Age, and Realizing That Age is Nothing But a Number

Ok, so lot's of people have said profoundly brilliant things about age and temporal relativity.  We've all heard those sayings...
age is relative
age is for cheese
the best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles
nothing comes automatically with age but wrinkles
age is an issue of mind over matter. if you don't mind it doesn't matter.
do not regret growing older-it is a privilege denied to many.
etc. etc.

But at the end of the day, I have this internal timeline for myself that I probably constructed when I was 17.  I had an idea of what I would achieve by 23 (soon to be 24) and many of those plans haven't quite happened, either because of lack of interest, or just a reevaluation of priorities.  I'm no longer fascinated by orchestra the way I was when I was 18, nor have I attended many orchestral summer festivals.  I haven't really taken a professional orchestra job audition, nor do I really aspire to do so.  Going to this rinky dink festival in California has made me get over myself a little bit, because I feel like such a beach fossil compared to some of these kiddies.
In addition to a master life plan for myself, I judge people by their age.  I know, it's perhaps a little shocking, even for me, to admit, but I sometimes have a difficult time taking 18 and 19 year olds seriously.  I have always erred on the side of being old beyond of my age, which often makes communicating with younger people more difficult, and makes me guarded and uppity at times.  This festival has reminded me that now, as an elder in the field of perpetual education, I can't pull that card.  Six or seven years isn't that much of a difference in the end, and these people will most likely end up being my professional colleagues.  Am I going to look down on someone who wins a job at 30 when I'm  40?  Maybe, but the better approach would be to evaluate based on their personality first, rather than age alone.  I'm quick to dismiss young'uns, and while they are still prone to making stupid mistakes from time to time, it would do me some good to take them a bit more seriously.  Everyone moves at their one pace in maturity, so I may be rejecting a friendship with a young wise person.  (Although I still prefer my friends to be born in the 80's.  It's just less unsettling that way.)  I have to remember that many of my own friends are older than me, and were willing to part with their conceived expectations of age and maturity to befriend me.  Now it's my turn to grow up, and be open to all peoples, regardless of their age.  That's not to say that I'm going to go be everyone's friend, it just means that I want to evaluate people on one less level of bias than I already do.  Judging is inevitable, but peeling off the age-ism card is a good one to toss.

On the bright side, I'm thrilled that California has overturned prop 8 and that I'm in the state just as we speak.  

listening to: a little of everything! Looking forward to a trip to Amoeba records in Hollywood next week-a great chance to get lots of used cd's for cheap.

The Concert Lineup for fall 2010!

I know that most of my friends that occasionally read this are not Bostonian in nature, but I'm posting my confirmed and possible concerts for the fall, since I'm planning ahead, and would like people to go with me to shows!  So here's what's coming to Boston in the early fall of 2010:

(Rochester 8/28-My Morning Jacket is coming, and I haven't decided whether or not I'm interested in going.  Food for thought.  Also, Lady Gaga is already booked to come to Boston in March of 2011.  That's so far in the future, I can't handle it, just like her futuristic clothing?)

9/7-Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin and Telekinesis.  Two underappreciated indie bands, and Telekinesis had that awesome song last year and a decent album.  Even though it's a Tuesday, could be worth investigating?

9/11-School of Seven Bells: I really like their new album. They have a nice female voice texture.

9/11-Jamie Lidell.  Soulful white people singing.  Love it.  And he's British?

9/12-Vampire Weekend, with Beach House opening, at the Bank of America pavilion on the waterfront.  *I'm definitely going to this.  I've purchased two tickets.

9/13-Dirty Projectors with Owen Pallett (aka. final fantasy) opening.  *Definitely going.  Tickets purchased, even though it will be back to back tunes.

9/16: Janelle Morae with Of Montreal.  That's a hot duo-there will be glitter, spandex, and lots of eyeliner and dancing.  I saw Of Montreal three years ago, and it was terrific, and Morae has got some serious style.  She makes me want to go to a vintage store immediately and embrace androgyny.  Who knew women could look so awesome in tuxes???

9/17: Broken Social Scene and The Sea and Cake.  BSS dropped a really solid album this year "Forgiveness Rock Record" which has turned out to be a surprise success.  

9/18: Pavement-ultimate 90's alternative band, making a comeback tour.  and Cake! on the same night, just not together.  I will probably be out of town for this, as I accidentally bought tickets to see Vampire Weekend at Radio City Music Hall for 9/17...

9/22: Field Music. I don't know them super well-I've heard a few tracks, and they just dropped a new album, but it's cheap and could be worth investigating.

9/23: Stars. This Montreal based pop group tends to have overly dramatic ballads, a la "Your ex-boyfriend is dead" from the O.C.  I'm kind of over them, but many people are turned to silly putty with their swirling harmonies.  I definitely listened to this song a gazillion times when I bought this album.

9/25: Teenage Fanclub.  Nick Hornby's favorite softy British band has some lovely songs.  They're super  under the radar, but quite nice actually.

9/30: Menomena.  I used to be into them, but I haven't listened to them lately.

