A friend jokingly accused me of having "baby fever" yesterday.  I don’t, honestly.  I am just super excited for Laura and Jon, since they wanted a baby, and now they have one!  After all, they just grow up and become really sarcastic and eventually go to Oberlin and become vegan, am I right?

(Carrie, don’t get annoyed.  You were a cute baby.)

I do get a lot of comments as a violin teacher, and as a now married woman, about when I’ll be having my own babies.  People say, Oh, you’ll understand when you have your own!  or "You’ll be a better violin teacher after you have your own children" (that made me almost homicidal) or simply ask, when are you having children?  And in my facebook newsfeed it seems that just about everybody I went to college with is now a mother or is pregnant (as in, in the last week I swear at least a dozen people have announced pregnancies).  I’ve gotten facebook messages saying, congratulations on your wedding, next comes babies!  I’ve had parents (of my students) tell me that I should have 4 boys, that it is the greatest. 

Chris with our baby

The thing about baby pressure is this:  it will never end.  It will absolutely never end.  Once I got married, people no longer ask me when I am getting married.  Once you have a baby, people don’t stop.  They just keep bugging you "when are you going to have a brother or sister for your child to play with?"  Plus, I consider asking a woman when she is going to get pregnant fairly insensitive.  What if the woman has been trying with no luck, or has perhaps had a miscarriage or two that people just don’t know about?

But I do the same thing to my friends!  I’m such a hypocrite. Right after I got married I found myself "joking" to people in serious relationships about whether they’d be next.  At the gym there is a day care room, and if Mike starts waving or smiling at one of the kids I tell him I can hear his biological clock ticking. 

The other question we could visit is why this bothers me.  Why do I care whether people think I want a baby or not?  But we’ll leave that one for the therapists!

It’s cool.  I love teaching for 5 1/2 hours after 4 hours of rehearsal.  My entire body aches.  I feel like I must be 90 years old.

I get to do it all over again tomorrow too!  My violin mark (on my neck) is a disaster and I think there is something seriously wrong with my shoulder.  Or there’s nothing wrong with my shoulder that a few weeks away from the violin (or maybe even days) won’t fix.  I don’t know.  I’ll find out soon.  Ice.  Ice is my friend.

But…Brahms.

Read today’s Chamber Project Blog entry!

(from the blog:)

Finally, our violinist Hannah answers a few questions about the program.

What is your favorite piece on the program and why or what do you love about the piece you are playing? I am torn between the Brahms Clarinet Quintet and the Martinu Duo.  Brahms is one of my absolute favorite composers, but (sorry Dana!) the [Brahms] Violin Sonatas are my first love.  Quintets are tough for a self centered violinist like me, because I have to share the spotlight more than I’d like.  Seriously though, the piece is absolutely genius, but I almost more prefer listening than playing (and yes, it’s been on in my car for the past several weeks!).  The Martinu on the other hand is so much fun to play.  I’ve already performed it in March with Laura, and I’m really looking forward to playing it again.

What is the most challenging aspect of this program?  Well, playing Brahms well is a weakness of mine.  Perhaps it’s a weakness for everyone…when he writes sotto voce I always freak out because I feel like a gorgeous soft sound is just hard to do.  I’m much better at loud and bombastic!  The other really challenging thing is this one run of octaves in the last movement of the Martinu.  It’s one of the most difficult technical passages I’ve had to play in a long time, and it happens twice.  I’ve been practicing it every day, but it just never sounds the way it should.  (Octaves, meaning two of the same notes, but one higher and one lower, and I have to use my first finger and my pinky finger while playing on two different strings and I have to move or shift my hand for EACH note.  Fast.)

Is there a ‘magical moment’ for you in this music? You’ll just have to watch my face to see.  There’s a place in the Hayden when the saxophone enters and it just cracks me up, the effect is so cool. Brahms is full of magical moments, though I have a couple favorites, like I said, watch my face and you’ll know…and I love the second movement of the Martinu–it’s so dark and icy, and reminds me a lot of some of my favorite Shostakovich Symphonies.

Read more here!

Look at the picture.  The far left corner.  Yes, that’s our lunch.  Jimmy John’s and a Diet Coke.

