I have another concert coming Saturday, November 5th, 2011. We are playing Symphony No. 4 by Tchaikovsky, and Suite from Rodeo by Aaron Copland. We have a guest conductor, and I must say he runs a good rehearsal. I hate to say it but we tend to goof around in rehearsals, much to the chagrin of the conductor. Our guest conductor is Kendell Nielsen, who teaches at Layton High School in Layton Utah.

It's been a long time since I have had a director that pushes the group to greater perfection. When I was in high school at Woods Cross High, I had Steve Richins as my band and orchestra teacher. He was a very vivacious leader who could get a wonderful sound out of any group.

I had a different experience in the Utah State Alumni Band under Dr. Max Dalby. He could conduct with the smallest amount of movement and get great changes in sound and interpretation.

A lot of people who aren't musicians (and some who are) don't understand the silent communication between musicians as they perform. Probably the closest you can see on TV/film is in the American remake of "The Man with One Red Shoe." The scene at the performance where you have a three way with some of the musicians-that unspoken communication-is probably the closest. When you are performing, there is a lot of eye contact and peripheral vision with one another. Things from starting and stopping together, speeding up or slowing down, stretching phrases (to let the music breathe), and to other aspects of playing are all communicated silently. I'm probably going off the subject, but to bring it back, the conductors that have been the best are the ones where that communication is there. I have fond memories of Steve and Max. Unfortunately, both have passed away, but their teaching has lived on in many generations of musicians.

Kendell Nielsen is in the same class of conductor/teacher as Steve Richins and Max Dalby. I am very excited about our upcoming concert, because it is going to sound great. If you live in the area, this concert will be at Weber State University in the Austad auditorium at 7:30. I also highly recommend going to the Layton High band concerts.

I have had a lot of wonderful conductors and I do not mean to slight any of them with this blog.

Treed Murray or Get Down

"Treed Murray" came out in 2001 and stars David Hewlett, Aaron Ashmore, Clé Bennett, Kevin Duhaney, Jessica Greco, Carter Hayden and Julian Richings. "Get Down" is the US title of the movie.

Kind of an odd show. David plays an advertising executive who is heading home. He sees some homeless people and decides to avoid them, so he cuts through a park. It must be one huge park, because there are a lot of trees and open areas and you never see more than a few people in the park. It looks like a really cool park. Anyway, David's character, Murray, is cutting through the park and gets lost. He meets up with Kevin, who plays Carter. He asks Carter where the exit is. Carter tells Murray to give him his wallet. Murray knocks him out of the way with his brief case, only to find himself surrounded by a gang of kids, one with a baseball bat. Murray runs for it and hides up a tree. Quite a feat with slippery dress shoes, but he climbs up this very large tree to hide. The gang find him in the tree and laugh their heads off. Murray tries to get rid of them by giving them his wallet and watch, but they also want him to come down and apologize to Carter.

The rest of the show, Murray is in the tree until sunrise and the gang are below waiting for him to come down. Now the show is about 90 minutes long and supposed to represent the greater portion of one night. 90 minutes is a long time to be sitting on a tree branch. All night, my buttocks would have the bark tattooed into the cheeks. Then you think about how long they probably took to film the show. That is a loooonng time to be in a tree.

Shark, played by Cle Bennett, is the oldest and leads the gang. Rather bright when it comes to dealing with Murray in some of the manipulations, but lets his anger and fear trickle in to rule some of his decisions and actions. He takes offense to Murray and the other "rich" or "well to do" people, and plays the "poor oppressed kid" as part of his manipulation. For a thug, he is actually very intelligent, which seems almost out of character. Of course, that may be my prejudiced opinion. I always get rubbed the wrong way, when people play that "everyone is picking on be because I'm _____."

Aaron and Jessica, play brother and sister, Dwayne and Kelly. Dwayne is older and watches after Kelly. Kelly thinks her brother is just being a pain, meddling in her life. KC, Carter Hayden, is a gang banger who has been loyal to Shark.

Julian Richings plays a homeless man who runs into Murray in the park, before he met up with the gang. When he meets with Murray, he asks for some change and Murray tells him "No thanks, I'll pass." The homeless guy shows up later that night and Murray asks for help.

Throughout the evening and into the night, we begin to see everyone's true colors, including Murray's. This makes for a very captivating story with a lot of surprises. The big surprise comes at the end, but let's not ruin it here for you.

