An amazing video has been making the internet rounds recently; I had seen a few links to it, but I just now finally took the time to sit down and watch it. Not that the concept wasn’t compelling, mind you — the Muppets performing Bohemian Rhapsody? Why did I not drop everything and focus on this the moment I became aware of it? Other than my situational ADD, I have absolutely no excuse.

Behold:

It is indeed a think of beauty, although I have to say that I thought Animal’s “Mama” soliloquy went on a bit too long; I would have liked to see other characters come in and do more of the real lyrics during that section. But that’s a nitpick. Animal was always one of my favorite Muppets, along with Beaker. I was very happy to see Rowlf the Dog on piano, and I was especially pleased to see Janice taking the guitar solos. Chicks rule! Especially chicks on guitar!

I couldn’t help but be reminded of another cover of this song, one that was part of a momentous occasion in my life. A classmate of mine at U.C. Berkeley arranged the tune for string quartet, and it was performed on our graduation concert (the same concert where my senior thesis piece was played — yay me! ).

It pains me to admit that all of this took place back in the last century, before YouTube and other assorted digital marvels, (I was a child prodigy, okay? ) so I can’t show you any documentation of it.

But I did find a few things that are in the ballpark, in more ways than one! Click Mr. Readmore to rock out, albeit in rather highbrow fashion!

I was tickled to find the version below, for string quartet plus guitar and rhythm section, because the performance took place at a high school in my hometown of Napa, California. (I was a good little private school gal myself, but I must admit that this public school had a bigger music program than my school — boo hoo!) Good on you, hometown kids!

Still, I wanted to find a version for strings alone, unaugmented by anything amplified.

I found an enticing little sample here:

This outfit, Vitamin Records, has released a number of string quartet rock ‘n’ roll tributes, which is intriguing. However, I was disappointed to find that they don’t identify the performers on the website, other than to say that they’re “the best string players and producers in the business.” I can’t tell if it’s the same performers for each album, or a different pick-up group each time. It’s kinda hard to fangirl that, guys — come on!

I found a couple other versions worth checking out. The Coda String Quartet’s cover uses a drum kit along with the quartet, which is okay I guess, but a purist might argue it’s just admitting defeat.

I’d like to hear the Quartet on the Roof’s version under better conditions than this video provides.

Finally, I found this performance by The Giovanni String Quartet, which comes much closer to what I’m looking for:

My only quibble is with the tempo — a bit too slow and laid back for the ethos of the song.

I have yet to find a version that recreates the energy and excitement of that graduation concert — but of course, that has much to do with the power of the memory for me.

Still, I think there is a take-home lesson here:

Yo, classical musicians — if you’re going to rock out, ROCK OUT! No half-hearted, polite, reserved renditions, please! I think there’s a whiff of transgression around the whole enterprise that causes people to hold back. P’shaw! I’m with Martin Luther on this one — if you’re going to sin, “sin boldly!”

Happy Day-After-Thanksgiving, music nerds! I hope everyone is feeling full and happy, and enjoying a relaxing extended holiday weekend.

I have some exciting news to report! I have been asked to be the ‘official’ blogger for classical music for this year’s GRAMMY Awards^®, as part of their Community Blogger Program. I’ll be covering the nominations when they’re announced next week on December 2, and then I’ll write about the award-winners after they’re revealed at the end of January.

I’m also planning to go to L.A. to attend some of the GRAMMY week events. Wish me luck for hitting it big in Tinseltown!

You’ll see a few changes around the blog in connection with this project — don’t worry, though, it’s nothing drastic; I’m still the same ol’ music nerd you’ve always known. I’ll be following the conventions of the The Recording Academy^® Style Book, which is why you’ll see the ® symbol after the first mention of trademark entities. No, I’m not on commission or anything! Oh, and yes, GRAMMY is supposed to be in all caps. I know y’all are sticklers for editorial accuracy, so I wanted to make sure you knew this was intentional and not me shouting or anything!

The other change is one I’ve been meaning to make anyway, and now I’ve gotten the nudge I needed to get my hindquarters in gear. I will henceforth be blogging under my very own domain name:

The old wordpress url will redirect to the new domain, but be sure to update your bookmarks, etc., anyway, because that ‘forwarding order’ may not be permanent. Being the mistress of my own nerd domain is going to be pretty fun, I think!

