Tag Archives: music

Deep Thoughts, Performing

It’s September, but where is the fall weather?

I’m taking a break from writing about our trip to just writing about my life right now. I’m sure you’re disappointed 😉

September is shaping up to be BUSY. I got asked to play a wide variety of concerts: several on the violin, one on the baroque violin, one on the viola! So there’s a fair amount of “I really should practice” going on, some actual practicing, and then setting up rehearsals, adjusting some students, that sort of thing. I added a chamber music coaching to my responsibilities at Wash U, and I added it on Wednesday evenings, which means that suddenly I am a night person rather than a morning person. I left the music school at 10 pm the other night and was somehow surprised by how busy it was! I also had to teach a makeup last night until 9:30 pm…and I wasn’t even that tired! My alarm didn’t go off until 8 am this morning and it was glorious.

Seriously, after teaching for 4 years in a job (which wouldn’t even have started up yet, but still) which required a 5:30 am wakeup on 4 days a week, not doing that is still a real treat. I will miss aspects of the job, but NOT the morning wakeup. I can freely add things to my evenings and nights without worrying about getting an appropriate amount of sleep, and it’s really relaxing.

The cats can never get enough of Louie. Me, they tolerate. Him, they absolutely love. For Muriel, I suspect it is partly because he does NOT play the violin, and she detests the violin. For Miles, well, they are special soul mates and that’s just how it is.

Monday we biked from St Charles to Machens on the Katy Trail, about 13 miles each way. It was probably the last long bike ride I will manage before our biking/canoing trip in mid-October, but we will get some shorter ones in. I don’t have any more days off until after that, but I do have some days with less things on them.

Sometimes I wonder if we are doing things wrong…other friends without children seem to have a lot more free time! I think often people think that if you don’t have kids that means you will have a lot of free time, and it definitely depends on what you do for your job. If you have jobs like us, which take up so much time (especially seasonally) you still end up being quite busy! I have thought maybe I should do a whole post on not having children, and perhaps I will someday soon. I wouldn’t say that my life looks exactly how I thought it would when I was a child, but whose does? I am not regretful about it in any way, and I love having so many worthwhile (to me at least) things that I do.

Sometimes I day dream what it would be like to have a “regular” 8-5 job, but I know if I did I would just fill my evenings and weekends with music activities. There’s no way for me to not be a musician! On the rare nights that I am done early, like 5 pm, which happened here and there over the summer, it was funny, because we didn’t even know what to do with ourselves! And then sometimes we would just go to bed really early, which was pretty nice anyway, because so much of the summer felt like I was just catching up on sleep and trying to get back into a more normal sleep routine…but it wasn’t like I suddenly had all these hours free, they just went away anyway. I’m sure some people have more interesting hobbies that take up their evening hours (my friend April does aerial silks and plays the flute in addition to biking, hiking, etc) but certainly many people just watch more tv.

Anyway! Louie and I have Saturday evening off together and we may go out to see some live music Saturday night, and we also need to watch The Whale for our movie group. We also have a bike ride planned, in addition to our work: for me a few rescheduled lessons, a concert tonight, a wedding tomorrow, and a church service Sunday morning and rehearsal in the evening. This is September!

Random thoughts

Halfway Done

By many measures summer is already halfway done. I only mention this in order to freak myself out.

I promise I will still tell you about the portion of our trip to Fayetteville and Bentonville, but life got too busy! I just got back from a trip to visit my sister and her family, and I was busy doing very little there but the time flew by. Before I left I did a very intense online conference on Paul Rolland Pedagogy while doing a normal week of teaching and life…so things were a bit slammed.

The pandemic has brought some great online educational opportunities into my life, and I’ve taken advantage of quite a few, but it means adding things onto an already somewhat busy schedule. That week was intense…livestreams or videos from the time I got up until when I went to bed with the exception of the times I was teaching or some meals. I didn’t even finish all the videos, so I’m halfheartedly playing catchup this week, because everything goes offline this Sunday. I say halfheartedly because I definitely will watch all the main track videos but my original goal of watching all the videos isn’t likely to happen, and that’s okay.

I have two more courses I’m taking this month, and I’m looking forward to them both. I’ve gotten a lot of wonderful ideas and inspiration over the past year and my brain and heart are absolutely full of ideas on how to be a better teacher. I’m working through ideas in my head about what kind of teacher I want to be going forward and how to use and incorporate some new ideas I’ve learned.

