Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Block Ice & Propane

As much as I loved stuffing my head full of new stuff when I was a kid, I spent an awful lot of my school career figuring out ways to get out of going to class. When the Suzuki method made it to one of the four or five elementary schools I went to, I jumped at the chance to take violin lessons.

Small problem. Not only am I musically klutzy, but most of my family is musically gifted. Not only did I hate them for setting the bar impossibly high, but they hated me for inflicting unbearable pain on their eardrums. Even the family cat, whenever I opened my violin case getting ready for the day's practice, would jump off the furniture and put her head under the sofa. Just her head, the rest of her body was visible. The implication was clear: I refuse to leave the room because I was here first, but have you ever, just once, considered the possibility that you have all the musicality of a jackhammer?

This was all right down traumatic for a 10 year old, but I stuck with it for a year or two, or however long I was at that particular school. Mostly to get out of class for an hour once a week for violin lessons in the school auditorium. Plus, I loved the rosin. I loved the crumbliness, the stickiness, the smell [I think I want this job]. To this day, every time I hear Johnny you rosin up your bow, it brings back intensely pleasurable memories.

For years afterwards, I had this love/hate relationship with the music of string instruments, dominated mostly by hate, I hate to say. But one afternoon spent with Erik Friedlander on my computer has changed all that. My list of CDs that I have to buy isn't as long as my list of Books that I have to read, but I've just added Block Ice & Propane to it.



ErikFriedlander.com [great photos]
cello lessons

23 comments:

Steve Bates said...

Cool. He's sort of the Stanley Jordan of the cello... not that his music sounds anything like Jordan's, just that both use really unusual techniques in both hands on their respective instruments. I like it.

Sorry about your bad experience with music lessons. One way to make a child hate music is to start them on violin, because almost no living soul is any good at it. One way to make almost any cat hate you is to play any shrieky high-pitched instrument near the cat... flute or recorder works as well as violin for this purpose; some cats will literally try to bat the instrument out of your hand. On the other hand, cats appear to like harpsichord. I once knew a cat that would sit near the instrument, waiting for me to play it. Go figure.

Rosin is cool stuff. Too much or too little, and you're not really playing anymore, just making grotesque grunts or squeaks. (How do you feel about peg dope? on pegs, I mean; I don't know of any other uses for it...)

Most of my string experience was with viola da gamba, aka viol. I like the feeling of wrapping myself around the instrument and holding the bow like a pair of properly employed chopsticks. Ah, those were the days...

Did I mention that I gave away a small spinet harpsichord this weekend?

hipparchia said...

you did what?! if you mentioned it, i wasn't listening. why did you give away a small spinet harpsichord?

me and cats, in tune with each other on flutes, violins and harpsichords.

i was hearing echoes of chick corea, listening to the tough guy video.

Steve Bates said...

The baby made me do it. :-)

Seriously... over the years I've owned five keyboard instruments: an acoustic piano, a kit-built harpsichord (he who buildeth his own harpsichord hath a fool for a builder), two real harpsichords including a 17th-century Flemish-style one-manual and the aforementioned spinet (both instruments of recent construction, not antiques), and a Yamaha P-80 digital piano. I gave the kit-built harpsichord to a friend over a decade ago. I gave away the acoustic piano to the guy who bought the Livingston trailer my late parents lived in. And I gave away the spinet harpsichord to one of my best friends in the world, who was also a long-time musical colleague in my performing days, because he and his wife have a 9-month-old baby girl who deserves to grow up in a household with a harpsichord. I kept my larger harpsichord and the P-80 digital piano; that's quite enough keyboards for one person who no longer performs.

hipparchia said...

awwww! how sweet.

i've always been opposed to owning any piece of furniture, even one that makes beautiful music, that i can't pick up and carry by myself. i finally got talked into accepting one hand-me-down sofa, so that i would have at least one piece of furniture that visiting old folks could sit on without fear of falling to the floor.

