Red-Haired Mary

Most musicians enjoy exploring more than their chosen specialty. There are several members of the KSO who moonlight with various bands or on secondary instruments. Tomorrow KSO flutist Jill Allard will perform as a member of Red-Haired Mary on WDVX's Blue Plate Special. The concert is free and starts at noon. The WDVX studio is located downtown at the corner of Gay Street and Summit Hill. If you can't make it downtown, you can stream the concert live from the WDVX website.

Glass Harmonica

My husband and I really love LP's. We love the oldness of them as well as the quirkiness of music available. Some of my favorites from our collection include Captain Kangaroo narrating Peter and the Wolf, a recording of Karajan rehearsing the Berlin Philharmonic on Beethoven's 9th Symphony, a recital by violinist Igor Oistrakh (son of David Oistrakh) of 20th century pieces, and various recordings of easy listening "jazz" from the 1950's and 60's.

Occasionally we will come across an instrument that we're not familiar with. Last weekend we picked up a record that features an ensemble of cello, viola, and glass harmonica. Surprisingly, it works quite well. Neither of us knew quite what a glass harmonica was, though, so we looked it up on Youtube.

It's the Smart Place to Be!

When a musician is completely engrossed in a piece everything around them disappears. You lose yourself in the music. It's a lot like reading a good book. You forget your surroundings and join a world that, while only words, is completely real in your mind. For this reason I have always loved reading. I also love libraries. (And librarians... I married one!) The library has always been one of my favorite places because you can walk out with a stack of books, a few CD's and a movie or two, peruse them at your leisure in the comfort of your home and then go back and repeat the procedure all for FREE.

The Knox County Public Library system is great. First of all, it's huge: in addition to the main library downtown there are 17 branches all over Knoxville. If the branch in your part of town doesn't have the materials you want, it's not a problem. You can reserve them and have them delivered to your chosen branch. If you need a book that the KCPL doesn't own they will try to get it for you from a different library system.

The library offers many programs from story time for children (including musical story time with members of the KSO!), to family game night, to computer workshops for adults. There is something going on every day at the library and the variety of programs is so wide there is something for everyone.

I am a veteran library user, but until very recently my experience with KCPL's website was limited to reserving books and checking the due dates on my books. Boy was I missing out.

The library's media collection is called Sights and Sounds. They have a sub-page online called The Music Room. It has all sorts of databases you can access online from the comfort of your home with your library card. There is a source for classical music scores, African American Song, a classical music library with audio you can listen to right at your computer, the Smithsonian Global Sound for libraries, and several others. There is a link to their collection of CD's by local artists, local music venues (including the KSO!), and a list of upcoming events by AC Entertainment. The Sights and Sounds web pages are a great way to stay on top of the Knoxville music scene.

The Music of Nature

The Bioacoustics Research Program at Cornell University collects animal sounds from all over the world to study animal communication as well as monitor the health of certain populations. They boast the world's largest archive of animal sounds and they have made them available on their website. You can hear recordings of the American Toad, Harbor Seals, and even a yellow-tailed wooly monkey from Peru.

Happy browsing!

Pandora

I finally discovered Pandora. I expect I'm one of the final hold-outs who haven't tried this free online radio program. I'll tell you about it anyway because if you haven't tried it, you should. It's really neat. I've only been using it for a day or so and am already hooked.

The goal of Pandora is "to play only music you'll love." It is part of the music genome project where music theorists are constantly analyzing pieces and songs for hundreds of different elements. How the station works is that you enter a song or piece or composer that you like and the site creates a radio station just for you. It plays pieces by different composers / artists that have similar characteristics to the one you originally chose. If you dislike a piece it plays you can tell it and it eliminates the piece from your station.

You can also create a station with multiple artists. Just to see what would happen, I created a station by typing in John Philip Sousa and Brahms. It did exactly what it said it would, playing rousing marches by various composers with some Brahms and Tchaikovsky thrown it. It was a jarring mix of styles (as expected!) but this feature is quite handy for situations where more than one person is listening. My brother-in-law is a chemistry professor who uses Pandora in his lab. He has each student type one artist into the station for a mix that everyone can agree on.

