Our Trip to Tangier Island

A long long time ago, when I first went to college as a piano major, we were required to sing in the chorus. Then all of the chorus members were strongly encouraged to be in the onstage chorus of the opera. My very first one was Faust and I loved it. I went on to be in Pearl Fishers, Carmen, and during my last year my friend JoAnn and I played celeste together down in the pit in a newly composed opera by Gerald Muller called Joshua. It was based on the life of a preacher on Tangier Island, out in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, who had been required to lead prayer services for the British troops on their way up to bomb Baltimore in the War of 1812. The music was exciting and the story was rather interesting. It left me hoping to one day visit Tangier Island myself.

I had kind of forgotten all about that until I read this post from Capital Spice, which described their recent trip to Tangier Island in great detail. I decided I HAD to go there this summer, and a few weeks ago I finally did. If you want to visit Tangier, definitely go read their post - it has all of the necessary links for transportation and lodging. We basically replicated their trip except that we arrived late in the day and stayed for two nights.

It was a great getaway, and could have been totally relaxing except that we spent the entire day we were there riding bikes, paddling kayaks, and walking around all over the place. The island is really small so we just rode around everywhere about six times. They don't have or need cars on Tangier, but nearly every family there has a golf cart. Some of them keep a car on the mainland.

Most of the people who live on Tangier Island are descendants of the original families and we saw the same last names over and over in all of the various grave sites. It was interesting to hear the rather unique accents - they all had the same features, but in varying combinations and amounts. What I mostly heard was British sounding vowels, combined with some of the inflections and rhythms and articulations of Baltimore. I had a nice conversation with one little five year old boy who was already tending to his very own crab cages and he definitely sounded more British than anything else.

So we took the late afternoon ferry from Onancock, VA which is just over an hour south of Salisbury, MD off of Route 13. We got in to Tangier around 7 pm, checked in to Hilda Crockett's guesthouse, went out for dinner, walked around some, got ice cream, and then went to sleep.

The next day we had the huge and delicious breakfast, went for a bike ride, split a softshell crab sandwich, went to the museum, went kayaking, ate the huge and delicious lunch/dinner at Hilda Crockett's, rode bikes some more, walked down to get some ice cream, and then went to bed so early that we were able to squeeze in another bike riding session before our 7am departure the next day.

Since we were so far south we decided to go to the beach at Chincoteague. It was beautiful and I'd go there more often if it were closer and didn't have so many ferocious flies. After we were done with the beach we drove home.

And here are the pictures - you can click on them if you want to see a larger version:

Onancock Wharf, where we caught the ferry

Some of the many crab shacks we saw on the way in to Tangier

The town, from the water

The softshell crab sandwich

The Reverend Joshua Thomas

Hilda Crockett's guesthouse

an old abandoned house

another old abandoned house

more crab shacks

crab cages

bird houses

snails

a white heron

a blue heron

local kittens

the birds at Chincoteague

A Tequila Cleanse?

Question: Can drinking 17 shots of tequila cure depression?

This has been a particularly woe-is-me kind of summer with an onslaught of hard physical labor and exhaustion, no big fabulous trips, no money, not a lot of playing, and fewer fun excursions than usual. I haven't felt much like blogging mostly because I didn't want to wallow in my misery any more than I already have, and there's not that much else to write about. Plus, I'm usually too exhausted when I get back to the cinderblock chalet so it's all I can do to click a few links and drop a few comments here and there.

I've always been rather moderate in my drinking habits, sticking mostly to beer, wine, and the occasional margarita. But for the most part beer has been my drink of choice, especially when there is a lot to be consumed. I used to hold it pretty well, but these days I wouldn't even know.

So last week I went to a Tequila Tasting party. My friends have somehow managed to accumulate 17 different bottles of tequila, and they felt it was time for people to check them all out, all at once. They provided us with a list so that we could indicate our favorites. Apparently I'm still in school mode - I must obey all instructions exactly so that I'll be sure to get an A, especially when there's a handout. I took the whole tasting thing VERY seriously.

