Musical Meanderings

This is a blog centered around some of the musical encounters and experiences that I come upon in my daily life as a musician.

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Location: Alameda, California

Monday, January 21, 2008

Rainy January Morning

Early morning in late January. It's raining outside and this is lovely from my music porch. The green outside the windows is vibrant. But the rain always makes my tendonitis flair up.

And if I am practicing alot it is an unpleasant thing to deal with. So I try to do self massage and then also, I have a new massage therapist who is excellent. So I am going to try a massage every other week as maintenance on this tendonitis.

I got it years ago in college, and then the tendonitis came again when I was playing two shows a night at the Cirque du Soleil. There, we had massage therapists who would work on our problems a little bit every day or so. The gymnasts and swimmers had big physio problems, but so did the musicians.

Anyway...so there is a big show coming up at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley. It's on Sunday, February 3rd at 7pm, with Ana Nitmar. She is a Guatemalan singer and a great friend. So last night Ana came over and we worked on vocals for a new song of mine that will be on the show. It's called "Rain Dance", and it has made up, African sounding vocals, and a second half that seems to be some kind of an Irish jig. I don't know, I just wrote it one night while walking my dog.

We are performing this piece with just cello and vocals. And maybe a conga drum. So we recorded the vocal part on my little tiny hand recorder. And we were able to put it on the computer and send it in a file to the other singers on the show. Amazing!

Technology! I can never quite figure out what is going on with it, but every once in awhile I can do something like this!

Also on the calendar are lots of performances with Ramana Vieira and her Ensemble, playing traditional Portugese fado music, and a big performance on June 8th with "Agave!", my new string quintet group. "Agave!" will be doing jazz standards arranged for string quintet by guitarist Robin Lewis, and also some originals by group members. This will be an interesting show. And hopefully there will be more for that group, as I love playing with Robin and his arrangements are beautiful and inventive.

Isabelle is up! I have to go make her pancakes and try to get her to practice her cello on this rainy morning by letting her win marbles. And then---it's off to my Suzuki teaching gig in Livermore where I have some small boys to teach. I will bring lots of games and lesson plans to keep them busy! They are not the easiest! Especially in the group class. But I think I can do it.