I talk a little more in this one. Weber’s Concertino is a major staple of the clarinet repertoire. When it’s done right, it’s so much fun to listen to/watch. Even practicing this is a lot of fun. It’ll be nice when this piece sounds better.
Kay Ryan’s imagery has always made me think. I’ve enjoyed her poetry, and she knows how to describe the human experience. And then her poems become a part of the human experience. She’s definitely made my life more robust.
I just finished a book of poems by Joy Harjo, called An American Sunrise. She adds commentary to her poem “Story Wheel”: “Until the passage of the Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, . . . to write or create as a Native person was essentially illegal.”
Sometimes I work on passages of various clarinet pieces.
I’m thinking of starting a video series that includes my playing clarinet and talking about poems. This is the pilot, haha. Unfocused, yes. But two things I love.
I logged into this blog in the last week and found out I had written posts 82 days in a row before completely falling off the face of the earth. Not too shabby. A lot has happened since the last post.
In August we took a whirlwind trip to St. George to attend the last Utah Symphony Concert in which my brother-in-law would be performing for a while. He’s been a substitute percussionist for them for years now, but he went to the University of Michigan this fall to pursue super-advanced degrees in music things.
In August we also took a quick trip to Park City to explore and celebrate my husband’s birthday. It was also nice to let our daughter swim in the hotel pool as much as she wanted.
We spent the month of July building bookshelves, another birthday present for Reilly. It’s nice to have a place to put a lot of our books.
The beginning of school happened for Reilly and Z in the middle of August. Z brought home a cold at the end of August, and we all felt so crappy that Z and I got covid tests. Z never got her results back, but I tested negative. Being sick is so scary in these weird times.
Speaking of, a friend of my brother passed away from covid this week. Truly horrible.
More horribleness: In the last month a church leader gave a speech to some university faculty about taking up muskets against the evils of homosexuality. All of my LGBTQ+ friends were gutted, once again, by the hate the church spews. I don’t know how much longer I can try to reconcile this religion and their dangerous rhetoric with my staying in the church.
Last week I saw Hilary Hahn twice. The first time she performed at a nature center, just before a group of musicians from underserved communities. It was cool seeing her in a really intimate setting by the river with fewer than 100 people. She performed solo Bach. The second time was on a date with my husband at the Noorda Center for the Performing Arts at Utah Valley University. That night she performed the Brahms Violin Concerto. Every note was glorious. It was great seeing her play live again, with the last time being November 2012.
Oh, I cooked pork chops tonight. Started them on the stove in a cast iron pan, then threw them into the oven. They were amazing. But whenever I do a fluky awesome job cooking, I always wonder if it’ll be just as good the next time. I suppose that’s the fun of it.
Autumn has made its presence known. The morning chill, the leaves turning in the mountains. Autumn’s nice, but winter: can stay the hell away.
I may write more later on these individual subjects later. I might not.
During our worship services, in between speakers, we sometimes have an intermediate hymn–or rest hymn as they’re sometimes called, so that we don’t feel too restless, because listening to people talk for 40 minutes is a long time. So yeah, we sing a hymn in the middle to break it up a bit.
Today the rest hymn was “My Country, ’tis of Thee.” I get that last week was the Fourth of July, and it’s totally fine to keep celebrating our country.
But for some weird reason the congregation stood up to sing this hymn. Which isn’t “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It’s the exact tune of England’s anthem, “God Save the Queen.”
I don’t know, maybe we have English nationals in the congregation? Which might explain the seeming random standing. But wouldn’t we be singing the words to “God Save the Queen” and not “My Country, ’tis of Thee”?
I was confused.
Anyway, there are four verses to this American rip-off hymn. At the end of the third verse Reilly whispered that he was stepping out to use the bathroom. So I sat down with Z while everyone else stood up and sang.
Interesting.
TV: Mad Men Season 6; Superstore Season 6
Music: Birds of Chicago
Books: Radium Girls
Podcasts: Cold, Season 2
Clarinet: About an hour of practice that included reed adjusting.
Exercise: Digging around and chopping at some stumps in the yard with an axe for about 30 minutes
I wonder if I can keep this up. I mean, I even squeezed in a nap.
My brain just wants to rest for now, so I’m going to let it. Instead, here’s a clarinet practice video.
