music | Change Is Hard

December 2, 2015
by dawnkinster 16 Comments

Christmas arrives

My community band played our holiday concert last night, complete with Santa conducting one of our pieces. It seemed a bit early to me, playing Christmas music on the first of December, yet I know many radio stations have been playing Christmas music for weeks. And the crowd seemed to get into the spirit, clapping along with “Here Comes Santa Claus” and “Sleigh Ride.”

Checking out the music prior to the concert

We had only four weeks to get ready for this concert; just a month ago we were playing Halloween music in our first concert of the year. It always feels strange to be rehearsing holiday pieces early in November, long before any of us are bitten by the spirit of Christmas.

It reminds me, every year, of the late 70s when my mom owned a ceramic store. We started firing glazed Christmas trees in October. In order for people to have their trees for holiday tables we needed to get them done prior to Christmas. And given how many we put through the kilns we had to start weeks before anyone would typically think about decorating with trees and ornaments. I remember feeling that Christmas was over the weekend before the actual holiday because we were finished putting Christmas ceramics projects through the store. And I remember listening to people talk about their plans for Christmas and being perpetually surprised that it was still in the future.

The real deal.

That’s how I feel this year. Now that the concert is over I feel like I can relax. As if the holiday was done. No huge holiday event hovers over me. No frantic planing, shopping, cooking, cleaning, no real plans at all. And while that is a peaceful feeling, it isn’t all good. I notice Christmas trees lit in living room windows as I travel past houses at dusk, I see the Christmas lights up in yards, and I smile a bit wistfully.

So a little Christmas cheer is in order around here. I think I’ll put the big wreath up on the front of the house and plug it in. That’s about all the preparation I think I can deal with and it’s enough to make me smile when I pull into the driveway.

What is enough for you? Are you doing the full Christmas tree, house covered in lights, piles of gifts, huge holiday dinner? Or are you scaling back this year? For me, for this year, a quiet Christmas will be just the ticket now that the holiday concert is a wrap.

Music stand reflects light

November 29, 2015
by dawnkinster 5 Comments

Time marches into Christmas

I belong to a cyber group of running women; friendships formed years ago when we ran together and separately are maintained now mostly via email. Some of us still run. Some don’t anymore, but encourage the rest. We are all important to each other. This holiday season our Energizer Betty suggested a challenge – that we each commit to walking or running at least one mile every day, beginning on Thanksgiving and continuing until the New Year. It seemed sensible, so I’m in.

What’s one mile, right? For a person bent on getting her 10,000 steps in every day this should be a piece of cake. But here it is day four and it’s cold outside. I don’t want to go to the park for my walk, don’t want to even walk down the street here at home. So I head to my backup walking place – the mall. The stores there don’t open until 11 on Sundays so I arrived just before 9, hoping to get my three miles in and be long gone before holiday shoppers descended.

The parking lot didn’t look that different, perhaps a few more cars, and I headed inside confident I could get my walk done. I was surprised to hear Christmas music blaring from the overhead speakers and all the lights on. The stores were raising their gates as I moved along, and people were beginning to stream in through entrances I passed. Santa was already ho ho hoing on his big chair, the movie theaters were open and smelling of popcorn.

Obviously things were beginning to jump already.

I wove my way through the shoppers moving more quickly than normal as I found myself marching to the fast paced Christmas music. After only one loop, a measly one mile, I gathered my coat and ducked out to the car. I’m going to have to get going sooner in the morning if I plan on using the mall for my walks from now till Christmas.

On my drive home I turned up the radio and soon was listening to the Trans-siberian Orchestra‘s heavy pounding relentless Christmas music. I usually love their stuff, but this morning I felt it was pushing me on down the road, that I was too swiftly moving toward some unknown future. Time is moving so fast. Our community band’s holiday concert is this Tuesday! I’ve barely put the gardens to bed and here we are pushing up against Christmas.

She was having a good day.

