MOTUZ CONFECTUS

2011-11-21T04:11:00.000+01:00

In one week I'll be flying back to Europe again, and I hope very much that I'll be able to partake a little bit in the slower pace of life over there. I have no regrets about coming back to Canada, but the sheer volume of interesting, urgent projects which fill the same mental and chronological spaces here is astounding. The musicologyology class which featured in the last post has had a few ups, in particular an article by Rob Wegman, writing that just because we've identified our own narcissism in music research doesn't mean we should just abandon it altogether. Amen. Most of my margin notes were batmanesque onomatopoiea: "Pow!" and "Wham!" annotations whenever he wrote something that poked a hole in new musicology's self righteousness. The next few presentations involved music that could be heard, too. Which reminds me that I mustn't write too long as I have to prepare a presentation on Schubert's homosexuality. I'm slightly offended by the idea that someone's sexual orientation necessary changes the meaning of someone's music --which is excellent I suppose since I tend to absorb a lot more information once I've begun situating my position in relation to it.

My other work at McGill, on the SIMSSA project, has been more and more interesting as I get more involved. I'm slowly getting used to being called "our resident musicologist" too.

Now I'm preparing editions for Saturday's concert, which is a bit of a shocker as I thought it would take me 10 hours and I think it'll be more like 30. I always forget that being a little myopic and not liking page turns is a recipe for endless tinkering layout perfectionism. I've also made a little page on Facebook for La Rose des Vents to tide us over until I can organize a proper website, which has the interesting effect of making having just founded a band seem much more real.

Among the many headaches involved in getting this concert together has been working out which organ to use and in which tuning. Instead of the ideal 466 organ at meantone, we'll have a 415 organ in Valotti, which sounds out of tune to me (because it is) and means making lot of transposed parts with lots of sharps in them. After losing some hours of sleep to being riled up about this I was reminded by a friend that letting myself be offended was in this case not very productive.

I went to Kitchener a few weeks ago for the sole purpose of admiring my nephew and my newborn niece Audrey, which was lovely. I was very happy to see that the government has finally pumped nearly a billion dollars into improving passenger rail. Still not enough to give us high speed nor, it would appear, to upgrade the luggage carts in Toronto Union station from disused Victorian farm equipment:

At least they've replaced the horses

One thing that I love about being back in Montreal is the sheer quantity of sushi available. There is good sushi in Kitchener too, but with small children it was better and more fun to make it at home.

Liam about to tuck in

I got distracted this afternoon from edition making and started looking up the easter eggs hidden in software and operating systems - beware! If you click, don't get carried away. But if you're on OSX, do hold down ctrl+option+command and press 8...

later...
Now I've practised too and am feeling quite lightheaded. Lots to do in the next week before I go again, so please pardon if this spot continues to be sparsely populated... once I'm in Vienna I hope I'll have a bit more time to write!

2011-10-23T21:01:00.000+02:00

Hermeneutics, Ontology, Post-Structuralist, Semiotic Tri-Partition, Invagination (!), Commodification, Cultural Hegemony... still there?

It's all just a little bit too much, if I may say. These are all topics we're dealing with in Proseminar in Musicology, or as I like to call it, Musicologyology. After complaining to some colleagues that it's all quite absurd ("in the existential or the dadaist sense?"), I realize now that Musicology is just insecure. It's trying to validate itself by situating itself in the domains of literary theory, sociology, and linguistics, taking all their big words.

I realized yesterday that my problem is that, taking a look at the above domains, I don't have any background in any of them. I presume that at one point this was taught in school, I must have been ill that day. So all the musicologyology articles which explore the transposition of their concepts - each with as many contentious meanings as syllables - onto music, I can understand the mapping going on but I don't understand the original concept. They are slowly being taught (actually very well, from a professor who deals very diplomatically with our ignorance), but I have to admit that I find it depressing to be learning these concepts in a music class. I'd much much rather take a literary theory class first where all these concepts are at home, and then have a few sessions on how concepts like "reification" get mapped onto musical discourse (whatever "discourse" is). By learning all these concepts in a music class, we're learning them with all the baggage of musicologists trying to negotiate the awkwardness of making them fit music. I've been leaving every class and going up to the harpsichord rooms to bang around until I feel like living again.

I don't mind that musicological discourse exists on this level, of course people should get embroiled in clever philosophical discussions. What I don't like is that it so easily slips into being antimusical. There was a presentation this week on three articles pertaining to a short Chopin prelude. The presenter managed to talk for about half an hour about three views on this piece, while never once letting the class listen to it, despite every kind of audio-visual device being present in the room. She did affix a one-page photocopy to the back of the handout, though, cementing an implicit message that in the context of this class, music is like children: to be seen and not heard. But music can't be read off a page like a book, and even if I can imagine a great deal of what notated music sounds like (do I dare admit when I can't?) my physical and intuitive reactions are just as valid as anything I might be able to analyze visually, and I'm upset when they're brushed aside and ignored.

It was early in my university career that I figured out that I wasn't going to make it as a professional musician unless I let go of being cerebral all the time and gave some clout to my intuition too. A scary concept back then, and it still is, because it means not being a control freak about the passage of every moment in time. As David McGuinness once helpfully reminded me, we can't dictate everything that's going to happen in performance, the only thing we can guarantee is that Something will happen. This kind of letting go seems a rather obvious pre-requisite to performing, but I think that for academic study it's just as necessary. And just as scary. After all, you can control the words and notes that someone reads, but once you let people listen to music and intuit a response, you lose control over what is going through their heads. In jargon you'd say you're letting your audience collect its own empirical data, which is necessarily different from yours. (But I do like "you lose control over what is going through their head" better.) It's not necessary to have that level of control, fortunately. A musical analysis is about teaching new ways of listening and understanding, and its success is not dependent at all on whether it's the best possible way (though perhaps it was in Theodor Adorno's time) but on whether it could be convincing to someone, that is to say, if it wins its audience over by presenting an idea in such a way that it rings true with what their intuition tells them. (All a question of hermeneutics - someone make it stop). It means that the presenter should have played a recording of the piece in order to awake my intuition and bring it into the conversation. By not doing that she had no hope of winning me over to any single one of the points of view she was presenting.

Fortunately this quote of Albert Einstein is all over Facebook this week to show me I'm not alone in my desire for intuition to be granted validity:

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

(You can decide for yourself if the fallacy of an authoritative appeal makes any difference for you in the force or validity of the statement.)

I apologize profusely for the degree of jargon that has gone into this blog post. I hope it convinces you at least that I'll be an effective spy, infiltrating academia, learning their language if anything in order to stand up convincingly for music to be both seen AND heard. After all, as Frank Zappa said, Music is the Best.

2011-10-13T15:43:00.001+02:00

This is a post about why I haven't been blogging. That is, by the time I'm done telling you, you'll know all the things that have been going on to prevent me from curling up on my cozy couch and telling you before.

I think I left off in the middle of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra tour. It got better and better even as it was extremely grueling. Our 3-hour bus rides in Romania turned into 6-hour bus rides, but I got to get to know some nice people and got a lot of work done besides so I can't complain too much. Early in the tour, Claire said she found herself less nervous when she stopped looking at the music during the Tuba Mirum solo and just looked at the conductor. I started experimenting with this idea on my own: revelation. The more I looked up from my music, the more fun I had, the more I trusted myself, the more musical I was, the more I reacted to what was going on around me. And most of all, the less room there was for negative self-talk and nerves. Of course it helped a lot that there wasn't a millisecond that Ton Koopman (the most obvious person to look at at the time) wasn't completely engaged in the music, and his enthusiasm for it was extremely contagious. I left the tour in a very good mood indeed.

The last night, the bars of Timisoara had closed, so to continue our post-tour festivities we all brought down the contents of our mini bars and enjoyed a nightcap.

What can I get you?

On the way home, I met up with Ann Allen in Heathrow Terminal 3, and we enjoyed my traditional Heathrow sushi together before boarding a plane to Montreal. Ann was coming for the first concert ever of my new band, La Rose des Vents (who will have a website, um, soon). We played as the invited guests of one of Montreal's professional choirs, VivaVoce, in a programme called "Dinner with the Dukes of Bavaria," in a 16th-century wind band setup much like I Fedeli. In fact, thanks to Ann, we were 1/3 I Fedeli. The concert went rather well, if I may say, and we're looking forward to working with them again.

The next week was a mix of hanging out with Ann, who had become successfully enamoured of Montreal (what's not to like?), and being jolted back into the real world of, oh yeah, doing a Ph.D. While I tend to absorb information if it's taken in at a good time (i.e. mornings), I'm a pretty slow reader, which means that the 150 or so pages of dense musicology per week take me ages to get through. Thank goodness for twitter. Just as things were getting bad (Bourdieu's "structured structures" and "structuring structures, are" as David McGuinness replied, "a crime against language and clarity of thought"), I stumbled across @YourMomAdorno, which takes quotes of musicology's champion of privileged pedantry, Theodor Adorno, and replaces "music" with "your mom." "Your mom has abolished the rubbish of former times by imposing her own perfection, by prohibiting and domesticating dilettantism." That's better.

Just the reading would be ok, I think, now that I have a printer and don't have to read the scanned articles from the screen and go blind in three weeks. But I also have a research assistantship which I must admit to being in denial about. Don't get me wrong, it's a very cool project indeed, teaching computers to read early notation, and we have a very beautiful manuscript to work with, it's just time that would otherwise go into nesting in my lovely new apartment, so I'm in denial. Part of my duties includes blogging about the project, so one of the reasons I haven't been blogging here is that I've been paid to blog there. What a sell-out. It's not nearly as therapeutic if that makes it any better.

Besides reading and getting my feet wet in the music technology lab, there was a little bit of time to explore Montreal with Ann. Among other activities, we went to the Jean-Talon market, and you wouldn't know that it's supposed to be a bad year for pumpkins.

I've been back to my puffball spot a couple of times to find that while my three mycelia (mushroom "plants") are indeed producing, whoever is in charge of mowing the lawn of the baseball field they're on is a bit too keen. Very sad indeed. On a semi-failed attempt (I brought back two wee puffballs), I did see traces of a fairy-ring, which was cheering.

On Thursday, Ann and I boarded a plane back to England, where we and other friends attended the wedding of Gawain Glenton and Kirsty Whatley. Having spent all possible gift money on my plane ticket, I wrote them a 5-part canzona on a very silly theme that Alex Potter had come up with years before and we played it before the party got going.

The day after the wedding I went food shopping with Josué so that we could use the kitchen and big dining table of our lovely Updown Cottage in Shaftesbury and it wasn't until I'd got home with the ingredients for pumpkin pie that I realized it was Thanksgiving. Strategic loveliness followed: after a pub lunch and a ramble through the countryside, we drank real ale, cooked up lamb roast and had ourselves a feast, followed by pumpkin pie and Highland Park in front of an open fire.

Now I'm back in Montreal again, which brings me to the third reason I've not been writing as much: it feels like home here. Starting this blog was something I did when I moved to England last May to keep a sense of stability in my life, and it worked very well. Now I'm finally in a place that feels like home again, which takes over that function even better. I will continue to write of course, but it feels like a luxury now, and not a necessity to keeping me sane the way it did last year.

I've run out of pictures because after dropping in Susie Napper's her last night and having a cup of tea once again in her kitchen, I left my camera on her counter. Which is fine by me - it gives me an excellent excuse to go back again today!

2011-09-22T10:01:00.000+02:00

Another travel log, not because I don't have any ideas about music, but because I'm too tired to do anything but post pictures at the moment. Despite hearing Dutch all around me and almost getting hit by myriad bicycles, I remained in denial about being in Holland until breakfast, when I saw this, and suddently it clicked:

Our concerts have gone well so far, it was a pleasure to play in the fine acoustic and happy atmosphere here:

Tacet

The next morning we headed by bus to Schiphol, plane to Milan, and bus to Bolzano - 11 hours from door to door! We had half an hour at the hotel, where a happy but distinctly untrue message was writ on the walls of each floor. This was mine:

Just not true

The theatre had a dry acoustic, but at least a full foliage rendition of Frank Zappa's face outside:

The unmistakable beard of a certain mother

Yesterday, the bus showed up late, drove 90 in the 100 zone, hadn't arranged to pay the toll at the Swiss border, and wandered about Locarno looking for the hotel, turning a 5-hour ride into more than a 6 hour one. As this cut our hotel time to under 90 mins, we were not impressed, but our awesome tour manager called the bus company and gave them an earful while we were lost in Locarno, which was thereapeutic for all within earshot.

That's all for now as the flight to Romania is boarding!

View from Hotel Window, Locarno

2011-09-18T10:29:00.000+02:00

I'm quite disoriented now, probably because I'm still in denial about being in Amsterdam. But I'm here, it's windy and rainy in a "could-only-be-Holland" sort of way, and everyone is speaking Dutch. After a 45 minute wait for my room to be ready for me when I arrived yesterday, I discovered that my cool, black hotel room's suave black curtains can block light completely, so I slept nearly four hours. This post-flight sleep can hinder getting over jet-lag and is therefore dubbed "the nap of death" - but I was not worried. I was up for a mere five hours, during which I practised a bit (very gently), went to the Albert Heijn to get some soups, teas and a salad, ate some of them, got on the Internet, and went back to sleep for another nearly 10.5 hours. 14 hours altogether, that's two nights. I'm officially caught up. Tick.

I forgot to mention that on Thursday I met up with Darren Fung, a friend from my first year composition class at McGill back in 1998. After training to be an avant-garde composer, he decided it wasn't for him and moved to L.A. to become a film composer. He has the same agent as John Williams and is flying all about the world recording his scores for various films. We sat in the McGill cafeteria feeling old, drinking blooming flower tea (they didn't have that in our day), and contemplating how the seven of us in that class turned out. Two are composers (one avant-garde, one film), I'm a musician (at least this week), one's a web designer living a bohemian lifestyle in L.A., one's a nurse in Montreal, one's on the street and one is dead. I thought we were doing well there for a minute.

Anyway, you can visit the demo reel of Darren's Stinky Rice Studios here.

2011-09-16T14:31:00.000+02:00

Time to start making posts shorter but more frequent: more fun to write, probably more fun to read too.

Today I'm off to the library, then the computer lab, then the doctoral colloquium, then um, Amsterdam. I've managed to resist somewhat getting over my jet-lag from two weeks ago. I've still been waking up at 7 or before (and I do love mornings), and last night managed to be asleep by 10 or so. Ok, these are normal hours for many folk, but as touring musicians tend to be up from 9 or 10 to midnight or so (also more normal hours for me), it's now only a 3 or 4 hour shift instead of a 6 hour one. Two nights ago I thought I'd fallen off the bandwagon when I couldn't sleep, then when I did I dreamed that I went to the airport without my passport, with an empty instrument case, and with a favourite small swiss-army knife in my carry-on, and I woke up still running for the plane. This morning I woke up much more gently, with this in my head.

My neighbours have been surprisingly tolerant of my tromboning every night, they've turned on the TV a bit louder, or more often started practising something themselves - something plucked - they're rather good. I found myself holding back though, not playing as loud as I really needed to to build up the right breathing and lip muscles (and getting a bit tense), so yesterday I took my trombone into school (we call Universities "schools" in Canada) and found a big rehearsal room to play in far from the 440 pianos. It was great.

Only, I realized part-way through that most of of the annoying markings on the part (which I couldn't erase because it was a photocopy) were in my own handwriting. Fascinating. That would have been from February 2006 then. I'm curious to see if the dynamic markings I wrote in then will be valid at Sunday's rehearsal. I remember back then I was using my baroque trombone with crooks in it as we played at 415, and because crooks make the instrument tune very differently, I had written in quite a few arrows to help me remember in which direction I would have to correct. I'm on a different trombone this time around and most of them now go the wrong way. But it's ok - I don't write much in the score anymore unless it's completely counter-intuitive, and hadn't been using them. I was a bit surprised at the number of markings I wrote back then, but to give my 26-year-old self a bit of credit, my teacher had been sitting beside me in those rehearsals, and I think I'd have written in quite a bit more than usual just to show I was listening. Hopefully they'll have the originals at rehearsal and I'll bring a big eraser.

Of course a lot of practice time I've spent stressing over the sheer quantity of high notes, which sometimes come along relentlessly when one is already quite knackered (like after a mass and a half - why are we doing two? Oh dear, ANOTHER Sanctus!). Most of this practice therefore, while superficially calisthenic, actually mainly involves learning how to mentally prepare for these concerts. This, oddly enough, involves noting when a stressful situation is coming up, taking the ensuing anxiety (which I have a lot of), and consciously replacing it with another intense emotion (which I also have a lot of). Joy seems to work best and with a bit of work is plenty strong enough to compete. I think there is something physical that happens to breathing when one is suddenly joyful, and it seems to work, so practising becomes an exercise in being joyful at the right moments. No shock then, that I always finish these practice sessions in an excellent mood.

2011-09-14T18:13:00.001+02:00

Back in Canada.

My last days in Basel were busy, intense and lovely. Saul went well - it was amazing to hear the same orchestra in March sound better in the first rehearsal than in the last concert, thanks to a more engaged conductor. The conductor sang the part of Saul as well, he obviously loves the piece a lot and did a very good job of switching gears between being responsible for an orchestra and for his own singing. I was wondering how things would go for me as I had only brought a mouthpiece to Scotland and had done the minimum amount of tooting to be in shape for the first rehearsal. It was fine, I even stuck in some gratuitous trills. Know your limits, yes, including your minimum so that you can take proper vacations now and again.

On Monday Helen and I had a joint going away party. We couldn't find a big enough room to rent, so we had it by the Rhine, demarcating our little area with some torches and setting up a table with enough baguette and French cheeses for a small army. And a small army came. Helen managed to achieve party-levels of garrulousness, while I was so gobsmacked by seeing so many friends come to wish us well that I started to believe that I was actually going and was short on words. But it was lovely. Parties outside are genius, too, if you can find a good place. You don't have to find a place for people's coats and you can always hear what the person you're talking to is saying.

The rest of the week was a combination of cleaning, packing, staring at the wall wondering what was going on, and playing another concert of Latin-American Baroque music with the Bremgarten people. A bit mad to play a concert on my last night, as it meant that I got back to packing at around 12:30 am, but it was also a nice way to finish off, and to be frank, necessary as this whole transatlantic moving thing is turning out to be expensive.

The plane ride, back in economy class, was fine. I have a little ritual now of eating sushi on my Heathrow layovers, it is a perfect travel food in many ways. On the Basel-Heathrow leg I was thinking about all the people who had helped me set off: When

On the plane, I couldn't deal with watching a film - I was already getting teary at the soundless scenes on other people's screens, so I watched some documentaries on breakthroughs in materials: Plastics with anti-bacterial properties because of a pattern on them that replicates shark-scales, and of course the ever-fascinating carbon nano-tubes, which I'm sure have progressed significantly since I wrote about them last.

As my rotator cuff is still complaining after hauling around very heavy bags around Montreal in May, I've come to accept the fact that no part of me is invincible, and rode the airport bus from the front door of the airport to a taxi stand near me. Wasn't expensive even. Makes me feel even more stupid about May but I'd better get over it I suppose.

--------

A week and a half later....

Well, my rotator cuff is doing much better now. In fact, my whole body is rejoicing that I'm back on a bicycle again, bought at le vélo urbain on Papineau. It had a gear issue on the first afternoon riding it, so I took it back to the shop and they gave me a new gear-shift - very professional. It's still acting up sometimes though, I'll try tightening the cable though before I bring it back again. I bought a used bike because Montreal is a bike theft capital, so fast but ugly is a very good combination if you don't want to be stressed about whether your bike will still be there in the morning. Montreal has become a much friendlier city for bicycles since I left seven years ago, though because of its relatively new congestion problem I find myself taking roads as often as the "protected" paths (which aren't protected when you get to an intersection). I think in Basel I was considered quite an aggressive cyclist; here in Montreal I'm a bit of a wimp.

Obviously it's been a bit full on since I got here, I really have to decide how to fill every moment of my day because there are always things which urgently need doing. I tried to sit down the other day and figure out what are priorities on my todo list, and even that is a bit long. Reconnecting with friends, preparing for classes, organizing my ensemble, keeping my playing up, becoming a legal resident, supporting myself financially and taking care of my physical and mental health all seem to rank as no. 1 on the list at various times of day. Hence not being a very avid blogger, but at the moment it's very good for my mental health.

Starting studying again has been just fine. I was a bit more reluctant than I thought I'd be to jump into the 150 or so pages of reading I have to do each week, but now that I have a sofa and a choice of three teas in my cupboard it's going better. I look forward to learning some new words: epistemology, ontology, hermeneutics, semiotics - they keep coming back in readings and I hope that by the end of the semester I'll sort of have a vague idea of what they are and how they're used. I'm not looking forward to that point just because I want to throw around big words, it's not very cool to do that for its own sake, but some people get all riled up in philosophical discussions about music and I'd like to know what they're excited about.

Taking care of my mental and physical health, before the bike, involved a walk around and in the botanical gardens down the street. Thinking the public Parc Maisonneuve was a bit closer, I wound up skirting the edge of the fee-requiring botanical gardens for about 6 blocks before finding an entrance. I was grumpy about it at the time until I found this puffball:

I had found some others as well, but when I went back a few days ago to see if they'd grown, the lawnmower had been by in one spot - alas - but in another, a new one was ready for consumption. Yesterday the skies opened up multiple times, so today I thought I would test the theory that mushrooms pop up after rain, and sure enough, there was a third, quite as big as the one above. I peeled it on the spot to leave at least some precious spores on the site, the rest will be risotto.

Nesting - another key element to mental health upkeep - has been fairly successful so far: on Sunday I picked up a UHaul van and, thanks to the help of a few very kind people, got a free guest bed, some garden furniture (I have a garden!), the desk I'm writing on (which is absurdly short but keeps my arms at the right angle) and a lovely beige sofa-bed. Lots of beds now, come and visit! - it's hard to imagine we were sleeping on the floor in July. I also have got hold of a clavichord to babysit - I quite miss the feeling of a harpsichord but given much of my free time will be at 2 am a clavichord is quite good. Which reminds me of a discussion at the Schola about the words "avec discretion" at the beginning of a Froberger sonata, and someone defined "avec discretion" perfectly as "the manner in which one walks in late to a clavichord recital." Dad and Jane visited on Sunday and Monday, and much of the time was spent in the backyard practising my spray-paint technique on the lawn furniture - it's starting to look new again.

Organizing concerts here has been a bit hands-off except for the tedious task of finding a name for the band that we can all agree on, which has been dragging on since May. Zefiro, Sirocco, Oltremontano and the other poetic names for winds all being taken, we've settled on "La Rose des Vents," which translates as "The Compass Rose," and shows the directions of all the above. There are a few nice specimens of historical maps with fleurs-de-lis on their compass roses, in the hand of Samuel de Champlain no less, which should solve the problem of a logo fairly quickly (I hope).

