goodbye, dolly

i love musicals. i grew up watching them over and over. memorizing lyrics and singing along. dancing along to the choreography in our family room downstairs as i pretended that i was dorcas from seven brides from seven brothers (she didn't have to dance too much). my siblings and i have some really fond memories surrounding the culture of watching musicals that we grew up in. you can sing the first couple words of a song and we will all join in together and maybe even start dancing for you. we can't help ourselves. kind of like the people in musicals.

i still love musicals, but rarely watch them any more. i don't have a whole lots of spare time and when randy and i do get a moment to settle down and watch something, the sound of music is not on the top of randy's list (but it is on the top of mine!).

i can't remember what triggered it, but for the last couple weeks i've been thinking a lot about musicals and wondering if my girls are ready for/would enjoy some of the musicals that i loved so much as a kid. maybe maria von trapp could somehow kill that inane, constant desire to watch dora that i am constantly trying to stamp out, yet burns brightly in madeleine's bosom.

yesterday, on a rare, quiet sunday afternoon, and with all of this musical nostalgia brewing inside of me, i decided to sit down and watch hello, dolly. definitely one of my favorites. madeleine came out of her nap about fifteen minutes into the movie, so decided to see if she was ready to enjoy a good musical and i let her join me.

no more than ten seconds had passed when she said, "why are they all singing and dancing?" i explained that it was a musical and the actors do that a lot during the movie. it's a fun way to showcase their talents while still progressing the plot (i think that part was over her head). apparently this was not a satisfactory answer because she asked me this question repeatedly throughout the rest of the movie. not just at the beginning of each song, but several times throughout each song. each time i tried a different response, but she was not appeased.

and so, what i thought would be a bonding, enjoyable experience for my daughter and me, turned into a disappointing deconstruction of one of my favorite musicals. it really takes the magic out of the movie when you constantly have to explain dolly levi's motives in a three year old's vernacular. try as i might, she just couldn't understand how the parade was a metaphor for life and its experiences.

maybe i'll have to watch them on my own for a while.  

and let me just say that she has never asked why the little mermaid bursts into song randomly or why she is so infatuated with eric and being a human.

note by note

randy and i watched this last night and loved it. it's a documentary about the making of a steinway piano. they followed one piano (a nine foot concert grand - L1037) from cutting down the wood in the forest to rolling it out onto the showroom floor.

it was fascinating to watch. i've already been heavily indoctrinated by randy that steinways are the best pianos out there, but we were both even more convinced of the fact after watching this documentary. almost the entire process is done with hand tools. the technicians that make each part have been trained extensively and each part is carefully inspected throughout the process. i loved all the shots of the factory. it feels like you've been transported back one hundred years, with hand tools like planes and chisels hanging all over the place.

i think that my favorite part about the whole movie was seeing the men and women who make steinways. i had imagined a bunch of musicians working at the steinway factory, but really, it is a bunch of burly craftsmen from the bronx and queens, most of who have been working there for years. they have a lot of immigrants with thick eastern bloc accents. one guy was hand planing part of the piano and said that he had brought the plane with him from (insert name of eastern bloc country that i can't remember here) in 1969. awesome. these guys were true artisans.

last night i dreamt about randy and i going to the steinway basement in new york and picking out a nine foot concert grand. some day.

you know you're serious about your child's music education when...

you change the words in a children's book to comply with correct principles of solfege.

background: to give madeleine a head start on her music education, we have been working on teaching her perfect pitch and solfege. yes, that's right, our children are going to be randy's musical experiments.

so... madeleine has a book called, "the wheels on the school bus," (more details on this book later...) and on one of the pages it says "the music teacher on the bus says ... do re mi, all the way to school." the other day, my sister beth was over and i was reading/singing the book to madeleine when i came to this part. as soon as i sang, "do re mi," beth commented that the solfege syllables didn't match up with the melody (okay, so i didn't notice myself... so i may be the weak part of madeleine's music education... so what?). we figured out the right syllables and i've been singing it like that to her instead.* yeah, i know, we're music nazis.

while we're talking about this book anyway, i will take the opportunity to comment on it. not only is it a little different from the song i grew up with (singing "all the way to school" instead of "all around the town" has taken some getting used to), this book has some crazy characters climbing on the bus. we've got the kids, teachers, librarian, coach, nurse, lunch ladies, music teacher, art teacher, custodian, and...