The best thing about Pandora is that it exposes you to music you have never heard before that you will most likely enjoy. It doesn't lump entire genres together, assuming, say, that if you like Vivaldi's Spring that you will also love Bach's St. Matthew Passion. The music genome project looks at so many elements that they are able to categorize pieces more narrowly than simply Baroque, Classical, Romantic and 20th Century. I created a station using Stravinsky's Petroushka, which is one of my all-time favorite pieces. I listened for about an hour while Pandora played piece after piece that I had never heard before. I probably wouldn't have picked Michael Tippett's Second Symphony to listen to on my own, but I enjoyed the part I heard on Pandora so much that now I plan to seek out the CD.

For some festive music this weekend, I highly recommend attending the KSO's performance in World's Fair Park. If you can't make it there, or to any live performance this 4th of July, typing John Philip Sousa into Pandora will give you a great mix of music perfect for Independence Day.

The Taco Bell Musket

Taco Bell Cannon... Pachel's Bells.... Pachelbel by Canon... Taco Bell Musket... No matter what you call it, Canon in D by Pachelbel is one of the most popular pieces of classical music ever. People who don't even like classical music still seem to enjoy Pachelbel Canon. It is certainly a pretty piece, but there are thousands of other pieces with equally beautiful melodies that don't share a fraction of Canon's popularity. So what makes Pachelbel's Canon stick out?

An obvious answer is that this is a piece that many people have chosen to have played for their wedding. Music that has personal meaning can bring back all the emotions of time passed, good or bad. In my life before the KSO I was a Suzuki violin teacher. We often took the advanced violin students to perform at shopping malls and other public places. Pachelbel Canon was one of the pieces they performed and it was always fun to watch couples stop and listen. Some would tear up while others would smile at each other or hug. Our kids could play, but in this case it wasn't the performance that was attracting attention, it was the piece itself.

Emotional association doesn't explain WHY Canon achieved popularity in the first place, though. My theory has to do with the bass line. Not all canons have a bass line. In it's simplest form, a canon is a piece with a melody that is repeated by an additional voice or voices after a given interval. A round is a simple form of a canon. Row, Row, Row Your Boat is a good example of a round. Pachelbel's Canon is similar to Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Voices enter at regular intervals and play identical music. Canon in D adds a bass line in the cello part.

The cello part for Pachelbel's Canon is eight notes that are repeated until the piece is over. If Dante had conjured up a circle of Hell just for cellists, my guess is that their punishment would be to play Pachelbel's Canon for all eternity. Their part has none of the fun of the violin parts. As tedious as it is for the cellist, it is, I think, the key to the popularity of Canon in D. The cello part provides rhythmic and harmonic security. It grounds the listener. Although it is dull to play, there is so much going on in the melody that you don't really notice the cello part when you are listening. It's there, though, hammering the chord progression into your subconscious.

Many pop artists have used Pachelbel's Canon as inspiration. Some have used bits of the melody in their songs, but more often they use the chord progression. "Cryin" by Aerosmith, "Let it Be" by The Beatles, and "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister all incorporate part, if not all, of the chord progression from Canon in D. Doesn't it just make you smile to think of Steven Tyler rockin' out to Canon in D on his tour bus?

For a more complete list of pop artists who have been inspired by Canon in D, visit www.pachelbelcanon.com.

Queen of the Night

There are quite a few musicians who have made their careers based on comedy. Until today I had never known of a musician who became famous because they were so ear-shatteringly horrible that people came out in droves to laugh at them.

The first sentence in Florence Foster Jenkins' Wikipedia entry is, "Florence Foster Jenkins (July 19, 1868 – November 26, 1944) was an American soprano who became famous for her lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability."

Ouch.

Jenkins' confidence in herself was unwaivering. She claimed that her critics were merely jealous of her talent. The heartly laughter coming from the audience while she was singing, she said, was from her rivals.

You be the judge.

Beam Me Up!

