A Riff in Time

Jazz has never been my strong suit when it comes to playing music on the instruments I perform on. I have played in jazz bands before, and I can simulate the style with ease, but when it comes to improvising a riff, forget it. My creativity goes to hell in a hand basket.

I am an extremely creative person in many areas of my life, but when it comes to music, the area I have studied the most, an area that one would call creative, is one that I feel stifled in due to my classical training. I am highly glued to the written page.

I recently joined the group pictured above as a permanent sub on Sax to work on my sax chops since it is the instrument that I probably get the least performance opportunities on. It is a jazz orchestra, but it doesn’t require much to any improv, thank the heavens above. But it will at least help me to hone the jazz style once again to help me become even more versatile.

These are pictures of the two musicals I have played that have required the most instruments in one show. The first picture is from the one I just got done playing this past weekend. As of right now, I own 10 different wind instruments. I recently did a photo shoot with all of my instruments. The photographer is still working on tweaking the photos, so I don’t have them yet. Unfortunately, I forgot one of the 10 when we went for the shoot. Which drives me crazy. So I am looking for an excuse now to purchase another auxiliary instrument so I can do a reshoot with her to get it right.

The photographer’s boyfriend mixes different sound clips and makes his own beat samples and has been talking about having me come up with some wind instrument riffs to go along with his beats. This is DEFINITELY an area I have not ventured down yet, but am open to, as long as he is willing to work with my ignorance and noviceness. Hopefully this is something I can get decent at if I keep trying as it would open even more avenues for me. I have been gaining a ton of followers on Twitter that are music producers and business promoters etc. that look for this sort of product. So I feel that I already could potentially have the connections without even trying. I have gotten very lucky on Twitter with visibility and have several verified followers and many people in the music industry following me without me seeking it out. It would be great if this all fell together somehow.

My birth cousin was looking for someone to compose a little diddy for a play she was directing at a high school. There were lyrics written where a landlady was supposed to sing a little song to herself but there was no music to go along with it. I composed a little two verse Melody for the written lyrics for the play. And I have never been much of a composer. So I am proud of myself for giving that a shot.

This picture was from one of my first important performances back in high school. All-State Honors Band. Lately I have been sacrificing my performance career for “the good of my family” because the husband has been working all the time and that makes more money then my sporadic performances. But I am no longer wiing to sacrifice my performance career. It makes me happy. It does make me money. And it could be more steady, but it takes a while for me to get there, and I need to keep building my connections, my auxiliary instrument inventory, my playing skills and my resume in order to make that happen. And I will never get there by constantly turning opportunities down just because I don’t have a built in babysitter at my disposal or because his work has always taken more precedence because it makes more money, even if that money gets squandered away when it’s in his hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/riff/

Feeling Famous

Today I received an email from a professor at Fairleigh Dickenson University, a composer, asking me if I would be interested in taking a look at some of his recent compositions for clarinet. I just resigned from two different community colleges as the Adjunct Clarinet Instructor, but he sent this email to my direct email address, and it wasn’t flagged as coming through my website either. I think I may have the actual email address written out on my website somewhere, so he could have just copied it rather than linking to it. I never attended or taught at or that close to that University, nor do I have any connections at that University. I have NO idea how he found me. It is times like these that make me feel semi-famous in my little music world. To know that I was scouted out in some way, that my opinion matters in the clarinet and University/Professional level composer world means something to me.

I know I will never be the principal of the New York Philharmonic, or a big shot soloist. I made the decision a long time ago while I was still in college and met my to be husband that I wanted a family and I knew that meant I would need to make sacrifices in my career. Right now I’m still not quite where I want to be, especially recently because my husband has had to take 2 full time jobs to help us out financially which has meant that I have even had to turn down some gig opportunities because I need someone home with our 10 year old, and I don’t have many sitter options. I am hoping that as she gets older and within the next few years when she is able to start staying home by herself at night as well that I am able to start taking and seeking out more gig opportunities again. I miss playing more. I still perform, but hardly anywhere near what I used to, and even then it wasn’t as much as I had wanted to. I am 40. I’m getting up there in terms of music career to be feeling like I haven’t even really broken in the way that I have wanted to. I started a bit later having a kid (I started by raising my older step kids first, so I didn’t have my biological daughter till I was 29). I hope it’s not too late by the time I’m actually able to get myself back out there. The one thing I have going for me that’s unique is that I can play 3 instruments almost equally well, Clarinet (my primary), Flute and Sax. There are people who play all three in order to play pit orchestras, but not many can actually play the level of solo repertoire on all 3 the way that I can. I am able to play a full length solo recital and play all 3 instruments with equivalent level solo material on all 3 instruments, which makes for something that is not really done. So I hope that I am able to begin re-pursuing that in a few years again.

