszt faced the piano so the audience could see his fingers. The Who smashed their guitars. Music is meant to be performed and experienced, and I think way to many people think this ISN’T the case because we can buy it on sound only recordings or listen to it on the radio.

Which brings up the other part of tonight’s additions… a set of twelve, two movement pieces for guitar and violin by Paganini. These are wonderful little pieces… sweet, melodic with occasional moments of violin virtuosity thrown in.

Tags: Paganini, Rossini
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Day 89. Vivaldi, Getz/Gilberto, Pink Martini and Bach.

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

Tonight I came across a stack of CDs in my bedroom that I discovered while grabbing some freshly recharged AA batteries for my camera. There is a little magazine holder there that really is just holding a robe I never wear and, much to my surprise, a stack of discs. Included in this stack is the Anner Bylsma disc of Vivaldi Concertos that I had been missing (!) as well as Pink Martini’s second album, the Pierre Fournier Bach Cello Suites and the Getz/Gilberto classic. I happily brought the stack downstairs and immediately ripped the Vivaldi and put it on while the girls ate their dinner, and happily announced to Tamiko that I had found the disc. We played it a lot when I first shacked up with her in her apartment on Arch St. in Berkeley, and I mentioned how hearing the music reminded me of that time. She said that it reminded her of when Celia was being born, and that is when I realized that this was the stack of CDs that we took to the hospital with us for Celia and, three years later, with Mira. Not that we did much listening during Celia actually being born (I really only remember hearing Bach Cello Suites that day, early in the process… after that is mostly a blur until Celia was out and all of us had quiet moments here and there over the next couple of days). We had a couple days in the hospital after both girls were born, and the well-known music playing in the background helped prepare both of them, from day 1, for the house of music they would be moving back into.

When I had the Vivaldi on this morning, Celia did some ballet like dancing. She is just as elegant as the music is, and though she is making up almost everything there is doing, I already see a bit of virtuosity in her mind for body movement. Mira laughs as I sing along with Joao Gilberto, and I love that in their life times, my girls have heard music from five continents and over ten centuries. They have adapted it to their own, and can focus on it at times, and enjoy it in the background. The Arvo Pärt disc we also had at the hospital still puts Mira (who turns two in a week) to sleep every night, and Celia moves between Bach and Dowland.

People often ask me if when I am going to start the girls on music lessons. Often I get a shocked glance back when I say ‘when they ask’. They have their hands on instruments whenever they want to, from violins and upright grand pianos to flutes for the bathtub that you tune with water. There is a two octave kid accordion as well. They both dance, and they are both around music everyday. They sing. I’m not worried about forcing anything musical into my girls’ lives. They are already musical, and I cherish that there is so much joy in their lives because of it.

Tags: J.S. Bach, Joao Gilberto, Pink Martini, Stan Getz, Vivaldi
Posted in Celia, Classical, Jazz, Mira, Tamiko | No Comments »

Day 75. Dowland.

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

I learned from my friend Don (who studied guitar as an undergraduate) that Downland’s lute works are quite popular with college guitar students since the English lute was a much more standardized instrument then the continental companion. Six strings, tuned like the modern guitar with one exception (the G string was on F-sharp). When I learned this I remember thinking ‘Ooooh! I bet I could play those!’ before realizing that it is this exact thought that all those undergraduates think too. Having long ago put the guitar down (except for the occasional jazz strumming and playing) I thought this might be a good way to get back into some playing. I thought this a year ago… and I DO still think I will get to it. But it is a bit saddening how hard it can be to just get going again sometimes. Time is short, and while I have the best intentions, when it comes down to it I just might not be a guitarist anymore. I’d rather spend the time with the kids, or relaxing with Tamiko, etc. I’m sure I’ll get back into it eventually, and when I do a decent classical guitar and Dowland will surely be a good place to start.

Today I imported the Complete Downland set on L’oiseau-Lyre. This is a 12 disc set with more ‘Lachrimae’ and Lute music then you can shake a stick at. Every known version of the ‘Lachrimae’ is on here, and there is something about it that reminds me of Chubby Checker doing multiple versions of ‘The Twist’ (then ‘Let’s Twist Again’ then ‘The Twist (1986)’ etc. etc. etc.). Downland may have beaten Pachelbel to the title of ‘First One Hit Wonder’ by a century or so in my book. And, like most one hit wonders, there is so much more when you dive in beyond that first piece. Pachelbel’s body of works are pretty great, and Dowland certainly does not disappoint either. I mentioned some time ago that the girls have pretty much fallen asleep to Arvo Pärt’s ‘Fur Alina’ since they were newborns, but with Mira I also would mix in Dowland’s Lute Music during her night time bottle (along with some late Beethoven quartets and Bach’s ‘Art of the Fugue’). She really liked Dowland though, and his body of lute music is fairly large (across 5 of these discs!) so I had a good amount of repertoire to become familiar with while also becoming familiar with the new baby girl. After some time, Celia also took to Dowland and asked to have a Dowland disc burned for her to play at night, and while I still get my nightly ‘Fur Alina’ from Mira’s sound monitor, ‘Can She Excuse’ and the ‘Queen’s Galliard’ stream out of Celia’s.I learned from my friend Don (who studied guitar as an undergraduate) that Downland’s lute works are quite popular with college guitar students since the English lute was a much more standardized instrument then the continental companion. Six strings, tuned like the modern guitar with one exception (the G string was on F-sharp). When I learned this I remember thinking ‘Ooooh! I bet I could play those!’ before realizing that it is this exact thought that all those undergraduates think too. Having long ago put the guitar down (except for the occasional jazz strumming and playing) I thought this might be a good way to get back into some playing. I thought this a year ago… and I DO still think I will get to it. But it is a bit saddening how hard it can be to just get going again sometimes. Time is short, and while I have the best intentions, when it comes down to it I just might not be a guitarist anymore. I’d rather spend the time with the kids, or relaxing with Tamiko, etc. I’m sure I’ll get back into it eventually, and when I do a decent classical guitar and Dowland will surely be a good place to start.