I visited Aunt Vi this afternoon. She’s 100 years old now and spends most of her time sitting in her recliner listening to her bird chirp, watching traffic go by on the road. All those people coming and going, she says, where are they all going? I don’t know Aunt Vi, I don’t know. We’re all going somewhere in a hurry, trying to keep up, headed toward some unknown future, moving quickly to the beat of relentless holiday music.

We’re all in a hurry to get there. But I wonder where the ‘there’ is. Aunt Vi is 100 and she’s no longer running to keep up. I hope I can learn that lesson too. I hope I can slow down and enjoy each day. And I’m probably going to need to find a calmer place as a backup for my walks.

As we rush toward Christmas and the end of another year I hope we can each find moments of calm, peace, beauty and friendship. I’ll be looking for those things on my daily walks.

I hope you find them too.

Friends

November 8, 2015
by dawnkinster 7 Comments

WordPress photo challenge – Ornate

This is part of the ceiling of a concert hall inside the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor Michigan. We were there last night listening to the Ann Arbor Symphony. It was another magical night.

I don’t have much that is ornate here at home, but there’s a lot out there in the world that fits that description. You can see other interpretations of ‘ornate’ at the original post. And you can see a few of my favorites (so far), here, here and here.

Share a little bit of the ornateness in your life; link your post to the WordPress challenge so we can all see. I look forward to it!

May 16, 2015
by dawnkinster 19 Comments

Five photos, five days #1

I’ve been nominated by Carol at Wanderings of an Elusive Mind to play along on the Five Photos, Five Stories challenge. Each day for five days I need to post a photo and a story, then nominate someone else to join in. So here goes.

Most of you know that Katie has a favorite park. Turns out that lots of people enjoy Katie’s park for all sorts of reasons, not the least is that there are parts of it that are very photogenic. One evening as Katie and I were packing up to go home after a walk we noticed this:

Senior photo shoot

I’m sure this young man is one of next year’s seniors. And that he plays in the school orchestra which must be a large part of his high school experience.

Watching them brought back memories. More than forty years ago I was having my senior photo taken outside. It was a new thing, back then, to take senior photos outside a studio.

Forty + years ago

I wonder now what caused my folks to choose this particular photographer, someone who was doing something so different. I don’t remember being part of the decision, but I remember the afternoon spent in a field getting my picture taken. I’m sure the young man Katie and I watched last week will remember his photo shoot too.

I wish him a wonderful, happy, and musical future.

So the hard part is thinking about who to ask to participate. The rules are simple, post five pictures with stories, fiction or not, perhaps even poetry. Nominate someone each day to continue the challenge. Today I nominate Sara for purely selfish reasons; I want to see some more photos of her boys. I know she’s super busy with school this time of year, so I’ll understand if she can’t play, or can only post a couple of photos. But I hope to see Oreo and Chewy soon!

Just yesterday

March 22, 2015
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

That moment

Ann Arbor was given another gift last night in their symphony’s performance of “Absolut Russian,” a program filled with formidable Russian composers. We were treated to Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances” complete with a 150 member choir, and the lush and romantic “Romeo and Juliet – Fantasy Overture” by Tchaikovsky. Both pieces were stunningly beautiful in complete different ways.

But what I really want to share with you is the opening piece, “Symphony No. 10 in E minor” by Dimitry Shostakovich. Shostakovich (1906 -1975) was composing music in Russia during the reign of Joseph Stalin. Some of his music was censored but Symphony No. 10, scored shortly after Stalin’s death in 1953, made it past the censors. Only after it did would he reveal that the four movements represented, in order, the victims of tyranny, Stalin himself, the attempt at suffocating individual spirit, and ultimately liberation. (Interpretation from program notes written by Edward Yadzinsky.)

Maestro Arie Lipsky gave a talk prior to the concert. He introduced Symphony No. 10 by saying the first movement was long, and moved from sadness to anger to hopelessness. I looked at my husband, rolled my eyes, and said “Great” just what I need! But where there is anger and sadness there must always be hope, and in this piece you just have to wait for it.

