choirbean

Heelys

2006-12-12T04:27:07Z

I see kids roll around in them, so why aren't Heelys popular with adults? It seems to me they'd be very efficient. The wheels are easy to pop out and in with your toes, and they get you places faster.

(x-posted to my facebook)

I GOT IT!!

2006-11-21T04:46:27Z

Hooray!

Now I have to figure out what's going to happen to my Masters.

choirbean @ 2006-11-17T11:52:00

2006-11-17T15:52:11Z

I'm crossing my fingers, because I just had an audition for my Dream Job.

Get this: It's a performing arts high school in Jersey City, and if they take me, they would be willing to do it alternate route. (Getting an alternate route job in NJ in music is no easy trick - it's not like physics or math!)

The kids there are highly motivated. First of all, they have to audition to get into the program. If they're accepted, they leave their regular schools for a few mornings or afternoons a week to bus into the program. They get 12 of their high school credits for being involved. And, best of all, if they screw around they get kicked out of the program. So there aren't a lot of classroom management issues. The kids are there for art, to learn about music, and to become the best musicians they can be.

And they're so friendly.

The audition basically consisted of leading a 30 minute rehearsal of Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine, and it went reallyreallyreally well. At least, I *think* it did. The kids cheered for me when I was done, and I was told afterwards that I would hear back from the program "very soon," and then, "if not next week, then the week after." I'm not sure why the week after next constitutes "very soon", but next week is Thanksgiving, and perhaps they want to have meetings and figure stuff out. Or maybe they have another candidate to see first. (eek!)

And that's why I'm crossing my fingers.

Wish me luck!!

choirbean @ 2006-06-09T13:50:00

2006-06-09T17:50:49Z

A very clever way to catch a mouse:

http://glass.typepad.com/journal/2005/09/how_to_catch_a_.html

My Graduate Recital

2005-11-28T22:44:06Z

Will be held during the evening of Sunday, April 23rd, at a venue on Manhattan still to be announced, and the program will include:

Faure's Requiem

Leonard Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" (if you haven't heard this, check it out - it's amazing)

and seven short new works by seven different (!!) composers, each composed roughly to the instrumentation of Chichester Psalms.

If you would like to come and sing, let me know. If you would like to be one of the composers (for which there are still two slots available, I believe) contact me for details.

I'm incredibly excited about this program, and I hope to see you there!

(Oh, and my email address is musicteacher at gmail, which undoubtedly also has a dot com somewhere.)

choirbean @ 2005-10-21T00:55:00

2005-10-21T05:14:55Z

It's been a long time since I wrote, so I thought a small update might be nice.

Let's see: I am still at Mannes, and have added a theory masters on top of the choral conducting masters. This will take me an additional year, but I was getting a lot of encouragement from the theory faculty to join the major. Now that I've done that, I'm getting encouraged to go for a PhD in theory, so now I'm seriously considering it.

The conducting masters is going well - my ears are getting better, and every year I learn more about how far I need to go in order to be a reasonable conductor. My baton technique is always improving (and can always use more work), but it turns out that baton technique is not such a big part of conducting - far more important is developing your inner ears and your ability to interpret, and no matter how fast I progress in that regard, it is never nearly enough. But I'm not giving up yet - my reasoning is that the guy who teaches me (who is, as it turns out, one of the greatest musicians I have ever encountered) tells me that I am making steady progress, and insists that plugging away is how you eventually become good.

The real problem, of course, is that as my ears get better, my idea of what makes for a "good" conductor shifts at a rate faster than I could possibly keep up with it. So, I may never consider myself to be "good". Which is okay, as long as I don't let myself get discouraged.

Now, as a result of doing two concurrent masters, I am taking far, far too many classes. Sixteen classes = 28 1/2 credits. Seriously.

Now adding:
classes
+ two jobs
+ masters recital (for which I am preparing now. See below!)
----------------------
= I am busy and underslept.

Otherwise, I'm basically happy.