More to come very soon… I hope you’ll join me!

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, music nerds!

I was all set to post about what I want for Christmas, but that will have to wait. I mean, what was I thinking? I hate the way Christmas takes over the stores and the radio stations the minute Halloween is over, and here I was about to jump the gun myself — gah!

Don’t get me wrong — there’s plenty of holiday music that I love (and some I hate, but that’s another story for another day, too). But Thanksgiving is actually my favorite holiday; I love to cook, I love to eat, and I love Autumn, so how could it get any better?

I know it can be a stressful time, though, and some of you may feel that this is the soundtrack of your life right now!

But what about bona fide music for Thanksgiving? Click Mr. Readmore for a pumpkin-pie-spiced playlist!

The first things that springs to mind for me are a couple of hymns. I grew up singing the Welsh folk tune, “The Ash Grove,” with the words, “Let All Things Now Living.”

Here’s a nice version of the tune played on the harp:

Another good Thanksgiving tune is “Nun danket alle Gott,” (Now Thank We All Our God. Here’s a nice little organ arrangement of it that I should learn to play (LOL! )

But I know that not everyone is the church music geek that I am, so I decided to cast my google net a bit wider.

In this video, Ray Davies gives a nice commentary introducing his song, ” Thanksgiving Day.” (Note to self: check out The Kinks Choral Collection. A music nerd’s work is never done! )

Here’s a nice one from Mary Chapin Carpenter — caution: it might even make you verklempt, if you’re so inclined!

Here’s something out of left field (at least relative to where I’m standing!): I either didn’t know, or had forgotten, that the late, great Johnny Cash did a little acting here and there. Here’s a video of him singing a song for Thanksgiving in an episode of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman:”

And last but not least: I’m always a sucker for the music Vince Guaraldi wrote for the old Charlie Brown TV specials. Here’s a piano solo version of music he wrote for “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving:”

Have a wonderful day tomorrow, everyone!

Today I bring you a story of music, courage and love.

Earlier this week, I came across a link to this story; I’d heard of Sara before, but not lately. Check out the video at the link, by the way — five minutes well-spent!

When classical pianist Sara Davis Buechner had her New York City concert debut 25 years ago, she received rave reviews. Thus began a brilliant career of recordings and performances by the 24-year-old Juilliard graduate.

At that time, Buechner still went by the given name ‘David’. But in 1998, Buechner came out as a transgender woman, having felt from a very young age that she was meant to be a girl.

She paid a steep price for coming out. Suddenly her manager could no longer secure bookings, and her concert schedule dwindled from 50 performances a year to just a handful, though she continued to make recordings. She was able to find work teaching piano lessons, but at a drastic reduction in income.

In 2002, an old classmate from Juilliard happened to hear her play, and felt so strongly that she deserved wider exposure, she offered to work as her manager, with a view to persisting in promoting her where previous management had failed to do so.

That persistence has paid off. Today, Buechner has a heavy concert schedule once again, along with a teaching post at University of British Columbia in Vancouver. On November 11, Buechner played a recital in New York City to mark the 25th anniversary of her initial debut.

And thanks to the marriage laws in Canada, where she lives, she also has a wife — a woman she met and dated before she transitioned.

Pass the kleenex please — I’m a sucker for a happy ending!

Visit Sara Davis Buechner’s website for more on her revitalized career!

I’m posting this today, by the way, because it happens to be International Transgender Day of Remembrance. The stories you’ll find at the link didn’t end happily, I’m sorry to say. My hope is that remembering them will inspire us to create a world where violence and bigotry are curiosities of ancient history.

Hug someone you love today — that’s the first step.

One of several things I do for money (working for a living is so inconvenient!) is transcribing audio from business meetings, conferences, interviews, etc. It’s a telecommuting job with very quick turnaround times, and that suits me pretty well; I get to work in my Cheeto-stained pajamas, but I still have that looming external deadline that I need for motivation.

