goose update

Nature has dealt a cruel blow to the pair of geese that I've been obsessing about since the middle of May when I first saw their nest. They laid their eggs on a tiny island in the middle of a drainage pond and unfortunately the water level fluctuates quite a bit. The mother was apparently still in the midst of laying her eggs because she would occasionally leave the nest for short periods of time. It looks like there are two or three eggs in there. I read that once the goose lays all of her eggs she doesn't leave the nest until they've hatched. So hopefully she had a few more to go.

When we got all that rain last week the island was nearly completely under water. I took this picture around noon on Tuesday.

Later that evening the geese came back and they just stood there motionless while we looked at them. It was pretty sad. I don't think they had quite figured out what they should do next. I know how that feels. The water had subsided a little bit. I was sure that the nest had washed away and unfortunately freshly laid goose eggs don't float.

I checked again on Wednesday but they weren't there. I think they are probably gone for good. Maybe they found a new place to lay the rest of their eggs.

On Thursday I went back one last time. The water level was back where it had been the very first time I saw the nest. The twigs of the nest actually looked like they had survived the flooding, but the eggs are gone. So I guess I won't be seeing any one day old goslings swimming around in this pond anytime soon. I hope that she had a couple more eggs to drop and she found a safer place to build her new nest.

Life is so random sometimes. Since I became a freelancer I've learned that it's all just part of the package. You just deal with whatever comes your way, however good or bad or strange it happens to be. We lost our home four years ago and we're still rebuilding it. That disrupted a rather nice steady employment situation that I gratefully enjoyed for four years.

Then I was given a wonderful opportunity to finish my M.M. degree. On the very first day of school I got a call for a three month jazz trio gig in Dubai. That is exactly the kind of thing that I have always wanted to do but hadn't really pursued so that was very random. I was bummed that I couldn't do it and I saved that message on my phone for the entire school year. The year of school was wonderful though and well worth doing.

While I was at graduation I got a call to do a three month ship gig in the Mediterranean, which I can't do yet because I need to stay home and finish building my house. And exactly one week after getting a masters in jazz studies I suddenly and inexplicably find myself having a bunch of classical gigs, including a performance of the Mozart Requiem and a recording session for a new requiem by a local composer.

I guess I'll be thinking about those poor little unborn goslings while I play these pieces. I'll be thinking about other friends too. But now it's time to stop with all the philosophizing and go cut the damn grass which is super long once again.

big day today

This morning I had to get up super early so that I could attend the music department's graduation ceremony at 9AM. It's hard to believe that this school year is over. It went by pretty fast. I am so grateful for having been given the opportunity to finish my M.M. degree with the help of a teaching assistantship. I definitely wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. And I loved the teaching part at least as much as I did the learning part. I am also grateful to all of my teachers who I learned so much from during all of this. They inspired me to work hard enough to graduate with straight A's! So yay them and yay me!

Now that I'm finished with school I can finally get back to building my house. So maybe that goal will also be accomplished this year - who knows? I got called for another ship gig (in the Mediterranean) yesterday, but I can't do that again until my house is finished, which is a bummer. But for now, finishing our house and moving back in is my number one goal.

However my more immediate goal (for the next hour) is to rest up for two back to back gigs this afternoon and evening. Have a great weekend!

She's thinking "Wow, I finally finished something!"

Snow Day!

So I'm back in school over at the UMD. We had a snow day on the second day of classes - awesome! Those college kids are keeping me young, that's for sure. Yesterday I wrote a comment on somebody's blog where I said "She's all like....." Unbelievable. I don't think ever I've heard myself use that expression out loud - yet, that is. Maybe I have used it and don't realize it. And how ironic is it that this way of talking is creeping in as a result of increased contact with an educational institution? It's definitely not from watching TV because I don't have one. Anyway, I'm sort of amused by this recent development.

I love school so much! It's so much more fun than what I'm stuck doing when I'm not in school. And when the Foam Core Fantasy is finally finished, my entire life will be fantastic!

so busy....

My blogs have kind of fallen by the wayside recently, and now that I finally have a free minute, I guess I might as well throw up some pictures (since I seem to also have diarrhea of the camera) and try to remember what I've been doing for the last week.

The trip to Atlantic City last Friday was quick but fun. My friend MyCatTom and I yakked away for the entire trip up and the entire trip back which made the drive seem really short. We rehearsed in the afternoon and did the concert that night. The various "Swingettes" came from DC, NY, Philadelphia, North Carolina, and Atlantic City. I enjoyed playing with all of them. There wasn't much free time, but I was able to hobble on down to the beach. It was unbelievably cold and windy there. On the way home the road was extremely well-lit by an enormous full moon.

The things you can buy in New Jersey!

Why is the beach so pink?

I guess I was walking around in the Red Light District

We saw this on the way home. Too bad they were closed!

The Messiah rehearsal and concert over on Kent Island last weekend went well. But I had to get up at the crack of dawn, which not exactly my favorite time of day.

Sunrise on the Severn

This must be the Great Wye Oak's great grandson.

