23. October 2006 · Comments Off on Better! · Categories: imported, Ramble

Last week I blogged (whined?) about a bad practice session. I’m happy to report that today is a much better day. Happier reeds=happier me. And yes, I played in between last Wednesday and today, but I hadn’t given an update earlier and this is about now and not about then and certainly not about later.

Got it?

🙂

Speaking of later … here’s how my brain works prior to concerts or rehearsals:

  • If I have a bad practice session the Naughty Inner Voice™ says, “You are so messed up and you are going to blow it big time tonight!”
  • If I have a good practice session the Naughty Inner Voice™ shouts, “Hah! You used it up! There you go again … tonight will just be rotten. Your reed was at its best and now it’s going to go downhill. Silly person!”
  • If I don’t practice at all the Naughty Inner Voice™ snickers, “Chicken, eh? Well now you’re done for. You won’t even have a clue how to play tonight.”

    And my husband seems to think one can’t win when complimenting me. Where in the world does he get that idea? (Try me out; send me a compliment and I’ll tell you what the Naughty Inner Voice™ says. Tee hee.)

    Yes … I fight the Naughty Inner Voice™ with a vengeance.

    There is also the Confident Inner Voice™ and sometimes that one is just a bit arrogant which really drives me nuts. Go figure!

    This bit of Insanity Ramble was brought to you by yours truly who is now going to step away from the computer for everyone’s sake. 🙂
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  • 23. October 2006 · Comments Off on Terfel – Sondheim – Citizen Kane …? · Categories: imported, Links

    I could imagine this one, actually.

    I do wonder, though, if they’d ever get the rights … and if Sondheim would do it. I thought I read somewhere that he said he wasn’t going to be composing any longer. Hmmm. Maybe I read wrong. I’d like to be wrong. About that at least.
    —–

    Thanks to ACB I was fortunate enough to read this article. 🙂

    It ends with this:

    My hope is to combine my two joys: to watch Ravens on television with the sound turned down while listening to a live opera broadcast on radio. I am looking forward to the first Saturday in January. That is when I Puritani is scheduled to be broadcast from the Met, and when the first round of the NFL playoffs are on TV.

    Love it!

    … and now I’m off to find reeds for both oboe and EH. Lots of playing this week, and it all begins this evening.

    23. October 2006 · Comments Off on Aw C’Mon · Categories: imported, Ramble

    Read on a review:

    …even the orchestra applauded before the soloist returned for a brief and flashy encore …

    So tell me, when do orchestras not applaud a soloist? It’s what we do. It’s polite. It’s correct. And if we didn’t we’d look pretty darn bad, don’t you think?

    Not to say most soloists shouldn’t get our applause. (Shoot, I’d applaud just for their guts to get up there and do what they do! I love the safety of being surrounded by my colleagues.) But there have been times (in the distant past so don’t go a-guessing) where I wasn’t exactly enthralled by a soloist. I still applauded.

    So was I wrong to do so? Is it like lying? Or is it common courtesy to applaud no matter what?

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    23. October 2006 · Comments Off on For Your Reading Enjoyment · Categories: imported, Ramble

    I have to race otu the door, and I plan on replying to emails and site comments asap, but while you are dying for my responses, here’s a bit ‘o spam nonsense for you to enjoy. Really.:

    Most people believe that a food stamp figures out a cowboy, but they need to remember how hesitantly an inexorably surly skyscraper gets stinking drunk. When the bullfrog reads a magazine, a salad dressing around a mastadon procrastinates. A briar patch is phony. An ocean, a vacuum cleaner over a corporation, and a blood clot of the buzzard are what made America great! When a parking lot goes to sleep, the power drill laughs out loud. Another mitochondrial particle accelerator

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