During my free time (haha!), I have switched (for the moment) from learning Hebrew to learning German, and my computer game of choice has changed from Heroes of Might and Magic III (which was way better than II and IV), for which each game takes about five hours, to Minesweeper, for which each game takes about two and a half minutes. My top score on expert is still 151, which isn't terrible, but isn't great either. Undoubtedly this will continue to move down until I lose interest completely... It'd be cool to get below 100, though.

And what of women, you ask? That, my friend, is for another entry at another time. In the meantime, I am sleepy.

*yawns*

Oh, before I go: anyone in the NY area should come join my masters recital choir when we begin rehearsing in a few months. We're going to be performing some combination of music from Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, the Faure Requiem, selections from Holst's Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, and Janacek's Lord's Prayer. Also, there may be free pizza or vocal coaching involved. Keep checking this space for forthcoming details!!

In other news, I'm planning on seeing Wallace and Grommit on Saturday with some friends. How is it?

choirbean @ 2005-06-22T13:01:00

2005-06-22T17:04:07Z

I hate it when people forward bogus warnings... but this one is real, and it's important. So please send this warning to everyone on your e-mail list:

If someone comes to your front door saying they are conducting a survey on deer ticks and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around with your arms up, DO NOT DO IT!! IT IS A SCAM; they only want to see you naked.

I wish I'd gotten this yesterday. I feel so stupid now.

choirbean @ 2005-05-31T23:51:00

2005-06-01T03:53:59Z

This is posted especially for Kim, but I thought that others might find it interesting as well.

Form over content :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/opinion/31fish.html?pagewanted=all

choirbean @ 2005-05-19T01:20:00

2005-05-19T05:26:10Z

My googlisms. It actually took awhile to cull these down. "Ben" appears to be a common name. Who knew?

ben is great with others
ben is very big and strong
ben is a domesticon
ben is bullied by an older boy
ben is based on the book by robert lawson
ben is also in april's seventeen magazine
ben is having difficulty with vowel sounds
ben is first and foremost a type a personality
ben is working hard to bring you new products every season
ben is technically still a doctor
ben is a desperate man who craves the one thing that he can’t seem to find
ben is still in the dumpster
ben is a black labrador retriever
ben is sooooooooooo sweet that i want to crap my pants
ben is sometimes referred to as "the borg" for his lack of pigment
ben is a coda
ben is able to intelligently minimize jitter
ben is a hero nonconformist seeking individual freedom

choirbean @ 2005-05-15T22:07:00

2005-05-16T02:08:59Z

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

</td>

Cultural Creative

69%

Materialist

69%

Existentialist

63%

Modernist

56%

Postmodernist

50%

Idealist

44%

Fundamentalist

38%

Romanticist

19%

What is Your World View?
created with QuizFarm.com

I don't think this pinned me at all. I don't approve.

A new baby

2005-05-10T22:17:15Z

My sister is pregnant with #3!

My 5-y/o nephew told me over the phone that he "saw a baby in mommy's belly". And then my 3 y/o nephew told me over the phone, too, because his brother got a chance to already, and fair's fair. :)

choirbean @ 2005-04-28T00:29:00

2005-04-28T04:40:14Z

This post qualifies as definitely not important, but interesting to me because of how unexpected it is.

So, I developed this calcium spot about halfway up my fingernail about a month and a half ago. No big deal, of course. It slowly grows out, and eventually gets to the edge where I can cut it. It's been around there for about a week now (about 60% of it is to where I can cut it now), and I've been watching it rather idly, mostly during classes while I am bored. I have noticed something interesting:

I can feel my fingernails grow.

No, seriously, it feels like there is some sort of vague pressure on my fingernail. The spot doesn't move relative to my skin for days, and then I get this *almost* imperceptible feeling of pressure, and within an hour or two, the spot has moved substantially. For about a week, only about 20% of the calcium spot was cuttable. I noticed this feeling during theory class, looked at my nail to see that it was still about 20% cuttable, and checked again at the end of my next class (two hours later), and it was about 60% cuttable.

