School, plus cool stuff

First, school:

I got an A in piano again this week! YAY! I had to play all 3 E minor scales as well as an arrangement of "Fum, Fum, Fum" with rolled chords. I was the only student in my class to show up today, so I had a chat with the teacher. I told her my plans for the future (transferring to SFSU, etc.) and she gave me some additional (non-graded) work to do as I have time, just to make sure I'll have the skills I need by the time I take my piano placement exam at SFSU.

We got back our mid-terms in Marine Biology today & I got an A. 122 points out of 120. I missed 5 points on the main portion of the exam, but got 7 extra credit points (out of 10).

And then the cool stuff:

On one of the email lists I'm on, we were talking about annoying ring tones. One of my friends wrote

I, on the other hand, have a very nice ringtone. I finally found a tuit and extracted ten seconds (which is as long as the file can be on my phone) of Michèle playing Finlandia - the fancy bit (I'm sure there's a technical term for it). When people say how nice it is I refer them to her web site and tell them to buy the CD. :)

Neat!

ps. here's a YouTube link to me playing Finlandia at the Dunblane Cathedral back in 2004
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Scary day (not directly handbell-related)

I mentioned that I bought a motorcycle a few weeks ago to commute to school. I've ridden it 4 times & it is FUN. On Thursday, my husband Brian got his own bike, better suited to his longer legs.

Saturday afternoon, we went out riding together. We were having a great time until The Perfect Storm happened - I was in the lead, a squirrel darted out in front of me, I braked (badly), Brian braked (also badly), then hit a rock the size of his fist which was in the middle of the road & the bike hit the ground. (He didn't see the rock until after he had hit it.)

Fortunately, we had all the right gear. His helmet got a bit scraped up, his jacket has some holes in it, his right boot is scraped, his right glove is a bit scuffed. We think his shoulder might have been dislocated, but he got it back in at the scene. We picked up the bike (also a bit scraped & scratched) and rode home.

Once home, we discovered a bad scrape & cut on his right arm. We went to the ER for shoulder X-rays and stitches. His shoulder doesn't seem to be broken but they wanted him to see his primary doctor on Monday & schedule an MRI - they suspect a rotator cuff injury. They put his arm in a sling. Brian did see his doctor on Monday & has an appointment with an Orthopedist next Monday.

He also got LOTS of stitches in his arm (both inside & out) & his leg is scraped, bruised, and swollen.

He was supposed to play bells Sunday morning at Trinity, but there's no way he can do that - he might be out until after Christmas - so I called fellow Sonosian Jason Tiller in to help. (I needed someone who can play the upper 3s, and can also sight-read the part.)

So that's it in a nutshell. Thank God for the gear. It did exactly what it was supposed to do & turned what could have been a VERY nasty crash into something just really unpleasant. (He could have been injured this badly riding a bicycle, too.)

Addendum: Last night, we had rehearsal at Sunnyvale Pres. Brian played one-handed & I played what he couldn't (while I was directing - ugh!). He said that next week he wants to try to play both hands; he thinks it will be good therapy for his shoulder since he's only playing B4C5 & not the bass bells.

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School, weeks 1-3; Sonos trip; & a solo trip

I have so much going on in my life now that it looks like my blog posts are going to be really long infodumps. In the future, I'll try to break them up into smaller chunks....

In my last post, I mentioned that I have gone back to school to complete my music degree. It's been 3 weeks now since school started, and I feel pretty good about it all. Here's the news so far:

• Piano class: My piano teacher is Emily Ray, Music Director of the Mission Chamber Orchestra in San Jose. I like her a lot & I like the format of class. First of all, I only have to go to class on Wednesdays, even though the official schedule is Mondays & Wednesdays. On Mondays, she teaches the 2nd level piano students & on Wednesdays, the 3rd level group.
  
  So on Wednesdays, we show up to class, she tells us what scale she wants us to learn for the next week - we are working on minor scales, so we have to play the natural, harmonic, and melodic versions of each. Week 2 was the chromatic scale; Week 3 was the A Minor scale; next week's assignment is the E Minor scale (I suspect we'll keep going around the Circle of Fifths).
  
  After we all play the scale together, she tells us the musical selection we will have to learn. For Week 2, we played a piece called "The Ragamuffin" which was based on the chromatic scale. Week 3's assignment was "The Gipsy" which used the harmonic minor & featured a legato right hand with a staccato left. Next week's assignment is "Fum, Fum, Fum", which features rolled chords.
  