My favorite movement, and coincidentally the shortest, is the second movement which represents Joseph Stalin himself. I imagined a chase scene as I listened, the brass, as Lipsky said, chasing the fleeing strings. Perhaps the original interpretations was that Stalin was chasing artists. Listen to the intricacies of the music for yourself; what do you hear?

There are so many interesting and integral parts to No. 10 and they all come together in the fourth movement, building to a breathtaking and triumphant ending. The clip I found for you of the second half of the 4th is five minutes of music and then several minutes of applause. Please watch it, you’ll be transported to the center of the symphony and you’ll feel the energy and the joy. Then imagine hearing it live. Breathtaking. And as the woman behind me said as we were on our feet applauding; “That was exhausting!”

But after all, what I really wanted to tell you about isn’t even in the music. I wanted to tell you about that moment that happens at the instant something as glorious as this piece ends. It’s a moment when every musician is transported to the height of emotion, just as the applause begins, when musicians and maestro are still connected, eyes locked, instruments quiet, muscles still tensed. There is a moment when the baton is lowered but the relationship is extended between musicians and conductor for just a second or two more. It’s a private moment between people who recognize something beautiful has just been set free.

I witnessed that moment Saturday night, as Maestro Lipsky stood still, then lowered his arms, nodded his head once in an acknowledgement of exquisite beauty, placed his hand over his heart and bowed slightly to his orchestra. And they all grinned right back at him.

The music that night didn’t make me cry, didn’t send shivers across my shoulders. Instead it sucked me in and spit me out — I was grateful to be there. But that moment, the passing of silent love and respect between the orchestra and their leader, that moment filled my eyes with tears.

March 1, 2015
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

Lip synching

You’re all waiting to hear about Saturday’s concert aren’t you? I imagine you couldn’t sleep for wanting to know.

Our band was the first one performing Saturday morning, and we had to be there by 8. Since I live more than an hour away I booked myself into a hotel down the street from the venue so I could have a relaxing morning. And so I could sleep in without having to deal with a particular sheltie girl who shall remain nameless. But I didn’t sleep well. The room was hot and eventually I just turned the heater off completely. I was worried about sleeping through the two alarms I had set. I had a long and detailed dream about not being able to find the high school room where we leave our cases and coats, and being late, and running through school hallways. I worried that the car wouldn’t start in the morning, having sat outside in below zero temperatures all night. Maybe I’d spill something on my black dress clothes at breakfast. Maybe I’d fall down the hotel stairs or slip on the ice in the parking lot. Maybe I’d forget my instrument or lose the keys to the car.

None of that happened.

Everything went smoothly according to my detailed plan. Up at 6:30, downstairs for breakfast at 7:00 (wearing my jeans and a sweatshirt just in case), load the car up at 7:45, drive to venue, arrive at 7:48. Meet the rest of the band members in appointed room, get escorted to our warmup room. Things were good. The director was relaxed. So were we. Even the thought of being critiqued by the composer of our most difficult piece didn’t bother us any more. We had prepared. We were the best that we could be. She ran us through the first piece of music, reminding us to watch her at a certain spot, not to slow down at another. Things were normal.

And then it happened.

My clarinet ceased to make any noise. No matter how I blew nothing happened. As the band continued to play I switched reeds. Nothing. I went to the third reed. Nothing. I went back to the first, checked pads, springs, nothing seemed out of order. They were playing the difficult UFO Concerto now, and they never sounded better. I was frantically trying to blow any note. Eventually I got a few notes out, but only those that were the most open, meaning the fewest fingers closing the fewest keys. And by then it was time to move to the stage.

I basically lip synched the entire concert. I could play at best 7 notes. I fingered along, breathed in all the right places and when one of those 7 notes came along I played enthusiastically. Thank goodness there was nothing in the program that required a third clarinet solo! And even though I wasn’t really playing, as I counted out the rests and played what I could, fingering the rest, I have to say I really enjoyed myself. The band was focused, as we always are at this event. Things we had worked on came together. The music soared just the way it was meant to.