Traveling by air with an instrument is a headache at best. It has always been this way, but since 9/11 the headache regularly turns into a migraine. Regulations regarding which instruments can be carried on to flights and which must be checked have always been confusing. Honestly, a lot depends on who is working at the airport that day. I once confirmed with my airline that I could bring one instrument on as carry-on and gate-check the other only to be stopped by airport security who told me there was absolutely no way they would let me through with two instruments and a purse. I would have to go back and check something. I took everything crucial out of my purse and checked it.

I always hold my breath when going through security with my viola. I have smaller cases that I use when I fly, so size is not usually a problem. My biggest issue is my bow. I use a carbon fiber bow. On the security x-ray it shows up differently than a regular wood bow, and apparently looks a lot like a sword. You are not allowed to take swords on airplanes. (Good thing, too!) Luckily, the security people I have dealt with have been reasonable and after a quick look inside the case we all have a good laugh and they let me through with no problem.

Other musicians have not been so lucky. Horror stories abound and include people having to play their instrument at security to prove that they are, in fact, musicians and not clarinet-wielding terrorists, instruments that have been dropped while being inspected by security, and people who have made specific arrangements with the airline regarding taking their instrument on the flight only to be informed that they will have to check it at the gate when it's time to get on the plane.

This final scenario happened to one of my college house-mates. He had bought a ticket for his cello, which is what cellists have to do in order to take their instruments on a flight. Everything was fine on his flight out, but when returning home the plane was overbooked. The flight attendant told him she would put his cello in the closet up front but the cello wound up gate-checked instead. When he arrived at home he noticed that one of the latches on his case was a bit mangled. Then he opened the case. It looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his cello. About a quarter of it was completely smashed. Slivers of wood filled the bottom of his case. After several months in the shop the cello was eventually restored and actually wound up sounding better than it had before the accident. In the meanwhile, though, my friend had auditions for graduate school and no cello. We wondered how the audition committee at The Julliard School would react if he showed up playing air cello.

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How about you? Do you have any horror stories about flying? Any airlines or airports that you love?

School's Out!

The end of the season is always bittersweet. I enjoy my job and I get along with my colleagues so the idea of not having regular rehearsals makes me a little bit sad. At the same time, we are all exhausted and definitely in need of a break.

So what do the KSO musicians do during the off-season? Some people go to music festivals around the country, some stay close to home practicing, teaching and playing recitals, and some take a break from music altogether. Our orchestra is comprised of both full-time salaried players and musicians who are paid per-service. Many of the per-service musicians have jobs outside the KSO which continue through the summer.

This summer I plan to take a bit of a break from the viola and dust off my violin. Before I moved to Knoxville I split my time pretty evenly between the two instruments. Now summer is the only time I have to really focus on the violin. I like to switch in the summer primarily because it gives me a break physically without having to put the instrument down completely. The violin is smaller and lighter than the viola, the notes are closer together and you don't have to work as hard to get a good sound. The body of repertoire for the violin is a lot bigger as well. Beethoven wrote 10 sonatas for the violin, 0 for the viola. Mozart wrote over a dozen sonatas for the violin, 0 for the viola. Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Dvorak all wrote concertos for violin (and not for the viola). There are certainly great pieces for the viola (Bartok Concerto, Schubert Arpeggione Sonata, two Brahms Sonatas, etc), there is just more to choose from in violin land.

I will also be blogging here all summer, so be sure to check back every Monday and Thursday!

Happy Birthday, Elliot Carter!

This past Thursday, December 11th, was composer Elliot Carter's 100th birthday. He celebrated with a birthday bash / concert at Carnegie Hall. Perhaps even more impressive than Carter reaching his 100th birthday is the fact that he is still actively composing. His body of work is expansive and includes large orchestral works, chamber pieces, and music for single players. He has won the Pulitzer Prize for music twice for two of his string quartets.

Carter appeared along with Daniel Barenboim and James Levine on The Charlie Rose Show last week. Here is a link to the entire show.

In 2002, Alan Baker interviewed Carter for American Public Media's American Mavericks series. You can listen to the interview or read a transcription here.