Fortunately they served food about halfway through, or I never would have made it. Also, I didn't really drink 17 full shots - I had 17 semi-half shots. That's not that much I guess. But it's a whole lot more than I'm used to. And everyone else except for Phil only tried about 6 or 7 of them. So Phil and I became lab partners. He rated all of his shots with stars, and I wrote comments for mine. I revisited several of the early ones that I had neglected to comment on, (it's easy to get distracted and forget) and I even had some of the one with the dead scorpion in the bottom which tasted sort of hickory smoked. I think they said that was called mesclun, not tequila. Whatever, it was on the same table so I drank it.

I found the tasting experience to be pleasant and delightful over all, and I enjoyed having a sense of purpose about something that could be completed in one evening. I did have to take a couple of breaks in order to maintain some semblence of coherency in my comments though.

I was worried that I'd have a huge hangover the next day but I woke up feeling unusually clear-headed - it was really quite amazing. And what is truly astounding is that I was also suddenly in a ridiculously good mood which has lasted to this day. I feel like a completely new person - all negativity has been completely cleared out, cleansed if you will.

I don't know whether it was the tequila or the wonderful life-affirming news that we received earlier in the evening, but the fog has definitely lifted. I feel more energized, enthusiastic, and happier than I have all summer long. And now it's September so I'm good to go.

a great teacher

My bass teacher from several years ago passed away last week. I've held off on writing about him because I really didn't want to interrupt the flow of thoughts and feelings I've been having since he passed, and writing would have done that. I think I'll just mention a few of the ways that he helped me to become a better bass player.

When I first met George, he was playing principal bass in an orchestra I had just joined and I could tell right away from his suggestions to the rest of the section that he would be an excellent teacher for me. At the time, I was teaching piano for a living and playing bass was still a relatively new hobby. George suggested that instead of paying for lessons, I could give his stepson piano lessons in exchange for bass lessons. This was a wonderful arrangement because not only did I not have to pay for lessons but I also got to work with Alex, which I really enjoyed.

Early on during my time working with George he convinced me to go to a week-long Francois Rabbath workshop in Cincinnati which completely changed my whole outlook on myself as a bass player. George's teaching is based in large part on Rabbath's techniques and as I studied with him many ideas that Rabbath had introduced began to fall into place. It all made so much sense physically to me. And emotionally. And musically. I reached a completely new level as a player during the time that I studied with George.

Possibly the most important thing that I learned from him is how seriously harmful modesty can be to musical communication. It gets in the way of how much you can feel and how much you can express. I already knew that, but since I was musically advanced enough to be completely aware of how unadvanced I sounded on the bass, I thought that I should be modest, out of consideration for others who might have the misfortune to hear me. George helped me to realize how this attitude was really holding me back, possibly more than anything else was, and I immediately began working harder with my students on exactly the same thing. It makes a such a huge difference when what you want to put out there doesn't have to pass through a curtain. You can give so much more, but the real reward is what comes back to you in return. This is something I'll always probably have to work on myself, but at least I get it. And I will always be grateful to George for showing me that.

The funeral was incredibly moving on many different levels. Except for the sermon, the entire service was sung in the traditional way by the choir that George had conducted at St. Marks Orthodox Church. The music was simple but extremely beautiful and made the content of the service seem that much more meaningful. The church was completely packed. I could really feel his presence coming back throughout the day from all of the many people who had gathered to pay their respects.


The International Society of Bassists wrote the following:

A Great Teacher - A Great Friend

George Vance passed away on August 16th after a brave battle with pancreatic cancer. He was internationally recognized as a pioneer of pedagogy for young bassists. The author of Progressive Repertoire for the Double Bass, a method for teaching the bass to young students, he was on the faculty of the University of Maryland, and lectured and gave clinics in Ireland, England, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Australia and throughout the United States, as well as holding his own popular annual workshop. A student of Tony Bianco and a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University, he was awarded the American String Teachers Association "Citation for Outstanding Leadership and Merit" in 1990. In 1995 the International Society of Bassists presented him with a Special Recognition Award for his groundbreaking work. He held a teaching certificate from the Institut International François Rabbath.

