Open windows

Dan will record guitar, vocals, harmonica on Friday.  I will record the violin part on Saturday.  

Tonight we practiced at my place.  I am back to playing the violin I love, for a week or two, because we are recording with acoustic instruments.  So I get to play my 100% acoustic violin.

Hilariously enough, considering how much I've complained about the other violin, it took a few days to get used to playing my favorite violin again.  It is so much smaller.  I've been practicing a lot of scales for a few days just to get the fingers automatic again.  

Tonight we played through all the new songs as the sun set.  So much fun.  While we played the room slowly darkened.  At some point I turned on a light.  Dan made a suggestions about a section that could use violin.  I improvised until I found a few workable harmonies.

The windows were wide open.  At one point I thought, "I had better close the sliding glass door so I don't get a mean letter from the (one) irate neighbor."  But when I walked to the balcony, a neighbor was standing outside on the street, clapping!  He had been standing outside listening.   I walked out onto the balcony and said hello.  He said he loved it.  He said all the neighbors were walking around saying how good it was.

"Not just good, great," he said.
"I was worried it was bothering the neighbors," I said.
"Not when it sounds like this," he returned.

He said he played guitar and was taking songwriting lessons.  Dan asked where, and as it turns out he was taking from Ruth in San Carlos.

"We know her."
"We have opened for her before," we said.

Small world.   

Letter to Dan and the Beautiful Violin Player

I would be remiss if I did not mention that Dan and I played at The Wine Bar in Half Moon Bay on Oct 6.

It was a magical night.  Finally, everything with the new setup seemed more comfortable.   I was once again able to get around the violin and improvise.  (Relief.) A cluster of couples and singles sat around the bar, listening and drinking wine.   On my breaks I sat with them at the bar.  One couple said they had come because Claudia (the owner) said we were so wonderful.  The woman said she played violin "when she was 3" but had quit after a few years.  The guy said he played trombone in junior high but he was so bad that they asked him to pretend to play. "Just blow like this."  He blew air.

The bartender kept coming over to make sound suggestions.   We tweaked until the violin and guitar levels were right.  She remained troubled by the vocal sound quality (not Dan's voice; but the system).    Later when I went to the bar to hang out, she mentioned she had worked with Neil Young for years.  She said he was an incredible perfectionist about sound, everything.  I mentioned that a few people we played for at Applejacks in La Honda said they knew him; they were neighbors.  One said he had partied with him.  She said the bikers think they know him, but "ask them if they have ever been at the ranch?"

It seems Neil Young is a legend in these parts - around the Northern California Coast.  The bars practically whisper of his presence.  I have been listening to his "Love is a Rose" over and over.   To me, the idea of letting love exist undisturbed, "unplucked," makes it seem even more palpable, precious, powerful in its untouchability.

At the end of the evening we found a napkin addressed to "Dan and the Beautiful Violin Player."  It said they loved the music but sometimes couldn't understand the words.

Watching the videos

I just listened to a bunch of recordings of our recent shows.

!  Amazing !   The new violin setup DOES sound better (at amp'd gigs).   Even with the kiddie violin.

And...  There is NO WAY to tell from the recordings that my fingers are jelly.   It looks pretty normal up there.  Sure it's sedate...yes.    But I do agree, the sound system more than makes up for it.   It's a lot more polished than some of the earlier recordings, sans LR Baggs pre-amp, sans Realist under-bridge pickup mic, sans Dark Chocolate cables.

Who knew?!

It's pretty funny how you can have a completely unrealistic idea of how you look/sound up there...til you see the video & hear the recording.  

Interlude and adventure

Two days ago (Thursday Sept 29), Dan (guitar/harmonica/vocals), Justin (percussion/vocals) and I (violin) played at Pasta Moon in Half Moon Bay.   Imagine hardwood floors; clean, cube-and-rectangle chairs and sofas; one row of gauzy white film drapes hanging from the ceiling.   I love this place.   The group listening included smiling couples; best girlfriends in glamorous poses; a solo guy who said he had the same guitar as Dan; and the drinkers at the bar.

Fast forward to midway through our set.  Justin and Dan gave me more and more room to solo; egging me on with the tilt of the head, the strumming of the guitar.  Now normally I can improvise all over the place.   But this was only the second time since high school that I had performed using this violin.   After my solo I whispered to Justin, "It's challenging to solo right now...I have changed my setup."  "Oh, you changed your strings?"  "I changed everything.  Different violin, strings, pickup, chinrest, preamp, cables."

After each of the first few songs, Marc (my French-fiance-and-music-critic) walked up with a polite but determined air to recommend adjustments to the sound.    Regarding any matters of taste, Marc is one of the most honest people I have ever met.   I appreciate this.  Marc says "yes" or "no" without sugarcoating, whenever I try out a new harmony offstage.    This time, Marc pointed out rasps we did not hear; and made a few 1-millimetre volume adjustments.  Apparently, "ca fait toute la difference."

Marc loved the smooth sound created by the new pickup and preamp, but he wondered why my solos were so sedate.  "It's not like you...what others love about you playing violin is that you are so great at improvising.  But tonight you did not."  I confessed my struggles with the new fingerboard and string action.  I will see if this violin eventually feels more comfortable.  If it does not, I will replace it.