Reconnecting with friends has been made easier by Amanda, my nearest neighbour, who invited me 'round for supper twice so far, including a BBQ where I could catch up with some old friends and meet some new ones. Very lovely. Thanks Amanda!

I won't write about the paperwork of moving back, that's boring. Supporting myself financially is only mentionable because attached to my RA-ship, a significant part of the income that comes along with being a professional student, is 480 hours of work, so obviously it will feature here again. I've done two so far and am trying to get my head around how to fit the other 478 in. Part of this work will involve learning and blogging about this project, and probably helping out with it the nitty-gritty bits once a bit of technical competence rubs off.

Lastly, keeping up the playing career. Among all the madness of moving and the rest, you'd think a bit of time away from the trombone might be in order, but I just opened my email to find directions to the Concertgebouw for Monday's concert. Yes, the one in Amsterdam. Right. To be fair, I've managed to set aside my denial about flying away again on Friday for about an hour a day to practise some classical alto, but as next week's six concerts of the Mozart Requiem AND Coronation Masses together are likely to be some of the most physically challenging concerts I've played so far, it's time to do sign off and practise some more.

2011-08-25T16:36:00.000+02:00

On the sixth flight since I wrote last, going back to Basel - again. Through Heathrow - again. I've done the math and it looks like I might just barely fall short of being a frequent flyer with Star Alliance - which could have been avoided if I hadn't flown BA last trip to Canada. Oh well. Truth is, I had no idea how good frequent flyer status might be until I was bumped up to business class two weeks ago on my Montreal-London flight. The comfy chairs which reclined all the way and good food on proper dishes were pleasing - I was so excited about the whole thing that despite being able to lie down on a plane that I didn't sleep a wink. Best of all was being allowed into the airport lounge. Not just a place with free wifi and upholstered chairs, they cooked me a fresh meal before I got on the plane, and had a self-serve bar (which I approached in a disciplined manner, um, more or less). Having experienced the wonders of lounges, I'll regret ever so slightly being shy of the miles and legs needed to have constant access. A few people have asked me how I managed to be upgraded and the truth is that I don't know. But I do have a strategy, which I stuck to on this occasion, which may have worked: I select bulkhead seats with cots when I check in. That way when a mother comes with a baby, they'll bump someone in one of these seats. Of course it's worked out the other way too, and I've volunteered to be stuck in the middle of the middle as well to accommodate another, but in this case I'd say it turned out rather well.

I do love to compare clothing with British people: pants are always good for a laugh, but vests, tank-tops, jumpers and knickers are also good value for the confusion they cause in meaning completely different things. Names like trucks and lorries, tires and tyres, bank machines and cash-points also amuse me, but my ultimate favourite is the British name for bumper cars: dodgems. Aka, the exact opposite of the North American meaning. A few British friends have pointed out that though the name points to a deep cultural sense of propriety, they are also intended to bump into each other. Well, apparently not. I'm chuffed (that's tickled in North America - still not quite left sight of the UK...) to read in the paper beside me that Health and Safety regulations have come into play at Butlins holiday parks, and dodgems are banned from bumping into each other for fear of "whiplash and broken bones". Officials replied to complaints that this made them boring: "The point of our dodgems is to dodge people, not to run into people." Ha.

I had a very brief time in Basel as the weekend after I landed from Canada it was time for Caroline to cash in her 30th birthday present: a trip to the Alps. Thanks to SBB day passes, we went as far as we could, to the Munstair valley in Graubunden - as far east as one can go in Switzerland, and indeed we walked over into Italy just for the sake of it on our last day. The pictures say it all:

Practice Room

Blossom of Snow

Vertigo

Ditto

View from the peak

Val Mustair

I thought that a time would come when I'd never want to stay in a youth hostel again, but the HI in Santa Maria Val Mustair was very nice. It's an old wooden building in the middle of the little town, the perfect setting-off point for hikes in the National Park. We booked a 3-person room to ourselves - it is nice to be able to lock the door during the day.

I only managed to begin to wind down on that weekend, which was predictable at least. The last nine days I've been in Scotland, far enough from everything that I do begin to feel refreshed. The day after I arrived, Alison and I went to pick up some sea kayaks and headed to a chalet on Loch Fyne. Again, I think I'll let pictures tell you the story.

Arran

Loch Fyne by Sunset

Proper Waves

I was properly introduced to mushroom-hunting this past week too, as this pasta sauce of fresh-picked puffball, chanterelle and larch boletus will illustrate.

Mushroom ID time

Num!

A Waxcap: Don't eat this one!

I've always been interested in mushrooms - can't get enough umami - but I've been too wary since we always got the same boring, poisonous kind on my lawn when I was growing up, and since my father cut open a puffball that I really wanted to consume, only to see that it was really a deadly amanita. It was very nice, then, to see all the different ways of telling things apart, and to learn about which species are dangerous to confuse and which not.

When we returned, Alison had a gig with Concerto Caledonia in Edinburgh, playing a half-hour set for various promoters in a showcase concert. It's always very nice to hear them live and to get to meet more of the musicians they involve. I got to chat at length with Bill Taylor, a specialist on harps and evangelist for the bray-harp, and in a live setting was able to hear a lot of what he was doing on the wire-strung harp he'd brought along too. Especially interesting was hearing some of the ornaments I'd learned about in my canntaireachd lessons with Barnaby Brown in February - the repertories are closely linked indeed. After listening to their rehearsal in the Glasgow concert hall for a bit, I went home and made this:

Cranachan Cheesecake

Yesterday I spend my last full morning in Scotland by climbing a hill near Glasgow with David McGuinness. Along the path I spotted a handful of puffballs (this time the real thing), which went into the risotto that night.

The next week and a half marks my last days as a resident of Basel. Going away party with Helen on Monday after some I Fedeli rehearsals that I'm looking forward to, and a few more performances of Saul to justify economically not having remained in Montreal over August. Otherwise the packing and flurry of administrative tasks are a bit daunting - many papers to sort out and send to appropriate places.

But I'm going to ramp up slowly, my main goal being to start my Ph.D. with some energy left. A proper holiday was a very good start indeed, but it will take some mental gymnastics not to get wiped out by the next few days as well.

Climb Every Mountain: Nuns on the Path to Italy

2011-08-08T07:52:00.001+02:00

I can hardly begin to conceive of catching up all in one blog post here - I've been running a lot since I posted last. I started on the plane to Montreal, but then the chaos of trying to furnish a bare apartment and then heading off into the Internetless woods made posting impossible. Now I'm in Toronto on my first day off with Internet since I wrote last (which wasn't a day off itself), getting ready to head back to Europe tomorrow, so I'd better write something.
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In the air on the way to Montreal.

Not just because I'm 12 1/2 hours into this trip do I write that I'm a bit tired of traveling. Last week in Italy was, in the end, a bit much. It was a very strange tour, the second that I've done in Italy where the organizers assumed that because it's a beautiful country and full of excellent food, it could easily be part tour/part holiday. Read 2 days of rehearsal + 8 days away for less money than usual (and far less than when I first wrote this as the Euro plummets to be on par with the Franc and I haven't been paid yet). Hmm. I do like Italy, but I was in Basel so very little this month that I wasn't ready to leave this morning, neither psychologically, nor in moving and packing: I only managed to pack one suitcase, leaving plenty behind to sort out still, and an unplanned week ahead.

To assume that every musician on a tour might be happy to have traveling about playing concerts considered part holiday shows a basic lack of understanding for the life of a musician. Yes, tours can be "fun," but not of the theme-park variety. Music tour fun doesn't depend on seeing the sights, but rather it depends on having enough rest, preparation, and having enough time for yourself that the concerts - ultimately your main reason for being there - are fulfilling to be a part of. Good meals and fine company is excellent too, but much tourism beyond the culinary tends to be draining and counterproductive. While you can see from the pictures, I did get about, but in general the instrumentalists did less tourism time in than the others. Sleeping, catching up on email, and practising took up a large part of our time off - some in the choir couldn't understand why we didn't want to explore more. Having been to Italy already in mid-May and Barcelona, Paris, Heidelberg and a few random other places besides since, hiding away in my hotel room was most of the time all I was up for. When the conductor announced that we'd leave earlier on a travel day to have more time in San Gemigniano and Siena, a few of us explained that this was a concern because we would be left with no practice time. "But why do you need to practise - we've done the concert twice already?" he said. Hmmm...how do I begin to explain? But we dropped Siena from the itinerary so it was ok - I spent the evening alone though, my music suffers if I don't have any time for myself. In the end it suffered anyway - we over-rehearsed in each sound check and didn't get any break to get off our feet before each concert except one (by far the best one!), and on the third hour of standing I was tired.

These errors on the part of the organization stemmed from a lack of understanding, not of a lack of respect, so in that sense they were forgivable. But when they organized for me a wake up call at 7:30 one morning, apparently to make sure that I would be on the bus by 8:45, that changed everything. Thinking it was up to me to decide whether a shower and breakfast were more important than sleep or not, I'd set my alarm for 8:00, so you can imagine how patronized I felt that someone else decided I needed an extra half hour. So I'm afraid I have to rank this tour fairly low on the list.

Here's a few pictures though before moving to the Canada bit:

Olive trees on a Tuscan Hillside

Mary breastfeeding in public

Assisi, home to St. Francis and Bovicelli

Castle on a hill, Assisi

Amazing wood inlay, Assisi

Basilica of St. Francis, Assisi

Ditto

St. Ignazio in Rome

Roman Skyline

A wee bit of tourism

FAIL. (Click to Enlarge)

The real thing.

Parthenon in Rome.

St. Peter's

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Now onto Canada. The flight was genius because I managed to nap in Heathrow - a real first - and then upon landing I was greeted by my mom with a rental car and a tin of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies from my sister Alexis - thanks both! We went off to Longueuil for a good night's sleep and some of Peter's lovely homebrew before tackling my new and very bare apartment in the morning.

The first day we managed to achieve a fridge - it's enormous as many Canadian fridges are. Canadian home economics is built upon buying large amounts of things all at once and storing them until you do another big shopping trip (bread and vegetables are exceptions). The difference in price between 1kg and 10kg of flour, for instance, is often 1:3 or so, so a lot of storage area makes food shopping a lot cheaper, at least where cupboards and fridges are concerned. So while my fridge is embarrassingly large (though very efficient), it's vast freezer especially will save me lots of dosh.

That evening, quite jet-lagged and daunted by the stresses of the week coming, I didn't have the energy to go out and find an Internet café to find more furniture on the classified ads. Then my mom noticed a little black box with flashing green lights in the front room. The landlord hadn't unplugged the Internet yet! The week was going to be quite a bit easier after all.

Over the rest of the week, I managed to get a used but lovely dining set, pots and pans (thanks mom), dishes, cutlery, a chair, and a very large bed that will make me feel like a royal every night. I had a moment with the dishes, where coming home to eat soup out of a very large new navy and brown bowl I looked into it's deep chasm and felt like I'd made a devastatingly wrong choice. This bowl was far too serious for me. It was not who I am, nor who I wish to become. So mom and I went back and now I have a very jolly green set of dishes.

To end this very stressful week of settling in, I signed up for a kayak rolling course on the Saturday - I know it sounds like more stress but I thought the activity would at least distract me from the intensity of moving across the ocean. But I showed up tired, stressed and stiff as a board, and my body categorically refused to learn anything despite the fact that it was almost a private lesson. Head falling back into the water again and again, I was mortified. I knew what I was doing wrong but my body wouldn't obey: I couldn't move the paddle without pressure, and I couldn't keep my head down. Oh dear. I left in utter dismay and hoped that my brain would digest something of the day. After a few hours at home I went to the Jacques-Cartier bridge and watched the last presentation of the Montreal International Fireworks competition - one of many reasons why Montreal is a cool place to be in summer.

Last week I went with my mom and my younger sister's family to the gorgeous Bruce Peninsula, which separates the Georgian Bay from Lake Huron. Three days after my catastrophic lesson, we rented a pair of kayaks, including this gorgeous, sexy Zephyr 155. After heading out to the beach of Cyprus Lake, I put on goggles and a nose plug (yes, I'm a bit of a wuss when it come to water up my nose) and prepared to practise my roll. I let go of expectation, and got ready to just try to get used to being upside-down underwater, completely ready to let myself fall out and swim to shore. Once I got my bearings underwater, I took a deep breath (kidding), and tried to put my paddle, head and hips in the right place. Seconds later I was sitting above the water again, shocked. And delighted. I tried again, and again I was sitting on top of the water. After about 30 or 40 tries, trying to refine my technique each time, I finally started to be confident that I, too could roll a kayak. I am quite sure that that particular (gorgeous, sexy, sleek, fast) kayak was among the easier ones to roll; I'll give another try when I rent my next one and see how it turns out.

The kayaks weren't always used for extreme sport though: at sunset, my sister and I paddled through the lily-clad narrows joining two lakes, observing a turtle and a deer, and even little Liam had a go (in ankle-deep water and towed by daddy of course!)

Liam getting his first taste of Kayak, age 1

Though my hangups about rolling made me obsessive about getting into kayaks, swimming in the clear water of the Georgian bay will stick as clearly in my mind as riding the rolling waves on top of it.

After the Bruce peninsula I took the Greyhound to Toronto, where I was picked up by my older sister and whisked off to Peller Estates Wineries on the Niagara Peninsula, where she's got unlimited tastings - yum. A bit lightheaded - the Pinot Noir and Gamay were quite nice - we headed off for a whirlwind tour of the Niagara Falls which I'd still never seen - they're very cool indeed.

Now I'm getting ready to head back to Basel, tomorrow already - Basel still feels like home but I'm starting to yearn for my apartment in Montreal too, with it's lovely dinner table, green dishes, back yard full of ripe berries and ridiculously large Queen bed. All very good indeed.

2011-07-16T17:01:00.000+02:00

My fantasy of taking the ferry from Barcelona to Rome didn't work out as rehearsals for the concert I'm here to play took place in Switzerland. I did, however, have an ultra-diva moment a month ago and buy myself a plane ticket to come down to Rome today. I got out of bed the same time as the bus left from near Zurich, and got a text when I landed that with summer Saturday tourist traffic they'd just barely made it to the Italian border. Gosh. I was feeling rather smug about this yesterday, but now, tucked into a Pizzeria near Vatican city, awaiting my pizza with anchovies and zucchini flowers and enjoying an intermittent stray wifi signal, I have to say I feel a bit guilty too. For the record though, I am completely and utterly knackered, and I'm sure I would be miserable and ill on the bus.

I moved out of my flat in Basel this week - a relatively major operation made much lighter by moving only into my practise room downstairs for the time being. Many thanks to Dorothea for showing up at my door and demanding to help once the kids were at daycare, and to Tobie and Gaby for helping me get the dust out once my stuff had been adequately scattered through other rooms of the building. All work was made lighter by the Bombay Sapphire being very reasonably priced in the Barcelona duty-free and Tonic water having become more readily available in Basel over the years.

I've got some time (though less than I think ) over the rest of the summer to sort out my stuff and some proper down time coming up to help prepare mentally for starting my Ph.D.

Barcelona was an excellent way to prepare. I don't think I'll ever get over finding academic conferences slightly depressing, but I think at least that I wasn't the only one. I think it's quite a lot more about finding the people who are interested in similar things as you and getting to know them a bit - something conference organisers seem to have parsed as social opportunities were given just as much emphasis as the papers themselves. I had a good first experience giving a paper. I didn't feel like a fraud, which is saying more than it seems to. I also didn't feel like I gave something special to the world, but I got into some good conversations afterwards, and that's something too.

Lovely Conference Venue:

The Institut d’Estudis Catalans

I played hooky on Thursday and went to the beach instead of hearing any papers - something I don't regret except that in putting on sunscreen I went light on my shoulders with the hope of getting rid of my farmer's tan. I did, but got quite burned in the process; not having witnessed strong sunshine all last summer in the UK I'd quite forgotten how extreme a midday sun can be.

On Friday the conference left some time in the afternoon, so a small posse headed to Park Guell, designed by the famous architect Antonio Gaudi. It's all on top of a hill, and the entrance from the metro gives a stunning view of the city and the sea.

Barcelona!

The restaurant has now closed so I've relocated. I'm not in Rome anymore, but taking shade under one of the pillars at the entrance to Vatican City. When I was here when I was fifteen, Barbara Clark remarked on how it was an independant state, a city within a city. Like Vanier, she said.

Ignoring for the moment the tower of St. Peter's behind me (I get to sing with the choir in the Vespers service tomorrow and will get my fill then), the Gaudi architecture in the park was well worth the walk in the heat. The buildings, with their rounded corners, have something anthroposophic about them, but the fact that they've all been, well, iced, makes me think that Gaudi might have taken himself a bit less seriously than the folk in Arlesheim. Could be wrong though.

On Saturday I went with Julie, Peter and Lori around a little cloister and then to the market, but here pictures are far better than anything I could write.

Not quite ready to tackle moving yet, I fled to Bern on Sunday, where Tobie and Alison and I explored the Paul Klee museum. I was impressed greatly at the amount of intention in all of his works, whether light-hearted or serious. Every line and every colour seemed to have a purpose, and the amount of care that exuded from each painting gave me the feeling that I, the audience, was important somehow.

The Paul Klee museum also has areas where children can go and paint. We were jealous. But then feelings of envy melted away when I spotted a very orange wall and realized I had my very orange raincoat with me:

Orange.

Having exhausted our brains, it was time to jump in the Aare. Much closer to it's glacier source, it's colder and cleaner than the Rhine, and also quite a bit faster. We could hear the ringing of pebbles being carried along the bottom as we were carried along. Alison thought it looked quite lazy, but staying above water in such a force, not to mention moving to the middle of the stream and back, made it not insignificant exercise. When the weir was approaching we got out and as Tobie was still content to sunbathe a bit, did it again.

Later, ice cream with walnuts and maple syrup accompanied this view:

Besides moving house, I've been in rehearsal this week for this tour in Italy - a programme of Mexican/South American Baroque music. I'm sorry to report that my goal to make it to 10 years of professional sackbut playing without dong a concert involving a rainstick has turned to ashes. But it's a lot of fun, both the funky 17c dance pieces and the sacred polyphony of Zipoli - some excellent fugues in there. Sometimes on days that I don't play, I wonder if I really can play the trombone, and I had the pleasant experience of realizing that I could once these quick and notey pieces were put in front of me to read at full tempo. I had a great time. I didn't feel like a fraud.

If I don't manage to come back for all their projects, then I'll miss playing with the I Fedeli crowd a lot, really a lot. Playing the sixth verse of a processional hymn, I thought it would be grand if my part, the alto line, were played up the octave as a discant. But it would have been too high for me, so I jumped the the soprano part and within a measure of having his part doubled, Josué got the message and did exactly what I'd been thinking.

The breeze coming through the pillars here is lovely, but I think it's time to head to the hotel and see if I can't crash out a bit and/or do some admin I've not been able to get to amidst running around all week. While it seems a pity to hide out inside on such a lovely day in such an amazing city, that's just how it is. I feel very lucky that music brings me around the world, but then there's always a lot of catching up to do when I get home, so that means working at my computer or recovering lost sleep in exotic places. And anyway, there aren't many Italians about, they're still having their Siesta. When in Rome....

2011-07-08T22:31:00.000+02:00

Posting this a bit late as I've been in a relatively Internet-free zone here in Barcelona. Pictures and a bit about my time here at MedRen will follow!
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July 4th, 2011

On the plane to Barcelona - it'll be my first time in Spain, and I'm quite excited. I packed ridiculously, with utter delight throwing far too many dresses and shoes into my biggest suitcase, which is normally reserved for transatlantic flights but in this case is coming with me because I've decided also to bring my printer. I'm giving a practice talk tonight and there will be comments, changes, and probably changes to my handout too, and it's much easier I think to bring my printer along and print everything I need than to stress about finding a shop that will print something out. At least, I thought it was genius but after having lugged it all over Basel airport I will admit to a few second thoughts... why can't they have a few wheely carts for hand-luggage?

I know it's been a while, but I've not got that much news. I've been chained to my computer writing this paper, confronted by the paradox that if I can conceive of the time even broken-down individual tasks take to complete, it's too daunting to start and I wind up staring at the wall. It's well-stared. So I convince myself a certain task will only take 2 hours and another 4 and by the end of the day I have to send apologetic emails to my proofreaders that not even the first task has been completed yet, sorry. Then I'm always running late, but a little bit saner. It appears to be a recognized strategy in the field of musicology at least; I can't tell you how many book acknowledgements I've read which have stated "If I'd known how long this was going to take I wouldn't have started" and then thanking/apologizing to their partners and children. I'm on a an acknowledgements page moratorium 'til I'm finished my Ph.D. dissertation. Which, by the way, I expect to only take me 18 months.

My only other news is that I've been swimming in the Rhine - yey! It's really the best view of Basel that a person can get.

Other people have news though, and I must say I'm quite bemused by the Royal Visit to Canada. I think I've basically worked out what I think about the whole thing. On the one hand, Kate and William seem like nice enough people, and I like the fact that the latter has a proper job flying rescue helicopters - that's cool. They've got a high-pressure gig, and they're doing pretty well at being cheerful and about treating the people around them as individuals - the epitome of politeness.

I also agree with some of the protests going on in Montreal and in Quebec city. I think it was kitch of them to gather right outside and disturb the peace at a cancer-ward of a hospital - it almost looked like they were protesting the royal couple bringing a bit of joy and support into a bleak place, but they could have help up a few signs outside the hotel or something to show that a few of us question whether the monarchy is the right thing for Canada. Nothing against them personally, I'm sure they're all lovely, and nothing against Great Britain either. I just don't quite think it's necessary for them to be our head of state anymore. No more vows of allegiance, 'til death do us part. No. Let's just be friends.

There are two comments on the CBC website which don't make sense, one pro- and one anti-monarchy. The first says we should embrace the Queen as our head of state because it makes us not American. But we will only ever be second class subject. Even though it clearly says on my passport "in the name of Her Majesty the Queen... allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hinderance." Except if I want to enter the UK of course. To enter last summer I had to pay them $250 let, and with the extra hinderance of going to Zurich to get myself biometrically documented. And for what? To play my trombone. The procedure would have been the same for a single concert, and now even to come as a tourist, they harass me more than any other country. Not even to enter the U.S.A. did I need to get fingerprinted - we're neighbours after all, and we haven't (and won't) swear allegiance to them.

