Brief thoughts (I promise!) and your daily vitamin WTF.

1. I practiced today, yay! Maquarre and Sancan (which was way better than usual) and Kokopelli, briefly, for 20th-Century Music Lit. Then, after orchestra, a violinist came up to me to compliment me on how in tune and gorgeous my Shostakovich solos apparently are. Conclusion: PRACTICE BREAKS ARE GOOD! But if you're going to take a practice break, you have to go for it. It needs to be more than simple laziness. It needs to be during a time you have off (like my fall break, which was this past week), so you can just stop stressing out and feeling guilty. Indulge in everything but whatever you "do"...for me it was no writing and no practicing, but lots of listening to music, shopping and snuggling. If done properly, I believe a thorough break can eliminate all the junk that builds up in your brain, making you see the music that much clearer! So you play better and are more energized.

2. It's really, really important to listen to your iPod on shuffle every day, especially if you're on a serious practice break. You can skip the comedians, poems, books, and awkward tracks with Jeanne Baxtresser talking. But if it's music, listen to it all the way through and don't skip it!!! It's lovely and so healthy. You'll listen to things you haven't heard since the very first listen and you'll fall in love again! Or be upset with the money you wasted (groan, Crystal Antlers), but 9 out of 10 times it's love. I promise.

3. I just got in from a concert with Nariaki Sugiura, my kick-ass accompanist and a lovely violinist/violist with a long name I can't remember, but her first name was Stephanie. Anyway, Stephanie did this sonata buy this Belgian composer, Ysaye (I think that's the proper spelling). Apparently, this piece that he wrote was the last piece of music he ever heard, about an hour before he died. What an interesting concept no one ever thinks of! The last piece of music you hear before you die. Now, sometimes I imagine you can plan that, but sometimes you can't. So listen to good music all the time and be thankful that it's good. I think my last music would be Beethoven's 7th (the famous slow movement) or Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde. Et tu, readers?

In WTF news:

P4k mentioned harpist/psych-folk auteur Joanna Newsom's appearance on the red carpet at the Emmys earlier this year. This is a little WTF in and of itself, but it gets better: She went on the arm of The Lonely Island/SNL's Andy Samberg (which I guess makes sense because when the boyfriend saw her perform in Los Angeles, Samberg was there along with BJ Novak and the Indian chick from the Office). AND she sported a J. Lo-esque look with a low-cut emerald dress and a high, sleek ponytail.

Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Ah, never mind her WTFitude. She has good taste in men (cute, funny, bespectacled Jews!!!) . And her music has already proven her super-smart, so I guess a little bit of fun on the mainstream side can be forgiven. Party on, Joanna. Party on.

Currently listening: "Working Man's Blues #2" by Bob Dylan. Aww, sensitive Bob!

You're welcome.

Antony (of ...and the Johnsons) got hired by Lavazza (the coffee company) to sing "Nessun Dorma".

Go listen it on P4k, then cry about the gorgeous.

The Arcade Fire are still so cool.

Exciting news from P4K:

The Arcade Fire's bassist/celesta player/keyboardist/guitarist/accordionist Richard Reed Parry (also the leader of side project chamber pop group Bell Orchestre) has written a piece called For Heart, Breath and Orchestra--how lovely is that?! Parry claims that "During the performance, many of the performers wear stethoscopes which enable them to play in sync with their own heartbeats." Whoa. I imagine it must be hell on the eardrums! Although I suppose since they're not singing, maybe it's not quite so bad as I'm imagining it to be.

Anyway, can't wait to YouTube that shit. It will be performed by Parry, Nico Muhly and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony at the Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music.

Oh and PS. The Arcade Fire should be coming out with a new album early in 2010 if we trust them and they don't pull our leg for years and then have an existential crisis like, I dunno. Sufjan Stevens.

Still totally listening to "Even the Good Wood Gone".

Le Poisson Rouge!

The cello professor at DePauw, Eric Edberg (see blogroll), just wrote an excellent review of perhaps my favorite venue I've ever been to for both "pop" and "classical" music (I'm going to start inventing words I think), Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village.

The boyfriend and I saw an awesome show in the round there this summer: the Fiery Furnaces playing I'm Going Away a good two months or so before the album was released. An awesome band with a semi-metal sound despite the bass clarinet, cello and violin, and no guitar--called Newspeak; I don't think they have anything released as of right now--opened.

Here are the Popular Tags on their website:

Popular Tags

indie dance rock soul experimental hip hop singer-songwriter folk indie pop electronica author pop indie rock world contemporary classical funk alternative psychedelic dj classical electronic hip-hop jazz ambient electro

Seriously.

Also, the bathrooms are fucking sweet and there's all these cool sculptures that look like they have lava pouring out of them.

Whatever. Go. Because the boyfriend and I still get e-mails from them EVERY WEEK being all "Hey. Why? and some random-ass awesome string quartet are going to be here this week. And Michael Showalter's gonna be just hanging out. But, like, whatever. We're bored." And they hurt us. So please do us the honor of going in our place.

O Canada.

Here's a list of people performing at the Winter Olympics:

Broken Social Scene
Iron & Wine
Wilco
Kronos Quartet

The first two are doing a Neil Young tribute show, so maybe he'll be there too?

Stupid old Canada being all up north. Well, really that's the least of its problems.

Andrew WK is awesome.

Tiny Mixtapes tells me that kind of grunge-ish unshowered rocker guy/motivational speaker Andrew WK did a show with a string quartet (the Calder Quartet, I'd never heard of them but I now respect them so give 'em a Google) in San Francisco a couple of nights ago. He played the piano. Apparently people were all pissed because, omg, string quartet! It's not a real Andrew WK show! Even though he was still dancing around and improvising and wearing his disgusting greasy clothes. AAAAAAAAAAH.

Above: A FUCKING LAME SHOW

People are fucking assholes.

In other news, eighth blackbird had a bittersweet moment when they found a torrent of their Grammy-winning album Strange Imaginary Animals. With 0 downloads. Awww. So go illegally download eighth blackbird!

I personally...like Shostakovich. And need my fall break.

I have such good taste.

It girl and pompadoured Diddy darling Janelle Monae has declared her favorite time in music as the Baroque age. Huh.