  I'm happy to say that I got A's in both Week 2 and Week 3 (there was no grade in Week 1)!!
  
  It's interesting: on Wednesday, I commented via Twitter that it's hard to play musically on an instrument you can't control. That's just because I'm really *not* a pianist! I had 2 years of class piano back at Conservatory, but that was about 15 years ago & I haven't kept up with it. I find myself now trying to play musically, but I haven't got the technical skills to really do it consistently.
  
  I do manage to do it a little bit, though, which feels nice. When I played for the teacher on Wednesday, as soon as I finished she said, "That was very musical." :-)
  
  Some of the kids are just concerned about playing as many notes as they can, as fast as possible (which probably describes me 15 years ago, too, to be fair), which makes me just cringe.
  
  It's frustrating that I can't (yet!) play as musically as I'd like to. But I'm getting better & that feels good. :-)
  
  I have scheduled myself to practice piano 5 hours a week, so that should help! Since I'm there anyway, I actually use the time on Monday that would have been class time to practice in the practice rooms (which just got new pianos, w00t!). I also come in an hour early on both Tuesdays & Thursdays to practice, AND I stay an hour later on those days, too. I'm confident that all that time spent behind the keyboard will pay off in the end!

• Marine Biology: We've had one quiz, one mid-term, and have turned in 2 lab assignments. I got 18/20 on the quiz and think I did really well on the mid-term (which was Wednesday). She hasn't returned the lab assignments yet, so I don't know what I got on them.
  
  I'm really enjoying this class! The teacher is Caryn Owen, who was the Science Director for Friends of the Sea Otter - she may still be, for all I know; their website isn't the clearest to navigate for info like that. She's smart, funny, and no-nonsense. You can tell that she really enjoys her work & that goes a long way.
  
  We usually have lab on Mondays, but didn't this past Monday because we were working on our own to write a paragraph about a topic we (individually) choose to present in class later in the quarter. We had to submit our thesis statement and give her 3 sources of information. I chose to present on Deep-Sea Vents and have sources from The Biological Sciences Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Marine Biology department website, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Ridge 2000 Venture Deep Ocean, so I should be ok. She still has to approve my topic - I hope she will!
  
  This coming Monday, we don't have lab, either, because on Saturday the 18th, we are going on a field trip to the Seymour Marine Discovery Center at the Long Marine Lab in Santa Cruz. Can't wait!

• Theory: I am frustrated. I had hoped that the class would have more ear training, which is what I really need. Instead, after 3 weeks, we are still learning to identify note names, enharmonic equivalents, and how to write major scales. I considered dropping the class, but that would mean I would have no "excuse" to go to school on Tuesdays & Thursdays & those are the days that I practice piano! I don't know that I have the discipline to just go in on those days *anyway*. :-( I will probably stick it out for the rest of the quarter & see what happens. At that time, I will decide if I want to take Theory in the Winter & Spring quarters.
  
  On the plus side, I am enjoying my side conversations with other students in the class! Some of them have previous Theory experience, too, while others are just learning to read music. All seem like really interesting people.

Speaking of Theory class, yesterday after class and before going in to practice piano, I went and grabbed some lunch. While I was sitting in the courtyard eating my sandwich, one of the other students came out of the practice room & said that she & Aaron (a violist) had practiced a piece & wanted audience feedback and would I come and listen? I said sure!

They played Fauré's "Après un Rêve". When they finished, I first complimented them - Aaron has a beautiful tone! and then made some suggestions as to how they could play it more musically. Basically, less metronomic playing from the piano, and awareness of the direction of the left-hand piano notes, more rubato from both of them, don't back off from the forte so quickly... then I realized what I was doing and immediately apologized! "Oh! I'm sorry; I seem to have put on my Director hat!" Aaron replied, "No, don't stop! This is great!" and they played it again, implementing my suggestions. Well of course it was 100% better & I only had a couple of other suggestions after that.

