Wow. I just realized that Jay Def and I walked a girl named Carolyn in pomp and circumstance on this day eighteen years ago. Am I old yet?
That also means that our high school reunion (twenty year) is the summer after next. I skipped my tenth, because I moved to California a month before the reunion party. Should I go to the next one?
Yesterday, a gunman killed three and wounded two in my college town of Moscow, Idaho. The gunman killed a Moscow Police Department officer, Lee Newbill, and an elderly church caretaker, Paul Bauer, before turning the gun on himself.
Having lived on the Palouse while attending the University of Idaho from 1992 until 1999, a tragedy like this seems even more real to me than other tragedies. I know this community. Moscow was the first city that I ever loved. I miss many things about living in Northern Idaho, particularly my college radio station, my favorite food co-op, and the jazz festival. Moscow is the kind of sleepy, liberal college town where safety is nearly taken for granted–where many people don’t always lock their front doors or cars. Most of the crime that happens in Moscow is limited to bicycle thefts and snatched bookbags at that time of the semester when students are selling their textbooks back to the bookstore.
My heart goes out to the dead and wounded. I’m also thinking about my old friends who still live in Moscow, whose sense of peace is shattered in an abrupt and real way today. Every one of these shootings is a monumental tragedy. This one speaks a little closer to me, because I know and love this wonderful community that I once proudly called home.
I haven’t been going to very many parties lately, focusing my musical efforts on jazz, instead of house music. But, I knew that after missing a few of their events, I couldn’t miss Uneaq‘s birthday bash tonight at San Jose Bar and Grill in downtown San Jose. Paranoid I was going to miss the party, I showed up in time to help out a little with the sound check, grab a pita nearby, and hang out in the mostly dead bar, listening to some really strange mashups.
Uneaq were on fire tonight. Jessica’s vocals just keep getting better and better. Josh’s guitar solos were right on the money, even when he was using a violin bow to wrangle the notes. Andrew’s big meaty bass guitar brought up the bottom end. Many of their new songs are significant departures from standard house music fare, including a couple of songs that are more downtempo with beautiful melodies and a little Prince influence.
The crowd was a little thin and the acoustics in the room were a little dead, but it’s always a pleasure to hang out with three talented musicians plying their craft in a genre dominated by DJs. Such a talented group. I can’t wait to hear them again.
Today, I went to Maker Faire at the San Mateo Exhibition Center in San Mateo. After walking around the sprawling event for over three hours, I was quite exhausted. There were a huge number of activities, from arts and crafts to robots to flame throwers to smart cars, there. As I entered the first of the buildings, I ran into my old friend, Craig, who was showing off his new invention, a MIDI controller he built while finishing his mechanical engineering degree at UC Davis. His device, which he used to control Ableton Live, has four knobs, two sliders, eight buttons, and a joystick. It’s basically a guitar-shaped controller. I can’t wait to play around with one.
I almost staggered into Steve Wozniak as he was being interviewed by a television crew (I did get a picture from afar having noticed the line of equipment at nearly the last moment). After following his Twitter posts, I encountered my good friend, Eric Rice, who was escorting his son to the giant nose-picking contraption. I hung out for a little bit with the good folks at the Creative Commons booth and chatted up the EFF folks, acquiring some really great schwag. After wandering around, checking out Sony’s eBook Reader, a myriad of electric commuter cars (including George Clooney’s electric car) and plug-in hybrids, I finally found my way to the FirstGiving booth, talked about bicycle tours and fund-raising with Thos, and played around with a Monome for a few seconds.
Friends of mine were trying to get me to go out to a party in San Francisco tonight, but I’m exhausted. I can’t wait for the next Maker Faire. Wow. So much fun.
Yeah, I saw Tony Snow playing the flute with some band on Countdown. One of my housemates was commenting on how the CBS News Anchor was really painful because of cringeworthy lyrics. I found Tony’s performance far more difficult to watch. He really is a terrible flute player and has no improvisational skills to speak of, judging simply from the video shown.