The "French" used was rather prolific. Growing up in Utah, when a play was performed, we heard some "Dad gum it" and "fetch" instead of the swear words originally written. I still find that part quite offensive and the main reason for the R-restricted rating. So if you have tender ears, you may want to avoid it.

The performance by David was phenomenal. You definitely start out on his side, and then you get a bit disappointed in him as his character flaws come forth. I laughed, I cried, and I worried for his safety.

Cle was very animated and I enjoyed the "pretend talk" he would do. He had a great performance as well. I disliked him through most of the movie, but still laughed at his antics and admired his cleverness in the various situations.

Aaron played the silent guy for about half of the movie. I caught another movie from Disney called Cadet Kelly. I thought for sure that was him in the movie. When I researched it, I found out that Aaron has a younger twin who played in the "Cadet Kelly" movie. Who would have thunk it. He did a good job throughout the movie and he was believable most of the time.

Jessica and Carter seemed a bit forced at times. They were a bit younger in this movie and may not have had the experience. Kevin was much more believable and I found myself crying when I heard his story.

Julian brings life to just about any role. He has a rather distinctive look that makes him very recognizable in all of his movies. He did an excellent job in the 2.5 scenes.

The music was more hip hop for the theme song. The song "Falling Forward" was beautiful and was nominated for a Genie award. Kudos to Jim McGrath, Joel Feeney and Marc Jordan.

If you can get past the swearing, it is an excellent movie. I didn't like it the first time I saw it, yet it intrigued me enough to watch it again and again. This is billed as a psychological thriller and it is. There is no difference between the US version and the Canadian version. I hope you will take this opportunity to watch it soon.

Start Driving Like You Don't Have A Deathwish

I really hate those motorcycle bumper stickers that say "Start Seeing Motorcycles" as if it is a conscious thing that we do when driving to ignore motorcycles. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against motorcycles in general nor do I feel like most of the motorcyclists are this way, but some motorcyclists seem to have a death-wish or something.

First of all, there are 3 types of motorcyclists. I call them the Nanooks, the Skinners, and the Tweeners. The Nanooks are those that wear helmets, gloves, long pants, real shoes (not sandals), the padded jackets and other safety wear. They drive like they want to be around for a long time. They signal, they are courteous, and they do lane changes like a car would, instead of zipping in and out of traffic. I am very impressed with these people, especially during the summer, as it is probably very hot to wear all of that gear. The Skinners are usually quite young, wearing shorts, short sleeved shirts, sandals, etc. and no helmet. If they crash or have to put their bike down, they are going to get seriously hurt if not killed. They are the ones who zip in and out of traffic, take routes that only bikes can go, and they are young because they probably will be killed in a motorcycle accident (although we all hope not). The Tweeners are just that. They wear their helmet, but are also wearing shorts or sandals, etc. So they are trying to be safety conscious, but leaving some body parts unprotected. If I were a motorcyclist, I'd probably be in this category. Here are some tips for clothing for motorcycle riders.

I bring this up because there was a motorcyclist that was hit by a car the other day in the local news. The driver cut the motorcyclist out, saw that he went down, and fled the scene. The motorcyclist was paying attention, wore his helmet and other leather protection. He had to put his bike down and was not seriously hurt (just a few bruises). I was really glad (almost proud) that he wore the protective gear and was reasonably safe. I was also really angry at the car driver for not watching out and then leaving the guy when he was down.

Come on people, lets all start watching better, whether it is 2 wheels or 4. Drive safely and remember that you are not the only one on the road. When you get on the freeway, here's a concept, try to match the speed of those already on the freeway. Look and try to fit in instead of just assuming that the others will let you in.

Now, there are also bicyclists out there. I grew up during a time when we just hopped on our bikes and rode anywhere. The only safety precautions we took were reflectors, obeying traffic rules, and a rubber band around the pants cuff so your cuff wouldn't get caught in the gears/chain. Helmets? I don't even think they were available for bicyclists, then.

A good friend of mine, from work, was biking with her husband. She crashed into her husband who had slowed to look at something. She flipped over him and landed on her face. If she hadn't had her helmet on, then she would probably be dead. She was still seriously hurt and is slowly on the road to recovery. I really appreciate the importance of wearing a helmet when biking.

