Birthday girl
Dec. 2nd, 2003 06:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillTomorrow is my birthday. It's a landmark birthday; I'll be 40. Previous landmark birthdays (25, 30, 35) have been a little depressing; I'm getting older and have nothing to show for it, wasting my brief time on earth, that kind of thing. Not for the whole birthday, but now and then leading up to it, you know.
This time I've mostly been gloating. Not that I suddenly have more achievements to point to (sure, there are *some* achievements, but I frequently feel that if I weren't wasting my talents, surely there would be more). But I just feel happy--like a kid. My birthday is coming! There will be a special dinner, probably a Hobbit-Feast; it will depend on whether I can find Portobello mushrooms or not. There will be presents. Gloat, gloat. :-)
Maybe it's being married to Kip that does it.
And my lesson yesterday went fine. For some reason we got on the subject of early Bluegrass, and wound up spending nearly the whole half hour talking about that. Which certainly took a lot of the performance pressure off me :-). But I did play through Cherokee Shuffle and Roy said he heard a real difference in my playing. Which is very heartening, since I spent the whole week practicing the tremolo and running through scales (mostly Dmajor, which sits happily right in the middle of the mandolin, and just seems like the most natural key in the world for that instrument--but I really should practice other keys and modes, or I'll be able to play like a demon in Dmajor and Dmajor only :-).
I woke up at 5 this morning and was tired enough that dyslexia kicked in when I looked at my watch. I thought it was 7 and decided I might as well get up. This delusion persisted through several more watch glances, and it was half an hour later, when I'd had half my morning caffeine, that I realized what time it actually is. Oh well, there's no reason I can't go to bed early tonight.
My birthday is coming!
This time I've mostly been gloating. Not that I suddenly have more achievements to point to (sure, there are *some* achievements, but I frequently feel that if I weren't wasting my talents, surely there would be more). But I just feel happy--like a kid. My birthday is coming! There will be a special dinner, probably a Hobbit-Feast; it will depend on whether I can find Portobello mushrooms or not. There will be presents. Gloat, gloat. :-)
Maybe it's being married to Kip that does it.
And my lesson yesterday went fine. For some reason we got on the subject of early Bluegrass, and wound up spending nearly the whole half hour talking about that. Which certainly took a lot of the performance pressure off me :-). But I did play through Cherokee Shuffle and Roy said he heard a real difference in my playing. Which is very heartening, since I spent the whole week practicing the tremolo and running through scales (mostly Dmajor, which sits happily right in the middle of the mandolin, and just seems like the most natural key in the world for that instrument--but I really should practice other keys and modes, or I'll be able to play like a demon in Dmajor and Dmajor only :-).
I woke up at 5 this morning and was tired enough that dyslexia kicked in when I looked at my watch. I thought it was 7 and decided I might as well get up. This delusion persisted through several more watch glances, and it was half an hour later, when I'd had half my morning caffeine, that I realized what time it actually is. Oh well, there's no reason I can't go to bed early tonight.
My birthday is coming!
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-02 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-02 05:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-02 06:14 am (UTC)Come to think of it, aren't many/most fiddle tunes in D? With mandolin accompaniment, this would make a great deal of sense.
To parody The Highlander: "If there is to be only one key played, then let it be D!"
You could be doing worse. Alexander the Great was dust by your age, and you still have new worlds to conquer.
So you deserve a happy birthday!
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 04:36 am (UTC)It may be that a lot of fiddle tunes are in D because the fiddle and the mandolin are both tuned to the same notes. G D A E (going up in pitch). So keys that "fit well" on the mando ought to fit well on the fiddle too.
:-) Thanks for the good wishes
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 05:42 am (UTC)I'd phrase it as "dulcimer players have to retune to reach other keys." :-]
One thing I want to point out here: the typical 3- or 4-stringed Appalachian dulcimer is a rather quiet instrument, and traditionally was most often used alone as plainsong accompaniment or descant, so the key didn't matter (except to match the singer's voice range). So retuning would be rarely necessary. One might change drone string pitches to change modes, but it still is easier just to have a second dulcimer to hand in a concert setting. And constant retuning at scale intervals is definitely hard on the strings, particularly the wound drones.
The fact of the matter is, in a jam session, a dulcimer player rarely changes key, as there isn't enough time to do that sort of thing: all four strings would have to be retensioned. If a player is confronted with this situation, often she will carry around more than one instrument, or use a limited (bar) chord for drone-harmony, or if the chords are unreachable, simply sit out the tune.
My brother Peter is exceptional in his playing of complex chords and arpeggios; for most play the instrument most of the time with one finger on the left hand and a strum (albeit often a complicated one) on the right.
Because of these traditional uses and the dulcimer's limitations, an Appalachian dulcimer orchestral concerto would be extremely rare.
-- Dave
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Date: 2003-12-03 07:34 pm (UTC)She's got a great book of Shaker hymns arranged for dulcimer. I wonder if they make the same book arranged for mandolin so we could play more of that stuff together.
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Date: 2003-12-04 06:45 am (UTC)Now, there are a few chromatically fretted dulcimers out there. I know this, as I saw one at Elderly Instruments quite a number of years ago. IIRC, it was a large "church dulcimer" (six-stringed, with doubled drones), fitted with wound strings. It looked to be designed for low-register chorded accompaniment of a group of singers.
I'm sure you can find a reasonable number of tunes that go well with mandolin and dulcimer. Also, you might look into the fiddle repretoire for some inspiration.
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Date: 2003-12-02 07:39 am (UTC)I think a lot of age is state of mind.
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Date: 2003-12-03 04:37 am (UTC)B Day!
Date: 2003-12-02 08:15 am (UTC)Happy Birthday and have a wonderful time!!
BTW - Thanks for the great review on the Iriver mp3 player .. it's on my Xmas list *grin.*
Re: B Day!
Date: 2003-12-03 04:44 am (UTC)I'm glad you found the iRiver review useful! One thing I didn't bring up in the review and probably should have--the player will work with most Windows configurations but not with Windows NT. Something about not having USB support? It wasn't an issue for me, but might be for you; there are more details on the iRiver web site under "support", if you need them.
I hope this won't be a problem for you, and that you'll enjoy your mp3 recorder. I really wish I could have posted mp3 snippets with my review to let people listen to the sound quality and judge for themselves. :-) If I get one for Christmas (or even my birthday, *chortle*) I'll try to do that.
Re: B Day!
Date: 2003-12-03 07:23 am (UTC)Seems the Betty Crocker frosting mix for that was discontinued, so he wrote the company and got the recipe, which he now makes from scratch.
He's very proud of this, btw.
Re: B Day!
Date: 2003-12-03 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-02 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-02 09:07 pm (UTC)You have always seemed ageless to me. Like a faerie creature. Even reading the number has no impact... it's as if it doesn't really apply to you, or doesn't apply in the way it does to other people.
Sparkles and music!
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 04:47 am (UTC)HBD
Date: 2003-12-03 07:23 am (UTC)And if you've accomplished nothing, then I must actually be subtracting from the world...
Re: HBD
Date: 2003-12-03 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 07:36 pm (UTC)