Some Debussy and Bach

I had the privilege of playing for the inauguration of the newly-donated piano in a church in downtown Toronto. Despite the weather being ridiculously gloomy (it was not really raining, but it was very much not dry), the day was extraordinarily beautiful; although I've never considered myself especially religious, the service was lovely and the people were very kind. What a wonderful day!

I played some Bach and Debussy. The pieces can be listened to in the YouTube links below. 

Here is Debussy's Arabesque  no. 1 from Deux Arabesques, as played by the master Walter Gieseking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmDfLZSWlKI

And here is a beautiful performance of J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E-major from Book One of the WTC by Dominique Kim at the 10th International Russian Music Piano Competition. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSOdUHiiXiU

Enjoy!

Improvisations

It may be March Break for the kids at my school, but my friend M and I decided that we'd go to school anyways for a little jam session on the piano and cello. As someone who is primarily Classically-trained and who hasn't had much experience with improvisation, it was very exciting to do some improvisation with M. Considering that I've studied piano for so much longer than I've studied cello, I was surprised to find it much easier to improvise on cello (or as a 4-hands piano improv with me on the upper ranges of piano with M on the lower ranges). Perhaps the fact that I've had less training on cello makes me less rigid or less stiff.

Time really does fly when you're having fun. M and I were only able to stay for about 1.5 hours, but those 1.5 hours sped by quickly; it was 1:30pm before we knew it! I left our school (and headed over to Chinatown and Kensington Market for a nice long walk and a bit of getting lost with my mum) feeling so much more refreshed than I've felt in a long time.

My favourite part of today's improvisations was the absence of metre (and tonality) in most of our music. Everything just flowed from one part to the next; there was no ticking metronome inside our heads. I suppose it can be considered the equivalent of a free-writing stream of consciousness with commas and dashes but no periods.

What a beautiful day.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

A classic Christmas song for jazz piano (and often voice), Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time is Here" is one of my favourite relaxing pieces to improvise around on the piano. A gorgeous instrumental version of the piece can be found at the following link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gmiSPMHrWQ

A Spider-y Day

I don't mind spiders, but it's not exactly my cup of tea to wake up on a Sunday morning to find spiders laying in bed with me, or crawling on my legs. Not surprisingly so, I became more than a little jittery for the rest of the day so far. In fact, seeing two jumping spiders chilling on the wall beside my desk wouldn't usually startle me so much... but today I freaked out a little more than I should have.

Maybe I should take my own advice and do some meditative practice on my piano or cello.

Except the piece that I'm working on for my Grade 10 Cello Exam is called "Tarantella" by Popper, and it's about doing a dance to dance out the poison of a spider bite. How pleasant.

Piano it is.

Musical Practice and Meditation

The act of practising music is a very odd sort of thing. Musical practice is meditation-- it's a time when you can just sit, breathe, and listen. It's a dance, too. Your arms moving away from your centre, towards you again, forward, back... And then your own body swaying with your violin, hunched over your double bass, caressing against your guitar. You're enveloped in sound, but still, I find that when I practice, it is more about a quiet peace than constant reverberating sound waves that echo back and forth and back and forth.

Music practice is what gives me quiet in my day. I read once that one of the most important parts of a day-to-day routine should be to always find time for quiet. Quiet gives you space, it gives you time, it gives you thought, and it gives you energy. To find the time to practice, even just 1/2 and hour of just open strings on my cello, or a C-major scale on the piano, that is my time for quiet, for peace, for thought.

And the results --in both my mental well being and my technique on my musical instrument-- are tremendous.

Just some thoughts on careers

Course selection for the next school year is coming up, and to be honest, I have no idea what I am doing. Like so many others in my school and around the world, I don't have a long-term plan. I don't know what program I want to go into. I don't know what University I want to go to. I don't know what country I want to live in. I don't know what job I want to have. I can't say to myself, "This is where I will be in five years" because I don't know where I'll be and what I will be doing. I hardly no who I am now, let alone who I might become.

Still though, I can't help but remember all those times in grades 1, 2, and 3 when people would ask all us little kiddies, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And of course, the boys would reply with police man, fire fighter, doctor, etc. and the girls would happily say ballerina, teacher, nurse, princess (WHAT?), etc. We have all these stereotypes about who we should be and who we should become, but I leave the concepts and implications of gender stereotypes to be talked about on another day.

I do remember though, that I wanted to become a pianist. And everyone laughed. It could have been because I had said pianist a little strangely (and it probably sounded something like penis at the time... speaking of which, I only just realized this a couple seconds ago, haha), but I had internalized it as laughter against my hope to become a musician. I still don't know whether I want to be a musician or not, but I do now know that it shouldn't matter what other people think. If I want to become a pianist or a cellist or a music teacher or an ethnomusicologist or a musical therapist or a physist or music-related engineer then by all means, I should not let their laughter get in the way! Because music is my life, and if I love it and make it my profession, I will be simply living and laughing and loving each and every day. Work no longer becomes tedious work. Work instead becomes play.

And that's the beauty of doing what you love. So remember, whether it's music or anything else for you, do what makes you live laugh love, and good luck with your good life.

Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809 - 1847), known to most English speakers as simply Felix Mendelssohn, was nothing less than a genius. Born in Hamburg, Germany, this incredible pianist, organist, conductor, and composer created brilliant masterpieces during his lifetime. All of his works are worth listening to, but if you're going to just pick a couple, I'd recommend hearing his beautiful "Andante and Rondo Capriccioso" for solo piano (also on the RCM ARCT repertoire list, by the way), his very virtuosic "Violin Concerto in E-minor, Op. 64," and his well known Overture to Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

They're brilliant, so get out and listen to them!

Or stay inside, by your computer, and have a listen to these YouTube links.

Andante and Rondo Capriccioso:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQngHGBI4ak

Violin Concerto in E-minor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCLxso5XDN4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_3PJf4lAj0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr0ixoV8mtc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y2qZRocdXYU

Overture to "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h1MGAlkqno
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37mLJzAsOEs&feature=related

Happy listening!