This week in music

Now I'm just killing time between lessons.

Tonight's best quote so far is, "I can't play D; it makes my eyes hurt." "Your eyes?" "I mean my arms."

Tonight's inspirational quote is, "Musical depth is not about better playing; it's about more organic playing."

Yesterday I got my first clarinetist over the break. I can't begin to articulate how proud I am of that! It was much easier than I wanted to make it initially.

Student: "What's that note?"
Me: "C"
Student: "How do you finger that?"
Me: "Thumb, register, 123, 123 pinky."
Student: "Okay."

Out comes a C. That was easy. Why didn't I do that with my other kids?

Tonight I found the Best Tinwhistle Resource Ever (tm): www.chiffandfipple.com. Everything you could ever want to know about whistle, and somethings you didn't know you could want to know. Even better, I found a fingering chart so I no longer have an excuse to only play tunes in D (which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it). One of its sister sites has amazing information on things like ornamentation ("it's bling for your music") and arpeggios ("either those whacky neighbors from a long-forgotten '70s sitcom or else a rare tropical fish").

I am amused.

It's been a while

The "real world" has caught up with me at last!. Working 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., teaching from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., and gigging and rehearsing away my weekends, I've little time to do else besides work and teaching.

My novel has thus suffered. To my great disappointment, I am only at 10,000 words two days before the deadline. In my defense, I was writing by hand because my laptop died several months ago, but still, there have been others who made it work.

I do, however, plan to continue working on my sad, strange, twisted little opus, as I think it has vision and potential that could some day really become something. My personal goal is to have it drafted by the end of December (much more realistic).

Kudos to fellow Linny Jane for being so close to completion!! I have no doubt that she will finish it, and maybe if I'm lucky, let me read some of it. (Hint, hint.)