1. Erase your brain of any and all computer knowledge.
2. Decide that you want to share music that no one is interested in.
3. Go to your iTunes and look for your album of Patrice Michaels performing "Songs About Spring."
4. Realize that you lost the album in transit between old hard drive and external hard drive.
5. Go instead to your senior recital and listen with gritted teeth to your own poor rendition of said cycle. Decide that you're a glutton for punishment, and it'll have to do.
6. Burn CD of senior recital in wma format.
7. Rip CD back onto computer using Windows Media Player. Pat yourself on the back for what you think is a job well-done.
8. Write short snippet about e.e. cummings and Dominic Argento.
9. Crinkle your brow in puzzlement and wonder how to get music clips onto your blog without making them into videos. Present this conundrum to the Google God, and be led to this website.
10. Follow the website's messy instructions. Register for accounts here, and here and even here. Spend at least 7 minutes coming up with cheesy username (SuzieMuse).
11. Upload ripped files to your new file hosting accounts.
12. Embed your masterpiece into blog. Preview. Play. Not working? Hmmm...
13. Go back to the Google God with your dilemma. Beg and plead and search for the meaning of all this. Get distracted on wikipedia's entry about e.e. cummings.
14. Learn that the website whose messy instructions you've been following is out of date, and therefor promotes a media player that no longer exists.
15. Find another website. Follow its instructions. Embed. Preview. Play. Nothing.
16. Google God.
17. Learn the difference between wma and mp3 files.
18. Download a converter.
19. Convert your previously ripped files to mp3's.
20. Repeat step 11. Embed. Preview. Play. Nothing.
21. Beg your friend Tom to go to your blog and click play. Bang your head against the wall when he says it's working for him.
22. Open a different browser. Hit play. Grit teeth at poor rendition again and quickly hit pause.
23. Ask Tom WHY???!?!?! Click on link he sends.
24. Download new flashplayer. Bingo.
25. Spend the next 30 minutes editing the html so that the damn thing won't auto play or loop.
26. Be happy for the things you've learned and for godsake change the poopy diaper that's been wafting in your distracted face for the past 45 mintutes.
27. Beat the dead horse and waste time writing a blog about wasting time.
Friday, July 10, 2009
who knows if the moon's a balloon
What would e.e. cummings have thought of having his poetry set to music? Chances are he'd be pretty pissed, and I wouldn't blame him. I think there are few if any composers who can match his avant garde and satirical style. It's my humble opinion that Dominic Argento comes pretty close. Don't take my word for it, though. Also, try to ignore the singer, if you can.
who knows if the moon's
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky--filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should
get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where
always
it's
Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves
- e.e. cummings
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky--filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should
get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where
always
it's
Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves
- e.e. cummings
Suzie Muzik Nuz
Because I don't know how to organize this without writing multiple blogs a day . . .
The August "Night Cafe" program is taking shape. The company that hired me ask that I sing "less classical, more jazz" this time. I was a little miffed at first. Art songs and arias are art forms I can throw myself into and be somewhat pleased with the results. Jazz and Broadway feel like a sell-out. That's not to say I don't enjoy them or think they have merit . . . I'm just not suited for them. I guess I can't be the judge of that.
So, my program went from this:
1. The Water is Wide, an American folktune arr. by Mark Hayes
2. How Could I Ever Know?, from the Broadway musical The Secret Garden
3. Somewhere Over the Rainbow, from the Broadway musical The Wizard of Oz
4. Seit ich ihn gesehen, by Robert Schumann
5. Gretchen am Spinnrade, by Franz Schubert
6. Du bist die Ruh, by Franz Schubert
7. Think of Me, from the Broadway musical The Phantom of the Opera
8. Song to the Moon, from Antonin Dvorak's opera Rusalka
To this:
1. The Sound of Music, from The Sound of Music
2. Somewhere Over the Rainbow, from The Wizard of Oz
3. My Ship, from Lady in the Dark
4. Can't Help Lovin' dat Man, from Show Boat
5. Hello, Young Lovers, from The King and I
6. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, from The Phantom of the Opera
7. How Could I Ever Know?, from The Secret Garden
8. Till There Was You, from The Music Man
9. Goodnight My Someone, from The Music Man
Despite my bruised ego, I'm pretty happy with the change. My original program was hodgepodge and hoity toity. The audience will enjoy the new set more, which is all the matters in the end, really. I'm enjoying letting loose and forgetting my classical singer's etiquette. This program is pure fun, which is what I need right now.