I tend to keep the local classical music station playing in the background while I work, because when you’re listening to corporate-speak for hours on end, you definitely need the counterweight of some untarnished beauty to keep your soul from shriveling.

For a couple of days last week, one of the station’s hosts went on Chopin Ballade kick. I mentioned in my previous post how hearing two of them in a row sent me stumbling down memory lane.

The next day, that pesky host just had to go and play the Ballade no. 1 in G minor.

There I was, minding my own business, typing away as fast as I could while some slick suit bloviated in my ear, when outside my headphones I heard a sound that grabbed me the way I imagine a child’s cry seizes the attention of a parent. Whatever I was currently doing seemed insignificant; that sound was not just the most important thing – it was the only thing that existed in the world in that moment.

Naturally, I was annoyed. I didn’t have time to go to Music Nerdvana! I had a deadline of ASAP!

But I couldn’t help it; as had happened the previous day, a wave of emotions and memories welled up in me in response to that music. I’m no Oliver Sacks, but I know from experience that when you’ve listen to a piece of music over and over, when you associate it with certain events or situations – sometimes even if you hear it only once but it impacts you deeply – that music gets stamped onto your DNA, and when you hear it again, it’s as if some crazed brain surgeon stuck an electrode into your brain in just the right place so as to bring up everything you associate with that music.

Who needs hallucinogenic drugs, man?

I don’t want to go off on a tangent right now (I know what you’re thinking: “Why change now?” Shut up! ), but I suppose I should write up some of my Ballade-associated stories, by way of explanation. They involve such things as frizzy hair, teenage angst and Gunne Sax dresses — I know the world is breathless to read all about it!

In the meantime… It’s your turn, music nerds: what music stops you in your tracks?

Musical magic sneaks up on me when I least expect it!

I can be rather jaded and cynical when it comes to music; it’s an occupational hazard, and a common side effect of too many years of music grad school. Depending on how ornery a mood I’m in, a mere second or two of a kind of music I don’t care for can get my eyes rolling back in my head. I can diss that tune in 3 notes, Tom.

So I’m always relieved to be reminded that my cynicism is actually just a thin veneer, and it takes but little to reveal the soft, gooey center underneath. Click Mr Readmore for a few examples.

Looking rather elegant in our concert garb!

McDoc and I have joined a choral group, and we had our first performance of the season yesterday. To be honest, I felt rather lukewarm toward the music on the program at the beginning of the rehearsal phase, and though it grew on me as the performance neared, I still wasn’t 100% gung-ho about it going into the weekend. The dress rehearsal helped; being on a real stage with an orchestra and everything, as opposed to in a dry rehearsal hall with a digital piano, always makes a huge difference.

But the magic didn’t really arrive until after 3 p.m. on Sunday. Our esteemed director made the just-right amount of onstage remarks introducing each piece, and his intense energy and enthusiasm lit a fire that spread to the rest of the stage once we started singing.

It’s hard to sing when you start to get verklempt.

This morning, I was doing some work on the computer while the local classical station played in the background. All of a sudden my ears pricked up as some intensely familiar piano music came on: two of Chopin’s Ballades that I played when I was an undergrad. I confess that I can no longer fit in the kind of practice time needed to keep a Chopin Ballade in any kind of adequate shape, but hearing the music instantly transported me back to the time when I was playing it regularly. I spent the summer after my sophomore year practicing my brains out on this piece, and still never got it to the level I hoped for. Hearing it is always bittersweet. This morning, it stopped me in my tracks, bringing up a every regret and misgiving I’ve ever had about this hare-brained endeavor known as being a professional musician. Verklempt once again!

This topic always reminds me of when I saw Donnie Darko in the theatre. I had to be dragged to it by a guy I was dating at the time, but as I sat there and heard that Echo and the Bunnymen song under the opening scene, it was like I’d been kicked in the gut: I was back in high school, wearing black, smoking cloves (didn’t inhale, really!!) and writing bad poetry.

