Gambaness

Last week was very gamba heavy. On Tuesday I did a gig for an art opening. I was playing background music that I was improvising on my tenor gamba. (Very historically accurate.) I was prepared to do about 20 minutes but then the speaker was late so I ended up playing for an hour.

Do you know how terrifying playing improvised music, by yourself, for an hour, without stopping is? Can you tell from the photograph how much I'm panicking? Although the music got embarrassingly repetitive by the end of the hour, it was still pretty exciting to do. It was like when I did that three mile long crew race in the single shell. Okay, so I came in half an hour after the other person- but I didn't get disqualified. If I had stopped at all I would have been. It was like that- long and tiring and draining- but I DID it, which is pretty darn cool.

Then, on Friday the gamba consort had our world debut. The school was having an open day for prospective early music students so there were a number of concerts. Ours was titled "Six Hundred Years of Contemporary Music" which is the GEEKIEST thing ever. The medieval ensemble played (with a drum! with a gut snare! how cool is that?) then the consort played, there was a recorder sonata, some Handel arias, and a lengthy piece on the new piano forte. It was a fun concert. I realized that I must not have performed much recently because I was nervous and I'm never nervous. Well, rarely.

On Monday consort was back to our sight reading ways. I love reading from facscilmilies. It's like a fun puzzle- is that random dot a smudged bit of important musical information (like, a note?) or is it just a dot?! Only time will tell.

I'm losing all my stuff, but I'm finding it again too

Today I managed to lose (and then retrieve) at some point during the day: my favorite water bottle (it is green and printed to look like grass), my only US to UK plug adaptor, my gamba, and my wallet.

This wasn't in one go- like I left a pile of stuff somewhere forgot where it was and eventually found it all again in the same place. No, this was me hemorrhaging my stuff. I left my water bottle on the DVD rack in the Barbican library, my gamba in the recording studio, my wallet was left on the check out counter at the library but I ended up having to sign for it down in the main Barbican foyer because the library staff was on it and being protective of the wallet which I really appreciated, and my plug adaptor was-to be fair- just under my foot but it was the last thing I lost and I was at that point I was ready to count it.

But Casey, why were you carrying around your gamba anyway? Because there was consort today!! A couple of weeks ago I saw Vlad, a cellist I've worked with a couple of times, carrying around a gamba and demanded that he let me play it. He was gracious enough to let me fool around on it for a while and we started talking about how wonderful viols are. I mentioned that I owned a tenor, he mentioned that there was now a consort at school, and I expressed my ardent desire to be a part of it.

So he hooked me up, and guess who it is run by? Alison, the cellist I originally saw at that now infamous Academy of Ancient Music concert my senior year at Interlochen. How totally cool is that? She says she vaguely remembers me from seven years ago, which I think is pretty darn neat.

We had a wonderful time playing six part consort music and I just love playing consort music. I really do. It was also a wonderful treat to get some playing time in that has absolutely nothing to do with my final project. So next week I get to do it again *and* I get a lesson! So cool.

Gambatastic!

Today the gambas showed up in a giant box. (Hi Kim!! He's Latana's brother.) I went to the Parcel Force main office in order to get that giant box, and then when they asked me if I had a car- I said, "No, but I've got this nice trolley" and proceeded to wheel it to the bus stop. It wasn't that heavy, just HUGE.

I'm holding the smaller gamba made by Michael Foulds, it has flame f holes and a carved head which is cool, but also creepy with it's carved pupils.

Ella is holding the Chinese Lu Mi viol which she hasn't actually let go of yet. She's just taken it downstairs to find out what notes she was playing so that she can go all composery with them. See? I'm not the only one who thinks tenor viols are *awesome*