The next song cycle I'm forcing down your throats is Dominic Argento's Songs About Spring - a cycle of five songs set to the quirky and bizarre poetry of e.e. cummings. I can't find my recording of Patrice Michaels singing the cycle, so you're going to have to grit your teeth and bear someone else . . . ok, maybe I will post two blogs today. Aren't you excited?!?!
Finally, I want to "pay it forward" and pass on a rare and precious gift that a friend passed to me. It's called The Take-Away Shows, and it's about the best-thing-after-Hannah in my life right now. Musicians sharing their music whilst strolling the streets of Paris - genius. I'm specifically enamored with these performances by Andrew Bird and these performances by Grizzly Bear. I laugh and cry every time I watch them. I hope they make life a little sweeter for you as well.
The August "Night Cafe" program is taking shape. The company that hired me ask that I sing "less classical, more jazz" this time. I was a little miffed at first. Art songs and arias are art forms I can throw myself into and be somewhat pleased with the results. Jazz and Broadway feel like a sell-out. That's not to say I don't enjoy them or think they have merit . . . I'm just not suited for them. I guess I can't be the judge of that.
So, my program went from this:
1. The Water is Wide, an American folktune arr. by Mark Hayes
2. How Could I Ever Know?, from the Broadway musical The Secret Garden
3. Somewhere Over the Rainbow, from the Broadway musical The Wizard of Oz
4. Seit ich ihn gesehen, by Robert Schumann
5. Gretchen am Spinnrade, by Franz Schubert
6. Du bist die Ruh, by Franz Schubert
7. Think of Me, from the Broadway musical The Phantom of the Opera
8. Song to the Moon, from Antonin Dvorak's opera Rusalka
To this:
1. The Sound of Music, from The Sound of Music
2. Somewhere Over the Rainbow, from The Wizard of Oz
3. My Ship, from Lady in the Dark
4. Can't Help Lovin' dat Man, from Show Boat
5. Hello, Young Lovers, from The King and I
6. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, from The Phantom of the Opera
7. How Could I Ever Know?, from The Secret Garden
8. Till There Was You, from The Music Man
9. Goodnight My Someone, from The Music Man
Despite my bruised ego, I'm pretty happy with the change. My original program was hodgepodge and hoity toity. The audience will enjoy the new set more, which is all the matters in the end, really. I'm enjoying letting loose and forgetting my classical singer's etiquette. This program is pure fun, which is what I need right now.
The next song cycle I'm forcing down your throats is Dominic Argento's Songs About Spring - a cycle of five songs set to the quirky and bizarre poetry of e.e. cummings. I can't find my recording of Patrice Michaels singing the cycle, so you're going to have to grit your teeth and bear someone else . . . ok, maybe I will post two blogs today. Aren't you excited?!?!
Finally, I want to "pay it forward" and pass on a rare and precious gift that a friend passed to me. It's called The Take-Away Shows, and it's about the best-thing-after-Hannah in my life right now. Musicians sharing their music whilst strolling the streets of Paris - genius. I'm specifically enamored with these performances by Andrew Bird and these performances by Grizzly Bear. I laugh and cry every time I watch them. I hope they make life a little sweeter for you as well.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Frauenliebe und Leben - part 8
Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan is the last song of Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben. For those who have been listening along with rapt attention, thank you and bravo! For those who haven't, there may be hope for you yet.
Is it morbid that this is quite possibly my favorite song of the cycle? Maybe. I do savor the raw pain of the piece, but I think what really gets me is the piano's conclusion at the end - a quote of Seit ich ihn gesehen that makes this work TRULY a cycle. Like life. I love music.
Is it morbid that this is quite possibly my favorite song of the cycle? Maybe. I do savor the raw pain of the piece, but I think what really gets me is the piano's conclusion at the end - a quote of Seit ich ihn gesehen that makes this work TRULY a cycle. Like life. I love music.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Frauenliebe und Leben - part 7
An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust captures the blinding giddiness, tongue-tied breathlessness and well-meant presumptuousness of early motherhood with startling accuracy. So this is what we sound like! Schumann sets this text as honestly as a man is able, which is all we can really ask.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
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