Notastudent, Yesajob

So, here's the thing about my job (one of my jobs). The musician one. People tend to think it's not a job. And, that's okay, I mean, there are lots of jobs that aren't really jobs (dog walker? pro poker?) but there seems to be something about mine that people think it's okay to belittle it to you, right to your face, while you're there, doing it, doing your job.

Not in mean ways, usually, but, usually, by asking, "So, are you guys students, then?", at EVERY STRING QUARTET GIG EVER.

Dear reader, dear observers of string quartets, it has been nine years since I graduated from my music degree. I am in my 30's. I. Am. Not. A. Student. Do you go to the doctor and ask them this? Do you ask this of your lawyer? Don't you think, maybe, it sends a message of unprofessionality? Don't you think your doctor might, just a bit, especially if they were quite a good doctor, having been doctoring (yes, professionally, even)for more than a decade, be belittled?

So, for the record, no, we're not students. Yes, this is our job. Now go eat your canapés somewhere else.

'way, 'way, 'way

Sea shanties everywhere, sea shanties like crazy. This was Festival Maritim, just outside Bremen, Germany, where the only two bands that weren't traditional sea-shanty-bands were the two bands I was with, The Cedar and Pollyanna. We had been brought in as an experiment, to see if this water-logged-and-loving-it festival would tolerate non-nautical musical offerings.

Our vehicle was too packed as we set off from Bath to fit the accordion in. A bane or a blessing, turns out we were the only band there without one. It was that kind of festival. There was a lot of "What do you do with a drunken sailor?" And a collective fashion statement by both performers and audience (including children, babies, dogs...) like this:

The late-night backstage parties sounded like this (recorded with my phone...so, sorry about the boomy-fuzziness):


And, for the grande finale, on the final night of the festival, Sunday night, allll the bands, choirs, shantyists, got up on the main stage and waved sparklers at alllll the audience members who also had and waved sparklers and sang together while a giant multi-mast ghost-ship-type-ship sailed past behind them. We sang this: (Ditto re: phone)


And the ship (in the mid-distance) looked like this):

Not smiling

Giving stickers to my violin/viola students after a "good" lesson is one of the best bits of teaching. I get to seek out and buy the coolest stickers and, ahem, sometimes, keep some of them for myself. After all, I have good lessons too...

So, this week's stickers are puffed up (you know, the kind that are fun to poke) personifications of photo-realist desserts. There's one that's a bunch of berries making faces, some with legs, some without. There's another one that's a chocolate chip cookie with a mustache. Etc.

One of my youngest students, (three years old), had a great lesson and earned herself a sticker. She chose a personified green macroon. Her mother and I left her to examine and enjoy it while we discussed summer holidays and upcoming lesson times etc etc. until, from the back of the room, came an unholy wail:

IT'S NOT SMILING!
IT'S NOT SMILINGit'snotsmilingit'snotsmilingit'snotsmilingIT'SNOT!smiling. IT'S NOT SMILING!(it'snotsmilingit'snotsmilingit'snot...)

My student had made a shocking discovery about her macroon reward. (itsnotsmiling!itsnotsmiling!itsnot!) And it was Incredibly Disturbing to her three year old mind. (ITSNOTSMILING!) Imagine, a personified cookie, not smiling. Just. Imagine.

Mom and I checked it out. It was true, the macroon was downright ambivalent. Cool, even.

We swapped it, deft like a magician's slight of hand, for a pink one. It was smiling.

And all was right with the world. Kids are so interesting.

these people

There are some times, not very many times, but some times, when you meet people, as a musician, other musicians, and you fit together so so perfect, like hands folded, like of course, this is what it means, to play together, not play with, but play together; and they are with you anywhere you go, anywhere you take the phrase, and you are with them, the same, because it's a dance, but no one's leading and no one's following, you're just all dancing, together, like breathing, or knowing, and there are no sheets, no scores, because you're not music reproducers, you're music makers, right now, this and this and this, and really you're not even music makers, but music maker, one, together, and we could have gone on like this forever.

Lea, Guido, Francois, cello, violin, bass, thank you for reminding me, for playing with me, for playing together.

X e

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le recordation

This week's international viola caper = a week recording with parisienne singer-songwriter Pollyanna. In her parents' disneyland for emma home half an hour outside paristown.

This house!

A) Has a pool. Which is essentially my private pool (pollyanna tells me, over one of our typical four course, two wine meal breaks that her parents bought the house _despite_ the pool...) and i swim every morning, after an exploratory run.

B) Has a fossil room. Set up like a museum exhibition, with thousands (3000 says Pollyanna's father, though this is the same number he uses to describe his wine collection so perhaps it's just french for 'very big number') of hand collection fossils and geological specimens. I love this. I hang out here while i wait for the shower to become free.

C) Has a wall-mounted exhibit of gigantic butterflies, beetles and spiders, mostly collected in Guyana. I love this too, but some of the other musicians do not.

D) Has two wine cellars, with those 3000 bottles. Choosing for dinner (twice, as the cheese course requires a seperate red) is intense, but worth it.

E) Has hundreds upon hundreds of panpipes. (3000?) Pollyanna's father is a Bolivian music enthusiast and performer. He and his wife are away for the first few days at a festival for such things in sweden. Which is quite far from Bolivia.

And it's my job to hang out here. My job! Thanks Cherie.

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