A little note to the people of Britain though - thank you for telling the government to sod off on my behalf for giving me all this trouble to come and play a concert. The American people haven't done that. You guys are cool. Let's be friends.

(Oh dear, here comes breakfast. A madeleine. Since when was that breakfast? The young children across the aisle are going to have a suger high soon, and then a crash. How about a whole-wheat roll and a bit of butter or jam? Would that be too hard?)

I also wish to know who owns "crown land," which makes up 89% of Canada. All I could find by the website is that it's managed by the ministers of various natural resources, but I couldn't find anything that made me sure the Queen didn't actually own it. She owns the entire coastline of Britain for instance, so why not?

The anti-royal visit remarks on the comments section of the CBC astound me too - they say that the few million dollars for the royal visit shouldn't be paid by Canadian taxpayers. Of course it should. They're not having a honeymoon, they're working, it's a gig and not a very easy one - I don't think I could be excruciatingly pleasant and enthusiastic to everyone for nine days in a row, could you? No, from my perspective Canada's hired these two to bolster our tourist industry, and the 50 cents that a Canadian taxpayer is putting toward transportation, accommodation, security etc. will be repaid many, many times over by people bringing money from other countries and pouring it into Canada's businesses, restaurants, hotels, public transit systems, and of course the maple syrup industry. This money comes in and gets passed about. It's an excellent investment. Just like international a thriving cultural scene is ...oh never mind. Preaching to the converted here I'm afraid.

So, in summary: Yes to welcoming foreign guests, yes to paying their expenses in exchange for their flaunting their celebrity faces to promote our tourist industry, yes to enjoying the historical link between Britain and Canada (unless you're a French Canadian) - you can even keep Rideau Hall if you like, but no to being our head of state unless you're going to welcome us into your country the way we welcome you into ours.

And to my U.S. friends, by the way, Happy Independence Day!

2011-06-21T14:00:00.004+02:00

I left off observing a snail at the top of the Heilige Berg in Heidelberg I believe. Here's another one in the garden where I was staying.

The concert in Heidelberg went well, but entering on the cantus firmus of Josquin's Miserere Mei was risky and sounded it too: an unaccompanied choir's pitch naturally moves around and by the time I came in, they'd all gone a bit flat. I followed as best I could, but the moment of entering and correcting was audible and awkward. When we did it a few days later in Paris for the radio, the choir decided it was safer to leave the trombone out altogether. So Tina and I played our Dufay first thing in the soundcheck and then headed off to Versailles for the rest of the day, as you do, thus foiling my current efforts to transform this blog back from being a travel diary into a discussion of music and performance. More on music later, I promise.

A brief view from the RER

La Grande Écurie, where the sackbuttists worked

The Golden Gates of the Palace at Versailles

The Chapel where Couperin Worked

Is that a macaroon or a meringue?
(No, no, it's definitely a macaroon.)

Down by the Silly Gardens...

Let's geek out now for just a minute and talk formants. The brief soundcheck in Paris also involved the very strange experience of playing trombone with singers all around me banging tuning forks and looking at me oddly. A bit rude, if I may say. I was using a mouthpiece that emphases high overtones in order to blend better with the trumpet Tina was playing - so it had more of an "ee" vowel sound than the usual trombone "oo" sound, and because of this, to them I sounded sharp. After showing them on my electric tuner that I was in fact in tune, I changed back to a normal trombone mouthpiece and they were satisfied. Interestingly my last singing lesson also focused on distinguishing clear vowel sounds at all pitches - acoustically the same question of changing the overtones for the same fundamental. Lots of work to do there.

In Paris, by chance our hotel and the concert hall were in or barely outside the 19e arrondissement, where Claire now lives. After settling into the hotel a bit, Tina and I wandered over to Claire's for some magnificent pork in whisky cream sauce - yum!

The morning after the concert, I caught the 6 am Thalys to Cologne and then the very fast train to Frankfurt, where I was picked up and driven to Lauterbach for a noon rehearsal. Oof. Luckily the cheapest seats on the Thalys were in first class - I can recommend it! Free breakfast and pretty reliable wifi the whole way - I was surprisingly rested and in form by the time we had to rehearse.

The project in Langenthal with Arpa Festante - Handel's "Saul" - was a good one indeed. Nate and I were put up privately with some lovely people from the choir, which involved having all of the conversations mentioned in my last post, but also eating very well (though they did feed us sprouts just two days after they'd discovered sprouts were the source of E. Coli!) and going on a bike ride in the countryside. Parts of their little village of Frischborn was quite untouched:

Old Wilting House in Frischborn

And the Don Quixote medal

for embracing wind power goes to Hesse

The Lauterbach

I like to work with Arpa Festante a lot because I find it tends to be made up of team players. This was quite true of the trombone section. Not only had we all come from playing at a different pitch and tuning system, but getting out of the car and straight into rehearsal gave us no time to make sure we were on the same page tuning-wise. After rehearsing the trombone bits with the orchestra and having a coffee, we found a room in the church hall next door and had a tuning sectional. We all consciously checked our egos at the door and, neither walking on eggshells nor giving a trace of doubt as to the musical ability of our peers, we determined chord by chord who had to move in which direction to get things in tune. It paid off and I think we all enjoyed the concert much more for it.

Rehearsal in Lauterbach, during one of many trombone tacets

I've been busy since I came back too - though the sparseness of my posts has as much to do with reoccuring pains in my wrists as general rushing around. I had one quite uncomfortable concert on Saturday, playing only fairly high and very low parts, all in awkward keys. The conductor emailed us all to make sure that we'd printed out the 40 pages of score she'd sent us and would have it cut, paste and taped it into parts before the first rehearsal - about 3 hours' work to do it properly and a fair expense of paper and ink. Having myself at one point put in over 100 hours editing music and making parts for a project that I was in charge of in order that no musician would have be forced to volunteer their time for secretarial work, I was a bit taken aback that there were no pleases or thankyous involved in telling us we had to make our own editions. Finally I convinced myself that 50 francs of the fee was in fact for this hassle and expense, as the rest was still not a bad concert fee in the end. This past Easter though, I met a conductor in Basel to get some notes to play from and when he tried to hand me a full score I simply refused to take it, saying I couldn't make the page turns while playing and really didn't have time between now and then to re-photocopy the whole mass onto single-sided paper and cut and paste it into parts - which was absolutely true. I explained him what needed to be done and he had parts ready for us by the rehearsal. In other instances when I have had the time, I've been happy to help out with making editions, but usually only if asked nicely by someone who knows just how much of a faff it can be.

After this concert on Saturday, I returned home where Alex had prepared a feast in my honour - it's one of the last days we're all in Basel before I leave my flat. After home-made paté on spelt rolls, cold pea and mint soup, came perfectly roasted duck breasts, new potatoes and carrots. Two home-made ice creams, gooseberry and strawberry-elderflower were served with home-made cookies for dessert and it was all fantastic.

The next day, the whole Potter family and I we headed out to the Bielersee to rent a canoe and a kayak and go paddling. The clouds were ok but the wind gusted right through the valley, and after building up over 14 km of like the waves were steep and around 4 feet high, some of them cresting. I went out a few times in it in my kayak (the water was far warmer than in the ocean last July after all) and alternated fighting and riding the waves, but it was far too dangerous for the kids in a canoe so with them we stuck to the quaint canal running through Biel instead, observing all manner of duck. A good time was had by all. Now the rest of the week involves playing another two concerts, organizing moving when I can, and getting my talk ready for Barcelona - lots of reading still to do. Thank goodness it's the longest days of the year!

2011-06-07T14:23:00.007+02:00

Again, if you're looking for the memorial post about Bruce Haynes, please click on May to the right of this post. Thanks.
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This past weekend's Mozart Requiems both went fairly well. I'm finally buying my own classical tenor trombone and the Tuba Mirum solo is a challenging way to get used to a brand new instrument. Specifically, the slide wasn't broken in yet, and while sometimes it was just fine, other times it was reluctant to slide without undue pushing and pulling. I brought it back to the shop for some TLC after the conductor stopped twice and told me to play more flowingly in the first rehearsal - though admittedly this is also because he wanted to take the solo a bit faster than I did.

On Saturday I had the solo in the back of my mind and heebeejeebees about it all day. Mozart put it in a kind place, though: the trombones are playing constantly and don't get a moment to stop and think from the beginning of the Introit until the fateful first notes of the Tuba Mirum, where we're all quite warmed up (if a bit tired). Playing on a new instrument with no spit-valve, getting the outer slide back on with my shaky hands after emptying the water out already gave me a feeling of triumph going into the solo, and it went well.

The second day I hadn't slept well at all and didn't have the energy for the same adrenaline-fueled brand of heebeejeebees, but tiredness dulls my resistance to negative self-talk, so that was the challenge instead. I dismissed some bits of it as amusing and other bits as just irrelevant, especially when I had the thought that I didn't deserve to nail the solo - not useful, thanks. When the solo came around, I was far more nervous than on Saturday though and decided just to focus on playing musically - always a good solution - but of course I forgot to follow the conductor's faster tempo - oops. He wound up having to follow me a bit more instead. Not a big problem, actually, and I enjoyed my appoggiaturas more. Interestingly enough, more than one person told me they liked it better this second night.

Here's our section after some BRS at Schmale Wurf (which we finally found out means "Runt of the Litter"):

Keal, Claire, Catherine

Now I'm in Heidelberg, playing Josquin and Dufay on a programme with Klangforum, who specialize in contemporary music and I'm quite looking forward to hearing the rest of the programme. The last time I willingly listened to Xenakis was almost ten years ago on the day of 9-11, when it seemed to fit the events of the day better than something melodious.

I was a bit dismayed to hear that we were being put up privately and not in a hotel. Sometimes it's quite lovely to get to know the locals but sometimes I'm just not in the mood to give an explanation of historical trombones and especially not of the economics of being a freelance musician, in German, over supper. So I was delighted that this "privat Unterkunft" is actually its own little studio flat. It has a little kitchen, which is great not just because it saves money, but because my efforts yesterday in a restaurant not to eat any raw produce was thwarted by chopped chives all over my risotto. Normally chives are a good thing, yes, but we're only a few hours from the e. coli epicentre. Frozen spinach for me this time 'round, please. The other nice thing about this flat is it's up on the mountain by the castle; this is the view from the table where I'm writing:

Yesterday's rehearsal was very interesting indeed. In both pieces the conductor wants us to play quite quietly and disappear into the voices, which a simplistic part of me finds odd given how much we cost. The Dufay, from 1431, is a military piece, and he wants us to play very gently and wholesomely. So we do, but I'm making a mental note to programme it for a concert sometime so that I can get my fill of playing it loud. But the most interesting part of yesterday's rehearsal was the tuning. There's not much to play, only a few notes which repeat themselves, but the conductor was quite adamant that the tuning of the Ab I played was "wrong". I think a few years ago I would have been quite self-concious about this, but in this case I found myself fascinated that a modern musician doesn't see the tuning of an Ab as a subjective thing. At first I'd played basically a mean-tone Ab (a bit early for it yes, but he wanted pure thirds). No, too high. Well, having transposed the piece it is actually a written Bb, so I played it a bit lower. Still too high. Well, he wants pure fifths too, so I played a pythagorean Ab. Too low now, he said, and banged out an Ab on the electric keyboard in front of him. Oh, THAT Ab! Now why didn't you just say? He wasn't unpleasant about it though.

Before today's rehearsal Tina and I spent half an hour installing equally-tempered notes onto our instruments. We were unaccosted after this; the rehearsal was spent singing and playing the whole piece quite slowly so that the sopranos could write in which notes to sing more or less equally-tempered, which to lower by 14 cents (for pure major thirds) and which to raise by 16 cents (for pure minor thirds). Because that's how you have to do it when the basses are in equal temperament.

Orchestras do this, and it becomes necessary when you want enharmonic equivalency (i.e. where Ab and G# are the same pitch, which starts end of the 17th-century but doesn't really get going 'til Mozart or so). But for Dufay I would have either played pythagorean and accepted dissonant thirds, or if I wanted to be completely in tune, then mean-tone with corrected fifths and minor thirds - but you never have to correct 14 or 16 cents, only 5.5 max. I need to write a pamphlet about this, I think.

My walk on the Philosophen Weg and right up to the top of the Heiligenberg yesterday resulted in much pondering and also sore feet. More about the pondering later. In the meantime, it was awfully pretty:

Heidelberg from above

Monastery ruins

Post-Rain Joie de Vivre

2011-06-04T20:21:00.002+02:00

Lots of catching up to do.

I left off writing a few weeks ago in the middle of the visit of my Dad and Jane. Shortly after my last post, it was Mother's Day, Dad and I, all the moms in the building (Dorothea, Alex's mum Steph, and Jane), along with little Rebecca and Sophia, headed into depths of the Black Forest, to the Belchen, which is the second-highest mountain but with the most spectacular views. I'd been there with my mom once a few years before and while we could see out in one direction, the other was a great swathe of mysterious cloud. Time to go back.

The public transit system is phenomenal: we rode the train to the end of the line in Zell, then after 7 minutes the bus to just off the beaten track, then after 11 minutes another bus right to the cable-car station and a cable car to the restaurant near the top for Mother's day lunch. This time the walk around and up onto the summit was crystal clear.

Cable Car Ride to the Top

The Black Forest

Jane, Black Forest and France in the distance

The next day we headed to a mountain not actually very much higher, but stunningly spectacular as it's bordered by the Lake of Lucerne and the Alps. In fact, the Rigi was known for its spectacular views in the 19th century, enough that when Queen Victoria came to visit Switzerland, she was carried up on a chair by four burly men. Again, this visit was prompted by a failed earlier one, when I took Dad to see the Alps with a day trip to Luzern in 2005 and the fog was so think we couldn't see a thing. We were luckier this time.

The Rigi also the site of Europe's first cog-rail, which until last year wasn't covered by a Swiss day card, but as it was now we took our day cards and took the train to Luzern, the boat to Vitznau, the cog all the way up the Rigi.

Our Ferry's Sister Ship

Olde-Timer Cog Rail

Dad and Me atop the Rigi

Alpine Flowers and Peaks

Lake Luzern and Pilatus

Typical Swiss

Journey Back

After a wander around the city walls of Luzern we headed back home exhausted.

After a few necessary days off, on Thursday we all hopped on the train and headed to Venice. After a spectacular trip through the Alps we wound up in Milan, where we ate proper pizza and headed into town with a few hours to spare. I've been to Milan a few times for work but have seen relatively little of it. We looked at a bit of the map with some green, and thinking that sitting in a park could be quite nice, headed there on the subway. When we emerged, there was not just a park but the whole Castle Sforzesco lay before us.

Dad and Jane stunned at interior courtyard

After exploring the castle, we took a short walk past some very temping gelato stands and pompous 19th-century architecture to the cathedral of Milan. The last time I was there they were cleaning it, and it was impressive to see it in its glimmering whiteness. The space inside, with its incredible and the incredible masses of stone, was awe-inspiring indeed.

Cathedral of Milan

FInally after walking past a proper park with statues, grottos, fountains, and a cute brown rat, we headed of to the Most Serene Republic.

The Cute Brown Rat

From the front door of our alberghio some locals had stuck a poster outside their window reminding the rest of us of the pace of life on that pedestrian island.

(Click to Enlarge)

The view out the back window was also a good reminder of why it's called the Most Serene Republic:

We left our bags and headed off to find supper, and my love of seafood kicked in instantly: squid cooked in it's own ink for me, please!

The next day was mostly wandering around: a most excellent activity in Venice even if one does feel like a rat in a maze at times (good times to sit in a Piazza with a macchiatone or a gelato instead, I say). Fortunately there are lots of signs to the Rialto bridge and to San Marco - the only question is which one to follow?

Our first stop was Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, a magnificent medieval church and the burial place of Claudio Monteverdi. I found myself, looking down at his rose-strewn grave, getting unexpectedly emotional. Dear old Monteverdi! Without him, where would I be? I probably wouldn't be a professional sackbut player (would such a job even exist?), and surely wouldn't have met many of the wonderful friends I have now through playing the music of Monteverdi and the people surrounding him. Gosh.

Continuing our musical pilgrimage, we visited the Accademia del San Rocco, where Giovanni Gabrieli played the organ when he wasn't over at San Marco.

We finally started following the signs to the major tourist attractions now:

After a delicious lunch of Cicchetti - little nibbly things - we headed of to San Marco. It won't ever be ho-hum to visit San Marco, it's impossible not to get excited imagining the people who went to work there every day, and the sounds it was filled with for the first time. It's also incredibly sobering to hear what they're up to now though, since the second Vatican council. A friend of mine visited San Marco and the chapel choir was singing Kumbaya. Ow. They were singing that in Milan Cathedral the day before so I quite believe it. I didn't want to take any pictures of San Marco then - there were far too many people - but here's one of the palace balcony next door. Did trombonists ever get to play from there?

Having had enough of enclosed spaces, we took a walk by the Adriatic in the direction of the Giardini Publicci, where the tourist population thinned out refreshingly. To head back, we bought a vaporetto ticket and rode it from end to end on the Gran Canal - an excellent view of the city.

Increasing Residentiality far from Piazza San Marco

Waiting for the Bus?

A Gondoliera

We didn't want to head back into the maze so I went to the nearest - well-camouflaged - supermarket and bought some prosciutto, melon, stuffed peppers, buffalo mozzarella, a hard cheese, some bread, and some salad and some seafood salad and we feasted in the breakfast room instead.

The next morning I woke up early in order to see Venice without the tourists and to take a good picture of San Marco. It was a completely new vibe: in stark juxtaposition to the confused, map-obscured vibe of day, everyone out in the streets and on the canals was a) on their way somewhere and b) knew how to get there. I headed back to the Piazza San Marco, which except from a few people dotting it here and there, was empty, open, and grander than ever before, the domes of San Marco angelically backlit by the rising sun.

I kept wandering for a while, coming back through a district that you don't pass through just going to the Rialto and San Marco, and saw again another side of Venice. I also visited the grave of Giovanni Gabrieli, and paid my respects.

Giovanni Gabrieli's Grave

Rice? Very Jolly anyhow...

Entrance to the Gran Canal

Walking your dog alla Veneziana

After picking up Dad and Jane from the hotel, we had a low-octane wander, passing by the music museum before heading to the train station via a flea market - something I absolutely didn't expect to find in Venice. Dad got a lovely leather bag and Jane got an old, brass wind-up travel alarm clock - the perfect thing since her new plastic one had died. We also passed an unusual vegetable market:

The train ride back was more atmospheric than spectacular as the Alps were shrouded in mist and clouds.

Our last few days in Basel we explored the botanical gardens, stopping by the mill museum and seasonally visiting just in time to catch the end of the Rhododendrons.

Wild Bee Hive

Non-wild bee hive, apartments no. 1-8 - apparently
the bees aren't completely illiterate!

There was less than a week between Dad & Jane's visit and heading off to Canada myself, a week earmarked for hyperproductivity: house-hunting, and the performance of a Mozart mass and vespers, for which I got to play the bass part. I do love playing basslines - from there it's possible to drive the dynamics and phrasing of the whole section in a way that seems much less pushy as when done from the top. Also that week Helen and I headed out after the rain and got some (very clean) Elderflowers from which we made cordial.

My week in Montreal feels utterly surreal now. I managed to sign a lease just two days after I landed, giving me a bit more time to be social, but most of the time I just spent wandering about the Plateau or the Jean-Talon market pondering the impending move back. It's still just as terrifying as it is exciting, but so many things are I suppose.

Though I'd booked the flight to go househunting, in my mind the trip was more and more about weighing up past and future, and of course Bruce was always in my thoughts. I was grateful indeed, while I was there, for having people around who knew him. I optimistically stopped by his house on Friday morning to say hello to Susie, but she was off in France, until Wednesday I was told. I was leaving on Tuesday. Hum.

The morning of my flight I was out of sorts, so much so that after a failed attempt to put the cat outside, during which it bolted through the house with it's leash on and got quite scared at getting it caught and being pulled to a halt, I left the door to the balcony open briefly. Did the cat leave? I couldn't find it, or hear it, anywhere in the basement where it had been the minute before so I assumed the worse and spent the morning looking for it. It's not an outside cat, yet. Finally I decided I had to pack, and upon putting my bags in the basement, heard his bell in the corner - whew.

When it was time to leave the airport bus dropped us off at arrivals. I was deliberating whether to go up to departures and check in right away, or take advantage of free bench space and free wifi and make a phone call to Germany which was rather urgent given the time difference. The bus had been stuck in traffic and was late anyway. But I sat down to make the call. In the middle of it, who should walk by fresh off a plane from France but... Susie.

After an awkward minute of "danke, ja bis dann, ja kein problem, ich freue mich auch - TSCHUUSSSSS" as I wound up what felt like the least significant conversation I've ever had, I felt like the luckiest person in the world to be able to stand and talk to Susie then and there, to hear some more stories about Bruce's time in hospital, and about some of the projects to be completed in his memory (see Brandenburgs 7-12 here).

I landed in Basel Wednesday and had a brief nap before heading to a Mozart Requiem rehearsal - Barmy, yes, but I wanted as much time as possible in Montreal. And why should I have come back a day early for a rehearsal where I was forced to write "No Text" about the Dies Irae, really? In the end, we are following the choir's text accents, just playing louder, which seems to be what the conductor wanted anyway.

Now I've got the heebeejeebees about playing Tuba Mirum again tonight - I suppose if I ever have to play tenor on a Mozart Requiem and I don't get them, I'll know it's time to retire.

2011-05-30T23:31:00.001+02:00

This post is in memory of Bruce Haynes, a friend and mentor who died on May 17th here in Montreal.

I wrote most of this a week ago, but decided to wait until I was in Montreal again before posting it. Part of me wanted to communicate right away, and part of me felt that I should, but I was reminded of old emails apologizing to Bruce for tardiness in getting back to him with my side of various conversations about music, and I treasure a reply from him saying it's ok: "I've made damn sure I
won't myself feel hurried in writing this..."

So I've taken my time, and in a way the act of taking extra time and care seems like a better tribute than the writing of any clunky words that I could come up with. Since a first attempt at writing, a page has been created on Facebook where people have posted all sorts of lovely remembrances, showing facets of Bruce which are delightfully new to me. He had almost completely stopped playing the oboe by the time I started to get to know him, so to hear of stories of him as a performer is dear indeed. It's good to know that my desire to set down my own stories isn't an isolated thing, but fits into a kind of community of people from all over the world who are eager to remember.

