Please pass the honey

It's interesting how little things you do or say can have a lasting impact on others.

Several years ago, I was coordinating a concert with a friend of mine. We used to sing in a women's chorus together, and she also directed a chorus at the nursing home where my flute choir rehearses. Her chorus members are members of the Alzheimer's Unit at the nursing home, so her job was challenging, yet rewarding. We decided to do a joint concert for the other nursing home residents: some songs with just the chorus, some pieces with just the flute choir, and some with all of us together. We chose "Sound of Music" for the joint pieces because we have an arrangement for flute choir and vocal choir.

My husband helped us set up for the concert, or brought me something I forgot (a music stand, perhaps?), and then had to leave. I called out to him, "Thanks, Honey!" as he left.

Skip ahead a few years to yesterday when my friend and I ran into each other again at a cello concert given by a husband-and-wife cello duo (their two children are talented cellists too). My friend happily introduced me to her new male friend, and she told me that, when I called out to my husband that day, her thought was "I want a 'honey' too."

So she set out to find one, and after a couple of years, found a very kind and loving man, her "honey." They are both well into their retirement years, but young at heart and enjoying the cello concert--and life--together. It is heart-warming to have unwittingly nudged her in this direction. :-)

Oh, the cello concert was great, too. Beautiful cello duets, set in an historic mansion (now arts center), festively decorated for Christmas, with views of gently falling snow through the large windows. That gently falling snow quickly became quite a mess, but it sure was lovely at the time!

Grumble, grumble

I went to rehearse my Christmas cello pieces with the organist and vocalist yesterday. The vocalist, who used to play the violin, wanted me to lower the pitch of the cello one whole step because there is a note in Gesu Bambino that is too high for him to sing. Either that or transpose the piece from the lovely key of G to the key of F. Not so bad, except the middle section is now in four flats, just like "O Little Town of Bethlehem." I am going to have to transpose the piece now, and I was reading it so well in treble clef!

I did try, briefly, to lower the pitch of the strings, but quickly decided against it. I have two pieces to play and no way to leave the front of the church to tune in between pieces. I do have two cellos, but my new one sounds so much better than my old one that I am reluctant to use the old one for such an "exposed" performance, when I need all the help I can get.

The vocalist/ex-violinist tried to convince me it would be easy to change the tuning, but I think this must be an entirely different matter for a violin vs. a cello and think it would loosen the strings too much. I am curious though whether anyone else has tried changing the pitch of the strings to accommodate a singer or for some other reason.

Me, the Arts and Entertainment Editor

I started a new job today: Arts and Entertainment Editor of the local newspaper. I'll be editing press releases as well as writing articles and reviews of concerts, plays, movies, and other events for the newspaper and, eventually preparing online content. It's the perfect job for me. I have been writing classical and folk music reviews for the newspaper for the last couple of years and am familiar with the local music groups and arts organizations, either directly or through my kids or my friends, so I know the territory. The staff is friendly and easy to work with. And I love editing other people's writing. :-)

I've been self-employed, working at home, as a book and web site indexer for the past 17 years, and have been a little reluctant to get a real job in a real office because of the flexibility of being on one's own. Yet, on the other hand, I work until the wee hours of the morning far more often than I would like, trying to deal with multiple conflicting publishing deadlines. So, when this A&E editor job became available, I decided it was just the job for me. Daytime office hours! The arts! What more could you ask for?! (For what more could one ask?)

More Happy Holiday Cards

I made some more holiday trading cards for the Drawspace.com exchange. They are just slightly larger than they appear here. It's been fun doing them, and I kind of hate to send them away, except of course, I will be getting little works of art from the other participants and I get to share them with you here. Happy Holidays!

(There should be one sharp in the violin music. Three points if you can name that tune.)

Busy!

I took a week off from work this week, and found myself swamped with the details of everyday life, and barely got anything done, including practicing. I did attend four rehearsals, and, in each one, thought to myself, I really should practice/should have practiced this more. The performances are the 20th, 22nd, and 23rd, so I have another 2 weeks or so. Hopefully, that will be enough time to work out some of those tricky spots!

Rice and Vocabulary Improvement

I found this link on Paulette's blog. I can't verify the authenticity of the rice donations, but it's a challenging vocabulary test, which adjusts itself to your vocabulary level. Maybe you will find some words to use in your blog. :-)

Christmas Carols

I love Christmas music, and, over the weekend, I discovered that Christmas carols sans sheet music can be a great learning tool for those who want to improve their ability to play by ear. I'm usually working on memorizing fiddle tunes, but playing fiddle tunes by ear is different. When you are playing by ear, you know where the next note is and your fingers know how to play that note. When you are memorizing a tune, I am more apt to think of a series of fingerings and patterns than the actual melody. The two processes are related, but playing by ear has some advantages over relying on memory.

The Fiddlers played at one of the downtown historic homes yesterday, after the annual Christmas Parade. To prepare for that, we rehearsed some Christmas carols by playing them by ear. (We don't use sheet music in our performances and we didn't have any Christmas music on hand.) It was surprising easy. We picked easy keys, of course: G or D, an occasional A. No four flats for us! It was great fun, and you could concentrate on playing the notes, rather than on remembering the tune.

I heard that Sunday's fiddle performance was very well-received by an enthusiastic and dancing audience. I was not able to go, as my daughter had a Christmas choral concert the same afternoon (which was also wonderful), but I think I will add "playing Christmas carols by ear" to my practice schedule this month.