The ever-present conundrum of learning a musical instrument: do you play what you want, i.e. favorite pieces and new additions to your repertoire?
Or must you (as you hear over and over again that you absolutely must) play scales, whole tones, double-stops, chords, etc. in order to keep fiddle fit?
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Posted in Music, Obsessions, Rancho Roly Poly
Tagged fiddle tyranny, scales vs repertoire
I’m almost a month into playing my new (and first) fiddle, a $1,500 Owens & Parkley Chinese-made 4/4 dubbed by its maker Cantus Dubois, which I have freely translated from the Latin and French as “singing wood.”
My teacher was somewhat bemused by the fact that Singing Wood is Chinese, having an old prejudice against such as being more like VSOs (Violin Shaped Objects) than worthy instruments. But I’m not worried because I bought it from a reputable violin shop and he also praised its volume and warmth in the upper register, which he said was unusual.
The volume has diminished somewhat as SW is no longer new, which is normal, and it is settling in to realizing (I say mystically of this most mystical of musical instruments) that it is no longer part of a tree, a spruce-maple-boxwood-ebony combination. I only wish I was a better player to be worthy of its warm upper register which continues. But I’ll get there.
Five months ago I decided to abandon the Suzuki One book after getting hung up on trying to learn its first Bach minuet. I decided to be a Celtic/Old Time/Bluegrass/Irish/Klezmer/Country fiddler instead and was recently rewarded when my teacher (who plays such himself) pronounced me having arrived by finally “getting” the all-important rhythms involved.
He even gave me the names and addresses of two local fiddle “jams” for beginners. I’m not quite ready for them, though, as I have only one or two pieces memorized and they generally require twenty or more. Bringing sheet music to a jam, even a beginners one, is considered rude.
Besides, I’m still enjoying doing this for myself, or as Aaron Smith put it so succinctly at Violinist dot com, for the sake of the music itself:
“I will practice. I will improve. I will play for the sake of the music again this week–even if it is for God’s ears alone. It is a gift to be able to play. It is a gift to play on despite the effort and focus required. The wood will sing this new year with its sweetest song yet.”
Indeed it will, and that, for me, as for Mr. Smith, is more than enough. And, I should add, I will very happily go on practicing and playing in the blessed absence of the wolf tone (C natural on the A string in first position) that I struggled with on my $500 student rental. I don’t miss it.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Music, Rancho Roly Poly
Tagged aaron smith, Owens & Parkley violin, violinist dot com, wolf notes
On this supposedly peaceful Christmas day, which it usually is here at the rancho, the Nightmare before Christmas lingers. As well it should.
Mr. Boy told us that, in the days following the Newtown massacre, there were three armed security men patrolling the grounds of his middle school up the street. Mrs. Charm figures they needed three because the school has portable classroom buildings outside the main building.
I doubt very much the three armed men will be there when school resumes after Christmas break, however. The school district, top-heavy with administrators like so many educational institutions these days, couldn’t afford such extra spending for long.
Meanwhile, the “come-and-get-em” signs, otherwise known as “gun-free zone” announcements, still decorate the entrances which are said to be locked now but, again, for how long? Have noticed word that Utah has school teachers who carry concealed weapons, at least one Texas public school district does and a New Jersey school district is talking about it. UPDATE: So is state government in Arizona.
No clamor for change here yet that I’ve noticed and I don’t really expect any in liberal Austin where antigunner Democrats rule the roost, though the city pols officially are called non-partisan. Sure. Ours was the only city in Republican Texas to vote for Barry.
Despite the NRA’s good advice on the subject, at least one Texas Dem “leader” has suggested that NRA members who don’t support gun control should be slain. Uh, that would be me, but I’m not worried. The man’s mouth is bigger than his brain. Only fools and cowards make public threats.
Pundit Charles Krauthammer calls out popular video games in which players shoot people over and over again. He’s referring to the Call of Duty war games, which Mrs. C. and I have forbidden Mr. B. until he’s sixteen. We do allow him the Halo shooter game because its targets are monsters. Not a small difference to my mind, even if they are cartoons. None of us attends the Hollywood bloodbaths that pass for movies these days. I’d certainly support banning them, but their makers are Democrat donors, so we can forget that.
Home schooling may proliferate now, pundit Peggy Noonan thinks (behind the WSJ’s fire pay wall), when parents realize that the likes of the Texas Dem “leader” will block any attempt at more school security. While the elite’s own children are protected.
