We're testing something:

Since I don't have an internet connection in my room, I'm hoping to be able to import blog entries from Word whenever I do end up getting this computer online. So this is the first one, we'll see if it works....eh, looks like it lost all of the formatting- but the text is there at least...

Okay, go:

My flat had another dinner club thingy on Wednesday and I made eggplant pasta sauce from Mommy’s cookbook. It was nice to finally get to cook something substantial and then also to feed a bunch of people. The highlight though was when Rita, who is a violinist from Italy, told me that it was good. Because think about that- an Italian told me my pasta sauce was good! So I was pretty psyched about that.

On Thursday Emma, one of the people in my programme, came over for a bass lesson. I am trading bass lessons with her in exchange for help with the electronic media class that I am planning on taking as she already has an undergraduate degree in electronic music. I’ve never started anyone off on the bass before, the people that I’ve taught or helped to practice or whatever have always had some sort of background already so it was an interesting challenge to figure out how to explain things and even where to start.

As it happened, I ended up getting excited about telling her what little of the history of the Double Bass I know explaining about how the bass is the sort of bastard child of the Viola da Gamba family and the violin family*. I told her what all of the parts of the bass and bow are called and then tried to explain ½ and 1st position to her so that we could start playing something. Then I realized that maybe I should have told her how to hold the bass, so we went back and did that. It was fascinating to realize where my technique differs from what I know I’m supposed to be doing. For instance my left thumb is supposed to be bent. Something to do with a curve being stronger than a straight line, but mine is definitely flat. In my defense I don’t grip the bass so mostly my thumb is just resting there and I think the key thing is really to make sure that your hand isn’t super tense, but still. I don’t think I ended up being terribly clear in my directions to Emma, I hope she was able to follow a bit anyway.

Then we picked up the bow and I kept jostling her arm around to loosen it up while she was playing because she was getting a very anemic sound and the best thing about bass playing is getting a huge fundamental sound with the bow- particularly on the low strings. So she eventually loosened up and ended up getting a remarkably good sound. She has a straight bow, when she isn’t cutting off the weight at her shoulder she moves from her back (something I’ve always struggled with) and we even talked about bow speed and how the higher a note is the more speed you need and vice versa. So all of that took an hour and we’re going to try keeping up with the lessons. I wonder what I should teach her next… it is nice to have a guinea pig.

After the lesson we both went to Pete Churchill’s jazz choir which was awesome. He teaches songs by ear and I’m sitting in the alto section which is good for me because it means that I have to really listen and then also sing harmony instead of the melody which is harder to hear. So not only is the choir totally fun, I’m also working on my ear. Which is always a good thing. This week he broke with tradition and gave us some written music. He has written a couple of arrangements for brass band and choir that we may end up performing later in the year. An arrangement of Danny Boy and then one that combines The Water is Wide and Shenandoah. Pete is a jazzer so there are some crazy harmonies going on and a lot of them are completely dependent on the alto voice. Meaning that everyone else is fairly diatonic (in the scale) and easy to hear/follow and the alto voice is doing crazy color tones that absolutely make the chord- but are *really* hard to find/hear. (It’s good for me, it’s good for me…)

*Characteristics belonging to the violin family: tuned in 5ths, violin corners (corners that jut out), rounded back, sound post, 4 strings, rounded shoulders. Characteristics belonging to the gamba family: tuned in 4ths, gamba corners (corners that meet neatly), flat back, no sound post, 6 or 7 strings, sloped shoulders. What Double Basses have: tuned in 4ths, either type of corners, either flat or curved back, sound post, 4 strings, sloped shoulders.