WMV Music Web Log

I'm so jealous! The Parker Quartet is playing at the Red and the Black Thursday night as part of a national tour of bars and clubs. That was one of my (many) good ideas that I haven't yet quite gotten around to. I want to play at Busboys & Poets, and other places where new people can hear what we do. What is stopping me?

We received this very nice note today from Susan Hunt (enclosing a donation, also very nice!):

Dear Carl:

I so enjoy your music and being able to hear it in a small space similar, for the classical at least, to that for which it was written. Your joyful presentations add a lot. I always leave more "in tune" than when I arrive.

Sincerely,

Susan J. Hunt

(I've got to ask David to set up a special page for appreciations on the website - they get scattered in old emails and file drawers).

Continuing that thought... Music in time of war reminds us how wonderfully precious peace is, how possible, how normal. The night before last I dreamt about hatred and hardness, and walked around all day in fear; but last night I dreamt about people speaking different languages, behaving unexpectedly, and appreciating one another, laughing together, and playing music. I am tired of the news, who is killing whom and why or why not. I need to remember that there is another way for people to be with each other - peace!

That is probably what is most important about what we musicians do, somehow - give people hope for themselves and for the world. But whatever it is, I look forward to doing more of it today - I have spent the last three days doing nothing but writing grant proposals, and am sick of that particular activity.

I'm practicing Schubert's Trout Quintet for next month's concert - I saved it for dessert. I tried playing along with our performance from May of 2001. You know, you just cannot play this piece without love. It has a way of melting irritability and bad humor. It is infused with forgiveness - the five players just can't help but appreciate each other's contributions. A colleague's shortcomings appear small, even lovable, and old resentments fade deeper into memory. This feeling always seems to spread to the audience, and who knows, maybe goes out even further... it is the music of peace, and an antidote to our times!

I am coming to a kind of Socratic notion of practising music, as a process of remembering, unpeeling the layers of confusion and illusion that obscure the original immediate experience of hearing and knowing. It is almost embarrassing, but infinitely satisfying to recognize and return to a simple and clear understanding of an Alberti bass, an accompanied melody, the simple delight of sounds together. My own life work seems to be seeking to return to the experience of the preverbal months of life, when I was most amazed, delighted, and happy. It is practising as undoing the damage of life, cleaning and polishing the mirror of consciousness.

Some insights about a Chopin Nocturne from last night. The continuity of the treble melody is an illusion: it is the bass which moves and creates the positioning of the treble. And the bass moves comfortably, that is, non-metronomically, melodically, without physical or musical stress. I used to worry that Chopin's large hand made the figuration impossible for my small hand to accomodate comfortably. But actually, the notes will wait for my hand to get there.

Mozart's Alberti bass, which creates very little excitement these days, might have sounded sexy back then, because it makes jazzy accents on the two and four.