I read an article recently about “drift” (that one of my friends had posted online). The idea behind “drift” is that you end up doing things in your life by just sort of “drifting” into them, rather than making deliberate choices. Going to grad school because it was next in life, getting married/having children because all your friends are, taking a good job offer because it seemed like a good job offer and others encouraged you, etc. I sort of drifted into teaching to supplement my income and because people thought I would be good at it. I never felt like one of those teachers that was really into it or loved it or any of that, but in the past year my attitude and approach has changed.

I have been immensely grateful for my ability to teach during the pandemic, and have found such satisfaction in my ability to relate to my students and help them through this time. It has changed my idea of my career and made me feel much more satisfied with what I’m doing.

On other notes: fun stuff! LIVE MUSIC! We bought symphony tickets for next season AND jazz tickets for next season. I have a band performance this Friday, and a concert with the Metropolitian Orchestra of St Louis on Sunday night. (I think I overextended myself this weekend, but it’ll be fine.) I find myself wanting to schedule and do things, and feeling like it’s a slippery slope back into the world of being too busy, yet I am ready to LIVE again, and I think (this may sound crazy but) I’d rather be out and about doing interesting things than sitting at home. The park near our house is doing fireworks this weekend so we have an outdoor party planned, and well, there’s just good things happening.

I watch the delta variant numbers with caution, and found the study out of Israel about the Pfizer vaccine being less effective against the delta variant to be concerning…but I will hold steady and hope that my Pfizer vaccine keeps me healthy, until the CDC tells me otherwise.

We have two more weekend getaways planned before the school year, one camping in a State Park, and a weekend stay in Southern Illinois at a little cabin on a pond. Between then and now, lots of teaching, reading, music, gardening, friends, etc.

How’s your summer going?

Random thoughts

Starting to be normal again

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I could start my post with all sorts of caveats, that I know it isn’t normal, that so many in the world are still struggling, etc. But, we are a fully vaccinated household, the vaccines are still working well against the variants, and we are doing things again and it is wonderful!

Not all of us are doing things all of the time

Louie is going to work in person most days. I have a lot of students coming to the house for lessons. It feels more like a workday when he is gone, so we both get more done.

We’ve done a few social activities, which is great! We had dinner with friends Saturday night, I had my first lunch with a friend date since the before times, and we went out to dinner last night at Louie in Demun for Louie’s stepdad’s birthday. (It was delicious, though we ate too much and then went to bed so I woke up in the night and tossed and turned a bit.)

This was on the wall behind me at Louie: it’s by Joshua Bell, a well known violinist
At the opera!

We had purchased “Young Friends” tickets to Opera St Louis for Sunday night, and enjoyed a little picnic first and then saw Highway 1 by William Grant Still.

Our seats were not very good though!

Anyway, it’s been hectic here, but after a week in Arkansas it’s been a lot easier to handle it. I needed that break, and right now, I need another break, but I know it is coming up soon so I am doing well getting through my schedule. I think I’ll teach through July then like I said and take at least one more week off in August: I’m still waiting to hear more certainly when various family members might be visiting in August and that will inform my decision on time off. I’d love to take another trip somewhere, but I think it might just be a staycation with family visiting, with maybe some day trips.

We are planning to camp this weekend, however. I have reservations for two nights at Cuivre River State Park, but currently the weather is looking…not great! We’ll see what happens with the forecast over the next two days I guess. Thunderstorms and camping are not super fun, nor fun for the hiking we hoped to do on Saturday in between our camping nights. I made reservations because things get pretty full around here on the weekends, but who knows how the weather will be, right?

We’ve had some good stuff happening from the garden. We’ve been eating peas, chard, lettuce, and raspberries!

Day Lilies under the new tree.
This lovely platter was a gift from Leslie. We enjoyed a home “happy hour” which just turned into dinner.

That’s it for now…people keep asking me do I have a lighter schedule in the summer. The answer is YES because I don’t have any 7:15 am classes, but I took a bunch of new private students, a few for probably year-round and a few for just summer lessons (keeping up between school orchestra years). I wanted to make sure to replace my graduating seniors, but many of my now-graduated seniors have not stopped lessons yet…so there are some busy teaching days! July is a bit lighter as people get more into camps and vacations, but I won’t fool myself. My schedule won’t be any lighter until I really make it so sometime. I have been fortunate during this time to have an incredibly full violin and viola studio with inquiries nearly every week for possible new students.

I have started 5 beginners in the past month and it’s been fun! I haven’t had so many beginners at once (not counting my school job) in over a decade, so it’s great to try some new strategies with old favorites. I could go on about how I teach beginners, but this isn’t a violin specific blog, so I won’t, but feel free to reach out 🙂

Keep your fingers crossed for the weather being decent this weekend! and tell me, what have you been up to this summer so far? Any interesting activities?