Keith Olbermann described the debacle as “Tony Snow picked up his jazz flute and…” This is the sound of me shaking my head.
I studied music composition in college, emphasizing jazz and classical composition. My major instrument was the flute. I think a talented musician on the flute can play jazz that isn’t embarrassing or dorky or clowny or rife for ridicule. Some names that spring to mind include the late Herbie Mann, Ali Ryerson, Hubert Laws, Dave Valentin, and numerous other greats who doubled on the instrument, particularly Eric Dolphy and James Moody. I have loved the instrument for more than 15 years. I plan to continue improving on my instruments (flute and reeds) and when I’m ready to not be an embarrassment to myself, play live again.
However, taking the stage someday on the instrument will exponentially inflame any stage nerves when the only two people most people think of when they think of flute players attempting jazz are Tony Snow and Ron Burgundy. At least, there aren’t a rush of half-assed performers lined up to make fun of bass clarinet players.
Since I’ve lived in Sunnyvale, the Sunnyvale Town Center mall, which interrupts downtown with a large shopping center capable of housing 80-odd shops and stores, has stood abandoned, except for Target at one end and Macy’s at the other. This morning, as I headed over to Bean Scene to get coffee before pounding on a project I’m working on, I noticed that the new construction crew has actually begun the task of making this abandoned concrete tumor a memory.
A few years ago, another construction company was hired by the City of Sunnyvale to rebuild the mall, whatever that entailed. They made the abandoned Chevy’s their construction office. Maybe it was a funding shortfall or something else, but that project was abandoned after the parking lot was resurfaced.
Seeing the western face of the mall, the side facing Mathilda Avenue, under the wrecking ball pleases me greatly. I’m really hoping they build a “place worth caring about”, as James Howard Kunstler called it.
As of today, I haven’t been on my bicycle in 198 days. I’m evaluating whether or not I’m a lapsed or former cyclist. I’ve been badly injured by cars and every other day in the local news is information about another cyclist getting mowed down by a motorist in the prime of their lives. Still, I’ve got to do something. Here’s why:
Weigh-in: May 14, 2007:
Seems like it’s about time to modify the Training Schedule for running around the middle school track and other cycling substitutes.
Recently, I bought a metal clarinet mouthpiece from a seller on eBay. It arrived while I was battling a bacterial throat infection. For some reason, lots of eBay mouthpiece sellers ship “brand new” mouthpieces with moldy old reeds in them. I’m guessing the “brand new” mouthpieces aren’t as brand new as they’re advertised to be. Or, mouthpiece sellers are dumping their old reeds into tested mouthpieces. Or, perhaps, some idiot complained about how they received a mouthpiece that didn’t come with a reed (they’re usually pictured with one) and left the seller negative feedback. But, I digress.
If you buy a woodwind mouthpiece from eBay, you should definitely inform the seller that you don’t want his old moldy reed. You should also heavily disinfect the mouthpiece as soon as you get it.
Today, I tried out my new metal clarinet mouthpiece. It sounds really great. Unfortunately, my embouchure is out of shape enough that I chomp down somewhat on the mouthpiece of all my instruments. The new metal mouthpiece flaked near the rubber pad on the top. This indicates to me that the mouthpiece is brass with a silver plating. Fair enough. I can expect more flaking, unless I’m really careful with where I put my top teeth.
I also realized after blowing for about an hour that I hadn’t disinfected the mouthpiece (because it was sold to me as “new”). It sounds really good, but my throat’s somewhat scratchy now and I’m hoping it’s nothing but a lesson in disinfection.
So, today’s hour of clarinet practice yielded the following lessons:
I don’t think I got much done today, in terms of agility practice, scales, theory work, tune work, or tone practice. After an hour, I needed water and felt scratchy. I attempted practice on the flute and blew through some Cole Porter tunes, but my position on that instrument is weird today.
Tomorrow, flute and bass clarinet practice.