Steve Bates said...

"awwww! how sweet." - hipparchia

Irony aside, on my best days, I can be a decent guy. :) This is something I had intended to do for months; I finally found my friend in a frame of mind to accept the instrument.

"i've always been opposed to owning any piece of furniture, even one that makes beautiful music, that i can't pick up and carry by myself."

That spinet meets your criterion. It's awkward for one person to carry it, but its weight is not the problem. I've occasionally moved it by myself, and I'm anything but strong. Even my larger harpsichord can be carried by two people, and frequently enough, on jobs, the person on the other end was a tiny, wiry woman with twice my strength, the oboist who was also the contractor on the job. ("Contractor" in the music world means "leader," the person who contracts other musicians to play a job.) She also drove the truck or trailer to cart the harpsichord to and from the job. My point here, though, is that you don't have to be big or especially strong to move a harpsichord.

Re: furniture, I had no large soft furniture in this apt. for the first 12 years, until Stella offered me an old, very comfy recliner that I couldn't refuse. As you say, it's something the old folks can sit in. :)

hipparchia said...

the carryability factor would include awkwardness. also fragility of object being carried.

Steve Bates said...

Harpsichords can be broken, but they're tougher than you might think. Three years ago, my large harpsichord rested on its spine on a moving dolly on its way to an outdoor job (I hate outdoor jobs) through a really high wind; while I was scouting out a path through the mud to the stage, the instrument blew over off the dolly into a huge mud puddle. The padded case was damaged, but the instrument was not. We cleaned ourselves up a bit and played the job.

That said, there is no denying that the little harpsichord is awkward for just one person to move.

Next lifetime, I'm sticking with piccolo...

hipparchia said...

next lifetime i'm taking voice lessons.

Steve Bates said...

"voice lessons." - hipparchia

It's easier to carry the instrument, but not necessarily easier to carry the tune. :-)

hipparchia said...

alas, tis all too true.

Steve Bates said...

When I was a grad teaching fellow, my sight-singing/ear-training students liked me because, although my pitch was true enough, my voice was so awful in quality as to be unintimidating to them. They figured that if I, with my godawful voice, could learn to sing in tune, surely anyone could. I guess that's good...

Keifus said...

How can you tell when a violin is out of tune?

I've found that the trick, at least with stringed instruments, is to not let the lack of talent bog you down. Just play 'em anyway.

Of course, there's a tradition in my immediate family of doing it anyway. My dad, who also started playing music in his thirties after childhood incompetence, did it anyway, and has managed to fake his way into a band or two of talented musicians. They even got paid once or twice. (I'm sure it made my grandfather, who was a talented pianist, like him that much less.) Now he's forced to tolerate all us late beginners.

He (my dad) made fiddles along with all the other instruments. I have fond memories of the little rosins too, sliding them in and out of their little cases. As a kid, the instruments themselves made no impression whatsoever.

Cool pics & video.

hrqgnufc: human resources quick enough

Steve Bates said...

Keifus, here's one for you: a high school orchestra conductor sees a violist crying. "Why are you crying?" the conductor asks. The violist replies, "Because my stand partner reached over and turned one of my pegs... and won't tell me which one!"

Keifus said...

Hee hee.

I'm still trying to picture a harpischord case.

K

Steve Bates said...

Keifus, padded cases are custom made for individual harpsichords, or at least individual models of harpsichord from a specific maker. There is no single generic shape even among fliegel-shaped harpsichords, and certainly no standard size. The case may have straps and buckles to hold it on, or (my strong preference) rope threaded through loops sewn to the edge of the case. Why rope? Because you can't scar the finish of the instrument with a rope, and you darned surely can with a metal buckle. The case for my instrument is bright blue, and it has leather corners for extra protection. One can safely pick up the instrument by the case if necessary; it's plenty strong.