Oh, and there’s a lot of blog entries going around about life in the orchestral world and such.  This is mainly in light of the mess the Louisville Orchestra is in right now.  I wrote a lovely post around a year ago that you should read if you haven’t (alert, shameless self-promotion ahead!)

Orchestra auditions for non-musicians.

It’s a tough world out there, readers.  I can’t actually afford to live on the salary I make working my butt off.  Or at least, as my parents put it, in the manner to which I am accustomed.  I feel like I’m constantly underwater, failing my students, just barely getting by, but yet if I had more students to make more money…I’d just be doing worse.  And it’s not like these concerts are paying the bills.

They could be though.  Did you know that Chamber Project St Louis is a non-profit?  You can make a tax deductible contribution to us!  I’d recommend you do so, and if you do you get your name in the program, plus I will totally pretend to be your friend 😉

Okay, I made that last part up.  (Don’t worry!  I won’t pretend to be your friend.)  But if you are looking to support your local arts community you couldn’t find a better way.  We give a variety of concerts throughout the year, many free, most are very inexpensive, and do our best to educate and entertain our audiences.  If you are seriously interested go to the website and read up on it.  The other members aren’t as crazy as I am either.

Let me just quote from last year’s blog post:

You won’t love what you do most days, but sometimes you will love it so much that all the pain and suffering is worthwhile.

And then just for fun…

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” –J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

(I’m aware that April is the cruelest month for me…please don’t call in the men in white jackets.  I’m simply worn out.  June is just around the corner.)

How do I write about Titanic?  Very few movies and books have a significant impact on my life (I’m looking at you, Ender’s Game, and LOTR).

Remember when Avatar came out the other year?  I was reading an article in Entertainment Weekly, an interview with James Cameron, and he was asked, what if Avatar passed Titanic to become the highest grossing film of all time?  He said, well, I’ll just rerelease Titanic.   My heart stopped briefly.

And then last year.  I was driving, and I heard on the radio that it was happening.  They were rereleasing Titanic.  In 3D.  Which, honestly, I didn’t care about at all.  Up until the other day, I hadn’t seen a 3D movie, nor did I have a real desire to see one.

And if you are a follower of mine on twitter you’ll know that I rarely tweet in all caps.  Rarely.

Let me back up.  Titanic came out in 1997, in December.  This would have been my junior year in college.  I lived in a lovely apartment with 4 other people near my school.  I didn’t see Titanic until after Christmas break.  And then over a period of several months, I saw it 11 times.  I don’t remember specific details, for instance, did I ever see it twice in one day? More than once in a weekend?  I remember I went with my friend Scott most of the times, but not every time.  Not only did we see Titanic, we became experts at the history of the Titanic disaster.  We even went to the library and looked at microfilm of the newspapers around the time of the disaster.  We read books.  I listened to the soundtrack at night to fall asleep to.  I lived, breathed, and slept Titanic.  I don’t know how I managed to do anything else!  That movie is LONG.  And then I got  a bootleg copy on video, so then it was game over.  I basically have the entire movie memorized (please don’t judge me.)

11 times in the theater, and then who knows how many on video, DVD, and on Television?  Dozens more?  Hundreds?

And how am I no longer in touch with some of my friends from this time?  It’s a real shame facebook didn’t exist back in my college days.  Can you believe people used to lose touch, before email, cell phones, facebook, and twitter?

My sister Leslie has seen Titanic a couple or three times as well.  In fact, we quote Titanic more often than one might even realize—many of the words and phrases in our vernacular are indeed, from Titanic.  Either actual quotes, or quotes we made up. (many Airplane quotes fit into Titanic.)

So.  Last week as you know I was visiting my family and playing a concert in South Carolina.  And I stayed a day longer just to hang out.  A day, that just happened to be the day that Titanic came out in theaters.

I hate crowds.  I was worried there’d be crowds.  So we went to the 11:30 am show.  My father pointed out that some people do actually work during the day (no one in our house at that time) so it shouldn’t be busy.  We bought tickets in advance, just in case (it was an hour drive to the movie theater, and I figured I’d be too stressed out otherwise)…and that’s when I started getting, shall we say…

REALLY EXCITED

Like, I don’t get excited about stuff that often.  I am a bitter, cynical, jaded, optimist.  How does that work?  Well, basically it means I expect that stuff will work out and be fine in the end, but that getting there will be kind of a pain and not really go the way I want it to and nothing will be quite as fun or exciting as I thought it might be.  You know, I’m a typical adult.