SPOILER ALERT!

in the end you find out that the principal was on the bus the whole time! the last page says:

the driver on the bus says "everybody off! everybody off! everybody off!" the driver on the bus says "here we are! welcome to my school!"

and in the picture, he's switched his hat that says "driver," for one that says "principal."

tricky.

*beth - i told randy about it and how we sing it now and he decided that he wants to go with a moveable do, so we're actually singing sol mi do to her instead of do la fa.

randy's students' recital

randy's students had a recital yesterday and my cousin came and watched madeleine so that i could go to the recital. his students sounded great and it was fun to put names with faces for many of the students that i don't know but hear so much about. it was fun to see randy in his teaching role and to see what a great job he's doing. here are a couple of (blurry) pictures of him with my cousins, who he teaches.

byu philharmonic orchestra

randy got us free tickets to see the byu philharmonic play last night. what a perfect date! i love going to symphonic performances. they are such rich aural experiences, but i love the visual experience as well. i love the look of the black regalia against the warm tones of the instruments, coupled with the stage lights. and oh! when those bows glide smoothly through the air in unison... well, if you've seen it, you know what i mean.

they performed barber's overture to the school for scandal, bernstein's symphonic dances from west side story, and berlioz's symphonie fantastique. the conductor acted like everyone was there to see the symphonie fantastique, but i was definitely most excited about the west side story, and sure enough, it was my favorite of the night. such good music. it reminded me that i need to own west side story. all three pieces were beautiful though, and well performed.

in addition to remembering that i need to own west side story, i remembered that we need to own season's tickets to the symphony. soon. and as soon as our kids are old enough to sit through a performance, they're coming too. i'm so grateful that my parents exposed me to culture and the arts when i was young so that i have a taste for it now and act appropriately in those situations. this is something that i definitely want to pass on to my children.

and i may have realized that i need a couple other things in my life. like one of these hot little numbers:

(the female performers all looked so beautiful in their stunning black dresses)

and some of these:

no, i don't have my ears pierced, but while i was zoning out during the third movement of the fantastique (hey, even randy admitted that it was a little dull and lasted far too long), i noticed that the second chair violinist had some beautiful little bling like this that glistened when it picked up the stage lights and i thought that they would go so beautifully with the elegant black dress that i had already set my mind on. okay, so maybe "need" is the wrong word...

randy's piano recital

well, it's finally over and i don't have a single picture to show for it. for someone who's a little crazy with a camera, i kind of fell asleep on the job.

randy had his recital last night and it went really well. the racmaninoff concerto was the best that i've ever heard him perform it and as always, i loved the chopin nocturne. really, all of the pieces were beautiful and well performed. we had a great turnout from family and friends and appreciate everyone who came.

i am so proud of randy and all of the hard work that he has put in to prepare for this recital. he has spent hours (hundreds!) practicing these pieces and we have all become intimately acquainted with them. i can't wait for the next round of repertoire!

quick trip to boise

we decided to go on a somewhat last-minute trip to boise last weekend. randy has to do 10 play-throughs of his recital for 10 different audiences before the actual recital, so we went up to boise and he got in 3 performances.

we were mostly there for the recitals, but we also managed to squeeze in a birthday celebration for randy and some time with cousins.

randy being a corn-ball while he blows out his candle.



madeleine and her great grandpa peck.



madeleine and her cousin lainey. they are only three months apart and madeleine loved having another baby around.





madeleine kept gently nudging lainey's head with her own as a little sign of affection. it was really sweet.



madeleine and lainey lining up to have calli read to them.

randy's piano recital rescheduled

randy's recital has now been rescheduled. it will be held on saturday, november 1st at 5:30pm in the madsen recital hall. come one, come all.

an original composition

with randy's musical talents, it is no surprise that he is already working on madeleine's musical training. randy has shown me daily exercises to do with her on the piano to help her develop perfect pitch, and then i also let her have play time on the piano at least once a day where i hold her on my lap and let her pound away. she loves this.