10/1: Young at Heart Chorus.  This is the group that was featured in a documentary a few years ago-old folks singing hip contemporary tunes, a la Glee for old folks!

10/1: Ra Ra Riot-upstate New York's stringey band is one of my personal fav's, and they have a new album coming out stat.  I loved the first album, since I'm a sucker for a little ballad action sometimes.

10/5: Ratatat. We all remember Kid Cudi's collab with Ratatat and MGMT, right? "Pursuit of Happyness" is a tight song. Just checking

10/7: Cotton Jones featuring Pepper Rabbit.  I only know Pepper Rabbit-but Cotton Jones has a sort of soulful thing going on. (The opening to this Pepper Rabbit reminds me of the opening of an Elliottt Smith song.)

10/10-The Octopus Project.  Once again, curious, but not necessarily committed.

10/13-Casiotone for the Painfully Alone.  I'm curious, but not necessarily going. They have a fabulously depressing collection of music videos.

10/29-Frightened Rabbit and Plants and Animals.  I really liked the first Plants and Animals album.

11/1-Blonde Redhead.  I went through a dark depressing time where I listened to a lot of Blonde Redhead.

And last, but not least,

11/19-Boys II Men.  Ok, I'm not going, nor am I planning to.  I just thought it was excellent, and it made me want to slow dance at a middle school dance.

That's the preliminary concert calendar for popular music-more posted as I decide what to go to.

In other news, I'm embarrassed to say that I've been watching Glee, and that it sometimes makes me cry because it's so sappy.  

Romantic Violin Showpieces Reduce My Life Expectancy

Did you know that any excess of romantic violin showpieces reduces life expectancy and hearing longevity by years?  The damage can occur within minutes-guard yourself against an excess of Wieniawski, Paganini, and Kreisler, or you too may become lackadaisical or even worse, deaf to the point of only hearing harmonic double stops and coloratura runs executed with mechanical precision.  This is a cause that few align themselves with, but a serious disease nonetheless.  Raise awareness within your community, and promote substantial nutritionally fortified music over refined artificially sweetened melodies, or lack thereof.


More importantly, I am hurt that violinists and occasionally pianists have more music than anyone else, yet they choose to play obscure fluffernutter from the Romantic era.  How have we decided that we should all play everything Romantically?  What a dumb idea.  I feel like our responsibility, as trained musicians, is learning about all the different styles of the different periods.  That doesn't have to mean (but may) that you play Beethoven on a pianoforte, or that you whip out the heckelphone every now and again for some obscure Hindemith.  But more seriously, it's about the style, the time, and how you can reproduce that sound now, whether on a modern or traditional instrument.  It's not just violins-it's excerpts, it's this convoluted idea of "modern performance practice" that's been the standard since the overdramatic 40's and 50's in which wobbly vibrato and Romanticism made everyone swoon.  Well I'm not swooning anymore, boys and girls, and it's time to play Mozart correctly.  A bit light, less vibrato, more resonance, and sure as hell not martele.  Beethoven 5 is not synonymous with violence, so let's try to avoid that in the fortissimos, ok?  Debussy and Ravel-more air, sweep, more bow.  Some might say I'm a snob.  I'm a stylistic purist.  We live in a time where knowledge is abundant.  Why not use that?  When I hear a really great performance, in which someone plays the Ravel sonata differently from their Bach and their Lutoslawski, I'm pretty excited.  To play everything the same is boring, and I don't think it's interesting for anyone.  If only we could get that sort of viewpoint about excerpts and auditions, we'd all be a bit happier.  But at least for today, I'd be a bit happier if I could hear less Romantic showpieces, more substance, and less slurpee music-sickly sweet, and only good for the first swig.


listening to: Takemitsu "A string around autumn"

Aargh!

I just wrote this really nice blog post for the last thirty minutes, and it wasn't saved because of my dodgy internet here.  But suffice it to say, I'll recollect my thoughts in the next few days.  Nonetheless, I had a good recital yesterday, I bought some yellow converse on super sale, and met my great aunt today.  I also appreciate that looking up "smelly feet" is pornography (my festival is at a Christian college, so I take delight in trying to outsmart the internet censorship thing.  Most things, including comic books, are censored.  I didn't know smelly feet fit the bill, but that's ok.)

listening to: Grizzly Bear and Vampire Weekend.  My mom thinks Grizzly Bear is legit because Michael McDonald covered one of their tracks, "While You Wait for the Others" and she likes that Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig sounds like Paul Simon.  So we listened to them all the way to Santa Barbara today.

