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.

A fine day for indie classical...

Both of these tidbits lifted from Nylon, my cultural Bible...

• Ex-Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas apparently got inspiration from relatively obscure, early 20th-Century Brit composer Benjamin Britten for his debut solo album Phrazes for the Young. I have my doubts, but I haven't heard the album yet, so let's see.Huh.
  

• Bryce and Aaron Dessner The twin brothers behind The National "dabble in everything from composing neo-classical works for Kronos Quartet to playing on In C with American minimalist Terry Riley." The documentary film The Long Count, which premiers at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's New Wave Festival 10/28-31, is their most ambitious creative statement yet. The multimedia piece explores the notion of symmetry as only twins can perceive it, featuring vocals from Kim and Kelley Deal of The Breeders and and Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. As disparate as themes including the hero twins of Popol Vuh (a Mayan creation myth) and the '77 World Series may seem, it's all held together by the sculpture, film and animation of visual artist Matthew Ritchie.
  

Wow, dude. The "low"-culturally omniscient boyfriend recently referred to the National as the defining band of our generation and argued that they'd be playing arenas in the next year. And I've enjoyed all the songs by them I've heard. But I didn't know they had one foot into the best part of art music! (Not that playing In C is a huge accomplishment...been there, done that, though not with Terry Riley himself.)

Currently listening to "Even the Good Wood Gone" off of Why?'s latest, Eskimo Snow. It's about a mummy! What's not to love?!

WTF MUSIC

Gleaned from Pitchfork:

Apparently, George Gershwin's estate has given cray-cray Beach Boy Brian Wilson the right to complete some of Gershwin's unfinished works. The estate is also thinking of releasing the Wilsonized songs on a tribute album.

This is so WTF-worthy to me. Are we talking like big ol', Rhapsody in Blue kind of works? Or ditties like "I've Got Rhythm?" I'm very intrigued. And I think Wilson is super talented (otherwise he probably wouldn't be so cray-cray), but...I just don't understand why the Gershwin estate would pick him. I guess both Gershwin and Wilson's music harbor a certain Americana-nostalgia thing. So, you know. Why not?

(I was at the gas station yesterday and "Surfin' USA" was playing. Do you think the Beach Boys actually knew how to surf? They seem so different than the surfing douchebags of today.)

(I haven't been practicing because midterm season is driving me effing batty, and I've been doing things like skipping class and flying off to Indianapolis for the evening. Right now, it's still worth it, but I know my guilt will kick in eventually.)

Oh, and remember when I blogged about Gustavo Dudamel in Vogue? Yeah, well, my letter is going to be published. I'm in Vogue. Bitches.

ldj

maquarre-22
damase-17


i'm sick and fried, if you mess with me i'll just walk away and take a nap.

a very special log du jour.

I practiced before an ensemble concert.

I think this is the second time I've ever done that. Ever.

Pop the champagne.

Here's the log itself:

17 minutes of long tones, etc. 28 of Maquarre (I have all the flats done! Whoo!). 20 of the Damase etude (laaaaaaaaaame), 22 of Sancan (not as laaaaaame) and 12 of Liebermann. Awesome. Except that I didn't really take any breaks this whole time, so by the time I got to Liebermann, I was just kind of flubbing along. But it was fun.

Go me!

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger; I promise to have some less personal and more insightful posts up soon.

Blah thursday

Yesterday was good...11 minutes of long tones and melodies, 22 of Maquarre (it's better now. We're all patched up. I am set with the first two pages now, woohoo). Then 19 minutes of the first half of the etude and 16 of Liebermann! It's amazing. I think it'll be easy to memorize too.

That's it. I'm going to go to sleep now (it's 6:15PM). If I wake up and it's still today, I'll practice. Either way, I'll probably still practice whenever I wake up. I'll be nice and rested. Mmmm.