I have, of course, added Aaron's information to my list of people to call when I need an instrumentalist.... ;-)

Last Thursday, I didn't go to Theory class because Sonos had a concert in Marshalltown, Iowa. After my weekly Wednesday rehearsal at Holy Trinity Episcopal in Menlo Park, Brian took me to SFO where I grabbed the red-eye flight to Chicago O'Hare, then on to Des Moines. I landed there at 9am on Thursday and met other Sonosians who had also taken a red-eye flight (but a different one from me). Our company manager drove us to the venue where we met the Sonosians who had flown in earlier on Wednesday. We arrived at about 10:15 am , just in time for the 10:30 am master class workshop we were to teach! Of course Jim wanted to start out with us performing some music & so after approx 2.5 hours of sleep, I had to dig out the piccolo and played "Chester". Oy!

The workshop went really well - AND I got to meet someone special! A lady came up to me and said, "I think you know my son!" I said, "Oh? Who's your son?" She said, "Matthew Prins!"

Well, of COURSE I know Matthew! He hosted me for a concert in the Chicagoland area back in May & also wrote a piece for me that I premiered at Walden this summer. (More details on all of that in a later post!) It is *such* a small world!

Later that day, we played a concert for a full house! I love playing for a packed auditorium because there's so much energy. The audience loved us & we loved performing for them. :-)

After the concert, we packed up our equipment, loaded up the van, and drove back to Des Moines, where we got about 4 hours sleep before heading for the airport at 5am. While other Sonosians flew home to the Bay Area, I instead flew to Las Vegas (by way of DFW).

On Friday, I had a rehearsal with my accompanist Paul Hesselink (BONUS: that page also has a bio for Doug Benton!).

On Saturday morning, I was the clinician for the Fourth Annual Las Vegas Handbell Festival. From 9am to 3pm, I taught workshops on Basics, Ringing in One Accord, and Ringing with Subtlety and Nuance, with some info on 4iH. At 6:30 pm, I played a solo concert.

I flew home on Sunday morning. I had a great time, but it sure was an exhausting weekend! (My poor husband had come down with a bad cold on Friday & spent the whole weekend sick and alone. I am fighting it off myself now, *mutter*.)

I had a meeting last night with Kevin Holsinger, my partner in Bronzewood Paedeia. We more-or-less finalized a track list for our next CD & put some recording dates on the calendar. I think it's going to be a lovely album - I am *very* excited about some of the beautiful music we'll be making! :-)

In other news, Brian bought a motorcycle for himself, too. It's a '95 Honda Shadow VT600CD and really is a much better fit for him. He's very tall & has really long legs, so my little Rebel 250 was a bit too small for him. We're excited because we're going out riding together tomorrow! Woo-Hoo!

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OK, Reset! (plus, some news)

I've been avoiding blogging simply because I have such a backlog of posts! I am usually very organized, so I like my blog posts to be in chronological order, but I haven't found the time to finish the post about the Trinity Ringers' 10th Anniversary Gala Concert, which was all the way back on June 1st! ... which means that I also haven't blogged about Riverside, or Ohio, or Walden, or Europe, or going back to school, or this year's Sonos season, or....

*sigh*

I think I'm just going to start blogging again & then go back and fill in the blanks as I find time to do so. (My Trinity Ringers' post is actually a partially-completed draft, so I should be able to do that some time soon... I hope!)

So, let me tell you a bit about going back to school!

Walden was such a life-changing experience for me (which I'll expand on when I actually get to posting about it), that I decided that yes! I really *do* want to have a Bachelor's degree and I want it to be in Music.

People act surprised when they find out I don't actually have a degree in music. Here's my sordid story:

I graduated high school in 1987. My high school was a small country school with a pretty good band program, but no orchestra and no choir to speak of (I think there were 4 or 5 people in the choir). There were no classes offered in Music Theory or anything like that. I played flute & was pretty good, but I never had private lessons. I did play in the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music's Prep Department Flute Choir for 2 years, but that was it. I didn't even know what "Music Theory" was when I went to my college auditions!

I was accepted into Bowling Green State University's flute program and attended that school for a year and a half. During that time, I discovered that it's a BIG WORLD out there - "big fish in a small pond" syndrome, I guess you could call it. I wasn't anyone special there, just another flutist. To compound the issue, BGSU was quite a bit farther north than my home and the light deprivation hit me pretty hard (I've since learned that I have Seasonal Affective Disorder) so I descended into a deep, dark depression and behaved erratically. I ended up flunking out.

I lived at home for a semester, then decided to go back to school. I attended the University of Cincinnati for a year via their Continuing Education Department. I took placement tests in Music Theory, Aural Skills, and Piano & petitioned into classes (since I wasn't officially a music major, I had to petition). After a year of that, I officially auditioned and was accepted as a Composition Major. After another year, I dropped out to get married to my first husband & moved away.