Not that Dems have much influence elsewhere in Texas, but our concern is here, where they do. But home schooling is out. Even if I was qualified, which I’m not. So we’ll wait and see. I’d be happy if they’d take down the damn “hunting preserve for children” signs. It would be a start.
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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Obamalot, Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles
Tagged gun-free zone: come-and-get-em, NRA, Peggy Noonan, school security, wayne lapierre
Jeffrey Goldberg’s unusual (for a liberal in a Progressive magazine like The Atlantic) call for arming some teachers or staff in public schools to fight mass murderers, is worth a read. Another worthy one is Howard Nemerov’s report in PJMedia that it was the Clinton administration that imposed “gun free zones” on public schools in 1995.
Which means the Sandy Hook, CT, school, like every other public one in the country—and all our neighborhood schools as well—has a sign at the main entrance announcing that no law-abiding person inside is armed. Which is really stupid. It’s a pure invitation to the deranged, like Lanza, the evil bastard who killed all those 5-year-olds, may his soul rot in hell.
He is said, in the latest update of what has been some remarkably inaccurate and callous reporting (even for the old media) to have broken into the school, which, at least, was locked to outsiders. Our neighborhood elementary’s entrance is not locked. (Or it wasn’t before; it may be now.) But would his knowledge that someone in there might be equipped to kill him have slowed him down? Certainly knowing no one could did not.
And will we ever see any discussion of President Clinton’s culpability? Or hear ole Slick Willie wish aloud that he’d given the idea of “gun-free zones” a little more thought?
The law requires parents to send their children to these schools (if they can’t afford private ones or choose to home-school) so the least they should be able to expect is that their child will be defended, not set up as a target to die for some corrupt pol’s agenda.
A good start would be removing Clinton’s idiotic signs. At least keep the mass murderers guessing.
One Texas school district gets it. And more on them here. G-d bless Texas.
Via Instapundit.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana
Tagged abolish gun-free zones in public school, Jeffrey Goldberg, President Clinton's gun-free zones must go
Hanukkah, of course, isn’t insignificant for observant Jews. As Yitzgood says at Simply Jews: “We say whole-Hallel every day of Chanukah (unlike the last six days of Pesach when we only say half-Hallel). There is a Torah reading.”
For unobservant Jews (certainly the majority), there’s only the historical and freedom aspects. Not really insignificant but not particularly stirring, either.
Still, there are the presents, the food, the games, the envy of the gentile children for their Jewish chums that their version of Christmas goes on so long (eight whole days!), and the candles are pretty.
So Happy Hanukkah, whatever your opinion or calling. Go Maccabees!
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Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Rancho Roly Poly
Not a live wolf. No more than the bow’s “frog” is a live frog. How could one possibly fit a real wolf inside something with no more depth than a cigar box? No, I mean a wolf tone, so called because it’s supposed to remind you of the animal howling.
Well, not exactly. Not even a crying Israeli jackal, actually. Mine, which occurs on my $500 rental beginner’s violin when I bow a C natural in first position on the A string, is more wispy. Like an intermittent breeze ruffling tree leaves if I were to sustain it past four beats, which I try not to. It’s become a phobia of mine now.
I’d noticed the wispy breeze for months, no matter what corrective I made to bow speed, fingering, shoulder movement, thumb-on-the-frog, etc. So, the other day while trying out some new $500 bows to replace my chunky $30 student fiberglass, which I seem to have outgrown, I asked the shop pro to check it out.
He did, including in a higher position. He said it was a probable wolf, i.e. a sympathetic artificial overtone which could be due to the string or to the spruce-maple combination of the wooden violin itself.
Which cements my previous intention to return this Eastman beginner’s instrument around my one-year beginner’s anniversary in December and buy a new step-up one. I’ll probably get another Eastman, a 405 for around $1,200. And new strings, maybe expensive Dominants. But, first, I’ll be sure to check that C natural. And hope I can say adieu to the wolf. Forever.
UPDATE: Well, now, this fellow says: “On a good violin with the traditional bass bar you tend to have a wolf tone on the B natural or C natural above A 440.” And he adds that’s especially so on the A string. I’m not sure my rental qualifies as “good,” but the wolf is right there.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Music, Rancho Roly Poly, Science/Engineering
Tagged wolf tones on a violin
“By this point, Oliver’s work was selling for tens of thousands of dollars. One of his paintings sold for more than $70,000. And all the while, he shows up at the post office in Waco to sort mail.”
A fascinating little tale of a very interesting man just up the road from the rancho.
Via Althouse.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles, Texana
Tagged kermit oliver, the painter postman
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 