Performing

So you want to host a house concert…

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Do you? It will be an awesome experience for you and your guests! My friend Amy and I just played our first one and we learned a lot.

Here’s what we would want in the future.

You: Invite your friends and family. Have them bring wine/apps or provide for them, along with providing the normal party things such as glasses, plates, napkins, etc. Have chairs and space set up for the concert. You’ll want to be able to have 20-30 people (or more, depending on your space) be able to attend and see/hear the concert.

We: Show up. Bring our own stands and  stand lights. Mingle with the guests. Play a concert, interact with the audience. You’ll learn about our music and enjoy it too. We will play for around 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, with a short break. We’ll also get there beforehand and stay after and answer questions! This is a way to get up close and personal with musicians.

You: Provide a basket or jar for musician tips. We did our first one at a friend’s house for fun and to learn. The next one we will need to make some money or we can’t keep playing! If you find that gauche, talk with me. We can work it out. I’m sure your guests would be happy to chip in $10-20 each for a unique and enjoyable evening!

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Here’s how the first one went. Woke up the morning of and worried that no one was attending (we helped out with inviting more than we will in the future, because it just added too much worry and stress, and honestly, you can’t keep inviting your friends over and over, we need MORE audience members, that’s also where YOU come in!)…decide it didn’t matter. Panic that everybody would hate the concert. Decided it didn’t matter because the hostess would love it and we’d have fun playing and whatever, it didn’t matter, who likes classical music anyway? (Spoiler, YOU do, you just might not know it yet.)

The evening arrived: We got to the house. We’d told people 7 pm, and by 7:15 there were probably 25 people. People showed up! Lots of people. They loved it! We started the program around 7:30 and went until close to 9 with a short break. We had a blast playing and talking with the audience, and loved the setting and the gorgeous house and the up close and personal interaction with everybody. Chamber music the way it was meant to be! And the audience was wonderful and attentive and friendly, and of course it’s more fun to play for people like that. These were friends! New and old friends. I had so much fun performing and talking with everybody.

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I’d love to do it again! Look at how much fun we are having! Imagine having two musicians play in your living room. Impress your friends and family with your culture and connections! You can make an ordinary night extraordinary.

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I’m sure I’ll learn more if I play another house concert, but that’s where I am right now. Advice? Interest? Suggestions? Comment or contact me.

Performing, Teaching

Struggling for balance

Somebody asked me recently if I taught or if I performed.  I answered that I do about half of each.  That’s really my goal right now.  I love teaching and I love performing, and for the past few years that balance has been reflected, both in my schedule and in my tax returns.

It’s funny.  I think most people struggle to achieve balance between their career and home life.  I am struggling to achieve balance in my career.  My home life has always been the time left over, and sometimes that balance is very much off (especially once you include practicing and lesson planning).  But that’s a story for another day!

When my work goes out of balance, I feel it.  For instance, there were many times last year when I was doing hardly any teaching.  I would talk to teaching colleagues who were full of stories about their students, and I felt left out, and frankly, sad.  I had just left about 20 students in Cleveland, and missed seeing them every week.  Lately I have been fortunate enough to have several new students (10 private, plus two small classes), and the teaching aspect of my life is feeling very much in balance.  Or has it?  Am I devoting too much of my recent time to teaching?

Last week I played with my orchestra in Columbus, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra for the first time this semester.  As we started rehearsing, I realized I had missed playing in orchestra.  I used to play a concert almost every week until I moved to St. Louis, and now I only play occasionally.  I do play many weddings and receptions, but its not the same feeling as orchestral playing.  My orchestral balance has been off.  Perhaps I need to make sure that at least half of my performing is through orchestra…so that would be at least 25 percent of my total work time.  Balance is a tricky thing, and the orchestral opportunities here (unless you are a symphony member) are few and far between.

I am a substitute player with the Columbus Symphony, but so far this fall I haven’t been able to play any of their concerts.  I love playing with the group, but it’s a trek from here to there, and it means canceling/missing everything I am doing here.  Between teaching, my pedagogy class, weddings, and other commitments in town, I just can’t make a trip out of town at this point (other than my already scheduled ProMusica concerts, of course).  I’m hoping in the spring that might be more possible.  Perhaps other orchestral opportunities closer to home will appear!
On a similar note, I recently was appointed Concertmaster of New Opera St. Louis (Winter Opera St. Louis) and I look forward to the season beginning in November.  It’s a very small orchestra, but I relish the thought that even in this economy,  new arts groups can survive, and hopefully thrive and grow.