I almost titled this Monday Musings, but then I remembered it was Tuesday! I didn’t have my school class yesterday because of Presidents Day so it sort of felt like a Monday today.

We attended the Doos Trio concert last night at Washington University and it was fantastic! Here is the description from the website: Three masters and old friends join together in a new collaboration. Kayhan Kalhor, Wu Man, and Sandeep Das are established soloists in their individual traditions. Their new trio highlights the ancient traditions of Iran, China and India in a 21st century program. Three-time GRAMMY nominee Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh, who through his many musical collaborations has been instrumental in popularizing Persian music in the West. Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and leading ambassador of Chinese music, Wu Man has carved out a career as a soloist, educator, and composer giving her lute-like instrument a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. A Guggenheim Fellow and GRAMMY-winning musician, Sandeep Das is one of the leading tabla virtuosos in the world today. Since his debut concert at the age of 17 with legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar, Das has built a prolific international reputation spanning over three decades.

Things that I loved: how much FUN the musicians were having playing together (AND it sounded great), and how interesting it was to watch Kayhan Kalhor play the kamancheh, which seems like a precursor to the violin. I just really loved the concert, and wanted to get up on stage and improvise with them. It seemed they had some things that were set (endings for sure) and other things that were improvised, and that is exactly the sort of thing I was teaching in Creative Ability Development before scheduling got the best of us. I think so much of jazz improvisation has more rules than I want to deal with and I prefer improvising in a more free way and just having fun with it. This doesn’t mean that an auditorium of people will enjoy listening to me improvise, but the fun of it is the same. So much of music should be more focused on how fun it is to PLAY and not so worried about the audience and what the audience thinks. We tell kids not to worry about what other people think, and then we tell them they have to perform in certain ways so the audience likes it, and that certainly seems like a mixed message!

I made bread in my bread machine on Sunday. I rarely do this, and yet the bread is always so delicious. In this case, the bread was also really tall: I made a “large” loaf, forgetting that usually I prefer the “medium” size as it is not quite so tall.

Muriel was being adorable in my chair here. I took a series of photos as she kept changing position.

She was trying to set a trap with her belly, but I don’t think petting her was a wise move at the time.

After Friday’s snowstorm, the weather yesterday and today seems quite lovely. Most of the snow is gone, though not all, and I took my coat off this morning while running errands. February is always a crazy month with the weather.

Louie has come around and decided he does like the look of the fake plants in the sunroom. I find this is often the case with him: he is hesitant to trust my ideas with decorated, but then once I set it up (after convincing him to just let me try things out) he tends to come around. This gives me the thought that I have a good eye for decorating, which may not be true, but I do know what I like to look at. I’m considering some other decorating changes and trying to decide whether to just pull the trigger or wait longer and keep looking around (likely).

How’s your week going? Do you have snow on the ground where you live?