I recently re-read an email that I wrote in 2008, describing sitting in Susie and Bruce's kitchen. I think it's safe to say that it's my favourite room in the world. It's beautiful for one, with a great wooden counter, shelves covered with motley teacups, and a pinboard full of family photos (is it made of wine corks?). As if to nourish the creativity and the exchange of ideas that it has always hosted, there always seems to be a freshly baked creation of Susie's to munch on. In fact, the first time I went to visit during my trip to Canada last autumn, I called from the rain after a rehearsal and Bruce and Susie picked up at the same time - as soon as I'd said hello, Susie put down the phone and there were tasty gingerbread creations just being pulled from the oven by the time Gawain and I arrived. This kitchen is a vortex for early music: festivals, concerts, recordings and books get planned, and many people meet there for the first time; others get to know each other. As I write, the memories of conversations with Bruce come back - authenticity in performance (Bruce introduced me to the ideas of Diderot on whether sincerity is required in acting), and disagreements about subtlety versus the exaggeration of gestures in recordings (there's a stereo under the shelf with the sugar to help us illustrate our points). One day during the germination of The End of Early Music, we disagreed about whether modern musicians should write in period style. We were both vehement and it lasted for seven delightful hours. We had to order a pizza and open a bottle of wine and no, even then we never quite agreed, but it was a delicious disagreement. Sometimes we also talked about non-musical things: Bruce showed me that one can judge a good potter by their ability to craft a spout that doesn't drip, for instance, and just last autumn we bemoaned together that someone had respectably cleaned the many dried and twisted strands of spaghetti off the walls of the kitchen where they had been thrown many times over the years to be tested for doneness - if it sticks, it's done.

My second favourite room in the world is probably Bruce's office. It's right above Susie's music room, where I heard Ste-Colombe performed for the first time, where we rehearsed much of Orfeo in 2007, where I evesdropped on David Greenberg, David McGuinness and others in the middle of creating the CD La Mer Jolie while I worked quietly in the corner in 2004. So as you can perhaps imagine, Bruce's office just above is a vast space - very warm, but vast enough that there's space to pace and move about, and room to step back a bit from even very complicated ideas. We talked about Vicentino last I was there, and about the affects of Bach Cantata movements. Bruce had gone through each cantata and assigned to each movement what he thought the affect was, refining his own list of affects in baroque music in the process. We talked about timing in music, too, and listened in fascination to a recording of romantic violinists playing Bach with no pause for breath whatsoever.

Last week I wrote a paragraph about how how Bruce, in the course of all these talks about music, communicated an open, welcoming and humble (or humbling) outlook: a willingness to take the time to listen to others, but also the discipline to take time to dedicate to his work despite everything going on around him (which was sometimes a lot), and an understanding of how crucial it was for himself to give his love of learning warm, vast and well-nurtured spaces to grow in. Being around all this changed me as a person and I very much hope that his memory will continue to do so. But while writing it is one thing, I cheeringly just realized this second that in the apartment for which I signed a lease here in Montreal on Thursday, the kitchen and the office are the biggest and most welcoming spaces.

Another thing about Bruce that I'll treasure is his passion for questions. I remember when I was 17 and my boyfriend was 19 and had gone off to college, he told me when he came back that he had grown up somewhat and found me much younger than he had before. I asked him how things change when you become a proper adult, and he replied that you ask fewer questions. Ah. Our relationship didn't last much longer after that, needless to say, but still, a part of me always wondered if actually I wasn't really growing up properly, since I was still always full of questions. In Bruce I suppose I found a kind of co-conspirator in refusing to give up this youthful trait, and yet as someone far more centered and settled than I was, he was also proof that actually a love of questions over answers (c.f. The End of Early Music) has nothing to do with how grownup you are. Nor does optimism for that matter. And so I was pleased when I learned the two stories of him that came back from the hospital: that the last words of his peaceful departure, surrounded by Susie and his children, were the half-sentence: "I am questioning...", and that and after his second open-heart surgery asked for a desk and a chair to be brought to his hospital so that he could keep going on his latest writing. Thanks, Susie, for this news.

I remember the last time I spoke with him, too. I had already visited him a couple of times when I was in Montreal last, but having to leave a viol for someone in a safe place, I arranged to leave it with Bruce so that I could drop by one more time. We had tea - and cakes of course - and talked for an hour or so, about music but also about life and the new directions mine would take with starting my Ph.D. I was wary that I had felt compelled to go that day, and not knowing when I would be back again, took care to say a proper goodbye when I left.

Yesterday I registered for MedRen 2011, where I'll present my first academic paper in a month's time. I admit that I've been dreading that perhaps a part of me that I don't much like will rise defensively to the surface when people start to ask me to come up with answers to their questions after my talk. This morning, in the midst remembering Bruce, I can't help but be reminded that I can choose whether this moment should feel like the test of my ignorance that I dreaded just last night or if it could be something else. I think in the same circumstance, just like when he was invited to talk about his book in Basel, Bruce would have looked forward to other people's questions more than to talking himself; he would have loved each opportunity to hear of ideas he hadn't thought up on his own and delighted in other people's perspectives. And of course that's the way it should be. Thank you, Bruce, for giving me the chance to get to know you enough to realize this. I look forward to the many such challenges his memory will put before me in the coming years. I'm going to miss him a lot.

2011-05-06T21:54:00.007+02:00

It's been a week of getting enough of Europe - an important step in getting ready to move back to Canada, I think. On Monday at the request of a friend giving a talk on Orlando di Lasso in Canada later this month, I hopped on a train and spent a night in Munich to take some pictures. I visited the Residenz and the Stadtsmuseum, imbibed at a beer garden, perused the Viktualenmarkt and otherwise "did Munich" as you might expect a tourist with a Eurail pass to "do". I was somewhat relieved at how much it felt like other German cities - maybe it really is time to go and see what Canada feels like again.

Up the tower of the Peterskirche,
looking at the New Town Hall

Strawberries and Asparagus are in season

I always used to assume that just because something was cobblestone, it must be very old indeed. My Dad is here visiting this week, and commented on the ancient cobblestone lining the streets of Basel. So I had to take a picture of the construction of this driveway in Munich:

Treading the line between amusing and depressing is this statue of Orlando di Lasso. At first I thought Lasso was more recognized and loved than I'd suspected, now I realize that, unfortunately for him, his bronze happened to be right across the street from the hotel where Michael Jackson stayed whilst in Munich...

Lasso recognized at last

Or not. Ahem.

Speaking of statues, this one is also slightly depressing - now I understand why one puts people on pedestals - she's easily reachable:

Another thing that's given me enough of Europe... After Canada elected a right-wing majority government with less than 40% of the vote, I saw some hope in that at least the UK seemed ready to consider electoral reform which would get rid of First Past the Post and make it impossible for an MP to be elected without at least 50% of people voting for them in some way. This they proposed to do by introducing something called the Alternative Vote (AV): a multiple round system of counting votes (but efficiently only one trip to the polls for voters) so that people's second choice is also considered if the party they voted for places third, fourth, fifth and so on. Opinions have been strong: this was one of the few times that I've seen Facebook used as a forum for intelligent political debate, but I was dismayed to see how many people voted no because they saw AV either as not the best possible system that could be proposed (not enough like proportional representation for some) or because they embraced the army of straw men deployed at them by the No campaigners. Unfortunately for the former especially, I think this referendum will be boiled down by politicians to mean Yes or No: "start the wheels of change or let them rust," and alas, rusting won. After all, the status quo is obviously to the advantage of all those MPs elected by the minority (or perhaps in half-accurate political lingo "the elite" - but the Yes side wasn't PR savvy enough to use that word, alas).

Speaking of PR, I've not linked to David McGuinness's blog in a while, but today I can highly recommend a visit to read up on why musicians should stand up to people who want them to play for less than a proper fee on the theory that it's good for PR.

And speaking of not playing for a proper fee, I finally got word from the gig I'd told off for paying too little that they've replaced me with someone who would play for less - very good of them to tell me themselves at last. Smugly, I've found out that the other gig I've accepted for the same period, with two days' work instead of five, pays only 50 francs less. So there.

There was a moment when I'd questioned the wisdom of talking myself out of a concert this month though, but then the phone rang and I was offered two days of teaching 10-12 year old boys at the Musik-Akademie. I found myself divided while teaching: on the one hand it seemed unfair to ask for musicality when the kids were just at the very beginning of getting around the instrument; on the other hand, music teaching which says that you shouldn't begin to think musically until you've mastered all the right notes in the right order is to blame for such boring grown-up musicians as I've run across in my time. So I made the kids explore different articulations, notions of rhythm and ideas of phrasing, and play a fair bit without notes to read in front of them and we all had a great time.

My Dad and Jane are here visiting this week and next - how lucky for us that our jaunt up to St. Chrishona happened to be right when the cows were out on the hillside feeding and when an alphorn player - quite a good one - was getting some practice in. When we wandered off into the forest it was his continued playing that led us back to the bus stop.

Today we headed off to the Tinguely Museum - he's known for his moving sculptures. Many of his, like this fountain, were very playful, while others had a morbid streak to them.

This is the setup of one of the orchestras for performances of Mauricio Kagel's "Two-Man-Orchestra" piece, setup in the lobby and being performed a few times a week:

I think I would have to be in a very patient mood to listen to two men explore all the sound possibilities of this setup (and the other similar one) over the course of 71 minutes. I'm sure it would be quite good for me.

2011-05-01T12:00:00.004+02:00

Happy May Day everyone!

I have big news: remember November's hair-tearing, neuron dampening, grant-writing saga? Well, a letter from the SSHRC arrived yesterday, a thin little envelope which aroused feelings of trepidation and pre-dismay. I opened it and....they've decided to award me a grant! It's a class B grant - so the pressure is off to mount a baroque opera with the windfall - but means that I don't have to worry about paying my rent for the next four years and that I can plan to take a proper vacations in the summers, both of which will give me many a sound night's sleep. Yipeee!

Previous to finding all this out, I've been a bit of a stressbag this week, so I've done two things to help: Unable to bear the idea of not knowing where I was going to live in Montreal, I got very impatient and bought a flight for the last week of May, where I hope I can find a place for July 1st. Then when I come back mid-summer I can do some nesting... I've also been doing what I ought to have started doing ages ago and have been getting some exercise. As it's mostly descriptions of cardiovascular jaunts which seem to be making it onto my blog, I wouldn't want you to get the idea that this is all I do: I've also put in hours at the Egger workshop this week, paid bills, canceled subscriptions for the move, written and read emails, tidied, cooked, found someone to take over my lease, booked travel for work, practised, and done some article/book/etc. reading for upcoming projects, both audio and academic. It's just that none of them have stories worth telling attached - or not yet anyway.

On Tuesday my neighbour, Alex, rounded up a few friends and we headed off to a Straussi - a restaurant serving only local produce which is only allowed to open during harvesting seasons. This time of year the menu is dedicated mainly to asparagus - something they take very seriously here. The asparagus in question is the posh, white stuff that you get from covering the shoots in soil the moment they show so that they never get the chance to turn green. More expensive and not as tasty, but enjoyable to consume anyway. A bike ride was required to get there and back:

Alex leading us through Lange Erlen

The Tüllinger hill - on which the restaurant sits

View from vinyards near the top

The Straussi

After a few days of admin, I couldn't bear the idea of sitting in front of my computer for the sunniest hours of the day again yesterday, so after meeting Alex to deliver a few forgotten items to his train (which was only stopping for 3 minutes in Basel), I loaded my bike onto another train and headed north into the Black Forest.

While the Black Forest does have thick patches of impenetrable woods, its rolling hills are also covered in meadows and farms. This time of year they're spectacularly covered with little yellow, white, pink and purple flowers. Soon the poppies will be out too...

It was without much hesitation that I only brought a 500 mL bottle of water with me - in my experience, it's quite difficult to get far enough away from civilization for lack of supplies to be a problem, and indeed just as I was on my last sip I ran across this:

The bike ride was not as long as I'd hoped - after a long climb up and cycle around the top of a lush valley, I hit my 1000m mark goal (starting from 394m elevation) and it started to rain. I took shelter in a, well, wooden shelter (how convenient, yey Germany), but then as I set off again it began to pour. I had chosen a steep path to go down too, which my map had said was paved but it obviously hadn't been repaved since long before the map was published in 1999 and was so crumbled that going down on a racing bike was quite tricky. By the time I got to the bottom of the big hill, I was covered in mud and my socks were completely soaked through. I almost kept going along my intended route when I realised I was only going to become miserable, so instead I coasted down to the bottom of the valley to the train in Zell, arriving conveniently a few minutes before it's half-hourly departure. In another half hour I was back in Basel, opening my post with no small delight and getting ready for a hot shower. Not a bad day at all.

Almost at the 1000m mark

2011-04-22T22:43:00.005+02:00

The concert tonight went rather well; Good Friday is an exceptionally good day to play the trombone. And yes, I did behave in the trill department - many but all quite tasteful, if I may say. I got the feeling early on of being very concentrated in a way that used to perturb me - I used to confuse it with nerves because it feels very intense. But tonight I held onto it and it made it a very fulfilling concert indeed. Kudos to the first violinist, who played with a lot of fitting 17th-century ornaments and historically informed style, despite steel strings and a tourte bow (and chinrest and shoulder-rest and fine tuners - gosh the modern violin world has made things complicated!!). Wouldn't it have been easier for him with a baroque setup though?

Between rehearsal and the concert there was time for a walk. There are already pictures of Bremgarten on this blog from when I Fedeli played there back in January, but now in the springtime it's even more beautiful:

The Banks of the Reuss

Not inaccurate depiction of the town

Nate and others on the Riverbank

Terraced garden and cheery houses

Chapel and Rooftops

Closeup of the Chapel Cross

Rooftops

A little bit more on the frottola front: Viva Biancaluna Biffi sings here, accompanying herself - click halfway through and she's playing bowed fidel with lots of gusto. The frottole in question are Marchetto Cara: Nasce la speme mia da un dolce riso (My hope is born from a sweet smile) and Bartolomeo Tromboncino: Ostinato vo’ seguire (Stubbornly I follow you). Enjoy!

2011-04-22T00:13:00.005+02:00

A few people have asked now what Motuz Confectus means. Well, it's a pun. Oh well. "Motus confectus" is an early and slightly more noble version of a frottola, which is an early version of the madrigal. The frottola flourished in Italy at the end of the 15th and early 16th centuries. Oh yes, and again briefly in 2009.

It's been 25 and sunny for almost two weeks now, whilst today it snowed in Montreal. I've changed my mind, I'm staying here.

Kidding.

Last weekend I think I finally digested that I'm moving back to Montreal - it's starting to feel exciting and not just an excuse to turn my life completely upside-down. The process of digesting involved a lot of lying about and staring at various white surfaces, alternating with hiding under the covers, until finally on Sunday evening I decided I'd better play a bit of trombone to make sure I was in good shape for my Easter services. Glad I dragged myself out of bed - Good Friday music is especially tiring but especially worth it. Caldara, Draghi and Tuma all worked in Austria at a time when there were virtuosi trombonists about, so there are lots of nice solo bits, and because it's Good Friday it's full of delectable dissonances too. It's all on alto trombone, which in one piece with no rests is particularly taxing, so to celebrate that I'd held onto practice discipline despite all my lying about in a daze the crucial three days before, I threw in a few gratuitous trills. I'll behave more in the concert tomorrow.

Today the flights to Canada this summer, when I'll need to go on an I'm-moving-back admin trip (woohoo) went down, some by 50 francs, and one by 300. Yey! But that one was from Geneva to Toronto via Brussels, leaving so early in the morning I'd have to find a place in Geneva the night before. Airlines, airlines - why do you play with my head so? After deciding that I'd be slightly miffed if no similar prices for a more convenient connection showed up but really extremely disgruntled if one did and I'd already bought this one, I gave it a pass. Besides, my mental health is worth far more than the 80 francs the flight would have really saved me after trains to Geneva and from Toronto are considered.

I've had a pretty relaxed week, finally getting out to enjoy the sunshine on Monday, when I went to Bern to catch up with Alison, who is here for a Feldenkreis course. In the forest along the banks of the Aare we found some Bärlauch, or wild garlic, and collected some leaves. We then bought some walnuts and, with a potato masher, mashed it all up with oil and a bit of salt and had pasta with Bärlauch pesto - yum!

I'm also entering cheesecake experimentation mode - I think my white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake for Caroline's 30th birthday party on Friday (after an excellent concert by the Habsburger Camerata with whom she plays) went down rather well. But today's attempt at tofu-based cheesecake, while no disaster, is really only enjoyable doused with rhubarb compote. Otherwise it still tastes mostly like tofu. Or chalk. Oh well. It's healthy enough that I can eat it for breakfast tomorrow with no guilt whatsoever.

2011-04-15T09:26:00.003+02:00

Well, I've just announced it on Facebook, so it's time to announce it here too: I'm moving back to Montreal. In September. To start a Ph.D. at McGill.

Whew. While I digest having written that out, a few necessary updates:

My bike is fine thanks to the excellent diagnostic and surgical skills of Nate Wood. Also, it didn't cost me loads, because while I'd ripped the derailer in half (oops) and derailers can get expensive, I bought new tires (I don't have to keep translating into UK do I?), chain, break pads, inner tubes, that bit of frame that I'd bent out of shape, and then the shop, not having the derailer I wanted (I'm not expert, rather it was the "just right" version in Goldilocks pricing), gave me a used one of the same model for free. It's back on the road now although it still needs a few adjustments....

I recently turned down my first gig because it didn't pay enough. What a milestone, do be able to decide not to be exploited. In this case, while for sanity reasons I've decided not to get my knickers in a twist because singers get paid really a lot more than instrumentalists (who are YOU listening to in Tuba Mirum?) I just couldn't handle being paid less than scale fees in order that the singers be paid four times more, so I demanded at least scale. The trombones in Saul are, after all, indispensable. They never wrote back but while going over schedules with another trombonist afterward I discovered I'd been duly replaced. So I get twenty hours of my life back - yey!

Yesterday I finished a project that has been really a lot of fun: playing Renaissance dances for a choreographed dance of 200 schoolchildren. The first rehearsals included the very narcissistic experience of standing in the middle of a circle with 40 of them dancing around me. Last night I got to play pied piper in the parade and then partake in some Alta Capella madness with a great band of cornetto, shawms, percussion and me. I did have issue with some of the 4-part arrangements on offer, as in "I'm not playing that bassline another 80 times" so I wrote my own funked-up versions. We also got some chances to improvise - diminutions of course but also a passamezzo at the end, which was quite fun.

Children of Many Colours

Playing pied piper

Alta Capella

As you can see from the t-shirts and sunshine, spring has sprung here. Last week was t-shirt and BRS weather, this week the trees have breathed a sigh of relief at a bit of rain, and all the greens have become greener. This picture is from two weeks ago already - it was much more leafy yesterday:

Flowers on Forest Floor

This one is more recent, of my herb garden and the cherry tree in the neighbour's yard, still going strong after having exploded in pink last week:

Other work-related events: The same Nate Wood who fixed my bike went head-over-heels off of his last Thursday - ow! He's ok now, nothing broken, but as he sat in hospital waiting to find out how bad it was he called me to possibly replace him that night for Ars Moriendi, a theatre project involving songs and bits from Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary. So I very quickly learned the basics of playing Flatt Trumpet - an instrument more or less invented for this funeral as far as I understand, like a trombone but with the slide behind your head. I also memorized the music and learned the blocking for the show - not to say I got good at marching in twos and going up steps while playing but I sort of knew where I was supposed to be and how to get there. Correcting intonation was hilarious because one has to move the slide in the opposite direction, so slightly out of tune notes became hideously out of tune until I'd gotten a bit used to it. I learned a lot, but was relieved that Nate was able to walk and felt well enough by evening.

My parents have taken their cue of my leaving Basel to come visit one last time. When Mom was here last week, we enjoyed the insistent sunshine, taking some sausages and heading out to a park we call innocently the "gorgeous gorge" (but don't google it whatever you do). It's a gorge with caves and a big round table and firepit, and at the top is the magic playground, with the kind of splintery teeter-totters (oh alright, UK: seesaws.) and metal-and-wood merry-go-rounds of the kind that health and safety officials like to ban in favour of McParks years ago. Nostalgia rating: 9/10.

This way!

Swiss Waterfalls

Teeter-Totter!

Merry-go-round, charmingly crooked

The gorgeous gorge

Cherry Blossoms

Bench and Easter Tree

Garden invaded by gnomes

An Easter Tree? Yes, they decorate trees, or at least branches, for Easter here. Tina was quite appalled when, having given me some spare ornaments, I mused on their egg-shape and hung them on my Christmas Tree.

Yesterday was Sophia's fourth birthday. I gave her the purple ukulele. I think I'll buy another one for myself when I go back to Canada - one where the frets can move or be taken off. Apparently she had her first appearance last night, accompanying herself to twinkle twinkle up on her bed in a pink dress while her Kindergarten schoolmates gathered 'round on the floor. I'm sorry to have missed that.

2011-03-28T14:18:00.003+02:00

Another one for my pile of Mostly Unlearned Life Lessons (MULL): don't cycle to concerts. The first time I cycled to a concert which was more than a few minutes away it was during my undergrad in Montreal, and I cycled to Lachine with my trombone. Of course, it started to rain, and I played Verdi's Requiem not only cold and wet, but as that particular bike had no mudguards, with a thick brown stripe running along my back from my neck to my buttocks. Yey for sitting down to play.

The next time was here in Basel, a beautiful sunny June day and I'd cleverly left my trombone there after the dress rehearsal the day before and biked around 50km over a mountain pass to get to a concert of Schütz. It was a lovely ride indeed, but I cannot remember being more exhausted by concert time, and I remember not enjoying it very much because of that.

Nevertheless, not long after I cycled to Marienstein, a monastery on a hilltop in the countryside near Basel, also on a lovely sunny day. This trip was quite successful - short enough that my breathing was very good and yet not too long that I was exhausted. Maybe this is why I still try. I do remember a frustrating moment, though, coming up to the bass of the hill and being passed by my colleagues in a car. I was the smug one of course, but at that point I did dearly want them to stop the car and put my trombone in the trunk (UK:boot), which they didn't. Suddenly this missed opportunity magically doubled the weight of my instrument as I proceeded up to the top...

Yesterday I left an hour earlier than I technically needed to to get to rehearsal on time, in Rheinfelden, 17 or 19 km from Basel depending which scenic route you take. I was slightly wary because I'd only repaired my bike the day before, plugging up an inner tube with rubber cement and tape which oddly seemed to work better than a patch kit. Just in case, I brought along lots more glue and other random bike tools, water, a banana, trombone, concert clothes, music stand etc. etc. etc. and we're off!

But when I lost my chain while gearing down to stop for the first time, I remembered that the limiters weren't in quite the right place. Do I have time to get off and adjust them? It's quite a flat ride and the front gears work fine, I just have to remember not to gear down so far in the back. I debated.