And, so as not to leave anyone out, wear your seat belt. Unless you are just too big to get it around you, put your danged seat belt on. Put your burger down. Pull over if you need to talk to that person on your cell phone. What are you even thinking, trying to shave or put makeup on while driving? And what? Reading a book or newspaper? Give me a break. Start driving like YOU don't have a death wish.

Croc in the water...

My sister and I have been unable to mow our lawn this year. The neighbors have helped out tremendously and mowed the front yard, but avoided the back yard. The grass got up to 2-4 feet tall in some areas. At this point we would need a baler to take care of the lawn. Athena would go out and wander through the grass. It looked like a crocodile in the water with just the head sticking out of the water.

I tried a weed whacker and got a 10x20 ft area. I found 3 toys and apparently the dogs had taken some cans out of the garbage and licked them out (yikes) because we found several cans in the back yard.

My neighbors came over several times and mowed sections of it. With the grass as tall as it was and all the rain we have had lately, we had clumps that were still 2 ft tall and the cut grass still needed to be picked up. There were several areas where there was a flurry of white stuffing. Oops, those were toys. Well they definitely bit the dust. That was so much work to get the lawn down like that. Wow, what great neighbors and friends we have.

I had mentioned the crocs in the water to one of my friends at work. She brought her 2 sons over and they raked and mowed and raked and mowed...and raked and mowed. They also weed whacked along the fence. They moved the screen door to block the dogs in the house (we have a doggie door in our sliding glass door). When we came home from work and found my friend and her kids out taking care of the lawn, we came out to thank them. This is where it gets funny. They told us how they blocked the doggie door with the screen and then Luna pushes the screen away from the door and looks out at us. Her head went back inside and Athena stuck her head out. It was like they were trying to say, "yeah, we could have come out any time we wanted."

When you are not able to get out and do the things that you need to, it means so much to have friends and neighbors like these help out. I have actually cried because we haven't been able to mow the lawn. I'm...full figured and get out of breath and overheated quickly. Right now I'm on oxygen full time, but I have been starting to loose some weight and hope to get in better shape soon (you know, hour glass instead of blimp, or maybe just tree trunk instead of blimp). Anyway, I'm not exactly up to mowing the lawn and it stresses me out. Sandra has had rheumatoid arthritis since she was 2 yrs old. She can mow the lawn, but then she can hardly move for 3 days afterward.

It may seem very simple to mow the lawn or some of the gazillion other things my neighbors do for us, but we are very, very, very grateful for all of their help.

Eggs aren't all they are cracked up to be.

I love to eat omelets. I have mine with ham mushrooms and olives with cheddar cheese. It just absolutely amazes me what some cooks think an omelet is. when I order one from the cafe at work, they sometimes grill the ham, mushrooms and olives. They scoop out some of that mystery scrambled-egg-from-the-bag that they poured into a bowl. They let it run all over the flat grill and pretty much cook the egg before the extras are added. They add the extras, and roll it up. They then put the cheese on top. When you try and eat it, it comes out as several layers of scrambled egg, some cheese sometimes on top, and miscellaneous ham, mushrooms, and olives all over the plate.

They used to have a guy that would saute the goodies. Pour the egg on the grill but create edges to keep the egg from spreading too thin. He'd add the goodies so they get incorporated into the omelet. He folds up the omelet and puts the cheese on top and steeps it. Much better.

I still like the cheese on the inside with the goodies. Then some more cheese on top.

It's all in the details

I had a rehearsal tonight for the New American Symphony Orchestra. We have our pit orchestra for the Clytie Adams Dance recital next week. My favorite piece that we play is the 3rd movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. It has a whole lot of notes that go really fast. You have to let your bow bounce to get a nice, light sound, but if you are too much in the "sweet spot," where the bow bounces the most, then you get too much bounce and you can't go fast enough.

And just when you get into a rhythm for it, the bowing changes so you have two notes going the same direction on the bow. I get so frustrated sometimes, because I am trying to get the two notes, but only the first one comes out. I'm thinking it. I'm hearing it in my head, but it is just a tiny bit too fast for me to get both of the notes.

It's all a matter of getting just a little bit more control of my pinky finger on my bowing hand. That is the finger that makes the bow bounce...most of the time. Apparently, viola players have an additional magic finger that comes out whenever a solo passage appears in front of a violist. We so rarely get the melody, that it comes as such a surprise. This magic finger makes the bow bounce whenever you have to play a solo. The big joke is, "how do you get a viola player to play down bow spiccato(that means that the bow goes in one direction-down and bounces the whole time)?" The answer is to write a whole note (a long note) and write solo over the top. I so fit that joke. It's sad really.