I haven’t posted here in over four months. Every so often, I look at the list of items I’ve thrown in my post-about queue, get discouraged, and decide to figure out a catch up schedule some other time. I’ll take this opportunity to recap the last four months and, if I get around to filling in the gap, everyone act surprised, okay?
January:
I went to MacWorld Expo, which was really fun, because I got to meet Seth, whose rides in the Pan-Mass Challenge I sponsor annually. [He’s riding again this year, so I’ll be donating again very soon and I hope some of you do, too.]
I got wet in Half Moon Bay with my friend, Ozreiuosn, in Sea Kayaking II, which taught me more skills in the cockpit. I think I’m going to have to take that class again, though. My confidence level in the kayak isn’t where I’d like it to be before moving on to Surf Zone, a class that teaches us how to navigate the breaks.
At the end of the month, I accidentally deleted the home directory of my computer in a move so stupid that it’ll probably be commemorated on postage stamps 100 years from now. Sadly, I lost all the music I’ve written in the last eight years, although the data recovery people managed to recover a bunch of my files. Soon, I’ll try to recover the music up until last September from my old 12″ PowerBook’s hard drive.
February:
I spent an inordinate amount of time going to parties in February, trying to find my missing groove. Found some of it, lost some of it, still working on some of it. Worked on building some idea about what I’m doing.
March:
I started the process of developing a musical practice routine that will have me mastering my instruments by my 40th birthday, at least enough to play in public. To that end, I started buying some new instruments, starting with a virtually brand new Jupiter flute. My major instrument in college was the flute and if I had this Jupiter 14 years ago, I’d have my degree in music. I can’t believe how beautiful every note sounds on it. Following in the next four weeks, I got a clarinet, an alto clarinet, a bass clarinet, and a tenor saxophone. We’ll see which of these I master and which of these I end up restoring and eBaying.
Later in the month, I developed a fairly annoying case of Labyrinthitis toward the end of the month, which kept me dizzy and in bed for a week. After that, I jumped on a plane and flew to take my children on a road trip. First, we were going to go to Yellowstone, but the day after I landed in Idaho, the Intermountain West acquired a blizzard. So, we headed west instead and explored Portland, Astoria, and found the End of the Oregon Trail. Road trips are always fun.
April:
I’ve been studying my jazz theory rabidly. I’ve also just this week come down with a throat infection that has stopped my practice routine for the time being, at least until it’s cleared up. I’m on antibiotics now and hope to try out the new (to me) horns and mouthpieces I’ve recently acquired. And then, on with the music.
I’m going to try to update this site more frequently. Again, I may fill in the gaps, or I may just aim forward and keep marching. We’ll see.
I’m engaged in a project to master my woodwinds to an even greater extent than I was playing, when I practiced every day in college on several instruments. I wasn’t focused enough in music school on performance and acquiring a high level of mastery, even on the flute (my primary instrument). I didn’t apply any discipline at all to the piano or my other main instruments, the saxophone family and clarinets.
So, I’m building a schedule of practice that ramps up from nonmusicianship to a steady course of focused and disciplined practice that will get my speed, accuracy, agility, tone, rhythm, and intonation back into shape. Adding to this is a laser-focused review of jazz theory and composition, including in-depth studies of harmony, chord progressions, and rhythmic aspects of bebop, post-bop, and modal jazz phrasing. This includes lots of scales, patterns, and exercises.
I certainly have practice sessions that last a couple of hours and involve playing through a bunch of tunes from my large collection of Aebersold Play-Along Sets. Most of the time when I’m doing that, I don’t apply any kind of discipline to any particular tune. I blow through the head a couple of times and play a solo for a chorus or so, then move on to the next tune on the CD, which doesn’t get me on the road to proficiency in the music.
I’m committed to being ready to perform at a high level by my 40th birthday. Unfortunately, that doesn’t give me much time. It’s time to review my workflow and craft a GTD methodology for music practice. Applying my obsessive geek powers to this project will allow me to achieve my musical goals and allow all of you to utter that much sought-after sentence, “I knew him when…”
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