last day of mini vacation

 

Today is the last day of my time away, at least for now. My brother, Mark, and his wife, Leigh, have been gracious hosts this week and last. I have enjoyed the conversation and time together. I miss this sort of thing. Maybe now that Mark is living closer he and I can have these conversations more often.

little.lulu

This second set of three days away has been more calm for me, less desperate feeling. Once again I practiced at St. Paul’s UCC church. This time the musician there did not respond to a request, but the woman in the office was very happy to authorize me for a couple sessions. It was very helpful.

Mark fussed with my lap top a bit and it is running faster. He has offerred to install a solid state hard drive if I buy one. This, of course, would speed things up. We are pretty strapped for bucks right now, so this is not an immediate option. It is nice that he was able to remove a ton of Google Chrome start up options that eats up resident memory inevitably slowing down the stupid stupid Windows 8 operating system.

I am planning one more extensive rehearsal session after driving home today. I am playing a Handel organ concerto movement for the postlude tomorrow. It’s a good transcription by James Engel in D minor. I have a note question about the ending but haven’t been able to identify the orginal concerto and Engel gives no reference. I have a working solution but will probably check my own copies of organ transcriptions and see if I can find this movement. I suspect the original might not be in D minor since all of those in D minor on the IMSLP (Intermational Music Score Library Project)do not seem to have this movement in them.

I’m also rehearsing a gamba sonata movement by Bach I will be accompanying in the prelude. I like these sonatas where Bach writes an interesting right hand part (as opposed to the more usual practice of the time of expecting the keyboard player to improvise the harmony based on the bass line). But due to that, the accompaniment is a little like a six page two part invention. I and my cellist find this piece very attractive.

Tomorrow church should be fun.  I am expecting 5 parishioners to play percussion tomorrow on my service music and probably the closing hymn. Plus the choir is singing a Handel SAB adaptation by Hal Hopson and the prelude will be the cello piece and the postlude the Handel organ concerto movement. Should be satisfying.

Street Artists Infiltrate ‘Homeland’ With Subversive Graffiti – The New York Times

Amusing. Either the people involved with the show couldn’t read Arabic or were too busy to notice the subversive messages the graffitti artists put on the wall. The online comments run the range of evaluation of the show’s racism.

The Downfall of Lamar Odom, Played Out on TV – The New York Times

Amazing story. I know nothing about reality tv. This is a tragic story of real stuff.

Voter ID Battle Shifts to Kansas – The New York Times

Stopping students from voting.

Hilla Becher, Photographer Who Chronicled Industrial Scenery, Dies at 81 – 

When I was young, I made a present for my friend, Dave Barber, by taking pictures of water towers. I think these are cool pics.

MusicBrainz Picard

Mark uses this to organize his mp3s. He says it’s good.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.