As I was debating, I came up on an intersection and instinctively geared down, at which point the gear shift went so far as to get caught in the spokes, tearing the back wheel off the bike and bending that crucial bit of frame that holds everything together. I managed to get off rather than be thrown off - yey! But big picture: Shiiitt! I stared the carnage of my back wheel. Ctrl+Z! Arghh! I didn't cry, but it's locked up now (I hope) where the incident happened and I'll bring it to a bike coop today where Nate will have a go at bending things back - I do hope it works!

Hands black from handling the chain, I considered myself very lucky that this had happened right beside a tram stop and hopped on, catching the next train to rehearsal. Thanks to my buffer time I wasn't late, but the grease never quite came off before the concert. Fortunately the audience doesn't see the palms of the trombonists in the back row.

The concert went quite well, if I may say. Tuba Mirum never fails to terrify me, but I found myself pleasantly amused at the fact that right before it started I was shaking like a leaf. I took great big breaths and it all went quite well. At the end of the concert, the tenor soloist (with whom I only get a very short duet) gave me his massive bouquet of yellow and orange flowers. They're very cheery in my living room now and the best thing is, I wouldn't have been able to bring them home if I'd been there by bike.

2011-03-24T14:11:00.004+01:00

I've taken a bit of a break from blog writing, but with half an hour before going to sit by the Rhine and soak up the last of this week's glorious spring sun, I'll try to write as much as I can about this extremely busy time. Suddenly, after a relatively quiet winter, March has been abuzz with concerts. To avoid waiting around inordinately for the train to get to and from Saul two weeks ago, I rented a car, which meant that on Saturday morning Caroline and I could hop in and disappear into the heart of the Black Forest, where no trains go, and do a little hike.

I remembered from a drive into Todmoos a stretch of road with a rushing stream and cliffsides, so we headed there. At a very old bridge (and traces of an old road into the forest, there was a car park and trailhead - typical Black Forest convenience.

Caroline at the Old Bridge

In this picture it looks rather wintry still, but the moss and the rushing stream made the air extraordinarily fresh and sweet, and reminded me of my mid-May walks in the Adirondack mountains of New York State.

Rushing stream and moss

Unfortunately, we missed the turnoff for the great big view that we'd headed up to see and wound up at a crossroads instead. Just about to head back, we wandered over to the edge of the woodland intersection and peered over. They do seem awefully close, but with all that snow those can't really be anything but Alps...

where's the view - oh, hello!

I was supposed to head to Bordeaux on the Basel Bordeaux flight on the Sunday and take the train to Toulouse from there, but Saul's late arrival into my diary meant changing it to a Monday flight from Geneva - overall a more complicated way of traveling but Toulouse is one of those places that's just not easy to get to. Being there on Sunday night meant that I was around for Morgenstraich, the opening event of Fasnacht (Swiss Carnival).

Oddly enough, in Basel we celebrate Carnival a week into Lent rather than before it. Why? To piss off the pope, of course. I'm not a huge fan of the whole event - parades of hideously loud and out of tune trombone bands well into the night, confetti everywhere, oranges being thrown at your head, and the stench of too much drunkenness. BUT...I do like Morgenstraich, which happens before any of the rest.

Before, in this case, means 4 am. At 3:42 I arose from my bed and wandered over to Claraplatz where the revelers were gathering. They'd already lit their laterns by the time I got there, and were getting into position, adjusting masks, and generally getting very excited.

buzz at 3:57

excitement at 3:58

At precisely 4:00, the bells of the Clarakirche started to ring and all the lights went out, leaving the whole square dark except for the lanterns. Interrupting the fourth stroke of the bell, the piccolo bands began, each of the four or five around me showing off their best tune, and then seconds later the drums started their slow, piercing strokes. I made a little recording on my camera, but I've not posted it because what got my heart unexpectedly racing was not the aural, but the visceral sound of it all. When the other watchers stepped into the street to follow a band down an old 14th-century, I found myself carried along too, until I broke out of it and headed back home. I was back in bed by 4:12. An excellent half hour.

Lantern light

The next day, after a drive to Geneva, I flew to Bordeaux, which is a nice place but not as pretty as I thought it would be. I was pleased, though, that at 10:30 pm I managed to satisfy my sudden craving for Steak & Frites. The next morning I wandered around, and as I approached the city centre, I realized that I'd been rather unfair in comparing European and Canadian cities, tending to compare the old parts of the former with the billboard-laden suburbs of the latter. Bordeaux suburbs were also not very nice, but the inner city was not any prettier than Montreal, Quebec, or even parts of Ottawa. So there.

Bordeaux

Toulouse was great fun, and after I got over the fact that it was great fun and calmed down enough to realize how spectacularly beautiful the music was, it was even better. You can call me up to play Monteverdi with Concerto Palatino and Cantus Cölln any day.

There was no time for tourism of course, but we did have an excellent lunch in one of the little restaurants above the market in the centre. From our window we could see this shop:

Obsessive Kitchen Trouble

I was supposed to have the next weekend off, but due to the illness of a colleague, I wound up heading to Fribourg (home of Vacherin Fondue) to play Schütz all weekend with Les Cornets Noirs. It was my first time playing with them and I was rather nervous until I realized that if I let myself enjoy every phrase I wasn't nervous anymore and played much better. This is around the 85th time I've had this epiphany in the course of a concert - why don't I remember? The odd thing is that even the very sad bit I felt joy in making as heart-wrenching as possible.

On the other hand, one of the many insightful things I've heard this week watching Youtube interviews of Stephen Fry (a natural extension of becoming slightly addicted to QI), is that some people actually believe that humans can't feel two emotions at the same time, which is daft. Stephen Fry has become a spokesperson for manic depression, very eloquently explaining in the course of various interviews and one documentary how it manifests itself, telling his own story as well as those of other people and giving insight into the state of medical research in tackling it.

It's all seemed a bit a propos this week, which is an understated way of saying that the coming of a gorgeous sunny spring full of flowers and blossoms, while lovely, has made my head go a bit haywire. How lucky I am, then, to have a live recording of a Concerto Caledonia concert in December called 'Revenge of the Folksingers'. It's a disarmingly simple-sounding collection of songs old and new which had the effect to make my life seem suddenly not so complicated. Ah... It will work for you too, I promise. You might have to wait 'til June though to buy the album, or if you're really lucky, they're doing the concert again here.

Half an hour has passed, and some friends are waiting for me by the Rhine to watch the sunset.

In Friboug: le cornet est semblable à l'éclat d'un
rayon de soleil, qui paroist
dans l'ombre ou dans les ténèbres
- Marin Mersenne
(Harmonie Universelle, c1636)

2011-03-12T12:27:00.007+01:00

I've had the pleasure of working with some very good conductors recently, and the last few days have made me realize just how lucky I am. To any aspiring conductors out there, I have a few top tips from the back row of the orchestra.

Ten Top Tips for Choral Conductors

1. When planning a rehearsal involving people from out of town, look at the train schedules. Please don't end the rehearsal six minutes before the hourly train leaves.

2. In pieces of standard repertoire where no set changes are necessary, runthroughs are appropriate for the dress rehearsal only and don't qualify as "rehearsal". Rather, if you have four 3-hour rehearsals, break them down into pieces where the choir is needed, pieces where the soloists are needed, and then again to those which use full orchestra and those which use only the strings. You can also rehearse tutti before the break and then let people go and catch the train, but for crying out loud, don't let the trumpets and trombones sit there for three hours to play the first and last pieces and 4-6 pieces in between when the concert has 87 in total.

3. When we at the back don't catch your mumbling to the front row of string players and don't play because we don't know where you are, please don't just plow on. We do quite enjoy taking part in those 6-8 movements where we do have something written.

4. If the brass don't play in the Big Brass Movement (BBM), they might not have parsed where we were since our parts just say 58-64 TACET and don't give any helpful hints of how long they are and which ones run into each other. (Or perhaps they were tired from having missed the train the night before and getting home at 1 am instead of 23:30?) Just stop. Give them a chance. Check out whether they're actually holding their instruments before you start the piece. It looks very bad when conductors don't appear to notice or care and now their only chance to play through it is in the concert.

5. Rather than just look crossly at your choir when they miss an entry, try looking at them encouragingly before their entry. If you breathe with them it helps them too.

6. If you want the orchestra to look at you, look at the orchestra more than once per page - don't bury your head in the score. Don't just look at the cute viola player.

7. Rather than look crossly at your choir for sounding afraid, look at them and mouth the text with them when they have something to sing.

8. If you've not rehearsed things properly in the 12 hours you've allotted and when you start the rehearsal late, then you've no right to extend the dress rehearsal beyond 10:30 or to cut the break down to five minutes. We trombonists need the break to play a bit or our instruments get cold.

9. Sending the tempi by email attachment a month before the rehearsal doesn't let you off the hook for sloppy conducting.

10. Try to look like you're enjoying yourself now and again - you chose the piece!

2011-03-06T16:20:00.010+01:00

Back in Basel after an early morning yesterday. Having only brought along a scholarly article for which I had no brain whatsoever, the plane ride promised to be excruciatingly boring until I found a little red book with the words "Don't Panic" written across the cover in the seat pocket in front of me. I have now crossed the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy off my reading list, where it's been sitting (possibly even reclining) for over half my life.

Now, if you're a loyal follower of my blog, you'll remember that back in the summer exactly the same thing happened to me and I proclaimed that I'd learned my lesson to bring along light reading and not just scholarly articles when I travel. Erratum: No, I haven't learned it yet. Indeed, on the train from Aberdeen to Edinburgh I read up all about acedia in early christian monastic communities. Many monks considered it not to be a natural illness, that is, due to the imbalance of humours, but rather to the presence of a demon which could be shrugged off by various mental gymnastics. Reminds me quite a lot of the debate over antidepressant drugs versus cognitive behavioural therapy as therapies for modern-day listlessness.

Last night I had the cheering thought that whereas the Swiss fascination with Scotland (and there is one) seems to me to be a detached fascination, like how I think of Japan, in Canada there are lots and lots of people who are absolutely pining for the lochs, and in quite a similar way to which I might also were I to move back there. Humm. Then I had another cheering thought, that a lot of Scottish traditional music isn't actually any older than the settling of Canada and what's now New England, meaning that its traditions are much more firmly rooted there than I'd previously reckoned. A quick web search turned up that in Ottawa and Montreal, one can continue one's canntaireachd lessons (perhaps also buy a chanter and learn some pibroch), attend Burns suppers and whisky tastings, and get one's fill of country dancing. Growing up in Ottawa, which was settled predominantly by the Irish, traditional music and dancing seemed to weave its way into all sorts of celebrations in my youth, but having moved away before I was allowed into a pub, I reckon I missed a lot of it.

One promising looking pub-based club, the Montreal Scottish and Celtic Culture Meetup Group, adds "Curling for Dummies" to the above-mentioned list, but I am turned off by their homepage, on which is posted the following:

"Q. Who can join?
A. Anyone Scottish or with Scottish ancestry. Celts (Welsh, Irish, Manx and Bretons) are also more than welcome welcome to come along and add to the craic."

Well, there you go. How about people who simply like it there? It's not that I don't qualify, I'm very likely 1/64th on my Mother's Father's Father's Father's Father's Father's side. As shown in this copy of the 1891 Ontario census, while my great-great-great-grandfather, Hugh Wilson, was born in Ontario (that's what the O is for), he identified himself with an ethnic origin that makes me think perhaps his father came from Scotland:

1881 Census for Cornwall Ontario
(click to enlarge)

Or, perhaps, like his son George, who named his son Leslie Campbell Wilson, Hugh's father simply identified with being Scottish and still wasn't born there - Canada didn't exist until 1867 after all - making me at the most Quasihemidemisemiscottish. Nevertheless, I fit their criterion, so why am I complaining? It's because having a blood requirement reminds me too much of Third Reich Fascism and therefore gives me the heebeejeebees. Also because it's bogus. Nice to know where to go for haggis in Montreal though.

Then I moved onto the question of kayaking: while I knew that in Canada, for a mere few weeks' pay, it's easy to sign up for a kayak tour somewhere interesting, it seems that there are indeed also kayak clubs where one can go to pool sessions and on trips without completely breaking the bank. Apparently the Lachine rapids just by Montreal are a haven for whitewater enthusiasts...oooh....

Discovering online all these things I'd never known about does make me wonder, as I weigh Glasgow versus Montreal as a place to begin (and hopefully finish) a Ph.D., if having lived away for seven years might make me see Canada with very different eyes indeed.

2011-03-04T23:25:00.004+01:00

Back in the Princes St. Backpackers Hostel in Edinburgh, where I so far have room N all to myself. It's two floors above room S, where Helen and I stayed in January, so hopefully the raucous of the club below won't bother too much.

It's been another exhausting week, this time in Aberdeen attending a conference on musicians' networks around 1600. Lots of Philips and Sweelinck, stories of Catholic spy networks and of how music traveled swiftly all about Europe hundreds of years before the Internet. Besides the talks and concerts, there's been a lot of socializing too, and keeping in shape on trombone enough that Monday's Saul rehearsal doesn't hit too hard. Will be nice to get back to playing again...

I haven't had a performance-free week, though: I got roped into singing the top part of a famous piece by Caccini, Amarilli mia bella, substituting for a student soprano who had fallen ill. I thought it would be a simple matter of reading it, polishing it a bit, and performing it... By the third rehearsal, having also led the second and half of the third, I asked for some my conference fee back. It would have been a huge amount of time to still have to pay when I missed some talks and other events because of it. And then there was a fourth rehearsal too (at which point still some singers couldn't sing their parts (!)), so I felt quite justified.

This morning's talks had a quite nice atmosphere, being conducted in King's College Chapel:

Outside, a statue of a Lion and a Unicorn at the entrance to the University reminded me vividly of a dream I had recently about trying to decide where to live. There was a Lion in search of a Unicorn and it found Frank Zappa instead.

There was also this coat of arms stuck to the side of the chapel. Both unicorns look quite sad compared to the one above, but the one on the right looks absolutely pathetic.

So, um, what's the bent horn about?

Today I began to feel melancholic about leaving Scotland, but
just as I was settling into a wistful mood, Caroline and Ralph whisked me away to the beaches of Balmedie, where Frauke, Helen and I visited the Dunes but a month ago.

My Footsteps

Caroline and Ralph looking out to sea

She sells sea shells by the sea shore
(I can think of a better business plan)

Stones surfing sand swells

Now, the sea isn't a very good cure for melancholy (no, no, no) but as we were driving back, I saw a fish & chips shop: "Stop the car!" It did hit the spot, but was also a reminder that they do soul food very well here. And music. And hospitality. And barley products. And it's lovely to be so close to nature. And their history is very rich. Anyway. Not getting up at 6 tomorrow to get a flight back home is very tempting at the moment - I'd better get to bed to give myself half a chance.

2011-03-01T12:04:00.008+01:00

It's been a lovely weekend in and around Glasgow. On Saturday morning, Alison and I went to the farmer's market to eat eggs benedict at the Rio Café (yum), to buy some bream, dressed crab and venison burgers at the local farmers' market (yum yum), and to visit the new Cottonrake Catering, where there is nothing that doesn't tempt, and where baker Stefan has decided to name a pie after their very first customer.

Things of Beauty

Laden with delicious items, Alison and I headed for the hills. Ben Lomond is a Munro about an hour drive from Glasgow, looming over the shores of Loch Lomond. It's got a gentler "tourist" path on its south side, but we opted for the more rugged and steep option 'round the back for the way up.

Alison in a Sunbeam

As we neared the top, it seemed that our view would depend on luck - some half hours the sky was blue and sunny, but at other times the summit was enveloped in cloud or even blowing snow. The wind became wilder as we approached the top, but fortunately it was blowing us onto the mountain and not off of it!

Sky and Archipelego of Loch Lomond

When we came to snowfields, we had but to follow the footsteps of the people before us. This one provided a bit of anticipation:

Path to the Sky

Picking one's way down the icy slopes was evidently not for everyone - when that seemed the only option, some hikers seem to have found an alternative.

Wheeeeeeee!

Near the top the rocks came in all shapes and sizes, made more dramatic by the light and the shadows:

Old Man of the Mountain

We were quite lucky with the weather at the top! We had gotten (UK: got) a late start - we reached the peak as the sun was already beginning to set and experienced something which apparently never happens: having the entire summit to ourselves.

Smug

The hike down was a bit more trying. Not far from the top, the clouds gathered in and we were hit by a snow squall. Horizontal icy flakes bombarded our right sides as we picked our way down the rocks. Ten minutes later, it was clear skies again. Proper Mountain Weather.

Clear Sky and Alison dusted in snow

I was using my poles and trying to find alternate paths on the spongy grass to save my knees, going carefully and extremely slowly. We hiked in twilight for two hours before getting out the headlamp (at which point I had to stick more to the rocky path and the muscles around my left knee winced at every step). But there was little to complain about: the path was good and the sky only cleared more, so that by the time we were heading down the last stretches of path, we could see above us the whole Milky Way, the Pleiades, and Orion shining brightly right above the glow of Glasgow in the distance.

We got back to the city just in time to nip into the shop and buy a bottle of celebratory Benromach (a speyside) one minute before the Scottish 10 pm curfew on store alcohol sales came into effect. Whew! Then a few hot chips from the fish & chip shop gave us the strength and comfort to cook up the venison burgers. David McGuinness came 'round and we drank whisky and listened to first edits of the impending Concerto Caledonia album well past midnight.

Yesterday was more relaxed, and a good thing too, because neither of us were comfortable with moving much. The knee that's been giving me trouble all week felt oddly better than usual - perhaps I managed to make my muscles do the shock-absorbtion work after all. Or perhaps it was going off coffee the days before - it affects the tendons in my wrists so why not my knees? We dropped in on Alison's Dad and then brought round our bakery delights to the family of Barnaby Brown, who generously invited us to join them for high tea (which over here means a full on supper). After 5-year old Sebastian was finished providing excellent entertainment and went off to bed, the evening degenerated into Barnaby and I singing canntaireachd from an 1814 facsimile. Alison sang us a drone until she got sick of it and downloaded a shruti box app onto her iphone. Hmm...perhaps I should invest in iTambura myself.

Back home, I got an 11 pm first viola da gamba lesson on an original Richard Meares bass viol from 1677.

For full canntaireachd immersion, Alison and I dropped in again on Barnaby today, this time at the RSAMD where he was rehearsing with Talitha Mackenzie. We were left with the giggles at Talitha's impression of a classical singer singing a Gaelic work song, obliterating its feel and function completely by singing it up the octave. Then we were left completely awestruck at her rendition of a pibroch learned from archival recordings and invigoratingly accurate in its impression of bagpipe virtuosity.

Then to Tchai Ovna, at the end of the endangered Otago Lane, where surrounded by shisha smokers we drank excellent chai and I said goodbye to the city of Glasgow. I don't know when I'll be back.

Now I'm full of French toast at Frauke's place in Aberdeen, waiting for this conference to kick off. I was welcomed last night with plates of cured venison, ham, pigeon and duck and crab patés, goat cheese and black olive pizza, not to mention an excellent selection of Scottish cheeses and some nice wine.

Upon checking my email, I discovered I've been accepted to give a paper at the upcoming MedRen conference in Barcelona in July. Yey!

2011-02-25T15:29:00.003+01:00

Back in the UK again, sitting in the kitchen of Barnaby Brown, about to have my first canntaireachd lesson.

This trip marked my first time in London after the Globe show. Enticed by the many delights proffered by The Whisky Exchange (slightly embarrassingly £10 cheaper in London than in Glasgow...), I wound up back in the same neighbourhood as the Globe on Monday, and on Tuesday ventured only as far as Covent Garden, where I bought a very funky pair of shoes from this store. The shoes shall be honoured by a picture in the future...

London takes on a different feel in winter - suddenly it becomes clear in the endless grey why there is a tea called "London Fog."

London Fog

Among my many vivid dreams in the past few weeks, one was about London public transit disasters. I took a picture before I woke up so that I could post it here:

On my way to the Central Line

On Wednesday, I headed to East Knoyle to sit in front of a fireplace and drink whisky. Tick. Tick. I do very much approve of very affordable taster-sized bottles of expensive whisky: already an easily won over aficionado of Springbank 10 year old, we tried the 15-year old version and it was excellent.

The next day, Gawain and I drove to Oxford to hear a talk on Oswald von Wolkenstein at All Souls College, given by Marc Lewon. We passed some interesting architecture on the road, too.

Stonehenge

Oxford College with Stripey Lawn

Ten points to Marc for answering Margaret Bent's question on how he would defend a certain assertion and he responded without hesitation "Duel."

I'm back in Glasgow now for a weekend of holiday before heading up to Aberdeen for more erudition and a further exploration of the many varieties of Speyside malt. Last night I opened the very luxurious 1985 Glenrothes that I've decided to carry around with me and share. The warm, caramel aftertaste was very enjoyable, the full on beginning of the sip though was a bit shocking until I realized that it tasted better if I tried to taste with the sides of my tongue.

Must get ready to go and walk up Ben Lomond now. Wish me luck, as my knee has been acting up lately. I'm so eager to head for the hills, though, that I've gone off coffee for the last three days in an effort to get the swelling down - it seems to have made a difference. I hope that Scotland's boggy, spongy ground, combined with using poles and shock-absorbent insoles and going absurdly slowly, will somehow serve to counterbalance my foolhardiness.

2011-02-19T10:36:00.008+01:00

Saturday morning, coffee in hand.

Really a lot to write about - as usual the weeks where lots is happening I don't get the chance to post!

The Bach cantata went well - the slide trumpet chorale went particularly well after I decided I didn't need to play it loud at all. In the rehearsal of the Telemann cantata which followed, I was quite enjoying listening to the decadent last chorale when the conductor (from the organ, of course) asked if I'd like to play along. Of course! So I put down Sophia (who had been on my shoulders) and ran and got my tenor trombone from the kitchen - I hope Sophia didn't feel her position usurped! Then he asked if I could double the top part... well, yes...so I ran and got my alto trombone instead, adding yet another instrument to the cantus firmus count.

In the rehearsal it was a glorious feeling to ride on top of such a gorgeous sound. In the concert it was ok but not more I'm afraid. The band got a spontaneous urge to play and sing very, very quietly, which was quite magical and which I highly approve of in theory, but it was extremely difficult to join in on in the high register of a cold trombone. Still possible though. It was one of those moments that felt mildly traumatic in how hard it was, but then afterwards everyone said how the trombone added quite a lovely colour, and I'm forced to remember the helpful words of Dave Martin: It doesn't matter how it feels, it's how it sounds. Right.

But wait, did no one care that I split the high d the first time 'round? Maybe not...