Emails like the one I got today are little reminders that my name is out there. People in other states have heard of me. I hope that this will work to my advantage 6 years from now when I really work on becoming famous for real. Fingers crossed.

My Professional YouTube Channel

Would love for you to give a listen to  my recordings of me playing and subscribe to my channel 😘

 

(Yes, those are all my instruments, I played all of them in the pit orchestra for a musical a few years ago)

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/famous/

Lines, Lines, Everywhere Lines

My daily life is permeated by lines. Lines everywhere. I am a musician: performer and instructor. The picture above is my music studio office at one of the schools I teach at. It is one huge conglomeration of a myriad of lines. Written music, the lines where the walls meet, the memes that I decorate with, the artwork I made which was more of a logical art piece that was a mathematical presentation in an artwork of a musical composition, one of my favorite flute pieces which is hanging on the wall towards the window (also made of lines itself). There are chairs, my flute, a music stand, bulletin boards, ceiling tiles, etc….All of which are very Stark and straight lines. There are also more fluid or curvy lines such as those of the trees peeking outside my window, the pictures inside some of the artwork hanging on my walls, the fluid lines of the clefs on the large staff paper on the wall on the far right which contains theories of a research project that is part of my life’s work that I intend to see to fruition and that I hope will be a part of my legacy and that I truly believe in and that I truly think could make a notable difference in the music field.

I read music all day long. Music is written on paper, paper made of 4 lines. The music itself that I and my students translate and transmute in to sound is transcribed on 5 horizontal lines and 4 spaces called a staff. There are vertical lines that divide the staff in to measures, which sort of punctuates the music and keeps it from looking like one gigantic run on sentence. The rhythm/length of the notes are notated by vertical and/or horizontal lines as well. The sharps, flats and naturals all contain lines. The articulations, how a musician tongues the note are mostly made of lines, some curvy and some are straight edged. And if any of those lines are printed in any deviation from what the musician holds in their brain to be associated with a specific note or rhythm, an unnecessary mistake will often occur. This is in a very raw form part of the basis of my research project. I am able to predict which printing variances produce specific mistakes and I believe I have figured out a way to make a preemptive strike against the potential and often iminent mistakes before they happen to many musicians, especially younger student musicians. I just need to get the right people to hear my theory and solution and I am confident that I can make a tremendous impact on the future of music education and performance consistency. The picture of the sheet music is one of my students exercises that is riddled with some of the deviations that have caused her several mistakes that I believe could have been avoided once I am able to develop my method once I find the company backing I am in search and in need of to get my idea off the ground. Fingers crossed to find the person who will be the right advocate soon.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/lines-2018/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/notable/

A Trio of Quartets

 

“What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed – fully understood – that sticks; right in there somewhere.” -Dom Cobb, “Inception”

A quartet of dreams, four layers down. A dream within a dream within a dream within a dream. To plant an idea, a thought so deep in someone’s brain that it will permeate like a disease. In my experience, dreams aren’t necessary to do this. Inception within a dream isn’t necessary for what is essentially mind control. Repetition of ideas and thoughts can accomplish this often times, and experiencing emotions at a primal level can also accomplish this as well. There are many ways an idea or thought can take hold, but it is very true that it can be stronger than a virus and more resilient than a parasite. Thoughts and ideas can be more powerful than death. Thoughts and ideas resonate and continue to regenerate and pass down long after the person who first uttered the idea or thought has passed.

Quatour pour la Fin du Temps

Quartet for the End of Time. The solo movement for clarinet alone-The Abyss of the Birds. Composed by Oliver Messiaen.

This piece is in eight movements. It is scored for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano. This is a very unique pairing of instruments. Messiaen wrote the piece while he was a prisoner in German captivity during the war. The piece was premiered in 1941. It was originally written as a trio and then the piano part was added in, which he played in the premiere. The piece was premiered by himself and his fellow prisoners. The complete work has a duration of approximately 50 minutes.

In the preface inside the score, Messiaen wrote that the piece was inspired by the Book of Revelation from the Bible. The text that he was inspired by that is in the inscription reads as follows:

And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire … and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth …. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever … that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished …

There are separate inscriptions to describe each movement. Some of the movements are for the full quartet, but some of the movements are for different variations of instrumentation within the quartet.