Tags: John Dowland
Posted in Celia, Classical, Mira, Tamiko | No Comments »

Day 73. Beethoven and Bach.

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Though I just finished with the complete Bach box set, something that isn’t represented in that collection at all is the lute-harpsichord. Like it sounds, the instrument (pictured above) is basically a cross between the two instruments – a keyboard instrument with gut strings and the body of a HUGE lute. There is a good amount of research that suggests that Bach actually composed quite a bit on and for this instrument that basically disappeared by the late 1700s, and that his ‘Lute Suites’ were actually for this instrument (and not the more commonly found baroque lute). About a year ago I discovered a recording on eMusic of the lute suites performed on a replica lute-harpsichord and downloaded it, and was immediately struck by how different the instrument was from the harpsichord. It is a beautiful sound, more resonant then a lute (and able to sustain notes that would otherwise be deadened on a lute when a change of fret was needed) and less harsh then a harpsichord. The lute pieces on this recording (in Naxos with Elizabeth Farr) are beautiful. There are a handful of other recordings out there with the instrument (including a recording of the Goldberg Variations) that I hope to find someday soon.

This was also a recording I played quite a bit to help Mira sleep when she was still a newborn. She also liked Dowland quite a bit, as well as late Beethoven quartets. So as the little girl needed a little cuddle tonight (she’s is getting over a nasty croup cough) I put the late Beethoven quartets on (the A minor, op. 132) that I have on my computer (The Lindsays recording) and just held her for a bit. She’s so much bigger now… both her and Celia amaze me daily. And I’m glad that when they aren’t feeling well, that their daddy can still hold them for a bit with some Beethoven or Bach on in the background, and some imbedded memory helps remind them that everything is ok.

Last night Tamiko had a bit of hamster in her head as well… a video that Mira really like with Elmo and Ricky Gervais was running through her head, and the annoying parts of the song had Tamiko’s head spinning. I told her about how the late Beethoven quartets used to put Mira to sleep sometimes, ran downstairs to get my iPod and put them on… sure enough, Tamiko was out in about 5 minutes and I listened to the rest of the C-sharp minor quartet while holding her.

I’m so lucky.

Tags: Beethoven, J.S. Bach
Posted in Celia, Classical, Mira, Tamiko | No Comments »

Day 66. Frank Sinatra.

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

While continuing on with the complete Bach set I ripped a couple of Frank Sinatra collections tonight. I don’t know what it is, but I tend to respect a business more if I occasionally hear Frank Sinatra playing in it. Our favorite grocery store has Ol’ Blue Eyes playing over the speakers every now and then, I always felt like I was cooler at Tower when Frank Sinatra was playing over the speakers, and I will always remember Rod at Wall Berlin singing along with ‘Witchcraft’ at 12:30am. Unlike a lot of the CDs I have done so far though, I can’t really think of a time that these have fallen out of playing rotation… even when the CD player was unplugged, these discs were probably in my computer at least once and listened to. Mira and Celia have both heard Frank Sinatra a good amount, and why not? So beautiful love ballads here and there, so up tempo swinging tunes as well. And I don’t think they can listen close enough to the words of ‘South of the Border’ for me to be concerned yet.

Around the time that Sinatra died, there was a joke I heard once that I modified a bit to make it seem more like a personal family story… it was something like:

“Ah – Frank Sinatra is gone, god-bless his soul… he saved my grandfather’s life once you know! Grandpa had run up a pretty high debt at a casino in Vegas in the 50s once, and the owner had him taken out and beat up since he couldn’t cover the debt… and Frank, god-bless his soul… steps in and says ‘OK boys, he’s had enough!”

If you know about the possibly shady sides to Frank’s past (and if my timing was right) this joke would get a very serious ‘Really?’ from almost everyone I told it to, followed a few seconds later by a pretty good laugh once someone realized they had been had. If you’ve been reading any of the other blog entires you might remember that I mentioned that my grandfather DID once say to me that ‘sure, if you’re Italian you have to like Frank Sinatra, but REAL Italians like Louis Prima more’. While I did hear much more Louis Prima and my grandparents house, Frank Sinatra was on quite a bit there as well (especially after they got their first CD player). So while I do associate Frank Sinatra with cool places to shop / have coffee, mostly I think of Frank Sinatra when I’m cooking since he was often the soundtrack at my grandparents as well. Frank on the speakers, red sauce on the stove… mmm…

Tags: Frank Sinatra
Posted in Celia, Jazz, Mira | No Comments »

Archive for the ‘Celia’ Category

Day 120. Beethoven and Marais.

Day 115. Some mix-discs.

Day 114. Paganini.

Day 108. Ravel, Debussy and Mahler.

Day 100. Kagel, Liszt and Aretha Franklin.

Day 98. Rossini, Paganini.

Day 89. Vivaldi, Getz/Gilberto, Pink Martini and Bach.

Day 75. Dowland.

Day 73. Beethoven and Bach.

Day 66. Frank Sinatra.

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