The next day on lunch break, I got a call to do something I haven't done in a while - to play in a symphony orchestra. Covering for a sick friend, it was a last minute thing - concert was last night. The last few days I've had my modern trombone out (fourth instrument of the week and only Monday!) and have been, um, relearning it. This mainly consists of abandoning a bit of sackbut technique: for renaissance music I've developed a sort of a falsetto way of playing high, which lets me play in the alto range for long periods of time and quite delicately. It's bad trombone technique though. While it works brilliantly for renaissance music, where parts rarely span more than an octave, its inflexibility makes it basically impossible to use when playing over the whole range of the instrument. So, knowing what I had to do, I dug out my old International Edition of Bach cello suites transcribed for trombone (am I really posting this to the Internet?) and blew lots of air until the chesty feeling of being a modern trombonist crept back into my body. Also a very good feeling.

On Wednesday I had a singing lesson, the first in far too long. Funnily enough it was about not switching completely into falsetto to sing the high bits but keeping a chesty feeling. Hmm...

During last night's concert I was more comfortable than I had thought I would have been* after just a few days of modern playing - yey! I indulged in a bit of wholesome SFT (Slavonic Fortissimo Therapy, of which modern trombonists will be familiar) in the Slavonic Dance. I was still not as loud as the trumpets by the way. The last piece, Dvorák's Cello Concerto, is just a phenomenal piece of music.
*apologies to non mother tongue English speakers for that bit of syntax. Ok, to the rest too.

I enjoyed a few "Eureka" moments in the rehearsals. I like to think that all renaissance and much baroque music has a text. Well, after we played three short notes, the bass trombonist exclaimed "Chuk chuk chuk!" Maybe romantic trombone parts do have a text too! Perhaps it looks like I'm being facetious, but really I'm not. I find it much easier to play in concerts if I can activate the language part of my brain in music-making, so texted music is easier to play than untexted. Otherwise my brain tends to blather on anyway about this and that, whereas if I can focus it on the text of the music, it shuts up in the random department and I play better. "Chuk chuk chuk!"

Another Eureka - I do suddenly understand why early music people are stereotyped for liking organic products - in comparison with the relatively transparent music we play, romantic music seems to be steeped in musical MSG. Of course, the cellist was so good last night that I completely enjoyed his ubiquitous vibrato: it didn't seem chemical at all, but would more accurately be compared to a bit of added umami.

I had a strange moment last night redoing my falling-out braid (UK: plait) at intermission (UK: the interval). I looked in the mirror and thought to myself, it would be ok if I started to get a few grey hairs now. Gosh.

I won't be surprised if I do, either. I had kind of thought that the restful, sit-back-and-wait portion of university applications might last a bit longer than two and a half weeks from submitting my last application...but news is, well, flooding in and the suspense of where I'll go next is almost unbearable....

(...)

(...Go on, is it?)

(...)

(...Mu ha ha.)

2011-02-13T12:32:00.003+01:00

I just went on a run for the first time in over a year!

I had given it up for a while at least because of the pain in my left knee, but on my bicycle on my way to visit a friend in Germany the other day, I saw some people jogging on a path in the forest, which looked like it had something on it to make it quite cushy - I thought woodchips but it turns out to be sand and leaves. Today Alex asked if I wanted to go along with him on a short run, so I said yes, as long as we sought out this path. We found it very easily and it's a 500m loop - very nice. Towards the end of the fifth loop I started to feel a bit of aggravation in my knee, and called it a day, but I think I shall give it a try again soon (and invest in some better shoes, and stretch out my hamstrings properly before even leaving the house). Nothing quite beats a runner's high, especially before a concert where some really exceptionally long notes are involved... that would be the trombone cantus firmus this afternoon!

2011-02-10T15:05:00.010+01:00

The forty days between New Year's Day and my Birthday are a desert as far as gigs are concerned. With Christmas gone, generally miserable cold and cloudy weather, and I between the passing of a calendar year and the counting of my own, I allow myself to be a bit more reflective in this time - my own personal and secular Lent. Despite these days inevitably beginning with a bit of hangover, there's no fasting involved (as a certain jovial roundness in my belly will attest to), but I do take time to think of what kind of person I'd like to be when I'm a year older, and to ponder over issues philosophical and otherwise. Then my birthday comes at the coldest and bleakest time of all, and with a tip of a hat to the Ordre de Bon Temps of the early French Canadians, I celebrate with friends, music and good food, checking baggage at the door and looking forward to focusing for the rest of the year on more concrete things such as my career.

I have yet to decide if the utility of observing this Lent lies in the great mirage of accumulated wisdom that I'm left with, or in the been-there-done-that feeling which leaves me very fond of my birthday indeed (already a good thing) and with a sense that it's exactly the perfect time to, well, get on with things.

So, I'm 31 now, and slightly disoriented. It felt far too warm and sunny this week to possibly be my birthday so the usual philosophical routine was interrupted by an unshakable joie de vivre. Worse things to complain about I suppose. The Föhn winds (see last post!) have been waning only gently, and it's hard to believe that we may get more winter before spring finally comes. The crocuses are up, the mini-daisies you see in the grass too, and of course snowdrops. Will I get to use my cross-country skis at all this winter? At this point it's ok if not...(or if I have to head for a high Alpine valley to do so!)

Here are a few pictures documenting Sunday's Beer-Rhine-Sunset:

See Moon Top Right

Dark at Seven

On Tuesday the Egger workshop was full of people - all the part time workers were there, all machines in use, and no one needed anything to be done, so I clocked out and called up Josué and we hopped on the bus to St. Chrischona, where there is an excellent view of Basel, and when it's not as hazy at it was, all the way to the Alps.

Behind the 1509 church (you can climb right up the tower), there are forests and fields - somewhere in there the border between Basel and Germany too.

Josué climbing a hill

Sunset through trees

When we got back to civilization, we saw a modern-day shepherd, driving through the park on a scooter, followed by a herd of sheep trotting along and ringing their bells.

Modern-Day Sheep Herding

Having wound up on the wrong side of the hill to watch the sunset, we nipped over to the other side just in time. The haze which had obscured the view of the Alps the hour before was now responsible for a very fine palette of colours:

We headed back into Riehen - a northern suburb of Basel, stumbling upon a little whisky shop which is barely ever open but as luck would have it was closing in six minutes. So we nipped in and got a 50mL taster bottle of BenRiach 20-year old - wow! Heather and Honey rounded out by sweet pears. Back in Speyside in a few weeks, I think I shall have to explore...

Church Tower at Dusk, Riehen

My birthday evening was simple and very lovely - Alex made some Charbonnade with a marsala cream sauce, then people came round and we sat about my living room eating Silke's excellent chocolate cake.

The next morning, Helen (who had stayed over since she lives in Freiburg) and I had breakfast, and I got the distinct feeling that every time I looked, the daffodils had made one more step to opening. Shortly after breakfast was done, sure enough there was a bloom. Now there are five.

Breakfast, Daffodils, Herb Garden

Since then, I've been recovering from the intense socializing of the last week, but I couldn't resist when I was invited upstairs for a very silly supper of eggs and toast (incidentally the same as breakfast yesterday too). But these were goose eggs from the farmer's market in France and we had to eat them out of espresso cups, to Sophia's supreme delight. She ate a whole one.

Now it's Saturday morning and I've just finished my coffee - perfect timing. Off to play in the Bach Cantatas later, playing the chorale tune on trombone in the first movement and slide trumpet in the last. Not many notes, but after being sent some live recordings of Bach for my birthday, I'm happy to get my fix of being inside the music myself!

2011-02-06T14:47:00.017+01:00

Well, it's been a while again. I got back from Scotland on Monday evening and couldn't bring myself to write, having just filled out and handed in what is hopefully the last of my university applications. Today is a perfect day to blog, too, having woken up to do a morning walk through the Allschwil forest, enjoying the Föhn winds - the Alpine equivalent of the Chinook - which has brought us some warm, sunny weather. I bought some more potatoes at the Farm Shop and added to my documentation of things only found here in Switzerland. Here, a coat-rack at the entrance to the forest, where people have hung their expensive coats (and parked their bikes):

A notice reminding horse-riders that all horses must be wearing a license plate:

...and a random selection of Swiss forest-gnomes:

And here we are, looking smug...

Nathaniel, Nathaniel, Claire, Me

If that weren't enough to make for a perfect morning, we all met up an hour after getting back to Basel and read some music together. Now I'm on my way to enjoy the first BRS (Beer-Rhine-Sunset) of 2011 with the people in the photo above.

-----

It was spectacular, mostly because of the perfect cheshire cat moon, and we toasted BRS with prosecco. Then I got back and had a proper Sunday supper and some of the whisky I brought back from Scotland.

One of the stories about Föhn is that people don't sleep well when these winds come. I didn't quite believe this yesterday, but was woken up by a random nightmare about endless airports and deadly street-cleaning machines and, having been wide awake for the last hour, settle down now to finish this post at seven-thirty in the morning.

So, on to Scotland...

I arrived in Edinburgh airport on Monday evening and oddly enough you can't get directly from that airport to Glasgow by public transit (UK: transport) despite it being less than an hour away. You have to either go into Edinburgh first at great time and expense, or do what I did, which is wheel your suitcase one mile to Glasgow road and hop on the Citylink 900 bus. If it stops. The first didn't stop (but waved - thanks) and then the house nearby started burning some tires and I was engulfed in disgusting smoke so I started walking to the second stop half a mile a way - but the 900 wasn't due there so I kept walking, only to be passed by the next bus shortly before arriving. Third time's the charm though, and pretty soon I was on my way to Glasgow, where Alison was waiting with some delicious home-made burritos.

The next day was Jan. 25th - Robbie Burns Night when evening would roll around. In the afternoon we went for a walk around Mugdock Country Park - very cheering to know that woods, hills, ponds and castles are only 9 miles north of Glasgow.

Boardwalk to Castle

From this boardwalk I first took notice of the incredible Glaswegian sky. When I was there last summer it was sunny, but now in winter, despite the clouds it was luminous, textured, and always changing - a constant reminder that the sea was just around the corner.

A Glow behind the Trees

Soon we arrived at Mugdock castle, a ruin whose building spanned from medieval to Victorian times:

The only bench I remember seeing:

As we left the castle we saw that we were being watched:

This tree has a fern coat:

And here, next to the castle, we ate lunch. Fried mushroom & pesto and mushroom and horseradish sandwiches - yum!

The park was bigger than it seemed and felt very far away - you can see the first hills of the highlands sticking out behind these crossed paths:

This is what's called a kissing gate, which people can get through but cows can't:

Before long we realized we'd joined up onto the West Highland Way:

The end of the hike provided a dark view of Glasgow in the distance, not to mention a few more glimpses of awesome sky:

Upon coming home, it was time to make a traditional Burn's Night Supper: Haggis, Neeps and Tatties. Haggis you'll have to look up - it's delicious, Neeps are turnips and Tatties are potatoes, these two all mashed up of course. Our meal started with some Scottish salmon on miniature oatcakes, then it was time to begin traditional Burns Night activities, like taking the Haggis out of the oven. Actually there were two (...haggi? Haggisses? anyhow...)

We took it in turns to read the "Address to a Haggis" after a moment of panic when Alison discovered that the pages had been removed from from her sister's copy of the (otherwise) Complete Works of Robbie Burns! But sure enough the Internet provided, and I brought this laptop into the kitchen to read from...

At the appropriate moment in the poem, the hagges (surely it pluralises like 'crisis'?) were pierced by Alison's deft knife! (Actually in retrospect it was more like 'punctured' but that doesn't feel very poetic now, does it?)

Then we brought the haggides (surely it pluralises like 'glottis'?) to the table and much merriment was had.

Alison and Ruth and a Full Burns Supper - num num num

Cranachan for dessert - a traditional Scottish delicacy with raspberries, heather honey, cream, toasted oats, and of course whisky:

Cranachan

You'll notice perhaps that we were three and there were four bowls. David came by late the next morning and ate his before taking me on a tour of Glasgow University. Here's the river Kelvin, which we passed on the way there:

and one of many interesting corners of Glasgow's West End:

Quite soon we were greeted by the sight of the University tower against the sky:

Looming

It doesn't loom quite so much when you get up close though:

David and not-looming Tower

Venturing inside, I saw the chapel, concert hall, exam room, and a reminder of the origins of my own Alma Mater:

Soon it was off to the music building - a small but beautiful interior with wood paneling and winding staircases. Unfortunately the practice room situation is a bit dismal:

I could play in here as long as I didn't need 6th position

Right. I did scavenge about for other practising possibilities and may have found a solution or two.

Then it was off to the new cake shop to meet up with Alison again before she caught the train to London.

Choices, Choices

My Choice (two pieces thereof)

Walking back, I noticed something I'd never noticed before at the corner of Great Western Road and Byres Road - it's true what the Doctor said, people do just walk by and not ask any questions.

Abandoned Tardis

Thursday I thought I would go down to the Uni, meet with my potential Ph.D. supervisor, hand in my application, and go. Ha ha. Oh well. The meeting was very good but I had many fine pieces of advice to work into the application. I gave up hope that it would be done within hours and went to a concert instead, where I saw among other things, Barnaby Brown play triplepipes and sing Canntaireachd - which is pronounced 'Cantara' and is Gaelic mouth music - or a way of singing what bagpipes play. I liked it so much, I wanted immediately to learn it. So far I've learned to spell it, but perhaps I will be able to get a lesson when I'm back again?

When I got back to Alison's I got a text message from Helen saying that she was already on the bus to Edinburgh - never assume the same flight times with easyjet! Ah! So I went down to the train station and we soon met up in Edinburgh to check in at the hostel and find us some pub fare. Helen had haggis.

The next day was quite perfect. We wandered down the Royal Mile, popping into charity shops and a shop where they made animal horn trumpets (we tried them - should have bought one probably!) and a few private whisky establishments (I bought a bottle on the way back).

The Royal Mile

At the end, across from the Scottish Parliament, was Holyrood castle, but it was far too lovely out to go inside, so we climbed a hill in Holyrood park instead.

Helen, Catherine, Ediburgh

On the way back, mulling about what to do for lunch, we saw this red restaurant. "I'm tempted. Are you tempted?" "I'm tempted too!" So, off to the tempting tattie we went and ate baked potatoes with all sorts of fillings and cheese.

Scarlet Establishment

Curiously, having just arrived, we were eager to 'get out of the city', so after some coffee, we hopped on the bus to Rosslyn Chapel, the site of many sandstone engravings of everything from angel musicians and the dance of death to many carvings of the pagan "Green Man", to the inscription Forte est vinum fortior est rex fortiores sunt mulieres super omnia vincit veritas: "Wine is strong, a king is stronger, women are stronger still, but truth conquers all."

You'll have to visit the websites for pictures because we weren't allowed to take any. Having a bit of time before the return bus, we wandered down to Rosslyn castle, an eerie ruin at twilight:

Rosslyn Castle

Park Bench

Upon returning to Edinburgh, we ate curry and found some traditional music in a pub. At one point they put their fiddle and sang my favourite Stan Rogers song.

The next morning it was off to Aberdeen - a glorious sunrise over the Firth of Forth greeted us on the train ride.

Looking upwards, Aberdeen reminded me a bit of Lancaster with it's stone houses and many chimneys:

After an afternoon of wandering around (yey charity shops!) we went back to Frauke's house, equipped with a functional fireplace, and toasted marshmallows.

Helen, Frauke, Hot Coals

The Germans have a tradition they call Abendbrot, which is a supper of bread and the best meats and cheeses you can find. So to our cracked wheat we added smolked salmon, pigeon breasts, two types of Scottish cheese and some traditional oatcakes, cheddar and chutney for good measure.

The next morning, we went riding:

Horse in a Frosty Field

Me on Wesley

Frauke and a slightly unwilling Benji

Helen on Goose

There was just enough times for a quick romp around the dunes of Balmedie, just North of Aberdeen, before heading to the bus.

Um, tide coming in or going out?

Frauke, Helen and Me

Helen failing to display English Wistful
Melancholy at the Appropriate Moment

The Grassy Dunes

More of the same

And more...

Fiery Sunset

Taken from the car going into Aberdeen

No trains running that day, Helen and I took the Citylink Gold express bus, which went from Aberdeen to Glasgow, only stopping to pick up some sandwiches, drinks, and tablet for us. Free (if dodgy) wifi the whole way too, and all for £10. Ok, I say.

When we got to Alison's, she had some lovely sea bass waiting, and we listened to the first edit of the I Fedeli CD recorded last October...very exciting!

The next day was pretty chaotic, as finishing my Uni applications took, as usual, much longer than I expected. But with some help from Alison and some fresh gumption from the air outside - smelled of heather and the sea - I got them in and headed back to Basel, exactly a week ago today. The week was not very eventful, mostly spent in the Egger workshop, where sawing out little angels on the jewelry saw provided some welcome respite from the inhuman CNC lathes. And now I have to head back there, or I'll be late!

2011-01-23T15:01:00.003+01:00

I dare not say I've nipped this illness in the bud, because that's tempting fate, but after a few days of nothing I went skating again yesterday and am getting ready to go again now in this crisp, sunny, proper winter weather we've been having.

This morning I played alto trombone in one of the local Catholic churches: a Haydn organ mass to which was added trombones to double and support the choir parts. The mass being already a bit of a marathon, with lots of high notes and lots of bits without rests, I doubled the soprano part of the last verse of the last hymn as a little sprint to the finish line. Fun and, ok, a bit narcissistic. I looked at the music director afterward to see if doing that had been ok, and he was pleased and a bit surprised I think - did he not realize that it was actually lower than the alto part I'd just played...? Aural illusions, very good.

Sometimes I wish I played a slightly less athletic instrument though, so when the other day I was in the Schola trying to conjure a non-existant transcript and spied a room that was empty except for a copy of a 17th-c French harpsichord, I ran in and shut the door. Both doors. I'm not a very good keyboard player, but I do love to sit at a resonant harpsichord and play full harmonies by myself now and again.

Until two days ago I was wondering if I'd done in my career by leaving Basel for a whole 7 1/2 months last year: I had just been booked for one concert in February and had one in March and then things would only start up again mid-November. I reckoned I'd been forgotten. I had only just begun to worry - things do take a while to start rolling after Christmas after all. But suddenly they came: since my last post I've received four texts, calls and emails, adding - if they all actually happen - eleven concerts to my diary. Five lovely projects, filling out February, March, and April and starting to add July and August to my diary. So I do have a career after all.

We trombones do tend to be booked late in general - a bit more notice for chamber music, but around two months before is unfortunately quite normal for orchestra projects. Singers and cornettists know their schedules much further in advance because the concerts really can't happen without them, whereas there will always be a trombonist free somewhere. As a result, I have to choose arbitrary days for family to come and visit in April and June when in fact it's very likely that whatever concerts might get offered to me for that time are already being advertised in brochures and on posters. Also, I now have to change a plane ticket at my own expense because the new project in March leaves me in the wrong city on the night of my flight. It's better than an outright conflict though I suppose. The music for my next playing project, February's Bach Cantata, has arrived and couldn't possibly be in a better key for my slide trumpet - yey!

Speaking of flights, my couchsurfers are on the same flight with me to Edinburgh tomorrow - what a very small world...

2011-01-21T13:07:00.002+01:00

I'm definitely fighting something off - my whole body is stiff for no reason, my throat is still slightly sore, and I woke up after a long sleep still quite exhausted. But, no fever and I'm not stuffed up. Maybe it's related to the massive life decisions looming closer and closer... Or is it just because the monocloud is back?

I woke up in a slight state this morning after a very stressful dream of losing objects while changing from buses to trains on the way to a concert (perhaps because I lost my new hat last week on the five trains it took to get home from the I Fedeli concert in Bremgarten - have a new new hat now). It annoys me when I have to relax again after waking up - morning is normally my most productive time of day. The usual distractions of Facebook and CBC news weren't doing it for me so I read up on the present state of space elevator design, and then decided that it was a pity I didn't understand calculus.

In high school I spent my last few years spurning the arts and sciences because I wanted to become a musician. Of course I don't see any conflict there anymore, but at the time I remember feeling strongly that my over-analytical mind was getting in the way of playing. It was, to be fair, but I'm not sure that becoming ignorant of calculus and biology was the way to develop trust in my intuition. I also remember thinking that if I found later on in life that I really needed to know these things, I could learn them auto-didactically - and this in the era that my Internet exposure consisted of an email account and Trombone-L...

Finally, after limited success at coming to grips with Bernoulli's Equation in December - the crucial equation in the mathematical modeling of wind instruments - I began to revisit the question. Now being unable to read about the weight/tension/distance relationship on a cord of carbon nanotubes (or will they use the less conductive boron nitride nanoribbons?) is finally getting me to the point that I've decided calculus, both differential and integral, is something I need to know. And maybe a bit more chemistry so that I can appreciate why elongated bucky balls of 1 mm thickness can suspend over 6400 kg, instead of just being extremely impressed

Now that the Internet has come of age, it didn't take a lot of digging to find this video, the first in a series, by Gerald Strang. Many kudos to him. An MIT professor, his explanations are brilliant, and he's just awkward enough to make me absolutely sure he's teaching the world calculus as a labour of love. I think that draws me in much more than if an actor were to present this lesson from a script. I'll let you know if I stick with it.

Incidentally I'm both more awake and more relaxed now. Perhaps both neural and cardiovascular exercise are useful in combating the ill effects of monocloud.

2011-01-20T12:00:00.002+01:00

January is a funny month - it usually starts hungover and takes a long time to recover. In the case of my circle of friends it at least has a few birthdays to carry it through. Helen wants to move back to England this summer so 25 of us pitched in and raised enough pounds to buy a small used car - the gift of being able to go home again after evening gigs. Here you can see a symbolic 1915 Ford model being driven out of it's garage by a sheep, carrying a bag of chocolate coins, and under the car is a red envelope with the notes.

Happy Birthday, Helen!

Car, dosh, card, sheep, chocolate, beer, friends

The 31st birthday of my friend and neighbour Alex was marked by some very festive Bach Cantatas, after which his daughter, the three-year old Sophia, spontaneously ran up and joined him on the stage for the bows, doing her best curtsy in her pink birthday dress. Then we all went back and ate an amazing Pavlova that David Blunden had prepared.

Another cheery item besides birthdays is that I've been pulled from the CNC lathe at the back of the Egger shop to my desk, with a view over the hills, where I get to make sheet-brass tubes all afternoon. This involves folding sheet brass around a rod and then hammering so that the seam is clean and flat, ready to be soldered. It is very Zen and quiet in itself - only the banter of the instrument makers in the background and the whistled tunes being passed about compete with the gentle tap of the hammer in just the right place (except when it's not). I hear there's lots more of this work to do so I'm trying to get good at it as fast as I can.