lately, she has figured out that she can take her musical training into her own hands as well. she climbs up the leg of the piano, stands on her tip-toes and reaches up to the keys with one hand and then plays the keys until she loses her balance and has to stop.

i managed to sneak a brief video of her playing, which is difficult to do, due to her recent fascination with the camera.

randy's recital

i told you to pencil in the date, right? well, pull out your erasers because september 6th is now free. randy's decided to push his recital back a little farther into the semester. looks like it will probably be towards the end of october. we'll keep you updated on details.

pencil in the date

randy is having his "sophomore" recital on saturday, september 6, 2008 at 9:30pm and you are all invited. pencil in the date now. there is technically the chance that it could get changed (he has to do a dry-run for some of the faculty a week before that he is less optimistic about than me), but plan on it.

daddy-daughter duet

this is randy and madeleine's first daddy-daughter duet. they sound pretty good together, huh?

flashback

i overheard a conversation between randy and one of his piano students the other day. it brought back memories of my own piano lessons:

randy: i want you to use the metronome more.
ben: but i don't like the metronome.
randy: the metronome is your friend.
ben: the metronome is not my friend. the metronome is my enemy.
randy: it's not your enemy. the metronome is my friend and i want it to be your friend, too.

i don't think that i thought of the metronome as my enemy, but it was certainly that annoying friend that you don't really want around if it was my friend.

art intake

randy took a class for writing about the arts, and often, when i find myself writing in my journal about an encounter with the arts, i wish that i had taken that class. i'm not very good at expressing myself in this arena. having said that, i am going to attempt to write a book, movie, and concert review. it is going to be short because i just got madeleine down and i should be taking advantage of that and sleeping myself.

for my sassy ladies book club, we read "the road," by cormac mccarthy last month. the jury is still out on this one. it was a gripping story, written very well, but i'm still not sure if i took enough out of it to have it be worth the incredibly depressing storyline. i mean, really depressing. and yet, i really enjoyed it. i still don't understand it myself. i think that the main thing that i took from it is that our world is defined by our relationships with those around us. i think that's why this is one of my favorite quotes from the book:

"the boy nodded. he sat looking at the map. the man watched him. he thought he knew what that was about. he'd pored over maps as a child, keeping one finger on the town where he lived. just as he would look up his family in the phone directory. themselves among others, everything in its place. justified in the world. come on, he said, we should go."

obviously, it makes more sense if you read the book. so, if you're looking for a well written, depressing novel, pick it up. it's a quick read too.

randy and i finally got out to see the much-hyped, "juno," last weekend. i feel kind of bad saying this, but despite the fact that there wasn't really any morally redeeming quality to the movie according to my beliefs, it was a fantastic movie. let me try to clarify...

it's about teen-pregnancy, and you don't ever really get the feel that she learns from what she's done except to get together with the father of the baby in a slightly-more-mature-than-most-teenage-relationships relationship. it makes single parenting seem easy. i don't like those aspects of it.

however, having said that, the dialogue was witty and funny and the characters were well developed and quirky. above all, the actors performed their roles amazingly. ellen page is fantastic in the title role and deserves the oscar. and then there were some of my old favorites, who delivered, as usual. jason bateman was good in it, although i wasn't as big of a fan of his character. c.j. from west wing did great as juno's step-mom, and george michael from arrested development (michael cera) did an especially great job in his role. i was really impressed. going into it, it seemed like his typical role, which i don't mind, but i was really surprised and it was even better than expected.

okay, now i'm rambling about the movie. onto the concert...

after months of waiting with our tickets sitting in the top drawer of my desk, the brad mehldau concert finally arrived. randy was giddy as a little kid on christmas morning, which was satisfaction enough for me, no matter how much i enjoyed the concert.

brad mehldau performed with his trio and they played some really beautiful charts. i don't usually describe jazz as beautiful music (don't get me wrong, i love it, just not my usual adjective), but these really were just that: beautiful. he also played some cool more edgy pieces, which is what randy really loves, and i enjoyed those, but was glad that it wasn't the theme of the entire concert.

okay, as i expected, i don't think i did any of these justice or accurately expressed my thoughts, but hopefully you get the idea.

