This Means War!, Episode 7

So, we have a neighbor problem.  Our next door neighbors seem to own a sound system that one should need a nuclear arms permit to operate.  It is so loud!  Don't get me wrong, I have a fantastic sound system too and I love cranking it up from time to time.  But now that I live in a row house with thin walls, I have learned to operate my gear with restraint out of respect for the folks on either side of us.  This is a lesson I wish our neighbors would learn!  They turn up their sound system so loud that it literally shakes our walls.  To make matters worse, they do so during prime sleeping hours, for instance, at 6 am on Saturday morning.  We have already had to call the police a couple of times to register noise complaints.  So, in the epic words of Bugs Bunny:

 

I think I made significant strides in Night Owls rehearsal this past week.  Like I talked about in my last post, I am working on my podium presence with the group.  After rehearsal this past week, one of the players came up to me to express how much she is enjoying my conducting.  She told me she appreciates the energy and enthusiasm I bring to the podium.  So, I guess I am doing a pretty good job!

I would like to offer a heart-felt thank you to those of you who helped out on my Everyone's a Critic assignment.  My professor seemed pretty impressed with my work.  In her comments, she said,

"Really cool tune to use for this assignment. You chose a good technique for sharing the analysis. It was effective to have the tune playing while the screen showed thoughts a about critical compositions elements. Explanation of extended techniques was helpful, too. Interesting, isn't it, that when we use extended techniques, we tend to explain them (and, therefore, perhaps interpret them) in terms of more traditional techniques and/or responses.  Good work with the content as well as the video presentation!"

 The Temple Prep Wind Ensemble has continued to be a bit of a frustration.  I have managed to come up with solutions to some of the issues I have encountered.  I have way too many flutes and not nearly enough percussionists.  So, I have enlisted my flute players at "flutecussionists."  (Patent Pending).  Each flute player will take a shift in the percussion section for one tune on the program, helping cover all the percussion parts and alleviating some of the balance issues that were resulting from having so many flutes.  I have picked the literature for the concert.  I had to go a little easier than I had originally planned on.  But, I want to do music the students find accessible.  I am still having issues with the kids showing up on time, though, which is a really big source of frustration.  And they still can't read.  This is not a problem I think I will be able to solve and I have been doing more rote teaching than I am truly comfortable doing.  But, without reading reinforcement in their home band classes and in their private lessons, the 5 minutes I can afford to devote to it every week is not going to make much difference for many of the kids.  I am going to talk with the program administrators about how we can solve this issue for next semester.

After my rousing success with the first quiz in Statistics, I am back to not having any idea what the professor is talking about.  I feel like it shouldn't be this difficult!

On a sad note, the Orioles got swept by Kansas City.  So close...  However, check out those Ravens at the top of the division!

I have made another giant step toward meeting people in Philly.  I joined  local homebrew club un in Fishtown.  My first meeting was this past Friday and I had a blast.  I brought a few bottles of the Bearded Men Brewery Thanksgiving Ale, which was met with great reviews.  I sampled some other folks' brews, which were all really tasty.  Though, the marshmallow stout was particularly tasty!

We started work on the next concert cycle for Wind Symphony and my jury is still out on whether or not I like the pieces on the program.  On a positive note, I am playing more this concert than I did on the last show.  But, the music is all very "contemporary," lacking melody and relying heavily on rhythmic elements, tone clusters, and other compositional conventions.  The show is December 3 if you want to come check it out or watch it on livestream!

Well, another week in the books and I am still having a blast!  That is all for now.

Future Doctor Mitch, out!