|
|
Monday, March 26th, 2007
I just did something I have never done, which is to call my cable provider and order a channel. To wit, I ordered the Sundance Channel, because tomorrow night at 10 they are premiering John Edgington's documentary, "Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Death, Food, and Insects". This looks like it will be really good -- you can see some trailers at the Sundance web site, although the rest of the internets seem not to have heard about it yet. This anecdote made my day. ...The reason the rest of the internets have not heard about it, is that the title is actually "Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death, and Insects". Here is the press release.
posted morning of March 26th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Sex, Food, Death, and Insects
|  |
|
Robyn Hitchcock is one of my very favorite musicians. And yet I'm not familiar with much of his later work. My knowledge of Hitchcock is: "Black Snake Diamond Role", "Eaten by Her own Dinner", "I Often Dream of Trains", "Element of Light", bits of "Globe of Frogs", "Queen Elvis" and "Eye". Suddenly I am feeling very interested in getting to know more of his music. Last Monday, I was listening to Irene Trudel's show on WFMU, and heard Hitchcock playing "Adventure Rocketship", which I had not heard before. The DJ came on the mic and said Hitchcock will be playing next Wednesday at the Knitting Factory. Well ever since then I've been in a state of high excitement -- I ordered my tickets and have been playing Hitchcock on my internal stereo ever since. And I'm listening to some of his more recent tracks on YouTube (especially loving Birds in Perspex; and if you have not watched this radio performance, well you really ought to) and his genius is shining through the poor sound quality.
posted morning of March 26th, 2007: Respond
|  |
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007
In the car today (first day at the new job! First day driving to work!) I was listening to "World Gone Wrong" and thinking God, what an amazing record this is! I haven't listened to it for a really long time. I'm pretty sure that is the album that Dylan was touring when Ellen and I saw him at Madison Square Garden. I need to listen to it more; also I need to get "Good As I Been To You" on CD.
posted evening of January 23rd, 2007: Respond
|  |
Thursday, August 17th, 2006
Ok, 2 answers for my shared experience question: - I would like everyone to know the music of Mississippi John Hurt. It's a little silly but I get hassled by the fact that whenever the Blues comes up in conversation, people think about electric music recorded in the 70s and later, or possibly about electric music recorded in the 50s. Plus I want everyone to know this music because it's so good.
- I would like everyone to know American Splendor by Harvey Pekar, and the graphic art of R. Crumb. I think productive conversations would be possible if I could just refer to Crumb's vision of sexual inadequacy and everybody knew what I was talking about without any explication. This also goes for Pekar's work ethic.
I want to tag Roy Edroso and Dave Feldman.
posted evening of August 17th, 2006: Respond
➳ More posts about R. Crumb
|  |
Thursday, April 27th, 2006
Lesson with Lisa this evening -- we spent a lot of time going over ideas for the "If you were mine" solo. Really encouraging -- made me feel like I may actually get it soon. Lisa showed me how to do some stuff in the style of Grappelli and recorded some licks for me to listen to and try. Off to practice...
posted evening of April 27th, 2006: Respond
➳ More posts about Fiddling
| |
Friday, April 21st, 2006
Today I am going to the music shop after work and buy a book of etudes, or possibly two. Maybe I will also buy some violin sonatas. The question in my mind is, do I want classical etudes or jazz etudes? Or one of each? Hopefully the answer will resolve when I am looking at the actual books. Update: So the resolution was provided by my sister, who is knowledgeable in the ways of music and said she did not think it would make any difference whether I used a jazz or classical exercise book, and recommended a good store for classical music. So I went to Joseph Patelson's and bought Hohmann's Practical Method for the Violin, book III, and Above the First Position by Markwood Holmes and Russell Webber. The first has a lot of work on scales in different keys; the second has exercises for moving up and down the neck. Also I bought 6 Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Handel; I don't know if I will ever get around to learning them but they should be good fun if I do.
posted morning of April 21st, 2006: Respond
| |
Thursday, April 20th, 2006
My current project in my fiddle practicing is trying to learn the keys. Right now I'm never sure what key I'm playing in until I get to a resolution, and the key often shifts while I'm playing (if I'm playing by myself) to one of my preferred keys, D or G. I'd like to: branch out a bit, i.e. get comfortable in a wider variety of keys; be able to know what key I'm playing in fairly instinctually; and be able to join in harmoniously when someone tells me they're going to play in a particular key. The path to this seems to be "playing scales" but I'm not totally sure what is meant by this as far as rhythm, timing, etc. What I've been doing for the last couple of days is to play a scale up and down a couple of times starting on a particular note, and then try to play some simple melodies in that key. I'm hoping this will get me where I want to go with enough repetition. I'm also planning to buy a book of études for violin. I'm spending a lot of time listening to the Grappelli tape that Bill loaned me.
posted morning of April 20th, 2006: Respond
|  |
Monday, April 17th, 2006
Tonight I worked out a really satisfying solo to play with "Always". That's sort of the second song I've done that for since joining 13 Scotland Rd. -- for a couple of the songs nice solos come pretty naturally, but the two that I've really worked on and think of myself as knowing a fiddle part for, are "Used to be" and "Always". I'm particularly happy about "Always" because for the first couple of weeks I was totally in the dark about this song. The process is approximately: figure out what key the song is in, and what note to start the verse and chorus on. Then find a couple-of-note phrase that fits into the music at a couple of key junctures. Then work out how to echo that phrase up a fourth and a fifth and an octave. Then play the melody with the phrase different ways until everything comes together. It is satisfying when it works.
posted evening of April 17th, 2006: Respond
➳ More posts about 13 Scotland Rd.
| |
Friday, April 14th, 2006
Well it looks like the thing that will ultimately give me confidence in playing in third position, is going to be "Sometimes" -- it is in E♭ which is horrendously difficult to play in first position. But I was practicing it tonight in third position and came up with a pretty solo that is all in third position, easy to play and I think it will be easy to remember. So that's great -- I will play it with Aaron and Bob and once I get comfortable with it, I should be able to play up there in G and D as well.
posted evening of April 14th, 2006: Respond
| |
Tuesday, April 11th, 2006
Rehearsal with Aaron and Bill (and Mark, who will be playing lead guitar) went really nicely this evening. I'm starting to understand "Always". I was spot on with two songs, "Used to be" (which I've been working hard on all week) and "Dream" (which I haven't touched since last time), and was doing really well on "If you were mine" until I screwed up massively where I shift to third position. We played a couple of new songs, including one in E flat! Very peculiar key for the violin. I got a copy of their CD (having lost track of the one I bought last year) which should help with learning the songs.
posted evening of April 11th, 2006: Respond
| Previous posts about Music
Archives  | |
|
Drop me a line! or, sign my Guestbook.
•
Check out Ellen's writing at Patch.com.
| |