The other pieces are deceptively easy. We are playing F�r Elise, orchestral arrangement; Minuet by Beethoven (you may recognize it from the "think system" with the Music Man, but Beethoven didn't write it for them); selections from a Bach Suite, several dances (which is appropriate since it is for a dance recital) and some others I can't think of at the moment.

A good junior high group could play these, but if you don't put life into it, then it sounds like a good junior high group playing it. That is where the details come in. Those subtle things at the end of phrases that let the music breath and round out the phrase. Playing the dynamics (the louds and softs in the music) and the different nuances in tambor.

I get a bit grumpy when people don't mark their parts so that they play it the right way each time. Of course, sometimes the conductor tells you something and you just sit there, looking at your music, wondering, what the heck am I supposed to do to mark that? For example, we have one piece that the first section is repeated and the 2nd section is repeated. Okay so far. The second time we only play 8 measures and then we go back to the same section and play it again to the end, and repeat that whole section again. Huh? Okay, 1st time to the end..repeat..2md time..shorty repeat..3rd time play to the end and repeat..4th time to the end. So what do you mark?

I also get grumpy when I make all the rehearsals and others miss a few. Of course, if I need to miss, I have a really good reason, so it is perfectly okay...??

Our first rehearsal last week sounded much more musical. We really made the music come to life. I think we got all new people to impersonate the people that were there the first week for the rehearsal tonight. Okay, so we didn't have new people, but it was like everyone was having a "full moon" moment through the whole rehearsal.

Thursday's rehearsal should go better. We only have two days to forget what the conductor told us. We may actually remember some of it. Also, every little bit of practice helps (except the ones that happen when we stop in rehearsals, haha).

It is weird in music. It is like the group is a lump of clay. As you start to mold it into shape, it begins to sound like something you recognize. As you learn to put more details in (you get better, more accurate, etc.) it gets closer and closer to what it is supposed to be.

Then the acting comes in. You have to act like you are playing the right notes, just the way you want to, even if you don't. (of course, if it is jazz, do it several more times, to emphasize that you meant to do that) Nine times out of ten, the audience doesn't know whether it was right or wrong. If you give it away by putting your instrument down or make a funny face, or look appalled at someone else, then the audience will know.

That is probably why people think I'm really good on the bass. I'm not, but I get a lot of comments on how well I play. I move with the music and play with confidence. I'm actually kind of famous for getting into my music. It seems to put the listener at ease and fools them into thinking I know what I'm doing.

The final steps defy all reasoning. Parts we have never played correctly, magically fix themselves at the concert and so it usually goes without a hitch. Well, we are a semi-professional orchestra and when we get the details, the music has energy.

Pictures are before a concert several years ago. As I am the one taking pictures, I am not in any of these.

Luna-Be the Ball

We adopted Luna from an animal control facility when Tribble passed on. We were looking for a young dog that would be a good companion for Athena. They hit it off great so we adopted her. Then we found out she was almost as old as Athena. Luna is a border collie/ Brittany Spaniel mix. She has the coloring and most of the look of the border collie, but the hyperness of the Spaniel.

She was very nervous about coming home...until she found a tennis ball. She brought it over and chased it wherever we through it. When she is focused on the ball, nothing will distract her. The funny part is watching her tail. If the ball is on the floor, her tail is wagging and she's watching you. As soon as you touch the ball, the tail stops and she is in full concentration mode. She had very quick reflexes and was very smart about where it would go if you are standing at X and kicking it. She would figure out the trajectory and be right there to get it.

She has a really good disposition. She is good with people, kids (okay, kids are people too, but I'm emphasizing the kids, because they can be stressful to some dogs), and she is good with other dogs as well.

She also had some really good training because when we call her (and she's not playing ball), she comes. When she brings the ball, she can put it into your hand if you ask her to. The only problem that we have encountered with her is she got a bit stressed and ripped up the carpet under the kitchen table. I guess when we are rich we'll get new carpet.

She seems to trust me a lot more than Sandra. Sometimes the ball has gone under Sandra's bed. She is over there trying to get it out. If Sandra lifts the bed, she won't go under, but if I lift the bed, she'll quickly go under and retrieve the ball and come back out.