So: (1) your nails grow in fits and spurts, not slowly over time. (2) They don't all grow simultaneously. They appear to grow whenever they feel like it. (Right now, only my left ring finger and my right thumb are growing.) (3) You can feel it if you spend a moment trying to. (4) They grow pretty fast when they actually decide to grow.

If you want to feel it, check out your fingers right now, and a few times over the next few days. You might catch one with a slight feeling of pressure. Make a tiny mark with a permanent marker where you can see the color of skin appear under your nail, and check again a couple of hours later. Weird, right?

choirbean @ 2005-04-17T09:32:00

2005-04-17T13:33:52Z

Your Linguistic Profile:

45% General American English

40% Yankee

15% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I wonder what this thing considers "Dixie"? Everyone seems to be getting very high Dixie scores.

choirbean @ 2005-03-15T11:31:00

2005-03-15T16:32:02Z

My conducting recital is coming up on Sunday the 20th at the Church of Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, which is on West End Avenue and 86th St. We're conducting parts II and III of the Messiah (meaning we're skipping the Christmas part), and I've got 6 of the movements, including the Hallelujah chorus.

If you've ever wanted to come to a concert of mine, this is a good one because it is free, and the music is accessible. And now that I'm contemplating *not* actually being a conductor (argh! big decisions!) it is probably the best choir I'll ever get to conduct - how many choirs does one get to conduct that consist of conservatory vocal masters students?

Tiny orchestra, 5 conductors, small choir, freeeeeee.

In other news, ani lomed ivrit achshav. (I'm studying Hebrew now) This is because I'm considering visiting Israel this summer on one of these "tour Israel for a week or so for free because some rich guy wants to fund tours for college and grad students" trips - the tour organization is called "Birthright Israel", and it was brought to my attention by some people I know who have gone and insist that it was some sort of incredible experience.

While I'm there, I can visit my new Israeli friends. For some reason, Mannes has 10-15 Israeli students, out of 200 altogether. So, now I have a couple of friends who live in Israel.

It's almost odd to me to be studying Hebrew without a religious reason... I'd always associated it so closely with Judaism. But now I'm studying it just for fun and communication.

Hooray communication.

choirbean @ 2005-03-12T00:06:00

2005-03-12T05:22:45Z

My primary email changed sometime a bit before WSO went down to musicteacher at gmail. Of course, WSO is still forwarding, so it's not as if I'm going to miss your mail if you happen to send it to bisecke@wso.

I can no longer log into WSO, though, which is somewhat upsetting as there are files I'd really like to regain access to on there. I asked them to change my password, but they (understandably) have bigger fish to fry than one lil' user who can't log in.

I doubt I've watched more than 5 hours of TV since November, when I unplugged the thing. But tonight I watched a bunch of Daily Show eps from my parent's Tivo. John Stewart is really, really funny. Also, he is actually John Leibowitz, and I found out tonight that my mom knows his mom. So, three degrees of seperation from me to John Stewart.

I'm moving up in the world.

choirbean @ 2005-01-11T16:53:00

2005-01-11T21:53:29Z

What the hell happened to WSO?

choirbean @ 2005-01-02T14:03:00

2005-01-02T19:41:10Z

So, last night (or not-so-early-this-morning), as I was talking to some folks, the conversation turned to student bloopers. So, I mentioned something about some essays my Catholic HS girls had written, and they told me that I should post about it.

So, most of you know that I taught HS for two years: 9th grade compulsory music survey class. The kids (for the most part) did not know that the word "orchestra" referred to a body of musicians (or as one wrote down for their music-class quiz: "An orchestra is a bird"), that "music" is a separate concept from "beat" (this was hard to figure out at first - one quiz came back: "acapella" is "singing, with no music or sound")

It was fun times all around. I was required to teach them about Beethoven, and I was faced with people that didn't think that Beethoven wrote "music", because he provided no beatbox.

For one midterm, I gave them some essays.