Ending on a sweet and sour note

The last week of Banff ended in a bittersweet manner.  By week three, the novelty of room service and posh food wears off, and people become grumpy and dissatisfied, or at least, the people I was with were.  In a way, it was somewhat funny-I came back to Banff because I had wanted to study with Roger (when I decided to come to Banff, I hadn't decided whether or not to go back to NEC, so I wasn't sure if I'd ever study with him again.) and I had wanted to work with John Adams.  Both of those events occurred within the first week, so in a way, the rest of the program was a bit of a letdown.  By the time Roger left, we began to see the political manuevers that had taken place, favoring one person in the viola class, and giving him three "special" assignments.  We also all realized that Barry is kinda crazy, and that most of the remaining concerts favored people that had a political connection to him, which is rather unfortunate.  In essence, the basic unfairness of the final assignments really affected the group as a whole, especially those who were less familiar with the political workings of Banff.  The more specific part of the story is that Barry basically picked one person (who was no better in skillset than the rest of us) and put him in a special masterclass, the faculty/student chamber group, and an extra chamber group of the Britten Phantasy Quartet.  The catch in all this is that 6 violists were doing nothing all week-they had no assignments, were in no ensembles, and thus this was totally unfair.  The choices were made in an unfair manner, and really pissed off most of my friends, because this one violist went to McGill (and that group was already a pain in the ass to deal with) and was going to Glenn Gould, and knew Barry.  This person should definitely have had one of the three above opportunities, but to give him everything was unfair to the people who already knew the Britten, or who were really into Baroque performance practice (me!) since he played for Sigiswald Kuijken.  I guess the question we have to pose is, when situations present themselves that are very political, how can we keep motivated in our own self worth?
     For many of my friends, they just stopped caring and starting being pissed off most of the time.  I was definitely upset by the outcome, because it just wasn't fair to the group, and also didn't represent the skills of the whole 10 of us by any means.  I wrote a very blatant evaluation saying that it was outrageous and that I wouldn't be returning next year. (True statement).  But more importantly, I wrote that it was detrimental to the group dynamic, because it affected the way we all got along, and made us feel less worthy in the eyes of the festival.  We already had a challenging time getting along with this one person, since the McGill clique was very exclusive, and not particular social with the rest of the camp, and that only made it worse.  The truth is that there are political situations in most festivals, schools, and even jobs.  I've certainly encountered unpleasant political situations at Eastman, which pleasantly prepared me for this, but many of peers were shocked and upset by the whole thing.  The only thing you can do, in the end, is to believe in yourself, and give freely of your music and your love.  Only then can you truly succeed.  If you're in music to be competitive, and to beat other people, I don't know that you'll ever be happy.  There are few "fair" ways of evaluating performers, and few ways to truly decide who is the best.  Knowing that our art is objective by nature, we must be prepared for occasional injustices, while also knowing that we too may be favored by such a failed system of adjudication and evaluation.  I'm sure that many talented people don't get into NEC every year, and because I had connections, I was guaranteed a returning spot.  Maybe someone else was negatively affected by my advantages, and I have to know that everything is equal in the end.  One negative consequence may lead to a great success later down the line, and vice versa.  Perceived failures can also make us work harder, and rekindle our desire to express the music within us, rather than focus on ourselves and our achievements.  That's at least what I hope.

Listening to: Radiohead!  it's been a while.

Amazing

I have so many things that I want to write about, now that I have functional internet, but for the time being, let me say that I am no longer in Banff anymore, and that it was a balmy 95 degrees when I stepped off the plane into Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon.  (After having gone to bed for an hour and a half, waking up, and having it be 45 degrees).  It was a pretty trippy Saturday, especially without the sleep, and since Friday night was pretty insane, just since people become so nice when it's the last day of a festival, and in the spirit of Banff, everyone had some lovely beers.  Many lovely beers.  I was also especially proud of myself for finally gathering the courage to talk to this person, whom I knew had just started their masters at NEC, and whom I had tried to talk to the whole time I was there, but since he was part of the McGill clique, I never succeeded.  I finally achieved a basic conversation win, by 2 AM, once everyone had had at least 2-3 drinks, and he was nice, even though he had sort of been a jerk for the whole festival.  It was pretty silly, actually, since he is living with one of my friends next year.  Silliness.  Anyway, more on Banff and the closure of the festival, but let's focus on the most current events.
     I went to see the bands She & Him, the Bird and the Bee, and the Swell Season last night, at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was awesome.  All three groups are boy-girl pairs, with backup musicians, and the female representation was Fierce.  (Here's the newest She/Him music video.)  It turns out that Zooey Deschanel can really sing!  She can truly belt it, and that was so awesome to witness.  Inara George of the Bird and the Bee was also good, if a little subdued, but I absolutely adore her covers of Hall and Oates songs.  The Swell Season was solid (They're the couple from the Movie "Once") if not a bit male dominated, in terms of presence, song writing, and vocal harmonies.  Glen Hansard took most of the lead vocals, and did most of the talking, although he has a wonderful voice and a very charismatic presence.  I just wish that Marketa would've been a bit more active, it was almost like she was watching him and observing his performance as much as we were.  But it was lovely to see women in music in such a powerful and significant role in each group.

 I've arrived in my new festival, The Montecito festival, in Santa Barbara, and let me tell you, it is no Banff.  No room service, no fancy food, no nightly bar trips.  But maybe that's for the best.  On that note, let me leave you with this video from Broken Social Scene-political, but a great song from their newest album.



listening to: She & Him

Holy shit!

Whoah!  Vampire Weekend gets sued?