There will be a requiem service and viewing Wednesday night, August 19th, from 7 pm until 9 pm at St. Mark Church, 7124 River Road, Bethesda, MD. On Thursday morning, August 20th, there will be a funeral service at the church at 10 am, followed by a graveside service at Rock Creek Cemetery, concluded by a lunch and reception at St Mark Church. All are welcome.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to either St. Mark Church, or to the George Vance Young Bassists Education Fund, established in George's honor and dedicated to offering educational opportunities for young bassists. Send donations payable to the International Society of Bassists and addressed to the George Vance Young Bassists Education Fund, International Society of Bassists, 14070 Proton Rd., Suite 100, LB 9, Dallas, Texas 75244. The ISB is a 501(C)(3) organization and all donations are tax deductible as allowed by law.

The ISB extends its deepest sympathies to George's family and students. His extended family family includes the many bassists around the world who have been inspired and influenced by his life's mission of teaching. George will live on in the memories of the students and colleagues whose lives he changed for the better. He made a difference in his too-short life, and we will miss him with all our hearts.


If you are interested in reading more about George and his remarkable teaching career please click here

Julie and Julia

Here is my review: Lovely and delightful. Had a smile on my face throughout the entire movie. The End.

Okay, here's a little bit more: Meryl Streep's portrayal of Julia Child's mannerisms was a little over the top, but I got used to it and it was okay after a while. Her kitchen cabinets at her house in Cambridge, MA were the same color as mine, which made me feel very happy for some reason.

I took the day off today from working on the house, since my hands were killing me from all of the work we've been doing. They felt absolutely horrible at the rehearsal I played this morning. It's been like this before so I'll probably recover.

I painted a couple of rooms last week and we've been working like maniacs installing the floors. I want to get this damn house finished! On Friday we worked until about 4pm and it went so well that we went back over there after my gig and continued until 4am!

On Saturday we slept in until 1:00 pm but we were still too tired to start back up again, so we went back to Centennial Lake (our new favorite cheap place to have fun) and this time we rented a kayak. We saw some more turtles, on a different log this time. What an exciting life we lead!

On the way back we saw a pair of conjoined sycamore trees and then we had a lovely meal at Great Sage in Clarksville. Finally we were ready to get back to work, and by midnight we had finished the floor in the other bedroom. All that's left upstairs, floor-wise, is a tiny bit of the hall and one more room which is a big square, and I should be able to do that one all by myself, after I paint it.

And that brings us back to today. Here are some pictures from my oh-so-exciting recent activities:

The conjoined sycamore trees

A beautiful bean field behind the sycamore
A tree that looks exactly like a bean tree, near the back of the movie theater

A cute mural near the movie theater

One last thing - I would love to hear some opinions about color of the vent pipe chimney in my kitchen. A first time commenter actually went to the trouble to make a version of it in yellow for me, so you can see it in both colors. Should I keep it as is, or repaint it to match the walls? I can't make up my mind, but I am now slightly leaning towards the blue version.

Paddle Boats

On Saturday we went paddleboating at Centennial Lake up in Howard County. I've been a fan of paddle boats since I was a kid. At first Doug didn't think much of them, but I think he's been gradually warming up to the idea now that he's done it a few times. He was actually the one who suggested it this time, which was very nice. But out on the lake I saw him looking longingly at the kayaks. Maybe we'll do that next time. Anyway, the weather was perfect, with a nice breeze. I should have been mowing the grass, but postponing that was well worth it. It was nice to have some fun for a change.

Centennial Lake is actually man made but it's been there a while so it has nice vegetation and animal life. There were lots and lots of turtles, for example.

The turtle on the right was HUGE! His shell was over a foot long.

After the big one left, several more came up to sunbathe. There are five turtles on the log above.

Turtle Love - I guess they are "necking."

We weren't the only ones having fun on the paddleboats.

As we were leaving the park, I decided to try out the flower setting on my camera since there was no bee setting.

After we got back I went over to the house and put a second coat of paint on the porch railings. It took exactly 6 1/2 hours straight for me to paint all of them. By the time I finished, my back was completely trashed from all of the bending over. But it's better today. We've been killing ourselves working on the house and not having a whole lot of fun. Doug likes that more than I do, which is very nice for him. It is rewarding to see how beautiful everything is turning out though. Maybe when I get another burst of energy I'll do a post over on the house blog. But most of the the time lately I've been too exhausted after a long day of work.

And that's not all of them either...