So, here was the setup: The school had a midterm period, lasting about a week, during which every girl took a midterm for every class (except for studio art - somehow the studio art teacher got permission to not give a midterm.) It's a big deal at the school. Midterm schedules are handed out in homeroom and mailed home to the parents, and the whole school just gears up for the exams for few weeks.

By school policy, every 9th-grade teacher was supposed to create a review packet, so I made a pretty extensive packet with every question I'd ask, and all of the answers. I devoted three class days (one class per week = three weeks of class) to going over the packet as preparation for the midterm. There were three sections to the exam - aural skills, written answers, and essays. We spent one class day per topic in review, essentially practicing the exam as it would be done on exam day.

Regarding essays: I provided three essays in advance, and told them they would have to choose two on the day of the exam. Now, these essays are legitimately difficult for 9th-graders. But you have to know a few things to put this into context. First, they were essays about lecture topics. Second, I provided answers in outline-format along with the questions I passed out in advance. Third, we spent a full class day going over the three essays in class: talking through them, writing practice essays, getting those "checked" by a classmate, and answering questions. Having worked with these kids before, I wasn't expecting spectacular insights, but some vague understanding of the question, and some idea of how to (at least) parrot back the answers I'd given verbally and visually... or perhaps I was hoping that somewhere, in the deep and dark recesses of their minds, they might register that they were supposed to do something... on a midterm... like write an essay. Or something.

On the last class day before the midterm, on the third full midterm-prep day (and the fourth class day since I'd passed out the midterm review packet with all of the questions and answers) one of the girls raised her hand and asked, "Mr. I -- why are we doing this?"

"Because we're getting you ready for your midterm."

"Midterm? You mean, we have a midterm in this class??! You never said anything about a midterm... What do we have to do on it?"

(Now there's a pregnant pause while this question registers in your brain, just like it had to do in mine.)

There's nothing more to say except that she hadn't been absent at any point during the term.

Putting the aside, well, aside, we come to the essays themselves. I've posted two of the essay topics here, and a few corresponding essays.

Consider this: If Bach and Beethoven were swapped at birth, so that Beethoven was born in 1685 and Bach in 1770, would they have written the same kind of music? Would Beethoven have been a Romantic musical writer stuck in the Baroque? Another way of asking this: if Tupac had been born in 1685, would he have been a rapper, or would he have written Baroque music? Is music mostly a function of its time and place, or mostly a function of the person writing it? (18 points)

If Bach and Beethoven were swapped at birth, mayhem might have broke loose.

Beethoven was a classical music writer. If he were in the Baroque era, he would have made music that worshiped God, but for deaf people. He would have wrote music for romance, and might have been just a little happier.

Bach, on the other hand, would have written angry Classical music. Since he was upset with his life, letting it out may be a relief. His classical music may also be very romantic, but wouldn't be because of the time he's in.

Music is affected by time. If I were in the 60's, I would have loved songs from Cher. Even though she is recent, music plays an important role in the person writing it.

Even though music may sound the same in many ways, it still was influenced by the person and the time period they were in.

Write an essay about the three crises of faith (the famine, the plague, and the Schism of the Occident.). Explain what took place and what the reaction of the church was. Where did people eventually look to for guidance when they did not feel like that the church had good answers? And how did this change the arts? (17 points)

[FYI: Schism of the Occident was a brief (70 year) period of multiple popes - first two, then three. Oh, and the effect of the three crises on the musical arts was a shift in composition away from the church, towards secular music.]

Answer number 1:

AAAH!

[FYI: I awarded that essay two points -- one point for every two letters -- just because I laughed soda out of my nose when I saw it. I mean, that's fair, right?]

Answer number 2:

The three crises of faith are the famine, the plague, and the Schism of the Occident.

In the famine the rat had died and then in the plague the fly came and sucked the blood of the rotten rat. Then in the Schism of the Occident the fly went sucking humans blood which led to a big disease.

When people went to the church but there was no help from the church so they tried and tried but no reaction from the church.

Then they lost of anything from th church so all of them ended up dieing. They couldn't go anywhere else then church so they died.

