Strings and Yarn

Just in case you needed a little inspiration today. Cameron Clapp is a triple amputee and is working hard at being a golfer, a swimmer, a runner, and who knows what else. I personally hate to run (didn’t even like it when I had two legs) but I finally got my swim in this morning. It ended up being a 20 minute walk and a 15 minute swim, and it kicked my arse. Baby steps, baby steps. It felt great, and I’m more motivated than ever now.

C-leg boy

It looks like Taylorjane and I were thinking along the same lines.

The flea on Jasmines back was making a run for it. “If I just flee to the ears and eyes I think I can make it” came a sqeaky little voice.
“Never” meowed the cat, and with one swipe the flea was gone.

The red bean just didn’t feel like belonging to the soup. It jumped out of the pan onto the floor in an all or nothing leap and ended up being swallowed by the dog.

Say hello to Angus Xavier MacDonald!

This is the Hairy Coo that I knitted Anthony for Christmas. I know it’s long after Christmas, and I have been a slacker on posting pictures, but I definitely think this was worth waiting for. Plus Angus did such a nice modeling job.

I got the pattern from Kath Dalmeny’s world of knitted toys which was a cute book of animals from around the world. A good tip for frugal knitters, look for books at your local library. If you live in Eugene, they have a pretty good selection and are working on getting more all the time. I’m not a huge fun fur fan (that’s kind of fun to type) but this was a good excuse to use it. I used on strand of fun fur and one strand of DK yarn. You can’t see them, but there are some plastic animal eyes in there. It was a lot of fun, and it’s one of the few things I get to see used after I make it.

The branch snapped under the weight of my foot.
“Shhh.” Betsy said, “He’ll here us”
“This is ridiculous” I said. I couldn’t believe I was sneaking around in my pajamas.
“I have to know the truth.” Betsy replied.

My first halfway decent one word. Sorry to torture you with this, but check it out yourself if you interested.

One Word

Anthony and I went to this concert last night and it was great! It got me thinking about doing more Celtic/Irish fiddling. As I was watching, I brainstormed ideas to change up a tune. Usually the first time through a tune is fairly basic so the audience gets the idea, but from after that anything is fair game. Here are a few of the the ideas I compiled.

Bare Bones - Simplifying the melody so that only the most important notes are there. The harmonic structure should still be obvious, and the melody not completely gone. This probably only works well with more than one person.

Using the chords - This can work in many ways. 1) take it up an octave (or down, or just raise a few notes, whatever you feel like doing) 2) add some open strings. 3) play the harmonies (important to remember that harmonies don’t have to be slow) 4) modulate to a new key

Concerto-ize it - I’m pretty sure Concerto-ize isn’t a word, but this is my favorite. This is one that I could be (if I put in the practice time) good at. This would be using more advanced techniques to make the melody different. Some examples of this would be using more off the string techniques and more complex chords. Really I think the bow could do a lot more in these tunes, melding the fiddle sound with higher techniques.

It’ll be interesting to see what I find after the Leahy concert tomorrow night. Feel free to add to this list, or make suggestions. I am by no means an expert, more of a hypothesizer.

Barnes and Noble has great on-line reading groups. They are easy to participate in and often the author is also part of the discussion. I’m not particularly interested (nor have the time right now) in any of the groups this month, but thought you might want to know about them.
Barnes and Noble University February Reading Groups
Barnes and Noble University

They also have other online classes that often sound interesting. They are Liberal Arts classes and Life Improvement classes. Most of them are free and offer interesting information. I personally am always interested in the writing workshops.
Barnes and Noble University
Barnes and Noble University February Reading Groups

I tried to go swimming today. I say try because anything physical takes a great deal of planning for me. This is something that I’ve been wanting to do for awhile now. It’s not because I want to loose weight, it’s just because I want to be healthier. I’ve finally gotten tired of walking along with friends and loosing my breath because my heart and lungs are just that out of shape.

I guess you could call it a New Years resolution, but I think it’s more because I miss being outdoors. I finally have someone I can drag out to go on Kayaking or Hiking trips with me and I don’t want to be afraid of going because I can hardly keep up.

The reason I decided to swimming was because it is an easy way for me to get a good cardio and muscle work out. I don’t end up tearing up my skin in the process and I can really get my heart and lungs going as well as get my arms and leg muscles really working. The reason it takes more planning is because I have a leg to deal with as well as transportation issues. The pool is about two blocks from my apartment, so I don’t it isn’t necessary to drive, but once I get there I need a place to put my leg as well as some sticks or some wheels to get me to the pool. Since the C-leg cannot get wet and is worth 50k I want to make sure its in a safe place.

So today, I walked over, but being my slightly late self, got there in time to maybe get 20 mins of swimming in if things went smoothly. The girl at the front desk was very nice, but also overly concerned with what I was comfortable with. Of course there is no locker big enough for my leg, so I need someone to get it from the locker room to the back desk so it’s safe. They do have crutches for me (which is sweet because carrying a pair around not only gets a lot of weird looks but is a big pain since they are almost as tall as I am) so once I get everything worked out I should be fine. Today took me much longer to get everything settled, so by the time I was ready to get wet lap swim was ending.

The day was not wasted though, I got a very good walk back and forth (even the short walk got me, that’s how out of shape I am) and now I know better what to expect. Tomorrow I will try again.

There are several Irish/Celtic concerts this weekend for the Celtic music lover. I get to go to two of them (very lucky me).

Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas - A cello, fiddle duo. Apparently Fraser is a fiddling god, and Natalie Hass plays with the Mark O’Connor Appalachia Waltz Trio. Definitely worth checking out. They are playing at the Shedd on Thursday at 8 PM

Leahy! - A very talented musical family. Fortunately for me the fiddler is the star. I’ve listened to a few of their CD’s and the music is full of flashy technique and energy. When they perform live the group also dances. They will be in Silva Hall on Saturday at 8PM.

So many great things are going on in Eugene right now that it’s hard to decide which ones to attend.

It’s been a crazy music filled week. I played in another master class with my quartet last night, and we had a ruckus sight reading party on Saturday. Yes, that’s what geeky string players do when they have free time, we get together to drink and sight read chamber music. We were able to look at some of the classics, Mendelssohn’s Octet, Schubert’s Death of the Maiden, and Shostakovitch No. 8, and several of Beethoven’s Op. 18 quartets. Teachers talk about knowing music so well that you could play it in your sleep, but they should really talk about knowing it so well you could play it when you’re drunk.