So how, and more importantly why, does music academia suppress these kinds of reactions, and sow the seeds of cynicism in the hearts of its earnest denizens? Well, I won’t take the time to ponder the why at the moment, but here’s a little anecdote relating to the how:

I remember once taking a seminar on music cognition, which is a subdiscipline of music that draws on psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics, among other fields. During one session, there was a discussion regarding the phrase “musical language,” a term which is often used to describe a particular composer’s music; it could be roughly translated to something like “style.” Most of my colleagues objected to the term as being squishy and inexact, because music doesn’t have syntax and fixed meaning the way verbal language does; the meaning we ascribe to it is culturally assigned and developed. Are you bored yet? Me, too.

Around this same time, I was performing with a friend of mine as part of outreach activities for the university’s music library — activities which were conspicuously not associated in any way with the music department itself. We would go around to schools, public libraries, senior centers, etc., and play all kinds of wacky music on toy instruments, I on a little toy piano reminiscent of Schroeder, and my friend on a variety of wind and percussion instruments, both miniature and full-sized (his nose whistle playing was particularly memorable).

Our big money number, though, was an arrangement of Saint-Säens “The Swan” for toy piano and English Horn. (It was even more beautiful than this version.) Quite often when we played it, people in the audience would cry. I was playing this tinkly little piano, sitting on a ridiculous little stool on the floor, but still, people cried.

Music intellectuals can sit around seminar tables and bloviate on what music is and isn’t all they want, but when the rubber meets the road, people respond to music in a way that can be neither faked nor dismissed. And there are certain pieces that get me every time. “Sucker!” I say to myself. And I rejoice.

Victoria Requiem: Introit

Last night, McDoc and I attended the Solemn Requiem Mass for All Souls Day at our local Anglo-Catholic joint, which we visit whenever we need a dose of good, old-fashioned smells ‘n’ bells.

This church is renowned all over town for its excellent music, and that reputation was ably upheld as the choir performed the Missa pro Defunctis cum sex vocibus (Mass for the Dead for six voices), by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611).

Whenever I attend services like last night’s, I think to myself, “I can understand why some Protestant sects throughout history have objected to the use of elaborate music in worship services.” That may not sound like a compliment, but I intend it as such, honest!

Click Mr. Readmore for the story of the jelly!

McDoc is a big fan of ultra-high church liturgy, and I am, too, but with a couple of qualifiers. A retired Episcopal priest of our acquaintance once told us that he feels liturgy is an art form that can be exquisite when done well. Many churches these days don’t go the whole nine yards with it, for better or worse. Half-baked liturgy can feel a bit silly, like little kids playing dress-up, but the whole high shebang can be positively transporting.

When I attend the kind of Solemn Mass you’ll find at a large Anglo-Catholic parish with a professional choir, where they perform an entire composed mass as part of the liturgy every Sunday (a very rare bird nowadays, I think), I feel like I’m attending the symphony as well as sitting in church. I say ‘the symphony’ intentionally, rather than just ‘a concert,’ because I am most likely to have something akin to a religious experience when I go to a full-on symphony or opera, as opposed to a smaller-scale, less formal classical concert — though there have certainly been exceptions to that. I’m talking about the kind of experience where your sense of clock-time is suspended, your chattering inner monologue (what Buddhists and others call “monkey mind” is silenced), and you are, well, just plain transfixed.

Listening to the exquisite interplay of six-part polyphony does that for me. And that’s where I can get the theological objection to it. Put a person in that state, and you can sneak all kinds of stuff by them. For example, I’m not a big fan of reciting the Nicene Creed, but I don’t mind singing it. Heck, I just like to sing in church — who cares?

I can still remember, back from my undergrad days, a lecture one of my music history professors gave on Victoria’s music. The particular piece he was talking about employed the device of antiphonal singing, where the choir is divided in two sections, and for maximal effect, placed in two locations, then they alternate singing in a call-and-response sort of way. Just imagine being in a huge stone church listening to those voices echoing back and forth! My professor said the composer’s intent was to turn you into “a mass of quivering, believing jelly.” Yup, it’s true!

Personally, I have trouble taking seriously the idea that this is a bad thing, because at the end of the day, I expect people to be grownups and think things through. I do, however, have a sick fascination with reading online articles like this, that warn of the dangers of anything… well… enjoyable. Hey, everybody needs a hobby!