Free Fun in the Woods

Yesterday evening I was ready to head out to a movie, but was suddenly hit with an urge to do something different for a change, especially since we are basically broke right now. I remembered reading a really wonderful blog post from The Natural Capital about a trail near the Burnt Mills dam, which is on Route 29 about halfway between Four Corners and White Oak, and decided it was time to go check it out.

Burnt Mills is on the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River and was originally a grain processing facility which then became a water filtration plant which was the "first of its kind in the world." If you would like to know more, just click on the picture below.

There is a lovely trail there that you can take all the way to Brookside Gardens and it also continues in the other direction to somewhere in PG county. The trail is not rugged at all and is very clearly marked.

We decided to make it a short little hike because we wanted to get back to our car before it got dark. It was for the most part a rather serene and peaceful outing.

But then, as darkness approached, it suddenly began to get a little creepy out there. The monsters of the woods began to present themselves. The first one to appear was the Evil Root Monster:

Next we saw the slightly cross-eyed, rather angry looking Log Monster:

Around this time the Hairy-Legged Spider Monster began to emerge from the depths of the Northwest Branch:

But somehow we managed to emerge from the woods unharmed. I was a little disappointed that I didn't see the legendary ghost deer on our walk. I will definitely be going back for another look. One thing that we encountered that was a source of complete delight was an area that was full of the sound of singing birds (and mosquitoes). I decided to take a video just so that you could hear a small segment of their singing.

And since I'm a total music geek with no life apparently, I decided to transcribe the song of the main bird on the video below so that all of you music buffs can follow along. These are the actual notes the bird sang. The notation actually starts about 5 seconds in, immediately after the mosquito introduction which seems quite reminiscent of the Theme from Charlie's Angels. The meter for the main bird call is in 7/4 meter (my favorite!) and you can hear the other birds keeping the beat in the background with various answering figures. I was especially impressed by the fact that although the main bird was a beat late with his pattern in bar 3, he managed to get right back on track with the four 16th notes on beat four. Maybe he was just backphrasing in that one measure. The tempo is very slow - only about 56 beats per minute.

So all in all it turned out to be a wonderful alternative form of entertainment. And best of all, it was FREE!

Fun Fourth

I thought my 4th of July was going to be a little on the rinky-dink side, but it turned out to be quite fun. We found a new beach on the Chesapeake that is absolutely delightful and then we went to Doug's concert with the Junkyard Saints in Easton.

Afterwords we did a little driving around to look at the beautiful old houses there and started our trip back over the Bay Bridge at a little after nine. And that was perfect timing to see from the distance about fifteen different fireworks displays all up and down the Chesapeake on both sides. Even though it was nothing like sitting there underneath them it was still pretty cool to be able to see so many different ones all at the same time.

As we continued west on Route 50 we had an excellent view of the downtown Annapolis fireworks for about ten minutes. Then we saw a few more as we headed past Davidsonville and Bowie and several more as we got closer to the Beltway. When we got to Greenbelt there was a display practically right next to the road and it was a good one. I couldn't take it any more so I got off at the next exit and was able to park with everyone else on Kenilworth Avenue. We saw the grand finale and it was spectacular, or at least good enough for me. And so easy too! All in all we saw about 30 different fireworks displays during our ride home.

Sorry, my fireworks video skills are not the greatest.....

what I did on my summer vacation....so far

It finally feels like summer is here. It's about time! Most of the rest of this summer will be spent working on our house. Maybe by September we will finally be able to move back in.

If you'd like to read about our progress, just visit http://www.foamcorefantasy.blogspot.com/ which is my somewhat sarcastic name for our extremely unrealistic housebuilding adventure. Doesn't that name sound kind of porn-ish? It's not - our house is made out of structural insulated panels, also called foam core panels. They are super insulating and as soon as we get back in there it will cost us very little for heating and cooling, which is great because we'll need that money for interest payments instead.

Today we drove down to Smoot Lumber to pick up a replacement cabinet for one that had been sent in the wrong size. We were in Doug's car and I wasn't driving for a change. So of course I was snapping pictures of every little thing that entertained or amused me. People were certainly making excellent use of their pickup trucks today:

On the way back from Smoot we decided to take the scenic route to try and avoid all of the early rush hour traffic on 495, so we took Memorial Bridge across and then drove up through Rock Creek Park.

