It's been too long...

October 28, 2007

It’s been a while… I am making a promise to myself that I won’t go so long without posting. I think about it often, but stuff comes up. Like practicing my scales and arpeggios, or cooking… you know how it is. I know, all lame excuses. But Trevor has been in Germany all weekend, eliminating our evening walks opening up a few hours in the day for catching up. It’s amazing how much productivity more can be accomplished with just two hours freed in a day.

Lots going on, well in comparison to the norm that is. Over the past few weeks we have, of course, had our usual classes and shopping trips, and this past week we got to see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra perform at the Royal Albert Hall. It was amazing. To start, I can’t remember the last time I heard a professional orchestra perform. They did Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and La Mer, a Prokoffiev Piano Concerto (can’t remember which one) and Ravel La Valse. They were all a first for me, hearing live that is. It helps so much with my interpretation of the music when I’ve heard the whole work in person. Recordings are helpful, but not always an acceptable substitute. Plus it was nice to hear instruments other than the flute. Obviously I love this instrument… but seriously, all day everyday for over a month is a bit extreme. And tuning to a piano does not count as getting to listen to another instrument.

We’ve been able to go to one of the two local pubs. This one is “Froggies”, a French pub. It’s high class, and not really what I expected it to be, since it is titled “pub”. In the end I think we each dropped £25 on the dinner, with Trevor buying our drinks. But not having to cook was wonderful, and the meal, beer and atmosphere were amazing. I miss going out to eat. It was a great treat, and I plan on taking advantage of all that it has to offer multiple times while here.

Eventually we are all going to get to visit with Albert Cooper. For those who don’t know he his, in a nutshell he is the person who has had the most influence on the modern flute in the 20th century - an incredibly important person, VIP if you will. He’s battling Alzheimer’s, and doesn’t remember much about the flute or the influence he has had on it - all very depressing. The nursing home he resides in is about a 2 hours’ drive from here, and Trevor visits at least monthly bringing one of us along each time. In November we are all going and will be doing a concert for all the residents. Which adds a lot of extra repertoire to our already full load… but it will be nice to play for other people.

Tomorrow Trevor is giving a class at the Royal Academy, which we are using as an excuse to get out of the village. We aren’t required to go, in fact he said we’re crazy for wanting to go, but I think it will be nice to see him harass other people, a change from the usual. And as a bonus the train rides are when I’m most productive with the weekly assignments – maybe I can even get ahead. I guess it’s a pretty expensive motivational source…

Still having difficulty getting everything done that I want to each day, especially now that the weather has taken a turn for the worse – windy, rainy, foggy and cold. All the time. I just want to lie around and read all day. Maybe watch an entire season of Gilmore Girls/Grey’s Anatomy too, bake brownies or a pie or something else scrumptious. But none of these are options for me. Instead I just continue to put off working on the big project we have. I have done some reading for it, but no further steps have been taken. At least I’m not alone on this… I predict we’ll all be pulling all-nighters in December.

Today we changed the clocks back one hour, or rather this morning we did. From now on we’ll have little daylight each day – maybe a maximum of 7 hours for the next month or so, then down to 5ish. Sigh. But it means for the next week, until the US changes clocks, I am one hour closer to home. This is a nice feeling.

I’m definitely beginning to miss home. Particularly at the moment I miss being able to drive. Driving for me has always been my alone time. It’s when I can listen to whatever music I want and not be teased by others, I can sing and rock out as loud as I want, and if needed can just enjoy the silence and sort out my thoughts. I haven’t been able to sing to awful pop music since I got here. I hum occasionally on the train, but then I think I just become an annoyance for those around me.

Since I’ve been here I’ve been very anal about keeping up a notebook – a practice and lesson journal (thank you Beth!!!). It’s amazing how helpful it really can be. Forcing myself to write down what I’m doing really does help sort out what I should focus on each day. So to all those current BEC flute students, I promise it comes in handy. Yes, I hated it at first too, but when I’m feeling completely brain-dead and can’t remember the last time I practiced a certain exercise, all I have to do is turn back to find the answer. And when I can’t remember the last thing Trevor assigned us and yelled at me to fix in my practicing, I can refer to that too. Incredibly useful.

Often I get very overwhelmed with how much investing is necessary for this career - instruments, music, reference books, recordings, concert tickets, performance attire, lessons, and the list goes on and on. Everyday I probably write down two or three things that are necessary to add to my collection. Especially being here with Trevor, because one of his big things is to “buy it while you can” - in terms of recordings and books. So often materials that are very important and useful become are no longer available years down the road because of the expense to continue production. I don’t even know where to begin most of the time. Maybe it will just be the Christmas and birthday wish list that never ends. But I don’t want to only receive flute presents for special occasions.

A lot of our assignments from Trevor are completely overwhelming, but then make past assignments seem so much easier. For example, we have to memorize all scale/arpeggio exercises as we start new ones in the warm-up. This is beginning to get much easier - just two patterns to memorize (major and minor) and then put in different keys. Of course it’s still difficult (especially for myself where it takes me weeks to memorize anything), but when faced with the new assignment of eventually having to memorize all J. S. Bach flute sonatas and the “top 28” orchestral passages for flute, a scale study seems like nothing. My brain will be utterly full once he’s done with us.

We had our weekend with Robert Dick, and it was great. It was nice to do a little traveling, even if it was only for a brief time. He did a “basics of circular breathing on the flute” which was very helpful, a concert with some pieces I had heard and some I hadn’t and a few other miscellaneous extended technique subjects. It was nice to have a second chance to take in all that he does. When he came to JMU I was still trying to grasp what he was all about, so this definitely helped reiterate some things.

On the train ride back to Wye from Robert’s class Marta began teaching me Croatian. I would love to be fluent in a second language. I hate that in the US we don’t start learning until it’s really too late to easily become fluent. It’s a very slow process, because obviously I can’t spend lots of time studying, but it’s nice to learn a few nouns and maybe a verb or two each week. It’s something different from what I’m usually thinking about, a welcomed occasional distraction.

The ever-anticipated whist drive took place last Friday. It was everything I had dreamed of… well, it was at least nice to meet some of the villagers and do something other than practice and cook. I really like the game, and I did win a bottle of wine out of it, which was a nice surprise.

Hopefully with my new self promise the posts won’t be so long from here on out…

love,
lindsay

A few noteworthy learnings:
1. The Croatian word for “tomato” is pronounced “paradise”. I completely agree.
2. The Japanese version of a hamburger is almost a soup, and is called “hamburg” (hahm-burg). Mime made some on Friday, where the patty itself is pretty similar, but then after grilling, or frying, you throw in water, vegetables and some Japanese seasonings. Served with rice on the side, of course.
3. You can play so much more the “Hot Cross Buns” on the recorder. And it does have a few octaves.
4. Intonation. I can almost hear it. Amazing.