This changed the art by telling people how a disease or music can travel from a rat to fly and to the humans.

Answer number 3:

The famine, plage, and Schism of the Occident were 3 crises of faith. The famine (1513) was when there was no food; the plague was when you could get sick from rats with fleas; the Schism of the Occident was worse than the plague. You got red bumps, a fever, red face, and finally you would expire. The reaction of the church was to take them in and do as much as they could. When the church was thought of as an unsafe place they went to the theatre.

In conclusion: My kids write better prose than Dave Barry. And it's nice to think that I, in my own small way, have helped them to get there.

I hope everyone had a great New Year's!

Suddenly life gets interesting

2004-12-21T22:43:14Z

...and I am left with many questions.

For instance, what is a 4-tuple?

I read the first chapter of Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now". He separates out your identity from your (conscious) mind. Walking around today monitoring my mind, and thinking about when it is useful to think, and when I would rather have my brain shut off has been enlightening. How very meta.

I reject his later assertion that your mind is your enemy (although that may well be true for some people). In any case, I'm now interested in learning how to "shut down" my conscious brain when it is (a) not needed, and (b) interfering with what I am trying to accomplish. (He makes a great point about the horrible loops your mind can make around projected futures - your mind is perfectly happy to do this over and over and over, each time leaving you just a little bit less sure of yourself and a little bit less happy.)

In any case, the first chapter of the book has been posted online. I wonder what you folks think about this. Useful? A waste of time? A dangerous diversion? The path to Enlightenment?

I've also spent a significant amount of time over the last month and a half learning about ways to modify my own state of mind, and connect back into my body (these are separate but related.) I'm stunned by how far afield I've gone - two years ago, I would have considered all of this stuff to be a great big new-age artsy-fartsy waste of time. Now, I'm learning to monitor my reactions, take some sort of meta-control over my mind, body and emotions, and am becoming calmer, more perceptive, more open, and generally happier.

My new attitude is, "Hey, if it works..." I'm happy to share what I'm learning with anyone who is interested.

A neat quote

2004-12-09T17:31:20Z

... from my conducting teacher, who is amazing.

I am the librarian for the Mannes repertory chorus. When I asked him what I should do about people turning in music with no covers, he replied with a great quote: "If there isn't a solution, then there isn't a problem."

That embodies about 50% of my life philosophy right there.

What the heck does this mean?

2004-12-09T02:21:55Z

It's by T.S. Eliot:

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
     Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
     To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
     We only live, only suspire
     Consumed by either fire or fire.

Old friends

2004-12-07T04:38:30Z

I saw an old friend tonight. It was a funny encounter. We had to make amends before we could meet - we'd had a small tiff six months ago. If we went to the same place every day, or would see each other from time to time anyway, it would have resolved itself the very next day. But there was no compelling reason to be in contact, so it was easier not to deal with it. Sometimes it seems so easy to let go of people that you care about, even if the eventual costs are high. When we did finally meet, we had a great time - to think that I almost lost a great friend for almost no reason at all.

I think it's time to contact old friends and reconnect. Just as soon as my semester winds down a little. And I finish (start) holiday shopping. Channuka technically starts tomorrow (hehheh - whoops!) but I don't actually need to have any presents until Saturday, when my family will all get together. At that time, merriment will ensue, and my 2-year-old nephew will inevitably find a new way of wreaking havoc.

I caved in...

2004-12-04T05:22:40Z

Now I have an LJ, too. If I've added you as a friend, and you don't know who I am, I'll give you a few hints: I went to Williams, I was a Bethan, now I'm studying choral conducting at Mannes, and mooching off of my parents for room and board at their New Jersey home.

If I didn't add you, I probably didn't know about your LJ.

Things are fairly good in my life - I'm enjoying my studies, and enjoying my friends and family.

I hope having this blog doesn't obligate me to, you know, update it or anything. Because that would just be a lot of work, work, work. Or, perhaps that could be better characterized as procrastination, procrastination, procrastination.

Cheerio, then.