But I was ready to go back to Titanic. 

And it did not disappoint. Oh, Kate and Leo.  You are both so beautiful.  And young.  When did we stop being young?

From the moment the movie actually started (after those awful awful previews)…I was completely engrossed.  I’ve seen the movie dozens (hundreds?) on times on my television since 1998…but really, nothing compares to the big screen.  What a wonderful movie.

Who wants to go see it again?

And yes, you’re welcome James Cameron.  I have helped you become a very wealthy man.

I was reading a friend’s blog this morning (food, sweat, and beers) and learned that there is an ad campaign from DeBeers encouraging women to get diamond rings for themselves for their right hand.

So, what if you play the violin and wear your "I love you" ring on your right hand?  Does that mean that he loves me and I love me too?  I’m so confused…advertisers and diamond companies, please help!

I have a new adult student, who is married, wears her rings on her left hand like "normal" people.  The other day I kept hearing weird plucking noises (the e-string) from her.  I asked, what is that noise?  She says, oh sorry, my ring keeps turning.

And that, my friends, is definitively why I wear my rings on my ring hand.  Can’t have weird noises coming from the violin. 

My sister Leslie and I, both amazing violinists.  Note also her short nails. 

For the layperson:  One of the funniest things about being an instrumental musician is when you are clothes shopping and you find something neat.  And then you or your friend says, but can you play in it?  And you start waving your arms around, or maybe feeling the left shoulder to see if it bumps or does something that will be annoying.  Plus then there’s the problem of earrings, and necklaces, bracelets and watches are a no, short skirts can be a huge problem, long skirts too…even the shoes you wear must be taken into account.  Every instrument has its own limitations. 

Did I say funniest things?  I meant most annoying.

So the fact that I wear my rings on my right hand really says, first, I love the violin. 

First things first:  Chamber Project St Louis Concert this weekend!  I’m playing a movement of the Prokofiev Solo Sonata, the Martinu Duo for Violin and Viola, and Haydn’s London Trio no. 1.  There’s some other pieces on the program as well, and it will be a wonderful show.  Information below.

Dinner & Concert at The Wine Press
March 23, 5:00-9:30 pm
"Haydn meets Hendrix"
Enjoy a great meal followed by a great concert
Reservations required  314-298-9463 or
stlwinepress@gmail.com
$40 includes meal, wine and concert

Now for the regular blog content:

Ty Webb to Danny: "Do you take drugs, Danny?"

Danny: "Every day"

Ty: "Good. So, what’s the problem?"

(name that movie)

Chris and I were talking at dinner last night (that in itself is a shock, I mean, what, married people talking???) and I mentioned it occurred to me the other day that I had been taking Advil every day.  I’ve always taken a fair amount of medicine for headaches, but then I started taking it for various running aches and pains plus violin pains…and suddenly you realize you’ve been taking 2 to 6 Advil a day (well, really, generic, but same idea) for as long as you can recall.  Certainly for a couple of months.  I’m worried I’m addicted to Advil!  Is that possible?  I mean, surely I can’t be in pain all the time, right?  Plus, I’m guessing it can’t be GREAT for my body to take drugs every day…and it seems if I’m not used to taking it all the time, when I do take it it would be more effective, right?  (disclaimer:  am not a doctor)

So today I am going to try not to take any Advil.  I feel like if I can go one day without it, then I’m okay.  So far I’m okay.  My legs and "glutes" hurt, but nothing I can’t handle.  I will try to stay up on my caffeine and water consumption to fend off any headaches.  My stress level is pretty high, but it is (hopefully) balanced out by the fact that I don’t have any teaching.  In fact, I am going to the mall, and since it’s not Christmastime or the weekend, that is pretty unstressful (you know I hate crowds).

So, dear readers.  I need your support in the upcoming 12 hours…wish me luck in my endeavour to become "drug-free."