Jason R. Fruit
stay-at-home father and computer programmer
Jason R. Fruitstay-at-home father and computer programmer |
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I've been reading the autobiography of Louis Spohr, who was in his time (1784-1859) considered not only the most prominent violinist but the foremost composer alive. (In considering that statement, remember that Beethoven lived from 1770 to 1827!) It is written with what could be called distinguished egotism, but manages to convey considerable charm, nonetheless: between petulant reports of critical reviews, effortfully polite comments on contemporary violinists, and shocked reactions to the . . .
Read moreI've been curious for some time about the origin of the banjo term "frailing," which refers to picking the banjo with downstrokes using the back of the fingernails. It's sometimes called "beating," "banging," or "rapping" the banjo, or because of the stiff shape of the right hand, "clawhammer" banjo. Nobody seems to know where it came from, but speculation is that the name and the technique are of African origin.
I was reading to my eldest daughter from Joel Chandler Harris' Nights with Uncle . . .
Read moreWhen I was a music major, it was de mode for us to assert our omnivorous tastes in music. The fashionable wording was, "I listen to everything but country." It was our code phrase to indicate that we were urbane and cultured, that we were cosmopolitan and unconstrained by provincial prejudices, but that we didn't accept commercialized schlock. (Rap was urban and "real", so that was okay, and everyone listens to rock, of course.)
I enjoy country music, and I'm going to admit it publicly so . . .
Read moreI've had Carry Me Back to Old Virginny stuck in my head all morning. That's not a good thing. It's a beautiful tune, and the words are well-enough written, I admit, but reads like a celebration of slavery.
Here are the words:
Read moreCarry Me back to Old Virginny
Written by James BlandCarry me back to old Virginny,
There's where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
There's where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
There's where the old darkey's heart am long'd . . .
It's been about three weeks since I started learning the lute, so I suppose it's about time for me to show the world what I can and cannot do. This is Robinson's May by Thomas Robinson. It was filmed in a single take, and I'd say it's representative of my ability; sometimes I might do better, and sometimes worse.
Enjoy, if you can.
Read moreI got to see two stages of musical self-expression today, and both were a privilege to watch.
This evening, I acted as accompanist to a former 'cello student of my wife, with whom I first played when he was in the earliest Suzuki books; it's been a few years since I last heard him, and he is now playing the Schumann concerto solidly and with aplomb. I could still hear and see the foundation laid by my wife's teaching (and, of course, his hard work), but it is no longer at the surface; instead, . . .
Read moreI've heard violin teachers tell their students, gesturing at the length of the violin's fingerboard, "A violinist's job is not difficult --- we move our hand no more than from here to here, and we have only four strings to do it on!" I think that's disingenuous.
Take, for example, the following passage, which is not at all unrealistic --- to be played on the E-string at 80 beats per minute:
There will be shifts at the following points:
I was in the car, listening as I often am to public radio, and I realized that there's a category of music that clearly exists but for which I have never heard a label. It is clearly identifiable, and I'm confident that you will know it when I describe it.
I hereby dub it That Public Radio Sound. You know the one that I mean --- a small group of musicians playing at least partly acoustic instruments with only incidental non-melodic percussion, who have one or more of the following:
I've been reading My Memories, a book of reminiscences by the Belgian violinist Ovide Musin, and I was amused by this anecdote. He tells about a stop in San Francisco on a tour of the United States in the late 19th Century, in which he was embarrassed by the efficacy of his publicity:
Read more. . . some of the gentlemen who were doing the honors of the town in my behalf took me to a dime museum where, among the freaks, was an enormously fat woman who derived considerable income from showing . . .