Musings of a Scribbler

Orchestra

06 Dec 2009 1 Comment

by goodgirllouise in Music!!!

In a small room backstage, instrument cases litter every flat surface.  Different sizes, shapes, and colors—the cases are as diverse as the instruments themselves.  The many varieties of instruments fascinate me.  What ingenuity possessed the inventors of those instruments?  Does anybody just sit down with a stick and start whittling holes in it–’Hm, let’s see if I blow on this what sound will come out?’  What about a violin?  I don’t know who invented the violin, but they have my deepest regards.
I understand the actual music making a bit more.  At least for one instrument.  It’s easy to hum a distinctive melody and transfer it to your instrument, maybe add a few embellishments, and just play as the music leads you.  But what about writing a full orchestral symphony?  A symphony for 2 orchestras?  How do you hear 60 different parts in that pretty little melody you found in your head one monday morning?
After the completed music comes to the orchestra, rehearsals happen.  Hours spent organizing the bowing so that strings can play in the same “direction” most of the time.  One of the most beautiful things about watching a good orchestra is the synchronization.  The violin bows, no matter how many, move as one.  The  uniformity of each bow stroke thrills me down to my toes.  The music may have 47 different parts, but the parts unite and move as one.  An orchestra is made up of unique musicians, who collaborate their different skills and instruments to produce a single, unified piece of music.  It’s one of the most amazing things in the world.
The wooden floor on the stage glistens in stark contrast of the black music stands and generic chairs.  The contrast is elegant, like black silk and pearls, and not at all glaring.  The lights are still on in the audience as we file on stage.  The chairs are filled with guys in sleek black tuxedos, and women in long black attire.  The hum of instruments warming up fills the stage and cues the audience into the imminent start of the performance.  So many different pitches fill the air, it’s impossible to identify them all.  Every musician has a different warm up routine.  The resulting noise isn’t unpleasant.  At least not in my opinion.  It illustrates the uniqueness of each musician at the beginning of the concert, so anybody who notices can be awed by how they meld into one when the conductor lifts his baton.
The noises cease abruptly just before the concertmaster walks on stage.  The lights in the audience dim.  The spotlights open on the orchestra.  The concertmaster takes his bow and faces us, and with a finger lifted in the air the melding begins.  Brass tune together.  Woodwinds tune together.  Viola, cello, and bass tune together.  Violins tune.  The pitches blend and sound as one, the beats of sound pounding so fast that you can’t hear them.  When it’s all done, there is a brief pause, and then our conductor walks out.  We stand up and face the audience with him before we sit down and immediately launch into the music.
The sound widens and narrows, dips and soars.  Through enlivening beginning, idling middle.  It may end with a loud rush of sound, that points sempre accelerando to the booming end.  Other times, it may subside in calm, cool tides like the lap of water on a shoreline.
It always ends too soon.  When we’re playing, I wish it would go on and on and on.  You can be completely lost in it and when those final notes sound, it’s a bit of a shock to fall back onto the planet earth.  But you smile and tuck your instrument under one arm.  Stand, and acknowledge the audience.  It’s over.  There will be a next time.

Audition time again

06 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment

by goodgirllouise in Music!!!

Tomorrow is D-Day–for me at least.  We’ll have to wait and see if it turns out to be a V-E (Victory for Elizabeth) or not.  I have to wait until April to find out.  And, as always, I am fairly certain that I will wither away in the lapse of time between 1:40 PM tomorrow and that hazy day sometime in April when I will learn the results of my labor.  My toil.  My sweat.

Got a bit carried away there, I guess.

As rumination on this pending subject of my audition is not liable to make me able to do any kind of reasonable activity I shall desist and proceed to describe the joys of spring.

Spring 2008--the Dogwood Tree

Spring may finally be en route to Kentucky!  (For which we would utter a noisy chorus of Alleluia, were it not the blessed season of Lent).  In the past several weeks, we have witnessed the return of the frogs as well as a few hardy daffodils in the sunniest places of this beautiful land.

For those of you unfamiliar with the heartwarming (albeit noisy) sounds of the country, allow me to introduce you.

Imagine waking up in the country some chilly morning in late February or early March and hearing a faint chorus of chirping frogs floating through the cracks in your window.  It takes a moment to realize why the morning sounds different.  Then something… a moment standing at the window watching the sun rise, or walking out to drive to church… awakens you to the sounds meeting your ears.  A veritable cacophony of melodic croaks and ribbets is issuing from the sloppy edges of your yard that still hasn’t dried from the rains last fall.  When you have recovered from the happy state of shock over this wonderful event, you will realize that there are birds twittering from trees–and two weeks ago there were none.

Granted, the frogs cease to be quiet sometime around mid-summer.  It can be downright noisy!  And since you want to leave your windows open at nighttime to let the fresh, cool (you hope) air in you will hear them in all their glory.  Just the same, I have never been able to fathom how anybody could dislike the melody that nature will sing you to sleep with.  There is a whipporwill in the distance, whose cry is intertwined with the ‘Chuckwill’s Widow’.  The frogs never sleep.  There is the hoot of an owl in the distance.  And you know that when you wake up the birds will be chirping and there will be more wildflowers open and the tantalizing smell of honeysuckle drifting through the scrub pine trees…

okay, okay, I realize I got ahead of myself.  That last bit is summer.  But it serves as a reminder that spring is coming!

Love my violin!

23 Feb 2009 2 Comments

by goodgirllouise in Music!!!

my wonderful violin!!!!

I am very tempted to use this as my new profile picture!