I'm totally finished with school for the semester. I really enjoyed teaching my class, but I'm glad I don't have to do it next semester because my own course load is going to be much larger than it was this fall.

I'm playing a musical adaptation of Theodore Roethke's poem "The Waking" for December graduation at UMD tomorrow. Just me and a singer. She has a beautiful voice and it's a pretty cool piece. The bass part works great in the original "guy" key but the transposed bass part lies in a kind of awkward and less resonant area of the bass, so there's no way to make it sound as good as the recording. Even the bass player on the recording would not be able to sound as good in the key I'm doing it in. So that's a little frustrating, but I think the over all effect will still be nice. I haven't played in a hall as big as the Comcast Center for a few years so I'm looking forward to that as well. We had the soundcheck this morning and the sound guy is great. I'm digging the reverb - a lot! Anyway, here's the original version of the piece, in the original, more resonant key.

Yep, I've been around the block a few times.....

As if I wasn't busy enough already, now I'm in grad school, trying to enrich my life as Doug and I drive ourselves into the ground building our house. I was awarded a teaching assistantship so sometimes I am also the teacher of some of my fellow students. On top of that I'm quite a bit older than most of the kids in my department and I'm the only female. I've kind of been enjoying the weirdness of both of those things. It can be pretty amusing at times. My immature sense of humor is serving me quite well in this situation.

So yesterday I was running the jam session and one of the guys came up to me afterwards and said "You seem like you've been around the block a few times...." and then asked for some advice about making an audition tape for something. I was kind of flattered that he'd ask me such a question and also relieved .... I guess..... that he was at least thoughtful enough to use the word "seem" instead of "look." I guess he was trying to be all casual and cool with that "around the block" expression. Anyway, I was laughing about that for the rest of the day!!!

The Night Has 1000 Eyes, John Coltrane vs. Bobby Vee

The combo I'm coaching at school is playing this piece on their concert next month. I had to submit the tune list to the head of the department today and I decided that I should double check all of the composers of the tunes my combo is doing. The Night Has 1000 Eyes is in a fake book we use which is called, rather ironically, the Real Book. This book is well known amongst jazz musicians for being full of errors and the composers that were listed for this song somehow didn't seem right to me. I thought I should double check.

So I did my research the fast and easy way, using Google, and found out who the correct composers were for this tune, which happens to be the title song from a 1948 movie. It has become a jazz standard as a result of John Coltrane's rendition:

In addition, I discovered that there is in fact another song by the same name and the composers are the ones that are incorrectly listed in the Real Book. This song is from 1963 and was a hit for Bobby Vee. The video is hilarious:

It's Official....

I still love teaching! This is good news because it is my "retirement" plan, the only one I've got so far.

I started teaching piano when I was 14 years old. I hid that fact from my piano teacher because I thought she would be horrified. I only charged twice as much as I made from babysitting because I didn't want to rip off any of my poor guinea pig students. I went on to get a B.Mus. in piano performance with the intent of becoming a professional piano teacher.

I put off getting a M.M. because I had become interested in going to law school. I took the LSAT and did pretty well on it so that was definitely a possibility. I also wanted to make sure that I liked teaching piano enough to spend the additional money on a masters degree because I knew it would undoubtedly be much more difficult to pay off student loans as a piano teacher than it would be as a lawyer. I also wanted to party like it was 1999, but that's another story. Fortunately that phase didn't last too long.

So I taught piano. And I loved it. I had 35-45 students most of the time. One year I had 55 but that was a little too much. I was involved with all of the local music organizations, and hosted 3 or 4 recitals per year for my students. I made sure that they got used to performing because it's supposed to be fun, right? Most of them seemed to enjoy it. They all did well in the various competitions they played in too, especially in the ensemble events.

Somewhere in there I took up the bass. It was my fun new hobby. I was teaching piano full time and playing bass here, there, and everywhere. I didn't practice much because I was too busy playing. Gradually I started getting gigs. After several years I got a call to do a road gig playing "Meet Me in St. Louis" for 3 months and that pretty much changed everything for me.

I spent a few years gradually easing out of teaching and I've pretty much just been a bass player for the past 10 years. Over all the money's not as good, but the experience has been well worth it. I love performing on the bass, especially in a group setting. Who knew? I wasn't particularly crazy about performing when I was a pianist. And I love the travel opportunities that have come my way. I'm missing that a lot right now, but if I go on the road my house will never get finished. On the very first day of school this year, I got a call about a 3 month gig with a piano player and singer at a hotel in Dubai. Way to rub it in, ye cursed forces of nature!

So I'm in school, and my teaching assistantship duties include teaching a beginning jazz theory and improvisation course and coaching a combo. And I have to say I love teaching just as much as I ever did. There's just something about it. So far it's my favorite part of being back in school.

I am especially overjoyed to realize that this is still true, after 10 years of not doing it, because we designed our house with a really nice set up for me to teach in. Once I become too old and decrepid to lug the bass and sound equipment around all over the place, I will go back to teaching piano, and maybe bass too. And I will probably do it until the day I die.