And our world renown judge? Johan de Meij was a gentleman and obviously a talented artist with a vision. We played two of his pieces at the concert, and he went through a good portion of each with us, adjusting nuances of single notes, phrasing, instrumentation. We played. He directed, head tilted as he concentrated. He waved us to a stop and explained the meaning behind the sound, why a chord was structured the way it was, what it must convey. We played again, he nodded. At one point he flung out his hands and, grinning like a little boy, said “This is just so much fun!”

I agree Mr. de Meij. It was so much fun. Thank you for making our day. On the drive home I popped last year’s festival CD into the radio and turned it up. Loud. He told us that wherever he goes, as he teaches students he begs them not to stop playing when they get out of school. Join a community band, he says, they are everywhere. Keep playing. Don’t put that instrument away in the attic. He’s right. I am so blessed to still have music in my life.

The drive home took my by the town I grew up and I considered driving through it just for nostalgia. I thought of my folks and all the band concerts they’d been to, all the support they gave us all to follow whatever moved us. I wished they had been in the audience to see this one.

And then I thought… odds are good that they were.

At home, tired and happy I went out to get the mail. And there, among the bills and statements was a handwritten envelope with a return address and name I recognized as old friends of my parents. I worried that they were giving me news that one or the other was gone; I hadn’t heard from this couple since my parents died in 2004. I hurried inside and opened the letter. Out fell two photographs of my parents, taken in 1954, one year after they were married. They are sitting together, holding hands and smiling big happy grins.

There they were. On a day that I wished for them to be near, they fell out of an envelope sent to me by people I had forgotten all about. Just because she ran across the photos, she said, and thought I’d like to have them. So she sent them to me on a day I was missing them.

Love works in mysterious ways doesn’t it.

Yes. Yes it does. This morning my clarinet plays perfectly. Guess Mom worked on it over night.

Love you guys.

February 25, 2015
by dawnkinster 15 Comments

Weekend concert

Most of you know that I play in a local community band. Each year in February we attend a community band festival in a town about an hour away. Community bands come from all over to perform for 3 adjudicators who give us feedback on our work. For those of you that have been in a high school band, it’s like going to band festival. Without the sight reading part thank goodness! It’s exciting and fun and stressful all rolled into one music filled day.

And this Saturday is the day. We’ve been working really hard on the UFO Concerto by Johan de Meij. The piece is in 5 movements and we’re doing the first two. You can listen to some of it here. The first movement runs, on this particular recording, from 00.0 until 5 minutes and 9 seconds. It’s really beautiful. But what I really want you to hear is the second movement…starting at 5 minutes and 9 seconds and going until 10 minutes and 49 seconds. It’s crazy and it’s taken awhile to grow on me. But I found myself humming this at work on Tuesday.

Believe it or not.

What makes this Saturday even more stressful, other than this being a very difficult piece to play, is that the composer is one of the adjudicators! And to top it all off, he’s the one that will be meeting with us after our performance to give us his perspective on how well we played. Yes indeed. I have never played anything knowing the composer was in the audience, much less knowing he’s going to critique us after!

So what I need from you guys is a whole lot of strong good luck, musical vibes headed over to Okemos Michigan at 9:00 a.m. this Saturday. We’ve worked hard, but a little extra luck can’t hurt!

I’ll let you know how it goes.

January 29, 2015
by dawnkinster 22 Comments

You know you’re getting old when….

Most of the time I forget I’m almost finished with my 5th decade of life. I think I’m maybe thirty-something. Forty-five at the most. Then along comes some episode and I realize how old I really am, and particularly how much older than most of the people I work with, play music with, hang out with, go to dog events with.

Etc.

So let me share with you a couple of stories that made me realize I’m no spring chicken anymore. These are just little stories, nothing major, no epic drama.