Memorial Bridge Statue

(and in case you were wondering that's a foot under that horse)

We stopped at Peirce Mill Dam for a minute and saw this lovely duck:

After crossing East West Highway we stopped at the roadside stand there and picked up some fresh squash, romaine, cucumbers, tomatoes, blueberries, and blackberries. Later we had them all for dinner, along with some brown rice and vanilla ice cream. In appropriate combinations of course. But that would come later.

We continued on our way and when we got to Glenmont I saw that the "Glenmont Artist" for lack of a better description was still working on her most recent project. For the past three days she's been working in front of this sad little house at the corner of Randolph and Georgia which is due to be demolished sometime soon I guess. Previously I'd seen her doing the Glenmont water tower. I sort of want to stop sometime and talk to her so I can see what her deal is. We obviously share a mutual attraction for the various types of scenery that you might see in beautiful downtown Glenmont.

When we finally got to our house we worked for several hours. Doug immediately installed the new cabinet that we had just gotten and that made me very happy. While I was sanding and painting a bunch of pieces of moulding he put up the rest of the trim around the little windows in the pass through. He did a really nice job.

Then we went home and had our oh so fresh and fabulous, delicious and nutritious dinner. Tomorrow I'm going to mow the grass and then take Saturday and Sunday off for a change. Have a great weekend!

Harvest Moon?

Did anyone see the moon this morning at around 1:30 AM? I was heading over to my real house to do some painting when I saw it sitting kind of low in the sky. It was amazing - it looked like a huge red blob and was about 3 times its normal size. Considering that it's July, it's probably not a harvest moon but I wonder if it has some other name particular name when it looks like that. So now it's 4AM and I'm just heading off to bed. That's what I get for drinking coffee at 6PM. It works!

Foxy

While I have plenty of rabbits, squirrels, and deer in my back yard in Silver Spring, over in Herndon they have foxes!

Here's a short video of him in action:

And speaking of things with red hair, here's my nephew making his YouTube debut with a movement from a Boccherini Cello Concerto.

And here he is playing it with his school orchestra.

I Want Sunshine!!!

Okay, I got that off my chest. I am truly bored with this weather. So I'm going put up some pretty pictures now - maybe that will cheer me up.

Last week I was at the Church of the Reformation almost every night doing a recording session. It was a delightful experience and the highlight of my summer (if you can call it that) so far. The architecture in this church is very unusual - I'm not even sure of the style, but it was a nice place to be for most of the week. I like the way the middle supports for the beams look like giant pencils.

These guys were about a foot from the side of my head all week long. I enjoyed their company very much.

I walked around a little bit during the breaks and enjoyed the interesting architecture outside as well.

The church was only two blocks from the Capitol. It was pleasant to see it from this point of view on East Capitol Street. I'm usually driving towards it on North Capitol.

This week I've been wondering if it means anything that the cabinets in the house I'm never going to get to move back into are exactly the same color as the mist always is in Twilight:

Silver Spring Avenue, Then and Now

This is the house my mother grew up in at 917 Silver Spring Avenue. The watercolor above was painted by my uncle from the photograph shown below. If you look closely at the photo you can see my grandmother standing in front of the steps, and the two little kids sitting in the dirt driveway on the right are my mother and her brother Philip, who painted the picture many years later. You can click on the photo if you want to get a closer view of it.

In the mid-1960s the county forced my grandparents to sell so that they could put in this parking lot, shown below. It has looked like this ever since.

Now it seems they have some big plans for this area, which you can read about here. At least it will look a lot nicer than it has for the past 40 years or so.

And if you want to do more reading about this area, there is a very interesting post about the houses that used to exist one block over, on Sligo Avenue.

hallucinating again...

Doesn't this picture sort of look like notes on a music staff?

Doesn't it? Sort of? Somewhat? Come on people, humor me!

Here it definitely looks more like just a bunch of pigeons.

And now, a couple of videos featuring ornithological hygiene:

Sparrows taking a "dust bath"

A robin splashing in a bird bath on my parents deck. In keeping with the hallucinatory theme, my father is commenting on another bird in another bird bath and my mother is agreeing with him. This implies varying amounts of surrealism, depending upon your level of familiarity.

Meanwhile, the Capital was gleaming gloriously in the early evening light as I drove to my gig on Monday night.