Hammering in a sunbeam

The Egger Workshop

View out the window

The first week of January was relatively unproductive though: the rain meant very little exercise and grey weather makes me quite miserable. I do own a medical-grade sun lamp, but the fact that I find it quite easy to get up and start achieving on sunny days despite having no window in view from my high bed makes me think it has much less to do with light and more to do with pressure, perhaps also ions. Will investigate further. The first weekend of January was quite possibly the most unproductive I've had since last spring or so: I did almost nothing at all (almost). On Saturday, this was fine, but on Sunday I got a bit sick of the colour of the wall and took up Caroline's invitation to go out on a walk in the Allschwil Forest.

Wet Walking

Watching Compost Compost

One thing I like about Switzerland is that farm shops are run on the honour system. Caroline and I went to a nearby shop, open on Sunday since no one was required to manage the till. We picked out some nice vegetables and apples, weighed them, put some coins in the cash box and were on our way. The only odd thing was that, for not having to pay any employees, the prices weren't any lower than in the supermarket. But everything was fresh and I suppose they have to fund the few times that people will inevitably abuse the system. I'm glad that's rare enough that the shops are still there.

Honour System Vegetable Shop

The walk proved once again that, indeed, the only sure way to beat winter blues is exercise - it worked very well. The next week it started to cool off again and stop raining and I started skating again too. And practising. And finished my taxes, wrote an abstract for the upcoming MedRen conference, and started organizing my Glasgow University application. That's better. I've been skating regularly now, with the hopes of keeping up the achievement levels.

Skating is quite amazing - I can't believe I let so many years go by without going. The rinks here are a bit soft and chip easily because of the warm temperatures, but at the right times of day I can get a good surface of ice to myself. My first time on the ice, I was surprised at how wobbly and unbalanced I felt - I thought it would be more like riding a bike but it's not. Inspired by some of the more serious figure skaters on the ice, I started practising throwing my weight around though, finding my balance slowly. What's very encouraging is that I seem to have transferred some of this feeling of using my whole body into playing the trombone, which feels like an excellent way forwards after having lost that feeling a bit last summer playing little sound bites at the Globe.

Last weekend I played with a slightly smaller I Fedeli quartet, including some pieces with saxophone and percussion. The modern music on the programme was pretty good (if sometimes a bit conservative for my tastes), and we also got to play some Senfl that I'd never heard before - what an underrated composer!

There have been also many social occasions since the birthday extravaganzas - having all guest rooms being filled in the house has been lovely if slightly exhausting. Basel also had a festival day - Vogel Gryff: As always I missed the mid-day boat ritual, presided over this year by the Wilde Mann, but I did run across him on Clarastrasse while walking home from the trumpet class recital that night:

Wilde Mann

There were also some pipe (in this case piccolo) and drum bands out - the carnival kind but in this case very good and very together.

Drummers

Pipers

Today I've taken the day off work - coming down with something and trying to nip it in the bud by drinking more water, tea and juice than is really comfortable - on my 3rd litre now and it's only noon. If I don't get any worse, I will haul myself of to the Schola in time to hear a talk on 17th-c proportions - the issue of how quickly to take threes comes up in far too many rehearsals to consider missing out on a well-read explanation.

I just discovered that blogger is also keeping track of who has visited this page, so the missing counter is not such a tragedy after all. It's counting hits, not visits, though, so it just passed the 3000 mark - yey! The most traffic from referrals comes from here - thanks!, with the second from, um, here?

2011-01-06T19:10:00.000+01:00

Of the links I keep at the top of my browser, my link to the IMSLP (or "Petrucci") has been lately very fruitful. After having unsuccessfully browsed the Ottawa Folklore Centre's for a Ukulele method, I stumbled across this today:

Perfect! I did notice that it was uploaded by - if I can assume by the username - the only follower of this blog who I've never met - thank you! It's not the first contribution of yours I've taken off the IMSLP and definitely won't be the last. In fact, given this week's weather forecast (as of last night) it could be quite useful:

No Comment

Did I mention I just bought a skating rink subscription? And today some cross-country skiis (at the Brocki). As both these things will be utterly useless in the next week I think I might try to organize the singing-through of some very silly Ravenscroft. As for winter, I do hope it comes back soon. In the mean time, if I need to remember what snow and ice feel like, at least I can always click here.

2011-01-05T08:31:00.000+01:00

Yesterday morning I was cycling to work when the light and haze reminded me of being in smoky New Delhi - it was dark and grey, but oddly a bit yellow too. Grumpily acknowledging the return of the Basel monocloud™, I looked up at sky... only to see through the thin clouds that the sun was half-eclipsed by the moon. Oh, that's alright then.

Work has started again at the Egger shop, where I work at varying tasks ranging from mundane to extremely interesting in times when there aren't a lot of concerts - January and February I tend to be at the shop a lot.

The past two days I've been working with Edward. I don't like to make a habit of anthropomorphizing, but as the one of two CNC lathes that has a rotating head of blades (it's great fun to clean at the end of the day) I refer to it affectionately as Edward after the Tim Burton film of 1990. The machine is fascinating, controlling tools at the precision of around 1/100th of a millimetre (it says even finer and I'm sure that it's true in a vaccuum), following a long line of simple commands on an early 1980's computer. Running it involves loading the piece in and listening out for any irregularities - you can't see much once there's coolant everywhere (yuck) but from learning the machine's "song" for every program, I can hear if something is off. Over the course of a long day I can hear the knives getting a bit duller, if the coolant is not spraying in the right place, and of course if something very bad happens like the piece not spinning (if it's too loosely held, for intance) then there's a half-second of thudding before the knife breaks - possible to avoid by pressing the Big Red Stop Button.

The really interesting part of my work is of course when I am a musician-consultant - helping in designs and improvements, giving my reactions to new instruments as they're being made. Both musician and computer feedback influence the design of new instruments, and this past autumn I did some translation work which involved finally getting my head around the computerized acoustical modeling of brasswinds. We don't model the instruments to achieve acoustical "perfection" - that feels strange and sounds extremely dull and cold - but rather to see which instruments might be interesting to copy and to fix difficult intonation or unstable notes without losing character or warmth. We constantly check what the computer says how an instrument should feel with how musicians react to the instrument - in my experience they usually line up pretty well too.

I try to keep as steep a learning curve as I can at the shop, for the purposes of my own fulfillment and sense of progress, since I don't think I'll ever become an instrument maker. This I do by asking lots of questions: learning about the properties of brass and other metals, about historical production techniques, most often about the intricacies of the German language. When Gerd refused to explain to me why the mixture of lead, tin, cadmium and bismuth melted at only 80 °C, I took the next morning off and read about eutectic alloys myself. It turns it's a lot like adding salt to water to make it melt at a lower temperature than 0: the molecules (or ions) of the salt get in the way of the water bonding into solid form. You can learn more here if you're interested. That morning I also learned that steel is harder than either carbon or iron because those molecules nestle into each other more efficiently than with themselves, making for more bonds in the same space.

I need to try to go skating today, having bought a subscription to the local rinks after skating on Sunday morning with Alison - we had the rink to ourselves for the first half hour, which was very lovely indeed. Yesterday I also found some decent cross-country skiis and boots in a Brocki (second-hand shop) and bought them, either as my own pair or a second pair so that I don't have to go skiing alone. I suppose it depends a bit how much my visit to the dentist in Germany costs this afternoon.

I'm a bit miffed to see the counter gone from the bottom of this page, the website that ran it seems to have shut down. Not only did I give a little cheer when it hit 1000 visits (and over 2000 hits) but it was fascinating to see how people came to the site, which links they followed, and from what countries they clicked: Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Netherlands, Australia, and India. I suppose I'll just have to start again with a new one soon.

Last night's impromptu festivities (the Bar du Nord was closed so we popped back to mine for a "quick pint" (... and the rest of the curry and then a wee dram)) and around ten-thirty finally had a go at improvising 4-part renaissance polyphony from a single tenor... I guess I'm back in Basel!

2011-01-01T12:54:00.000+01:00

Happy New Year!

I've marked this New Year quite fittingly by moving back into my flat - I moved out just before this blog started, and I can't tell you how lovely it feels to write my first blog entry from my kitchen table. My subletter left things in a pretty good state altogether - the dishes are intact and the plants, especially the herbs on the windowsill, are flourishing whereas when I'm living here they are usually dead by now. But, he did suddenly decide once the cold weather hit a few weeks ago that it was ok to smoke in here. When I mention this to people they always ask me if I'd put it in the contract, and it is true that it's a preference that I had stated only verbally. Somehow I'd believed that, just as "Do not leave the flat smelling of rotting fish," is a bit of a given, so might be "Do not leave the flat wreaking of a 70's hotel room with yellow tar stuck to every surface." Apparently not. As a smoker, he does not smell it at all of course. But can he not see that my little blue Rajasthani wall-hanging now has a yellow tinge? Can he not feel that the sugar bowl and toaster are sticky, or that the dust everywhere doesn't come away when you wipe it with your finger? It wasn't going to feel like home until the smell was out, so I've spent the last 3 days with the windows open, the mattress and rug outside. Rejecting advice to simply cover up the smell with incense (which makes me feel as though I'm in a Catholic church), I've laundered the sofa and chair upholstery, and the curtains, and with his help wiped down the main surfaces with chlorine and soap. It still smells a little bit, so the last step is that my friends are going to come around this afternoon and we're going to make some curries - if I must cover up the smell, then fresh ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom beat out smoky sandalwood a thousand to one.

Last night I went to a little celebration in France, where we played "Siedler von Catan" before heading outside into a scene which made me wonder less what the London air raids of WWII must have felt like - shots and explosions on all sides from the many scattered drunken, inept but excited and a bit too well-outfitted pyromaniacs of Huningue. Apparently they are inspired by Napoleon, who placed his cannons there to fire at Basel. Did he fire? I do not know.

I have finally been skating in Basel, twice. It seems criminal to have to pay to skate after living in Ottawa with its 200+ free rinks, but here we are. The first time was a bit of a disaster, as I took little 3-year old Sophia along. Never take a child to do a new and exciting activity if they've missed their nap. The first scream was that the rental skates were black ("pink!") and then before we even got to the rink "Don't Like It! Too Slippery!" So I went the next day on my own. I think I've mentioned some goings on in my left knee and foot. It was very clear while skating that my left foot turns in slightly - skating it simply runs into my right foot. Aha. Any maneuver using the outer edge was also very trippy. It got easier as I went along though, so I'm pondering going quite regularly to try and train it back to a normal position.

I'm also pondering squandering the Euros that Lufthansa gave me for flying a day later on a nice new set of cross-country skiis....

Christmas day in Basel was quite nice though a bit sad not to have my luggage yet at that point (it took a week for them to send it along) - my neighbours presents are still undelivered as they're away. But on Christmas morning I was woken up at 7 very gently by a choir singing outside the window in the gentle snowfall. I turned on the light and unwrapped my presents and cards which I'd put on the bed the night before. After playing a Mozart mass in the Catholic church (lots of incense), I headed off to go and cook with friends. This is how turkeys come if you buy them at the market in France.

Nate and a turkey with all but feathers

Despite the fact that they've always turned out pretty well, I've always been a bit worried cooking turkeys in my old gas oven, so I was quite excited at the new possibilities of the state-of-the-art oven we had chez Ann. Soon into the process, I realized the sound coming from the oven meant that it was a convection oven, but as the temperature was already on the low side of what the Internet recommended, we left it alone. Somehow, after 3 and a half hours of desert air blowing across the Turkey, it was the driest bird I'd ever had anything to do with. Convection ovens suck. Gas ovens rule. There. I said it.

Nevertheless, it was a pretty good meal, you just had to get the meat from right next to the bone.

Turkey, Cranberry Sauce, Gravy, Bread Sauce,
Potatoes, Brussels Sprouts, Carrots, Parsnips,
Salad, Squash with Walnuts and Maple Syrup

For dessert, I was quite pleased that, it being one of the heaviest items bringing my suitcase above the 23.9 kg limit, I'd put the small pudding in my coat pocket, so it hadn't been lost with the rest of the luggage.

When asked what I wanted for Christmas a year ago, I said without hesitation "a large and fluffy bath towel." I didn't get it last year, but this year it came and it's amazing. So, for my next trick, I'm going to go and have a shower that will make Greenpeace cringe, then wrap myself up in it with a cup of tea.

2010-12-22T04:37:00.000+01:00

Back in Montreal after a trip to the airport. I'm not sure if it was the European weather chaos or simple Christmas overselling, but I've been bumped from my flight. If Lufthansa is true to their word, I'm supposed to fly tomorrow, with a little Christmas bonus for my trouble.

The past few days have been mostly finally visiting and a bit of taking it easy, though I can't ignore my Christmas services - still have to play trombone every day to stay in shape. Last night there was another music reading session in a local church - we were 5: cornetto, violin, and three trombones.

I've been staying chez Douglas Kirk, and my mornings have been spent living out my long-harboured fantasy of waking up, making some coffee, and sitting at a keyboard to muck about. The gentlest way I can think of of getting neurons firing in the morning. In fact, since putting in those Ph.D. applications, I've been seeking out the feeling of neurons blasting inside my head, and playing imitative counterpoint (especially since I'm not really a keyboard player) makes them work hard in a very good way. I should find a way to make a habit of it, but it's got to be a nice instrument. In this case, it's Douglas' lovely little table-top organ, and I've been doing a combination of improvising counterpoint and playing from early Spanish sources while sipping a very fine roast. Bliss.

Having not had any proper visiting time in Ottawa, I returned there on Sunday and wandered about, savoured Jane's fantastic Paella and then went off to see Ottawa's normally luxuriant Christmas lights. There wasn't as much to see as in other years, but the parliament buildings warranted a photo:

I was feeling retrospective about this trip to Canada on my way to the airport, but now that I'm back, the feeling is gone again. Tomorrow, perhaps.

2010-12-15T17:16:00.000+01:00

Monster post ahead! Jump to the pictures if you don't want to read the frustrating story of trying to play a concert legally in the U.S. of A.

I promised a rant a while back, so I'll do my best to tell this story as infuriatingly as I can. It has to do with getting a visa to go and play with Concerto Palatino in Seattle two weeks ago. Now, Canada has a reciprocal exchange with the USA which lets citizens of one country work in the other. This means that the Americans can come to Canada and work without any hassle or cost, while for the Canadians to go work in the USA, it costs only 2-4 months of paperwork and up to $2000 in fees. Reciprocal, you say? To which the Americans respond: We are bigger than you. At least, that's what they said when they levied five billion dollars in tarifs on softwood lumber exports from British Columbia, despite the "North American Free Trade Agreement." Parliament celebrated a huge victory when they finally convinced the US that it was unfair and guess how much they got back? 1 billion. The other four is a write-off and there isn't a lot we can do.

I don't think Canada should start asking for visas to come and play concerts. In broadcasting, we have Canadian-content laws to make sure that around 1/3 of what we call Canadian radio and tv actually comes from Canadian artists, but we like the idea of having an international cultural scene. We're proud of what we do here, but not so hoity-toity to think that Canadians should only be exposed to what's home-grown. Besides, if an arts organization wants to present someone in the world who is doing something really interesting, they can, while in the US (and the UK for that matter) the hassle and cost of getting someone in from abroad is so great that a lot of them won't bother. A most excellent violinist in Montreal wanted to audition for the extras list of a Boston Orchestra - it's one of the closest cities - only to be told not to bother, they wouldn't pay the $400 every time they wanted her to come down for a concert. Meanwhile, the top sackbut spots in Canada are taken up by Americans, who are often closer to Toronto or Vancouver than their Canadian counterparts.

Who exactly is this law serving? American presenters suffer, the audiences too, and while a mediocre musician might as well, the best ones lose the opportunity to make contacts outside of their country by inviting people to come and play concerts, not to mention the opportunity to grow from other people's experience in this very small field of early music.

Anyway, so I had to apply for a visa. It was complicated because after having paid my union dues for four years, I decided that $200 per concert was a bit steep - I'd rather leave the union and pay the external per concert fee of $50. The union does apply for visas on musicians' behalf (for the low low price of $400), but it IS possible to get one without. Being between the UK, Switzerland and Montreal, I couldn't set up an interview for "sometime in the next 60 days" anywhere, so I had to apply for an 0-1 visa, which avoids that but is only for highly specialized people with an international career. Actually, Maxine in Seattle had to. As one of the Palitini had just gotten one with no problem, it seemed like a good idea.

Maxine put in the application, which included CVs, reviews, concert programmes, contracts, letters of recommendation etc. - it was all quite a narcissistic procedure, collecting the stuff. She sent it off and we waited. And waited. And....waited....

It was 10 days late and only a week before I was to fly, when we found out they'd sent the letter to the wrong address - it ended up at Maxine's neighbour's house in Seattle. But she didn't know this and couldn't ask until she paid the $1500 "premium processing" fee which allowed her to talk to a real person. Yep, $1500 to be told that, yes it had been sent, no not that address, but one number off. So she went and got the letter from next door.

It said this (you can click on it to make it bigger):

Incidentally, not even Bruce could recall who HAD received the last Nobel Prize in Sackbuttery - I'll have to try harder next year. As to the fact that I was coming to play as a member of one of the most famous sackbut and cornetto bands in the world, with a discography of over 25 CDs and a concert history all over Europe, the Americas, Japan:

And who are these national or international experts, then?

Now things were serious. Finding an American replacement at the last minute would be tricky, by which I don't want to imply that I'm particularly special, but I am particularly specialized. The concert was at A-466 meantone for one, which is the appropriate historical pitch but requires a player who can play with historical slide positions. These positions are not just up a semitone from 440, they are up a major semitone for some notes, and up a minor semitone for others. And it was also on both alto and tenor trombone, as I was playing the third cornetto parts. Beyond these technical considerations, any group worth playing with has a way of doing things, and Concerto Palatino definitely does, permeating all articulation, tuning, timing, even the sound of the instruments...

Maxine appealed the application, which involved sending more contracts (thanks to Bruce for digging through my box in Basel for the juicy ones, and to Alex for scanning them in) and more letters (I think I'll frame one of them, people really stepped up to bat here ), and faxing a maximum of 15 pages to the Immigration office. This they did the Friday between American Thanksgiving and the weekend. Maxine called straightaway to make sure that all 15 pages had been received - yes, they had, and they would go off to Officer Tony on Monday for review. So we waited.

And waited.

Maxine was allowed to call once, so it was risky to call too early, in case the review hadn't gone in. Monday went by and Tuesday came - my flight was on Wednesday. On Tuesday afternoon she finally called. "Fax? What fax? We received no fax."

Eventually they admitted that they had received the fax, but they'd lost it. She'd have to send it again, ma'am. They reminded her that they had the right to take 15 days to consider the appeal, and that Officer Tony was on holiday. So she sent the fax again and another sackbut player was found in Boston asked to jump on the plane if the whole thing didn't get cleared up in time.

That evening I played Monteverdi Vespers in Montreal, with the team of new sackbut players I'd been having a great time coaching as well as my old McGill teacher, Dominique Lortie. Beginning the concert already with a lot of tension, I almost started to cry in the Laudate Pueri when the altos started their "ad solus ortuus" cantus firmus and it hit me just how important playing my trombone is to me and just how gutted I would be if I missed playing it again with one-per-part singers and Palatino. Fortunately I had a few tacets yet to recover.

The next morning I woke up early and packed my suitcase to go to the airport on the off-chance that the visa came through, completely convinced that I would be coming straight back again. A few minutes before check-in closed, I got a message from Bruce on Skype (yay for free airport WiFi): "it's approved."

So I checked in, and went off to the airport hotel so that I could print off the approval notice when it was forwarded. Instead I got an email from Stephen Stubbs: "it's not approved yet, don't get on the plane." I tried to call Seattle to ask but couldn't get through, so I went through security and tried again at the gate. Thanks to "Officer Dan" jumping in, it had been through the first round, but not the second, where it could potentially be rejected again. The first flight was to Vancouver though, so there was still 5 hours before I had to go through US customs. I got on the plane and crossed my fingers. According to the email that I got on landing, the approval came when I was over Regina.

But of course, not having the original, I couldn't get through customs - at least not until being sent for questioning. I waited for an hour (meanwhile my connecting flight left) and then a very pleasant immigration officer looked on my computerized file, which hadn't been completely updated. The immigration office had faxed my approval notice to Seattle, but not to my point of entry, so all we had was the scanned version. Next to me, a man was being turned away, told that he was obviously leaving Canada to come to the USA for "a better life." Oh dear. They questioned me on their own about just how specialized I was and finally let me through, half an hour after my plane took of.

Kudos, then, to Air Canada took responsibility since my first flight was late and my luggage had been untraceable between flights, and paid for my dinner and breakfast and put me up in a nice hotel.

I arrived in Seattle at 10 am the next morning, ecstatic after a very sunrise beautiful flight over the rockies. The fog was so thick that we had to circle for 40 minutes, but I made it and they'd shifted the rehearsal around to wait for me before playing the Sonata. The vespers that ensued was easily one of the most fulfilling that I've ever been a part of, and I am still very touched and grateful for all the work that it took to get me there.

And here we are:

Seatlle is a lovely place - very kind and hospitable people, at least judging by the couple who put us up. I also had the luck to be put up with Kiri and Yulia. Kiri played on my very first vespers ever in 2001, and we had some catching up todo! Seattle is also very beautiful: we spent some time wandering through the Arboretum as well as gazing up at Mount Rainier:

Mount Rainier, Looming

Mount Rainier in a better mood

Hugh and Sue in the Arboretum

Both concerts went well. After the first, there was a very positive review which called our instruments "exotic." That's the second time I've seen a North American review that calls cornetts and sackbuts "exotic" - a euphemism for "they don't have a lot of work around here" as far as I can see...

The flight home, in the company of the amazing Laura Pudwell, was spectacular:

The Rockies at Dawn

I never tire of views like this

Or this

The CN tower from over Lake Ontario

Life started to turn Christmassy after that. I'm always a bit amused by the North American need to make sure you aren't liable for other people's injuries - I suppose you have to be, when suing so often parades as a get-rich-quick scheme.

Good thing I saw the sign!

After that there was a lot of hanging out with my mom, sisters, brothers-in-law, and nephews. This story needs no caption...

After a few days in Kitchener it was back to:

This visit was difficult in that I had a Ph.D. application to submit on Friday. I was working on a paper about changing organ continuo at the turn of the 17th century, but it looks like it really changed about 20 years later than I thought it did, meaning that I was reading a lot of the wrong sources and not getting anywhere. So at the last second I decided to improve a paper I'd written in 2002. It was very interesting indeed to see how much I've learned since then - I wound up editing for well over 12 hours....