Still…

It’s cold here in Michigan. Sometimes it’s really cold. We had a couple of weeks earlier this month when the wind was howling and the temps were in single digits. When the walk from office to the car in the evenings was excruciating. I happen to sit by a window up on the fourth floor, looking out over the parking lot and most of the winter people stop by to use my window and their remote starts to get their cars warmed up before they head out into the storm. For most of this winter, and last winter too for that matter, it never occurred to me that my key fob also had a remote start. That I too could have a warm car with ice melting on the windshield by the time I stumbled through the dark and wind to my vehicle.

Last week I paid attention, wrote myself a note which I placed near my keys (“start car”) and actually remembered to use the remote start thingy before getting dressed in hat, coat, scarf, boots, and gloves to head for home. I couldn’t actually see my entire car from my office window, it was parked behind a big van, but I could see the front lights, and they blinked so I figured I was good to go.

Just before I headed for the stairs, now dressed like an Eskimo, I happened to glance outside. Looking at my car I became confused. What was that at the back? Why…it’s the hatch, fully open! And why weren’t the lights still on? And no exhaust coming out of the back? Surely I hadn’t….why yes I had. Instead of pushing the start engine button on my key fob I had pushed the open hatch button. Because they look so much alike, don’t you know.

So not only was my car not warm…it was colder than it had been before. I quietly pushed the ‘open hatch’ button again, watched as it closed and then meekly crept down the 4 flights of stairs and out to my car where I shivered as I drove home. I didn’t tell anyone for a long time. Now I’m sharing with you.

Stop laughing.

Some of you know I’m the librarian for the community band that I’m in. That means that the beginning of most rehearsals is hectic for me as people that have missed previous practices need music. I’m always running around looking for music and making copies. Often they start rehearsing while I’m still off doing something else.

So this week was no exception. I’d put my clarinet together and started to warm up when someone needed something, and then someone else needed something. Before long I’m running around and they’re playing already. Finished with my tasks I rush to sit down in my seat, sharing a stand with the highschool girl next to me who I already know thinks I’m about 95 years old. She looks at me out of the corner of her eye and keeps playing. I suddenly realize I am not carrying my clarinet and I don’t know where I set it down. I scan the room, locate it on a table, go get it and sit back down again, reaching for the top of my head where I keep my glasses when I’m not reading.

They aren’t there.

I don’t remember taking them off while I was running copies, but they could be anywhere. Or maybe I never had them, they could be in the car. I know I can’t read the music without them, but I figure I’ll do the best I can. I push my chair back a bit to be further from the music stand and think “I can see pretty good tonight, maybe I don’t need those glasses anyway,” and I start to play.

The teenager next to me is still watching me out of the corner of her eye.

Sometime in the first piece of music my ear itches and I reach up to scratch it and realize that I’m wearing my glasses. And obviously have been. Which is why my eyes were seeing pretty good. I’ve heard stories about people losing their glasses while they were on top of their heads. But I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of anyone losing their glasses while they were wearing them.

And now you have.

Really.

Stop laughing.

January 18, 2015
by dawnkinster 5 Comments

The value of music

Rose Bowl parade, taken from TV.

I was at our little post office one Saturday during the holidays mailing something or other and the woman behind the counter and I started the normal small talk about the weather, which wasn’t particularly good that day, wind and snow, typical winter in Michigan. She said she was worried because she had just put her son on a bus headed to the Sugar Bowl. He’s in the local marching band and they had been invited to perform at halftime along with several other high school bands. She was apprehensive about the trip but so very proud of him.

And there we were, suddenly talking about the benefits of growing up in a high school band. The camaraderie, the discipline, the skills learned, the making of lifelong friends. Sure music has value all of its own. But the real value for kids growing up in a small rural town is that music, any kind of music, gives kids a chance to see something larger, to make something bigger than themselves. To be involved in something beautiful.

I was thinking about that post office clerk last night as I sat high in the balcony of Hill Auditorium on the campus of the University of Michigan enjoying the university’s Collage concert. It’s put on by the School of Music, Theatre & Dance and is filled with snippets of everything from full band and orchestra pieces, to soloists, to dancers, to Shakespeare. It’s filled with choirs and ensembles, duets and quartets, unusual music and the classics.