The third movement is the Abyss of the Birds, which is the recording above of me performing this movement live at one of my former recitals. I played this movement during a recital that I themed as “Journey through the Woods”. I specifically painted the painting that is on my home page for that recital and I dressed within the theme and had a slide show in the background of Wooded scenes as pictured above. I also wrote a poem and had other poetry read in between pieces. It was a multimedia experience. I was very proud of this recital. It was very stressful putting it all together, but some day I hope to do something like this again, perhaps when my daughter is a bit older and I have a little more time to focus and dedicate the time needed to pull something like that off.

 

Humorous Scherzo by: Prokofiev

Performed by: Galaxy Quartet

Earlier this year, I had a faculty recital performance at the college that I used to teach Adjunct Applied Clarinet Lessons at. I just tendered my resignation this semester for several reasons (all for my own sanity purposes). At any rate, in the past for this faculty recital I had always done a duet with a fellow friend and colleague flutist. Last year I wasn’t able to perform so she had her quartet play. This year I was able to play again and her quartet wanted to play again, but they were short a clarinet player, so I subbed for their missing clarinet player and we all played the recital together. The quartet consists of 2 flutes and 2 clarinets. I had never played in this instrumentation of an ensemble before. It was unique. I enjoyed it, but the other clarinetist and I (who was the leader of the group) had a clash in personalities. So it will be a one time thing. But it was fun to play with a new instrumentation and explore music I had not played before.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/quartet/

Talisman

I have ritualistic jewelry that I wear for my performances, a sort of talisman. It originally started with just my pearl and diamond earrings that were my grandmother’s that we had converted from clip on in to pierced after she passed away. I have worn those since I was in college. Since then, I have added other diamond like dangle earrings, black pearl drop earrings and my dragon cuff earring who whispers in my ear as I play my melodies. He breathes the life force spirit in to me and I breathe out the music spirit. There have also been specific rings, necklaces and bracelets added as well over time. It may seem silly, but it has just come to be a grounding technique for me as I perform.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/talisman/

My favorite place-WPC

My favorite place isn’t one single place, but rather an omnipresence. My favorite place is the stage. Whether it is the solo stage (on any of my three instruments), the stage with my trio, the stage with my quintet or the stage having fun singing karaoke. The stage is where I feel at home and alive with vigor. I crave the stage more than I have the time to pursue. I can only hope that one day, when the job of motherhood becomes less demanding, that I will still be qualified to grace the stage with my presence.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/favorite-place/

I’d rather be

Left to Right/Top to Bottom

1) On roller coasters/in Theme Parks (pictured: my favorite-Rip Ride Rocket in Universal Studios Orlando)

2) Dancing: Ballet in particular-I miss it terribly and wish I would have done more as a kid. I wish I had more time as an adult to take classes again

3) Martial Arts: Specifically Tang Soo Do-the style I have my Black Belt in-I also miss this terribly and wish I had more time to take classes again

4) Dressing in Harry Potter gear with the family and doing Harry Potter activities

5) Karaoke-nuff said

6) Performing in Concerto Concerts-Ive only had the opportunity to do this twice, once in college and the time pictured here in 2012

7) Performing in pit orchestras- something I hope to do more of as my daughter gets older and I have the time

8) Art/Painting- I only do it when I am inspired, but I also lack the time even when I am inspired at times to even start. This was my last major artwork

9) Rock Concerts: meeting rock stars I idolize: me with Nelson

10) With the family at Rock Concerts

11) Again at Rock Concerts meeting rock stars: with husband and Geoff Tate of Queensryche

12) Watching my daughter play drums in band concerts

And still I have so many more hobbies than this….this just scratches the surface…..

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/rather/

As the lights dim

The house lights flicker three times to alert the audience that it is time to take their seats.

After the rustling of the crowd dissipates and silence befalls the audience, the lights dim in the theater and stage lights illuminate.

A performer walks on to the empty stage to thunderous applause and takes her bow.

As she prepares to play her first note, she breathes in the energy of her audience, for that is her feeding source.

The nervous roller coaster of emotions she rides lasts for hours after her stage exit. It is a high like no other.

But that high slowly dims and begins to fade slowly. As time marches on, and the years add on, she wonders if the vibrancy of her younger career can be rekindled.

For it is still simmering, but not the open flame as it once was. Other life circumstances have taken precedence. The pursuit of this less lucrative and less opportunistic venue has taken a back seat to careers that support the need for financial security.

Will opportunities resurface once the little one no longer needs watching? Will she still have what it takes to grace the stage, when life provides the time?

The wills and what ifs plague her mind as the lights dim in her eyes.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/dim/