When I finally handed it in, we took my oldest nephew (Dominic - he's 4) skating for the first time. It was the first time for me in a very long time too - for how dear to my heart skating is, see the last post. I also enjoyed that Dom has learned to speak - something he couldn't really do the last time I saw him. He looked down at his supper the other night and said: "This pizza is very wrong."

On the weekend my mom, both sisters and all three nephews came together and we went to the zoo:

A Rhinoceros!

A very large fish

Spot the Orchid Mantis

Fascinating Nephews

Mum and Baby Gorilla, chillin'

You'd almost think I was in the North
except for the trees

Now I'm back in Montreal, having submitted another Ph.D. application (for which I wrote an analytical paper), with a few days to visit people before I fly out on Tuesday. So I'm going to go do that!

2010-12-14T14:19:00.001+01:00

I have blog deficiency and will write a little something. Indeed, I already have the photos edited and uploaded for the next long post, to tell of visa woes related to my last concerts in Seattle, of family visits, polar bears in the zoo, and the extensive reading and writing for my upcoming Ph.D. applications, to which I assign full responsibility for preventing me from writing here. (The good news is, I am able to sit sufficiently still that the papers are coming along; my interest is still piqued (Or is it peaked? I hope not.); and yet I'm still sufficiently distracted to have stumbled upon a (hopefully) unique perspective on Scotch Education. I'm sure the part about the debt at least is correct.

The last paper is due tomorrow, and having started today before six, I have a planned distraction in the afternoon which I hope will bear some fruits. Despite this, it's hard to move ahead now at full steam at 8:30 in the morning, knowing that no matter what I do, I'll be tinkering with more or less advanced stages of bibliography-formatting well into the night.

A short word about the snow: my present workspace looks out onto a riverside park here in Ottawa - we launch the canoe just 150 meters away in summer. It's covered in snow (both the park and the canoe, that is) - the powdery kind that's not much good for snowballs. I get the same nostalgic feeling looking at this fresh snow that I did at the smell of the leaves on the street shortly after I landed in Montreal in October. There is no mystery to this snow, it's an old friend. Looking out, I know and look forward to how it will feel to breathe in the cool but gentle air when I leave the house, and also the kind of texture that my feet will step into. This is the kind of snow that used to fall onto the ice rink at the end of the street. In the evening the kids played hockey (I joined in sometimes but was never much good with the stick), and as night came a designated dad from the neighbourhood (often mine) would go to maintain the ice, which they did so well that it was hard to skate on the knobbly Rideau Canal afterward. Every night they would come out with the hose and spray a new layer of water to smooth out the cracks left from games. (Some skaters carved worse marks in the ice than others, and for the benefit of the low-impact types - that is to say, who were still learning to brake - there were snowbanks framing the ice on all sides.)

Some mornings in high school, when the snow was falling just like this, I would leave the house too early and with my skates over my shoulder so that when I passed the rink I could be the first and only one to cut patterns in the new snow, still under the light of the streetlamps or in some lucky cases, the moon. I went ice skating for the first time in a few years last week, but I still miss the feeling you get when you have a whole rink to yourself and can build up such speed that you can coast from one end to the other.

Canoe and Windsor Park, Ottawa

2010-11-30T23:10:00.001+01:00

I promised myself when I started this blog that I wouldn't use it for ranting. Rants, after all, are usually much more satisfying to write than to read. So I haven't posted the last few days because I didn't think I could hold back....now I'm going to try, but I guarantee that there will be a serious rantstravaganza in the next post or two - I'll at least try to make it funny and informative. Oh, the suspense.

Meanwhile, it's funny proposing programmes of Early Brass to conductors - a task crucial to this trip which I'm finally tackling these days - because even though in the 16th Century it was much more common to hear brass in the church and in the streets than strings, yet it's something of a specialty item in modern concerts. Oh, we did a brass programme last year, mustn't repeat ourselves. Our violin colleagues don't have this problem; no one says - oh, the last programme had violins, so let's do something different this time. No, no, violins every concert and it goes unquestioned, while we brass players have to wait around a year and a half between gigs from the same group. And they wonder why we try to charge more?

Last weekend, a visit to family in Kitchener and Toronto provided many delightful moments of all-engaging cuteness. My nephews are 1, 2 and 4 and I remember now how important it can be to have kids around in order to keep perspective on the world.

Now back to Diruta's 1593 treatise on organ playing. I'm writing a paper as part of Ph.D. applications and I decided, remembering back to the recording sessions 6 weeks ago, to investigate how using big loud metal organs as the usual accompaniment instrument in Italy in the 16th Century affects singing and playing. Remember that? I see that Il Transilvano is written in a dialogue style, like the Morely and many other treatises. Why don't we do this for academic papers anymore?

Oh, and Happy St. Andrew's Day to all Scots out there...you're probably asleep by now!

2010-11-24T02:07:00.000+01:00

I was walking down the street in Verdun on Sunday (I'd left the computer adapter in the café - oops!) when I saw some sweaters on a rack outside a shop for $2.99. Slave-labour, I thought, and checked the tags: "Made in Canada" - and discounted from $40... so I bought two. It was only when I got home and threw all my sweaters in a pile that I looked at them together and realized, to my utter shock and horror that: Ladies and Gentlemen, the TGV collection is now complete!

The TGV Collection

Alas, how many times have I complained about the hideous purple and orange which accost the traveler? Of course, one can pay an extra few euros and upgrade to first class, which doesn't constitute an improvement in service or space allowance but the seats are lime green instead. Could've been worse: Could've been Thalys...!

Sunday afternoon I tried Bubble Tea for the first time - interesting, even tasty, but altogether I can only rate it not bad as I can't say I got excited about little goopy black balls coming up my straw, supposedly the best part. The seaweed salad and tofu that it came with was amazing though.

Yesterday another Montreal Early Brass reading session with lots of Rore and Andrea Gabrieli. Renaissance music is more and more exciting to play - I hope you find the same after you've read the book that's second on the list here. (Don't know why there's a picture of "The Economist's Oath!") Regarding the book first on this list, it's brought me much pleasure and made for excellent conversation with fellow musicians. As a little thank you, this afternoon I made a Tiramisù for Bruce Haynes and will eat it with him tomorrow.

In case you needed reminding....

2010-11-20T20:23:00.000+01:00

I'm pretty well set up here at Le Victoria, a café crêperie chocolatier on Wellington St. in Verdun:

The past few days have been a good balance between visiting, Ph.D. stuff, concert admin, getting exercise, playing sackbut, and listening to others play. Normally these things don't balance out very well at all, so that's quite refreshing!

Coming back from Ottawa on Wednesday night, I met someone who had been on the bus for three days - come from Calgary. 20 or so, he didn't know any French but was heading to Mont Tremblant to learn some and find some work for the winter, traveling with a few bags of clothes, a bus ticket (that's "coach" to UK folk) and some hope. Quite sleep-deprived by the time we started chatting in line for the bus, he was starting to doubt the whole thing though - a state of mind not helped by another 20-year old telling him she thought he was pretty crazy. I, on the other hand, was reminded how tired and terrified I was, sitting underground in the Zurich airport train station on Sept. 29th, 2004, with two suitcases full of myriad odds and ends, all my family and friends an ocean and the entire country of France away. I remember sitting there waiting for the Basel train, suddenly remembering that I had a chocolate chip cookie that mom had bought me at the airport. Never was a cookie so comforting as that one, I savoured every bite. Now, when we got off the bus in Montreal, where this traveler would have to wait all night for the next bus to Tremblant, I told him that I admired his courage and gave him one of the chocolate bars I'd brought from Switzerland before saying goodbye.

Thursday: more singing from original notation and more sackbuttery, and then nothing at all. I went to bed extra extra early, which might account for why yesterday was so good. I had some time at the library, then met a friend for coffee, went to a harpsichord recital, then picked up a bicycle from a friend in Westmount and biked the 13 km back home, almost all of which was along bike paths protected from the road with concrete dividers - a nice addition to the Montreal infrastructure! Being back on a bicycle was great - I'd forgotten about that level of endorphins, which I re-acheived this morning biking to the Metro station with a very strong headwind. It's a north-west wind again, bringing arctic air: a proper crisp Canadian winterness which doesn't mess with the blue sky. Thank goodness though for the little headband I bought the other day: my ears are still on.

This morning a bit of hard-core practising to get in shape for the upcoming Vespers. It's been good to have some time off, but after a gentle warm-up I threw myself into some Bartolomeo de Selma dulcian music for a challenge. I find often that my face will figure out what it needs to do better if I concentrate on making music than if I am thinking directly about technical things. Do other instrumentalists feel the same?

After the bike to the Metro, I was frustrated to find a 5-place bike rack with 10 bikes in it and no-bike signs on all the poles. So I brought my bike with me on the train. Oh well. I had sort of decided by then that today was a good day, but this note stuck to the inside window of the metro train cemented it for me:

Random Cheer on a Saturday Morning
(...would this be considered litter in Basel?)

2010-11-17T03:42:00.000+01:00

Gone Fishin'.

The last two days were mini Indian Summer, so what luck to have planned yesterday to be out in the canoe with my Dad. We chose as our lake Big Rideau, the lake we went to almost every summer when I was growing up, where we'd caught lots of fish, where I'd learned to fillet them, and where I would spend afternoons catching frogs and whiddling sticks and all those things kids do when brought to some place without television. It was a good choice too, because as we got closer, the clear day became misty. When we got to the water we couldn't see more than 10 meters or so...we might have hesitated to launch into another lake in a whiteout, but on this stretch of Big Rideau we knew well enough that the shoreline would always tell us where we were.

Mist and Glasswater, Hogg Bay

We drove into an access road and saw a white-tailed deer almost right away, then a muskrat. We launched at the Lally Homestead, the ruins of an 1860's farm situated in Murphy's Point Provincial Park. It also lies on the Rideau Trail, which runs from Ottawa to Kingston (as does the lake and canal system), and we had to park the car at the trailhead and portage in. Here's me carrying the canoe, which is made of Kevlar and very light at around 23 kg.

Portaging the Canoe

We headed onto the lake in the mist, only to be surrounded by the calls of all the dozens of Canada geese who were shocked at our presence.

Canada Geese in the Mist

We cast a few lines near the beach, where we've caught many a largemouth Bass, but there was nothing at all, so we headed down the bay to the narrows which open up onto the main part of Big Rideau:

The mist was starting to clear to reveal a gorgeous blue sky, so we headed to one of the canoe-in camping sites for lunch. Again, a walk down memory lane as I've spent weeks of my life at a favourite site, where now we set up the stove and made pea soup and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.

On the beach at the canoe-in site

When we left, we noted that the water was incredibly clear, and the rocks on the bottom were covered in zebra mussels - a recent addition to the Rideau ecosystem. These sharp little beasts eat by filtering food out of water and each mussel can filter up to a liter a day. In these quantities, entire lakes are being filtered every day, which explains why the water was so clear.

Zebra Mussel Infestation

The canoe out to the old boathouse, where the pike normally live hasn't changed at all, except that it seems shorter every time. The coastline is covered in wind-swept pines, birches, and the big granite rocks which characterize the Canadian Shield.

Coastline on the Canadian Shield

It's hardly wilderness though. Cottage country rather. Once we left the boundaries of the provincial park, there were cottages spaced out along the lakeshore. This one had an Inukshuk to greet the paddlers-by.

Inukshuk

Even by the old boathouse, there was not only a distinct lack of nibbling going on on the part of the fish, but no signs of life beneath the water at all. There were even a few flies sunbathing o the surface. We did see a few loons though, and on the way back to the homestead, came across this muskrat lodge (which we'd passed in the morning but hadn't seen in the mist).

Muskrat Lodge

With still no sign of fish, we went to the beach again to see if at least there were minnows, shiners or perch. Nothing. Today I read that all fish will seek out deeper water once the weather cools, so our assumption that coolness by the shores would bring the trout out of their depths was simply false. Oh well. The paddle was lovely, and we weren't the only sign of disappointed fishing expeditions on the lake:

Red and White Bobber in a Tree

On the way home, we passed many a tumbledown grey barn and some silos and I thought to myself that, actually, North American architecture is really interesting. It was Gawain who pointed out a few weeks ago that front porches are not common elsewhere, and it's in North America that timber frame houses have undergone a revival since the 1970's, mixing the old German tradition with new techniques and new materials, allowing for large insulated windows and such. We really have our own style now - so why don't we celebrate it?

Today it is rainy and blustery and I'm sitting inside drinking tea. I did get out earlier on, with amusing results: as a countermeasure to the grey and cold ennui, I made an impulse purchase and am now the proud owner of a small purple ukulele. I bought it because I think it's important to keep music-making on an amateur level in my life, just do it for fun and not for money. Having harpsichords in every practice room at the Schola served that purpose - 10 minutes of random preluding in a sackbut break would leave me full of gumption again. I've already been in touch with a Basel fidel player who will give me some leftover gut strings...now I just need to find a gamba or theorbo player, cook them supper, and learn how to tie frets so that I can play in tune.

A Grey Barn and Farmhouse

2010-11-14T17:41:00.000+01:00

Mary Queen of Scots got her head chopped off on the fourteenth of November.

This little history lesson was recorded in 1956 in Campbeltown, and given to me by David McGuinness.

I finished the grant application and triumphantly mailed it off on Wednesday. If I don't get any money, I still feel a sense of triumph for handing it in in the first place, it was a lot of work and a lot of waking up of old brain cells. Now onto some papers to form part of my McGill Ph.D. application - at least I'm quite excited about some topics and have a bit of momentum.

On Thursday I went to the weekly singing off of facsimile session first thing in the morning. Almost everyone had a coffee but me and I must remember to bring one of my own next time - it was rather tortuous to watch! The singing was great fun though: I can't find an interesting-looking motet right now, but here's a very good song printed by the same printer, Ottaviano Petrucci to give you an idea what it looks like. Not that different from modern notation actually.

Then I did my first hour and a half of my life teaching a group lesson on sackbut, which was very fun and I'm pleased I get to do it twice more in preparation for McGill's performance of the Monteverdi vespers. I've been working on explaining meantone temperament to melody instrument players - I'll post a link when I come up with a web page (there are others if you look around, but geared to keyboardists).

I needed to stay in downtown Montreal for a talk that Iain Fenlon was giving later that evening, so in the meantime I did what I've been meaning to do in a long time: I climbed the mountain. Sitting in a café, I noticed the sun was already going down (it was just gone four!) so I left at a quick pace. The first step was to locate the hole in the fence behind the residences that leads to the mountain path. Sounds exciting, but it's become much more of an official way into the park since my days...

Not really a secret path anymore

I marched up the path and the many steps, seeing the sky behind me grow purple through the trees, and reached the top in time to miss the sun but still catch its glorious colours in the west. The moon was out too.

Piazza at the top of Mount Royal

I stood on top of the mountain, taking in the view through dusk and into twilight, pondering this city and the hills and the ("mighty") St. Lawrence in the distance. I was pleased when after 10 minutes or so I ran across the bronze book that tells about Jacques Cartier standing in the same place, doing the exact same thing whilst looking out over the village of Hochelaga in 1535.

Sunset over Hochelaga.

Twilight falls over Montreal

Peel Street and the Mighty St. Lawrence

As often happens, I got distracted by having my camera in my hands and took silhouette pictures on the way down.

You can almost see the other side of the moon.

Iain Fenlon's talk was fascinating, painting a picture of Venice in the 1570's by describing the visit of Henry III of France followed by the Plague outbreak which devastated the city. He spoke again the next day on music printing in Spain, the study of historical margin notes and of trade routes. He was quite a good story-teller and managed to make both talks lively and informative and give me hope that a Ph.D. really is a good idea. Where is still up in the air though.

Now, unchained from my computer for a brief time, I'm off to go have second breakfast near McGill, and then will make my way to Ottawa to do some visiting. If the weather holds up tomorrow or Tuesday, I might even head out onto Big Rideau Lake in the canoe and do some fishing with my Dad.

2010-11-09T19:14:00.001+01:00

I've been in Canada almost two weeks now and I still wake up every morning at 5 or 6 (or 4 right after the time change) - what's up with that? I lay in bed this morning feeling grumpy about that and the fact that I'm still struggling to complete my grant application due tomorrow when I had a wonderful realization: I've been writing for days about rhetoric and the expressive powers of music but seem to have forgotten its practical applications...

There aren't a lot of tracks which can reverse the feeling of having gotten (UK: when in Canada...) up on the wrong side of the bed, but the Martyrs/O Lusty May set on Concerto Caledonia's album Spring Any Day Now does the trick. Every time. I think it's because it starts out quite grumpy, and then quite protestant, and then it secretly changes (can you find the spot?) to one of the most joyful things you'll ever hear. And, sometimes only meantone will do. Trust me on this one.

I took a Greyhound to Ottawa on Saturday and here's what I saw at the bus station diner. I thought it was a menu, but then realized that it was a shopping list.

I'll have the Frozen Chicken Breasts and Moutarde, Please.

2010-11-04T15:41:00.000+01:00

Just finishing off a toasted St. Viateur Bagel while my coffee brews. I need to write a grant application today, but first I need to do something restful to divide this crazy life into bite-sized chunks. A walk up the mountain would be an option, but given the cold and cloud, updating my blog is most appealing.

After painstakingly explaining to my European friends that Canadian October is pretty normal and one can't expect snow until a few weeks yet, I woke up on Sunday morning to this view out the window:

Snowy Rooftops in Longueuil

Oh well. Sunday's concert was lots of fun - I've always wanted to do an all Biber and Schmelzer programme and this one was really well-balanced. I got to play top trombone on the instrumental stuff and bottom trumpet of 4 on a Motet and Magnificat. I love playing bass parts generally because you can give direction to the whole ensemble and , and while I had only 4 notes to choose from, it was never boring because I had to figure out which notes were more important than others - a decision which would boom moments later through St. Léon de Westmount! I'd like to do more of that...

After catching up with friends post-concert and celebrating Shannon Mercer's awesome recital with La Nef two nights before, we sang in Shannon's birthday as off-key as only musicians can: no two pitch levels the same, please!

Monday morning I went down to a car-rental place only to find that even though my Swiss License - which has no expiry date - says "Permis de Conduire," no one will accept it here as the rest is in German. Boo. But the car rental company transferred the reservation to a branch near where Gawain was staying and we hit the road in an hour. We didn't go to St-Georges or St-Nicolas or St-Redempteur.

It was hard not to drive straight on towards the
mountains and find a casse-croute in Tadoussac

How very odd that when a European comes to Canada, I want to show them the most European part of our country. But Québec City is very beautiful even from the first view through the city gates.

Toque knitted by my mom and main street

Lunch consisted of Pea Soup, Poutine, Tourtière and Maple Syrup pie with local beer, one of the many gastronomical successes of the week. After last week in Germany, where it's considered a bit cheeky to order tap water and not something expensive from a bottle, it was astonishing to both Gawain and I how Canadian restaurants keep coming around and topping up our glasses of tap water, which came often unordered. But it's maybe more necessary here too - the air is so dry and the forced-air heating so ubiquitous that it's very hard to stay hydrated at the best of times. I suppose with such a thirsty population and excellent microbreweries all over, this probably helps to keep public drunkenness down too.

Cheers

Lots of calories to burn off, let the wandering begin! Our first stop was an Inuit Art Gallery where we got explanations of Inukshuk and other stone and bone sculpture from very far North of here. In a little alleyway, we came across this bronze figure of a Log Driver, reminiscent of the NFB short, Log Driver's Waltz, which Gawain and Kirsty saw for the first time as a prelude to a film about Morris dancing in their village hall in East Knoyle. I'm quite pleased that if I hum a few measures, Peter gets it stuck in his head, and that Dawn was able to sing along the other night in the pub. Methinks I'm home!

I'm not sure that it's business of yours
but I DO like to Waltz with the Log-Driver!

We then headed up to the plains of Abraham, where the English scaled the cliffs in the dead of night and took Canada from the French. Sort of.

Château Frontenac and The Mighty St. Lawrence

We thought we'd seen it all at dusk and were about to head back when we looked over a little lookout and, what's that? There was a whole Basse Ville under us. So we wandered down to the most charming part of Québec city.

What's that?

The Old Old City, with snow on a rooftop

Bemoaning our lack of hunger whilst surrounded by lovely cafes and bistros, we wandered in here for a coffee and got instead enticed by the fish soup and salad with rabbit livers. And coffee.

At the sign of the prancing rabbit

Then it was time to go back to Montreal.

Montreal has been lovely too, there's been a lot of going places by foot and making pilgrimages to sample local cuisine. Here is a complete meal from Schwartz's Charcuterie Hébraïque:

And some typical multi-coloured façades:

Winter backed away eventually too. I was a bit late for the fiery reds, but the yellows in the park were still there and still impressive. In Switzerland they don't tend to let the leaves stay on the ground long enough to give off their distinctive scent or be kicked around by pedestrians.

Tuesday afternoon I was looking around the plateau for a place to have a coffee when someone on the street said "You must go to Club Social, it's the best." And indeed, it was the best coffee I've had in the past few months. May I say? While I have had some really mediocre roadside filter coffee since arriving here, every time I've gone for a cappuccino the quality has been at least as good as in Switzerland. Yey!

Yesterday the early brass of Montreal got together and we did a reading session a7 (Matt Jennejohn was there too but had to dash off before we could take a photo). Reading sessions both vocal and instrumental are a common occurrence around these parts.

Montreal Early Brass and Gawain

2010-10-29T13:11:00.000+02:00

In Montreal.

Being so awake early in the morning, chilling on the sofa in my nightgown waiting for others to wake up and share the excitement of seeing dawn in Montreal for the first time in over a year... it feels a bit like being a kid at Christmas.

Yesterday's flight was one of the better transatlantic ones I've flown, owing to the fact that I actually slept for most of it - something which almost never happens but I suppose my state of exhaustion was great enough. I went straight from the airport to a hamburger followed by a 3-hour rehearsal for Sunday's Biber concert with SMAM. For most of the concert I get to play 4th trumpet and had a bit of a scare when I stuck a crook in and a trombone mouthpiece (it's quite low) and was far too flat... it was tuned for the 15th-c mouthpiece that plays much higher... so I took the slide out and that brought it up to just right. As a bonus, I can hold it like a natural trumpet without worrying about the slide falling out! Then I got to play some lovely trombone parts in the instrumental pieces and, hungry again, go out for tortilla soup and local beer with friends, not to mention a nightcap of 1996 Springbank when I got back here. It's good to be back!

Today I have to get back into research mode - my first task is to re-translate my academic CV from German into English, then head to the new(ish - after my time anyway) lovely, spacious music library to read, write, and bump into people I haven't seen in a long time. That I'm going with an agenda and a deadline guarantees that I'll meet a lot of people, I think.