Subject: General Praise for Your Content
Hi Michael,
I am one of many, many, many people who found a ton of spare time during the pandemic and dusted off their clarinets. Getting reacquainted with my clarinet over the past year has been super fun, and since I peaked in 9th grade (I’m old enough to be in 39th grade now), I’ve often reflected on how I reached high notes or tackled a difficult passage so many years ago. I don’t know: maybe I was a better instrumentalist then, but maybe I’m a better musician now? Just cuz life and stuff has reformed my perspective and how I approach goals. And practice. You know?
I hate to say I stumbled upon your YouTube channel, because I try to be deliberate in most of my choices, but you were a significant part of a journey down a clarinet rabbit hole. I found Michelle Anderson, and she mentioned you, and I’ve enjoyed your performances as well as your tutorials.
It’s not much of a leap to say I’m a better player-musician now than I was a year ago. And that’s due to listening to excellent musicians like you. And learning how to REALLY take care of my instrument (I’ve since upgraded from my student model to an intermediate). And adjusting my own reeds. Your content is an invaluable resource, and I hope you keep all of it up.
Anyway, you’ve been incredibly generous sharing as much as you do. Just want to say thanks.
If you’ve wondered while filling orders who you’re shipping to in [City], Utah, that’s me. I’ve loved supporting your business in my little way.
Thanks again, and happy summer!
May
This is Michael Lowenstern’s YouTube channel.
Here is his shop.
This is Michelle Anderson’s YouTube channel.
Here is her website.
These have been my main resources for clarinet advice in the past year. They’re fun and informative and incredibly encouraging. If you relate to the clarinet at all, check out these amazing folks. I’m still contemplating lessons and masterclasses from Michelle. I do know that I need lessons if I want to get better.
That is all.
There ought to be an app that keeps track of reeds. And it should be called Good Reeds.
There probably is. But maybe Goodreads told them to change their name.
I currently use a little notebook documenting the date I open new reeds, the amount of time in subsequent days I play them (usually five minutes), the temperature, and the humidity of each day I play on them as I break the reeds in. And I rate them on a scale from 1 to 5 according to how the feel as I play them. It usually takes about a week to break a reed in to my liking.
It’s been a decent system so far, and I’m currently using some real winners. But I’m also trying to be patient with what seem to be duds. And since I’ve learned how to sand duds into sounding better, I can’t say that very many reeds would go to waste.
I did purchase a synthetic reed today, Legère brand. Opened the package, placed the reed on the mouthpiece. It was immediately ready to go. And the strength of the reed felt really good. Great response and projection. One of those almost cost as much as a box of Vandoren V12s, 3.5 strength, but one of those should last as long as an entire box of bamboo reeds.
I tested the reed on my student clarinet. I can’t wait to get my intermediate clarinet back from the shop. I can’t believe it took a reed to get me extremely excited again about playing.
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It rained today, giving some relief to the land after a pretty intense drought. We hope to get more rain throughout the summer. We hope more people are thinking about water conservation more than they are trying to keep their lawns green.
Today I took my newer, not-my-33-year-old-student-model, Bb clarinet to the shop. I told the repairman it needed its yearly maintenance tune-up and to look at the transition between open G and B5: the seal might not be completely closed for a smooth jump up the register. He said that my place in the queue puts repairs about 10 days out.
So I can play my student model and/or my A clarinet in the meantime.
I also took my Gretsch metal clarinet apart today. The head on one of the screws had worn completely flat, so I spent some time gently hammering my smallest flathead screwdriver into that screw to form a groove deep enough for unscrewing. It got to where if I pushed hard enough into the screw and turned lefty-loosey, enough of the screw would be above the hole for me to unscrew the rest using needlenose pliers.
Glad that worked.
Gotta look at the springs and clean the keys and screws; replace the rest of the pads. Then put it all back together. I wonder if I have to buy a junk metal clarinet for parts just so that I get screws the right length. The repair kit I have is for modern clarinets, and not all the screws are the same size as those from the metal clarinet. Most of the screws are still good, though–it’s just the one that has a bad head.
It looks cool. Even if I don’t get it playing perfectly or at all, working on it is pretty fun.
A lot of critical acclaim erupted for this album, which does one of two things for me: makes me wait until the hype dies down, or makes me super excited and listen to it immediately.
I ended up waiting a couple of weeks and listened to it yesterday, back to back. I wanted to listen to it sooner, but I wanted to make sure I had enough time to give it my full attention. And since it’s so fresh on my mind, I didn’t do what I usually like to do when actively listening to an album, which is take notes and jot thoughts that cross my mind as I experience the music.
I will do this, I promise. But for now I’ll post the album here for you listen for yourselves. It seriously blew my mind. I hope you appreciate it as much, or more.
A Little Thinking 