Phone camera in bad light. But you get the idea.

One after another, without pause in between, the spotlight shifts from stage left to stage right, stopping in the center, bouncing off to the left again. Each new act spotlighted a new glowing talent and though the audience was supposed to refrain from applause until the end of each half often it erupted spontaneously.

We just couldn’t help it.

In particular I enjoyed the Men’s Glee Club. As they filed onto the risers behind the band I noted how sharp they looked in their black tuxes, crisp white shirts, grins on their faces. There were almost a hundred of them and they sounded wonderful. I thought about what kind of impression this experience was having on them. How being able to dress up in a tux with tails and have people applaud you wasn’t something most little boys ever imagine doing. And now here they were experiencing this concert and many others in their school musical careers. I wondered how many of them would keep singing into adulthood. I bet most do.

In fact all evening as I watched and listened I couldn’t help marveling at the abundance of talent filling that stage. And realizing that across this country and the world there’s an abundance of talent filling stages everywhere. And that made me feel better about the state of the world. Sure these past few weeks have been filled with bad news, scary news, often unimaginable news. But things can’t be all bad when several hundred kids spend their Saturday night making us (and themselves) feel wonderful. In fact the world is a pretty special place when artists share their talent, when they make such beautiful memories for themselves and their families and complete strangers.

And that, in a nutshell, is the value of music. It makes us feel good. Those of us sitting in the audience love it. But those sitting on the stage producing it reap the most valuable benefits of all. It’s the underpinning of their lives, it’s what makes them who they are and it’s what they will build the rest of their lives on. Music. In the end you can’t measure the value in dollars, can never know it’s exact worth.

But last night, for those kids and their families, I’d have to say it was priceless.

TV Rose Bowl Parade.

October 29, 2014
by dawnkinster 7 Comments

How music heals

I heard a piece on news radio during my commute to work Tuesday morning about how upbeat music helps sad people feel better and calm music helps settle people who are stressed; how music can be used in any number of problem situations to make things better. True I thought.

True.

And I hoped at that evening’s concert we would be able to deliver a bit of fun, maybe even a bit of relaxation to our audience. We’d be playing Halloween music, things like March of the Trolls by Grieg, Shadow Rituals by Markowski, and The Fortune Tellers Daughter by Gorham. Mostly fun stuff, mostly things we could play if we paid attention, though Shadow Rituals was a toss up. We’d made it through that piece, from start to finish, for the first time at last week’s rehearsal. There were no guarantees we could do it again. On the other hand, as people who listened to it played by professionals have said, “Who would really know if you made a mistake?”

Good point.

We were all dressed in costumes for the concert, a bit of freedom from the normal black concert attire. Lots of people went all out and were unrecognizable; a purple telatubby, a vampire, the tallest leprechaun trombone player I’ve ever seen. (The photos here are from last year, I forgot to take a camera this year!) I just added a big tie and a clown hat to my normal workaday outfit. I figured some of my customers take us for underwriting clowns anyway so it was fitting.

I’d started the morning with a headache, a bit of a sore throat, and a sense of being light headed. By afternoon my eyes were itching and I couldn’t stop sneezing. “Great,” I thought. Just what I need. All I wanted to do after work was drive home and climb into bed. Then I got to the concert venue. Sniffles disappeared, eyes cleared up. Headache? Gone.

And that was even before we began to play.

I think the audience had fun. We got a standing ovation from most of the audience when we finished. Maybe they were just glad we were done. Or maybe they’re our relatives. Or both. But I think they had fun. But not as much fun as we had playing. I’ve always said, and I’ll say it again, it’s much more fun to be the one playing then the one listening. Even when listening is pretty darn good.

Our sound engineer forgot to turn on the recording equipment until after the third piece, so we played the first three over again at the end of the concert. Most people stayed to hear them again, and turns out we played them better the second time. We had a blast doing it. Tuesday night the news piece on the radio proved to be true. Music is what’s good for you.

And for me.

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: music