For me, music is both an interlude (from work) and an adventure.  You play on stage where everyone can hear you; you meet people you'd never have met; you experience different venues, from festivals to old-time bars to cool restaurants; you try different sound setups, new songs, alternative harmonies; and you adjust as you go.   And in this and other aspects of my life, I keep re-discovering that taking some risk leads to relaxation.

At the end of the night, we all sat down at a table and melted into the chairs.    I can attest that the cod was succulent.  The others reported that the arugula pizza was just the right combination of health and sin; veggie and crisp crust; green and salt.

Playing amidst the storm

This post is for Patty, Verania, and all my other friends who have been encouraging me to write; and especially for Mary and Eric.

Yesterday (Saturday Sept 24) Dan and I played at a festival.   My full time job is in high tech.  When I play violin or ride my bicycle, I jump out of the universe of logic and email, and soar into a world of art and movement.      Yesterday the contrast was particularly pronounced.  I had calls scheduled at 10am and 2pm, work on the computer to do between 11 and 1, a 2-hour drive, and we would be on stage at 4:30pm.

Honestly, I loved the work calls.  I felt mentally challenged and intrigued.   But there are always tradeoffs...

Last week I made so many changes to my violin and sound set-up that LITERALLY nothing was the same (except my bow).   Different violin, new steel strings, new chin-rest, and my first pick-up: an under-bridge pick-up mic (The Realist) which gets great sound, but changes the string and bow action.

So...the LOGICAL thing would've been to mosey up to Dan's place in Half Moon Bay and try out the whole setup before we used it on stage for the first time.  But I am using violin as an escape from the world of logic, so did I do that?  No.  I continued working up until the moment I left the house.  Even on the road I was still on my work call.

When we arrived at the festival, 3 big-hat guys in an old-time fiddle band were playing, singing, smiling, and joking.  Delightful.  The fiddler was disappointed that I arrived during his last song "because he couldn't show off."  I felt requisitely sorry.  In band etiquette, the correct and most joyful thing to do is to listen to the bands before and after you.

They get off the stage - but stand around talking.  The wind is distractingly loud.  I notice I HAVE LEFT MY TRUSTY OLD SOUND SYSTEM AT HOME.  So I must use the new setup NO MATTER WHAT.  They have given us about 20 minutes to setup.  A lovely, red-haired sound specialist is ready to connect us.   "I am so excited to hear you guys," she says.  "You will be great."  I am comforted.  About 200 people surround the stage, drinking wine, and some of them are watching us.  As starters, I cannot get my new violin case open.   I pause for a few heartbeats.  (The wind does not.)   I casually go to the car and try to reach my sister (who is a professional violinist) but she is nowhere to be found.  Miraculously I think of re-setting the combination to 0-0-0 and it works (for those of you who do not yet know me, I say "miraculously" with tongue-in-cheek).  The violin is out.  I saunter back on stage.

We play our first song, "Dogwood," a reliable old favorite, one we have played effortlessly at least a hundred times.   Nothing is the same.  First, the wind repeatedly knocks my bow off the strings.  Second, as warned, the string action is different.  Third, I last played this violin as a shy teen.  I feel like a kid again, learning violin for the first time.  My bow hits other strings; my fingers feel clumsy; and my new chinrest just doesn't seem to fit.   The new strings gradually go out of tune.    The wind cements my hair to my face.

I go off stage, and Dan plays a few tunes solo.  Dan's wife Kara's parents' Nick and Marge surround me to block the wind.   I feel grateful to them.   I get the violin back in tune; Nick points out a better way to use the chinrest (why did I not think of that?!); I play a few notes, and Nick and Marge say, "NOW you sound like the Kristen we know."   I put my windblown hair into Kara's hairband.

I get back on stage.  I take refuge in the twangy, folksy vibe that this new set-up gives; it's a sound crowds are used to at outdoor casual festivals like this (as compared to the classical sound my other violin emits).   The wind is swirling; it lifts the bow off the string occasionally; but everyone listens intently during the songs, and claps and hoots after each one.  A couple dances on the grass in front of us.   Partway through, Marge and the sound specialist whisk me off the stage, because my wind and cold-induced shivering has become visible.   Marge lends me her sweater.   I can slightly smell the scent of Marge's perfume, lingering on the sweater.   I feel enveloped and protected.  The wind is alternately wild and calm, wild and calm.

Dan's singing is comforting, clear; I could listen to it for hours.  He has overcome the cold which lingered this summer until he went to Greece (and until Kara forced him to the doctor).

We play through the finish, and it seems magical how we arrived here.   Right before we stop, I become aware that all the booth-owners have gone home; no one is serving wine anymore.  Dan says the booths closed an hour ago, at 5pm.    Everyone left on the white chairs is listening to us.  New and old friends.  Afterwards they gather to sign the mailing list, and ask us to sign CD's and concert listings.

You can say that music is like math.  Indeed, finding just the right harmony to go with Dan's melody is math, just as much as it is art.  The boundaries shape the song.  But somehow yesterday even with the wind's unpredictable shouts and tugs, and my fingers stumbling over the new-old instrument, the art and illogic of the music pulled me through to reach a few of you in the audience who thankfully never saw the technical side of things, and just wanted to dance with your sweetheart.

After the cars were packed, I found out that my wise friend Eric, Mary's husband, is in the hospital.  Eric, our thoughts and prayers go for you through this time.  May your heartbeat be carried forward, strong through the storm.