But enough of me and my preoccupations… let’s hear the rest of the music. The first part of Victoria’s Requiem, the Introit, is embedded above. Here are the others (I’ve linked to youtubes instead of embedding, to make this post less browser-eating):

Kyrie
Gradual
Offertory (Domine Jesu Christe)
Sanctus
Agnus Dei
Communion (Lux aeterna)
Responsory (Libera me)

I couldn’t find a youtube of the In Paradisum that closes the mass. The setting by Fauré has taken over and kicked out all the other versions, it seems!

p.s. Here are some Dia de los Muertos cookies:


Click the photo to find out where to get them!

I’m a big fan of ambient knowledge.

In the course of my various pursuits, both musical and non-, I occasionally find it necessary to re-look-up terms and concepts that I learned a long time ago — things I’m sure I know, but which are momentarily beyond my mental grasp, due, I believe, to a combination of The Law of Accelerating Returns as it applies to what I need to know, and the socio-ecogenic ADHD with which I am afflicted.

(And if the sentence above weren’t a description of my real life, I would enter it in The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest!)

Case in point: while writing my previous post, I needed to refresh my memory of how to refer to specific musical pitches using a letter name and a number, such that it’s clear exactly which octave you’re talking about. For example, middle C on the piano is labeled ‘C4′, not to be confused with ‘C3′, which is an octave lower. It’s called scientific pitch notation, evidently — I’d never heard the official name of the system before. But it’s more concise and precise than saying, “the G an octave-and-a-half below middle C,” when you can just say, “G2,” and know that you’ll be understood (by other music nerds, at least ).

The Wikipedia article linked above also contained the following juicy little tidbit:

Scientific pitch notation is a logarithmic frequency scale. Although pitch notation is intended to describe audible sounds, it can also be used to specify the frequency of non-audible phenomena. For example, when the Chandra X-ray Observatory observed pressure fronts propagating away from a black hole, the frequency of the waves was reported in the press as the B♭ 57 octaves below middle C, or B♭−53, corresponding to one oscillation every 10 million years.”

Whoa, talk about your nerdy examples! That’s some far-out cosmic instrument, btw — I thought I had spent some long hours in the practice room, but 10 million years?!?

Now, I know that you can’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia, so I searched around for other sources for that wacky little factoid. I found one that has a title I envy immensely: I Know Why the Black Hole Sings.

Turns out, the universe is one vast Mighty Wurlitzer! Awesome!

Pianists are so misunderstood! :’(

As an itinerant accompanist and sometime starving-pianist-without-my-own-instrument, I’ve played a lot of different pianos. A few have been very nice; most have had various issues while still being adequate; and some can only be charitably described as piano-shaped objects.

My piano encounters last weekend in Pittsburgh fell into that middle category. Now that I think about it, the “various issues” descriptor encompasses a hilariously broad range of surprises and challenges I’ve gotten to deal with over the years. And now I have two more to add to my scrapbook!

Piano lock, shown on a white piano so you can actually see it, but -- white pianos, ew!

The sight of a locked piano always makes my heart sink. Oh, I completely get why they’re necessary, mind you. Overenthusiastic children, drunken louts, greasy fingers, overfull drinks — I understand the dangers. But pianos are made to be played, dammit! It’s such a shame to see them sitting there like large, expensive, useless furniture so much of the time.

I think it should be possible to get certified as a Bona Fide Pianist® by some international piano organization, and the certification should entitle one to a universal master piano lock key. I would vow to use it wisely — honest!

Our nice shiny rehearsal piano

There was even more fun in store for me on Sunday morning, though. Click Mr. Readmore to see the secret toy surprise!

The interfaith service at Netroots Nation was held in a conference room that suffered from a marked lack of anything resembling a piano — as most conference rooms do, I suppose. We had requested a rental piano through the conference organizers, so everything was going to be fine, right? Wellll… I had this nagging voice in the back of my head saying, “Do they know everything they need to know about arranging for a piano? Should I maybe stick my nose in their business to make sure it’s done right?” I wish I had listened to that voice. I will from now on.

This is what arrived at 8 am on Sunday morning:

Look what I found in my Cracker Jacks Box!