The instrument itself, a Flemish one-manual, is painted a deep green, with a black border hand-decorated with gold; the inside of the lid has a mixture of bare wood, decorative paper, and a few paintings of flowers. The soundboard has a carved rose-hole and paintings of bees, butterflies and plants. All of these decorations are traditional for Flemish harpsichords of the 17th century. (The builder declined my suggestion that as a Texas harpsichord, its lid painting should contain at least one image of a cockroach.)

Actually, you see a pic of my harpsichord every time you see my avatar. That's me, on a gig, tuning the harpsichord, in about 1992 or so.

hipparchia said...

Why is an 11-foot concert grand better than a studio upright?
Because it makes a much bigger kaboom when dropped over a cliff.


keifus, those were terrific. you made my day.

the problem in my family is that nobody else has to do it anyway. i'm the very gratingly obvious oddball. my one consolation is that my dad, whose ear is much better than mine, still doesn't sing much better than i do. if it's just the two of us driving around town in the car, we roll down the windows and crank up the radio [preferably bluegrass] and sing at the tops of our [alleged] voices.

i am marginally better at drumming than i am things-with-notes and do plan to pursue that someday. also, i'm thinking of taking up bagpipes, since most people won't stick around long enough to notice if you're hitting the notes.

hipparchia said...

[i'm glad you asked... i was trying to picture a harpsichord case myself.]

thanks for the description, steve. i didn't even realize there was such a thing as a cases for harpsichords, nor did i realize quite how decorated they were. [but surely that would have been a palmetto bug instead of a cockroach, wouldn't it?]

Keifus said...

Oh that's cool. I didn't realize what the photo was. Sounds like a beautiful instrument, will look closer when I'm not on dialup. (As for cases, I had a thoroughly absurd image of a piano-sized suitcase. I'd have guessed crates for moving.)

There's nothing quite as liberating as singing badly. The car is just the place. (I told you the story of the drum set some time back, right?)

qjxjh: I think that's the sound the concert grand made at the bottom of the cliff.

hipparchia said...

lemmings pianos cliff rocks splat qjxjh

i didn't recognize it either

Steve Bates said...

I'm still amazed that "cobweb" site is still up. Two things are obsolete on it: that email address is long since defunct, and my hair and beard haven't been that dark in a loooong time. The harpsichord in the right panel is not mine, though it is Flemish in decoration and very similar in color scheme. Back in those days, I had neither a digital camera nor even a scanner to post a pic of my own harpsichord; now, I have both, but I don't remember how to make modifications to that site. Maybe I'll try FTP someday. Maybe not.

"(As for cases, I had a thoroughly absurd image of a piano-sized suitcase. I'd have guessed crates for moving.)" - keifus

And you would not be wrong, keifus, for actual unattended shipping, e.g., by train or plane. But for ordinary carting to and from a gig, a padded cloth/leather case is a whole lot lighter and more practical. A crate more than doubles the weight of the instrument.

Y'know, y'all are making me miss the "good old days" ...

hipparchia said...

steve, keifus was kind enough to post a video for us, playing his new mandolin. you've got a harsichord, dude, and i can tell you how to set up a youtube account....

Steve Bates said...

hipparchia, I've got a YouTube account. I posted a few "videos" taken with my pocket digital camera, no soundtrack, just interesting stuff I ran across.

I don't think any of my musical groups in my performing days were videotaped (except once for a promo on a TV show, and I don't have that video), and I'm certainly in no performing shape to be making a new one.

I'll see if I can find a suitable audio recording from the good old days with Houston Baroque Ensemble or Aquinas Ensemble, but even there, I don't have the equipment to digitize it and make an .mp3 of it. We made those recordings with stone-age technology!

hipparchia said...

dude, even way out here in the sticks we have people who digitize stuff from old media [i personally know a couple of people who can do reel-to-reel tapes; zat old enough for ya?]. some do it for pay, others do it for fun.

link us to your youtube stuff? pretty please?