Several years passed, during which I waited tables, worked in light industry, and in clerical positions. It was also during this time that I discovered handbells! The instrument was challenging enough that it piqued my interest, plus it was beautiful to listen to. I not only played bells, but I directed, too (putting my Conducting classes to good use!).

I went back to school at Lakeland Community College near Cleveland, but this time for computers. I successfully completed an Associates in Applied Business in computer programming, graduating summa cum laude (which means that I had a 4.0 GPA yay!). I worked in the computer industry for almost 7 years, during which time I divorced my first husband & married my second.

My love for handbells had only grown during this time, and so it was that when I had the opportunity to audition for Sonos, I took the chance, passed the audition, quit my computer job, and moved to California, where I became a full-time handbell musician.

I had always dreamed of going back to school to complete my music degree (in handbells, of course!) & mentioned it to my good friend PL Grove, who beat me to the punch and created a course of study at Mills College in Oakland. She graduated with a BA in Music with an emphasis in handbells 2 years ago. I am so very proud of her!

But now it's my turn.

I collected all my transcripts and compared them against the California General Education requirements. I have some of them from past schools, but not everything, which is why I'm now attending Foothill Community College.

If all goes according to plan, then I will be at Foothill for 4 quarters, then will transfer to San Francisco State University, where I will pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Music (with handbells as my instrument). SFSU does not take Lower Division transfer students; I have to pass placement tests in Theory, Piano, and Ear Training and place into the 3rd year (Junior) level!

I am currently enrolled in:

• Beginning Swimming -- I need about 4 Physical Education units; this is 1 unit. I taught myself to swim when I was 11 & never really learned how to do it properly, even though I really enjoy swimming.
  
• Marine Biology -- I need a Life Science with a Lab & this sounded cool. It is! We get to go on 7 field trips this quarter to places such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Marine Institute in Redwood City, the Ano Nuevo State Park where the elephant seals are, etc. How cool is that?!?
  
• Class Piano, Level C -- I was originally planning to start at Level A, even though I had 2 years of piano at UC. You can forget a lot of stuff in 15 years! However, the teacher bumped me up to Level C when she caught me playing the final exam for Level B while waiting for class to start....
• Beginning Theory -- I actually have had 3.5 years of Theory & am pretty good at it, but as I said above, it's been 15 years & I want to make sure that I have a solid foundation. PLUS, my Aural Skills are atrocious!! I'm a visual learner & have learned to compensate for my sub-par ear by using my visual and kinetic skills to figure out what's going on. I know this is where I need the most work.

So that's it for now. In addition to school, I am still directing both of my church bell choirs, playing in Sonos, and doing solo work. I'm not actively pushing for a lot of solo engagements, but I'm not turning any down, either. :-)

Fortunately, I'm "only" taking 14 credit hours. Monday is my big day, with Swimming and Marine Bio lecture AND lab. Wednesdays I have Swimming, Piano, and Marine Bio lecture. Tuesdays & Thursdays I only have Theory, but I come in an hour early to practice Piano in the practice rooms since I don't have a real piano at home, just an old keyboard that's not touch sensitive & doesn't have a pedal.

Right now, I'm at SFO, waiting to take a red-eye flight to Chicago, then to Des Moines. Sonos has a workshop tomorrow morning and a concert tomorrow night.

From Des Moines, I go on to Las Vegas where I will be the clinician for the 4th Annual Las Vegas Handbell Festival on Saturday. I will also play a solo concert that night.

I come home on Sunday, then back to school at 8:30am on Monday. Did I mention that I have a mid-term exam in Marine Biology on Wednesday? Plus I have to play "The Gypsy" and all 3 a minor scales for Piano on Wednesday.

I've taken to Twittering - that's the micro-blogging thingie that's up in the upper right-hand corner of my blog, plus on my Facebook profile. I usually update it a few times a day, especially when at school, so you can see what I'm up to at just about any time of day.

I also bought a motorcycle for commuting to school, a 2009 Honda Rebel 250. It gets approx 75 mpg and it's a lot easier to find parking! Brian & I both took (and passed!) the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Beginner Rider course in September. I rode it to school yesterday. YAY!

Anyway, that's it. They're going to start boarding my flight soon, so I have to close up shop. Thanks for listening. :-)

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