It seems that the piano request ball got dropped somewhere along the way, and this was the last-minute solution. And I was grateful for it, truly. Except for one little thing…

The A/V tech who delivered this spectacular ax was a rock-band sound guru and recording studio denizen, straight from Central Casting — and I mean that in the nicest way. He had the shoulder-length layered hair, T-shirt and skinny jeans uniform, and he looked like he’d done some partyin’ in his day. He also knew exactly what he was doing and genuinely cared about setting me up right. He was a keyboard player himself, so he felt my pain.

He told me that the Casio pictured above had been borrowed from his boss’s daughter’s second-cousin’s ex-mother-in-law, or something like that, and had been picked up the night before. I was grateful for what I imagined to be several frantic phone calls and last-minute machinations undertaken for the sake of our modest enterprise.

I was also grateful that the thing came with a music stand — they don’t always, you know. (Yeah, I should have those hymns memorized by now, I know…)

When my techie friend was just about done setting me up, I asked, “so, where’s the sustain pedal?’

Oops.

There was no sustain pedal in the carrying case.

For a brief moment, I wanted to cry. You see, piano without sustain pedal can sound very clunky, no matter how well you play. Fortunately, as an organist I’m used to creating my own legato, but that only carries you so far.

I didn’t want the folks who came to the service to think I was still drunk from the night before. Especially when I had been very careful to have only one drink. One! And I drank it really early! And I followed it with lots of water!

Tech guy did his best to problem-solve. “I could look around in my workshop downstairs and see if I have a proximity switch — then I might be able to build you a pedal… I’d need a soldering iron, though, hmm…”

My hero!

Not because I really expected him to do any of that, of course. Just because it actually crossed his mind.

“Don’t worry about it, I can make this work,” I told him. “It seems like several people have already gone above and beyond to set this up, and I really appreciate that.”

“Well, I appreciate that you appreciate it,” he said. I’m sure he’s been on the unwarranted receiving end of any number of sensitive-musician temper tantrums in his time. I pride myself on the fact that homegirl don’t roll that way.

“It could be worse,” I said. “I could be outside, and it could be raining!” (I didn’t completely make that up — I once took my digital piano to an outdoor gig where it was not exactly raining, but heavily misting. I was less than thrilled. Miraculously, my gear came through just fine.)

The service went beautifully, and no one seemed to doubt my sobriety.

Literally!

I’ve just returned from Netroots Nation, the annual progressive bloggers’ conference. And I don’t know if I need to adjust the settings on my camera, or what, because in most of the pictures I took, people’s skin has a distinctly red or orange cast. One thing I’m sure of, though, is that my lighting designer, hairstylist and make-up artist are all FIRED!

The conference T-shirt I’m wearing here actually looks nice in person — I don’t usually wear orange, but this is an okay shade. Well, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

As you know, my profession is music, not politics, but I attend this event each year for two main reasons:

• To hang out in person with my online friends
• To participate in the music-making for an Interfaith Worship Service, which we hold every year — even though most of the attendees are still sleeping it off after the wild partying of the 3 previous evenings. (Not that we refrain from participating in that, as I chronicled last year!)

As a side benefit, I get to attend panel discussions on the hot topics of the day, and hear speeches by some big names in politics. This year’s headliners included Bill Clinton, Howard Dean and Valerie Jarrett.

I don’t usually brave the crowds to get a handshake or photo with the various VIP’s in attendance, but I did go to Dr. Dean’s book signing, because I thought a signed book would make a nice present for McDoc. It was fun to chat with him a bit; I asked him what advice he’d give McDoc about getting through residency with his sanity intact. His answer in a nutshell: “Don’t hang out with other doctors during your off hours!” (And no, he didn’t scream, not even once. He’s quite personable and, as they say ’round here, wicked smaht. I’d love to have him as a dinner party guest.)

Back story to the picture above: I was able to sweet-talk the hotel staff into unlocking this piano so that I could rehearse for the interfaith service with the Prophecy Street Singers, as I’ve dubbed us. (Photo credit for the non-orange-y pics: snorfbat, who also plays a mean banjo!) The service itself took place in a conference room with a rented keyboard; more about that little adventure later — stay tuned!