randy's trio

randy's been playing in a trio since last semester and they decided to start gigging, so they've been busy getting ready for that. they just got business cards printed (thanks rhonda!), took pictures last weekend with kathryn's roommate, who is an awesome photographer and got some great shots, are getting a website up soon (kathrynmerriamtrio.com, thanks dad!), and are playing at the bridal fair on next saturday in hopes of drumming up some business. i'm really proud of the hard work that randy has put into this whole process.

a night out on the town

it's funny, one of the biggest changes that i've had to get used to since having madeleine is that i don't get to just get up and go to concerts any more. last semester, randy and i went to at least a concert a week, so this has been a big change. in general, it hasn't been that big of a deal, but a couple times it has been a little hard to miss the concerts. like a few weeks ago, randy went to a piano faculty concert for robin hancock and when he came home and talked about how awesome it was, it made me a little sad. oh well, such is the life of a new mom.

about 6 months ago, randy and i bought a package of tickets to jazz at the sheraton. we got tickets for three concerts, with the main reason being that we wanted to be able to get in to see brad mehldau in february.

we had our first concert in the series on monday night, a night of antonio carlos jobim music. my parents were good enough to take madeleine during the concert and randy and i had our first real date without her since she's been born. it was really nice to go and have some adult time together without being interrupted by a little baby (although we love that little baby).

the performance was really great, with a great flautist (i normally am opposed to flutes in jazz, but it works with jobim's music), and an even better drummer, jeff hamilton. my favorite selection of the night was "one note samba," played as a duet with just the flautist and drummer. it was really cool.

so thanks for a night out on the town mom and dad. it was nice to feel a little cultured again.

the doctor is in

last night, randy and i went to jazz at the sheraton and saw javon jackson perform with dr. lonnie smith at the organ. i didn't have that high of expectations going into it, but came out with a new hero. dr. lonnie smith was awesome. it's hard to describe unless you've heard and seen him perform, so i'm not going to try to describe it really, but i included a bunch of pictures so that you get the idea.

i have never heard anyone handle the b-3 so effortlessly, and i have definitely never seen someone so animated when performing. he was so fun to watch. at one point, he actually got down off the bench and started walking the bass on the pedals with his hands. this was true entertainment.

when asked why he calls himself doctor, he replied that it is for the same reason that he wears a turban to all of his gigs: "no particular reason." it doesn't get much cooler than that.

performance hall envy

i don't think that i have ever been jealous of anything at the u of u. until now.

last night, randy and i went to see murray perahia perform a concert at the university of utah. the concert was held in the libby gardner hall, which i had never been in before, but randy has. after returning from the concert that he went to previously, he went on and on about how far superior the u's concert facilities were. i believed him, but didn't realize the extent of it until i had been in the libby gardner hall myself.

completely aside from any comparison with byu's facilities, the libby gardner hall is beautiful. it is bright, with gorgeous woodwork, and a great organ adorning the front of the hall. in addition to being visually pleasing, the accoustics are also fantastic. this is the best picture of the hall that i could find online:

it's small, but at least shows that the hall, on its own, is quite stunning. now, compare it to byu's de jong concert hall or the madsen recital hall and we're talking about the difference between a motel 6 and the ritz. this is the best picture i could find of the madsen:

no comment.

byu's web page describes the de jong as "a handsome, functional facility." i have to agree that the de jong, as well as the madsen, are quite functional. these facilities are constantly in use, and let's face it, byu is very practical in making sure that its facilities are well used. but perhaps we should leave out the handsome part.

byu needs some wealthy benefactor to come in and fund a complete overhaul of its concert and recital halls. in fact, while they're at it, completely razing the hfac and building a new fine arts building wouldn't be a bad idea. this is a call for anyone who loves byu, is one of those slightly crazies who can't handle that the u is better than byu at something, or someone who just loves the arts, with lots of extra money lying around to step forward. anyone?

as a side note to this rant, the concert was fantastic. we were late in buying tickets, so we were up in the choir seats, but besides it being slightly uncomfortable for me to sit on the benches without any seat back, it was fun to be so close. the music selection was great and randy and i both enjoyed his bach selection best, but madeleine really got going and was kicking throughout the chopin. so far, from concerts we've attended, we've determined that she really likes beethoven concertos, gets rather bored with holst, and has an affinity for chopin.