Marie Brown

Carleen was a great teacher.

It's my master's thesis, now over twenty years old. I had a bunch of copies printed and bound - so vain. Send money and see what you get. Maybe I should have an auction.

I wrote a book about one. Writing a book is hard. The fiddle sounded beautiful.

Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers has a lot to say about musicians. A nice companion to that is Lang Lang's assisted memoir: A Journey of a Thousand Miles. Last night I turned over the last page in The Place My Words Are Looking For, selected by Paul B. Janeczko. If my sister is reading, she might as well know that this one isn't going in the mail. A treasure for sure. A recent find I don't mind sharing is Skinny Dip, by Carl Hiaasen. It's a scream. My geriatric friends will be pleased to know that the naked lady on the cover is scaled to go with the large type on the pages of my copy.

er stash

This is from my home studio window. Early morning. My sister says the view reminds her of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Summer is here again; every year is the same and different. The price of Rescue-Me hardbacks from the library has dropped to zero, and now they land by the boxload right next to a room where I teach. One night last winter I thought I was dreaming, culled for hours, and walked out with eighteen beauties. Today at home, one of my students walked in with a copy of his uncle's book, autographed especially for me. Fiddler's Ghost. No person raised on Missouri lore could fail to be moved.

I love Mazatlan. I went there twice with a hulking brute of a used car dealer. On the second trip, we saw a guy crossing the street with a fiddle case under his arm. I wanted to know where he was playing, so my friend hailed him just as he was trying to get on a bus. He turned to us with a look of sheer horror. Then we started talking. He let us know that he was actually a guitar player traveling with a group from Veracruz. The next day he came over to the hotel and I showed him some stuff about string changes on the violin. He was a super-quick study and likely a better man than the car dealer.

Here's a likely-looking batch of tunes: 18th Centruy Pop There's also a very nice essay from a shop in Idaho, easily obtainable by Googling "Lewis and Clarke Fiddle". Seems like there used to be a site with clips, but I didn't run across it this time. What do you suppose Native Americans felt on hearing a fiddle for the first time? Imagine it coming across a body of water as wide as the Missouri near the confluence.

I'm still checking in pretty regularly, but have considered defecting (defective? whatever.)

Dance Music. My greatgrandaddy was the best dance fiddler in four counties, and he knew very few tunes. He did have a couple of good horses, however.

Has anyone checked out these pictures of the Joint Services Orchestra? Luis can Clark Having played ice shows in the past, I can assure you that working in conditions like these is not conducive to good sound. Yes, gloves are a must for many. Performance? Yes - with or without a recording, click track, pickup, etc. Hooray for all our brave and tough musicians!

My good friend, the freelance contracting maven of eastern Missouri, has a her e-mail inbox jammed to capacity. so far so funny

Conjecture made about the Air? I haven't seen a word. That meter's famous everywhere the English tongue is heard. "Thus might I hide my blushing face while his dear Cross appears; Dissolved my heart in thankfulness, and melt mine eyes to tears. But drops of grief can ne’er repay the debt of love I woe; Here, Lord, I give myself away- ‘til all that I can do."

Obviously it's humor. If you doubt, try staring at the text for a few seconds. Your innate verbiosiola will quickly transmogrify the words into their true meaning. This is the second best laugh I've had so far today.

There's an ad on Maestronet that shows an invitation to click for "More Information". I clicked and clicked and nothing happened. I'm disappointed, but a little relieved that at least it didn't take me to a porn site. Too bad. I was hoping someone had revised "Stretching for Strings" so the prudes of the USA (including me) could stand to look at it. Oh Hellp.

Tomorrow I take my teaching fiddle in for the new bridge it needs to go with its new bassbar. Maybe I'll get to watch him make this bridge. I'm excited by this possibility. How much do you guys let customers watch you work? Any suggestions as to 1. good behavior and 2. bad behavior? ( 1. listening, smiling, asking thoughtful questions 2. jabbering, disrobing, swearing at other customers)

Can you show us another view?

Your conductor has Rosamunde confused with William Tell. I can think of several answers to your question that are more entertaining than the one above, though probably less useful and certainly less kind. You seem like a thoughtful and patient person. Hopefully you will create a pleasant way to work through this delicate and potentially explosive situation. Remember: It's only music.

What a funny picture. No Isadora Duncan jokes today. Sorry guys. You'll just have to imagine the possibilities on your own, so to speak. Nice bike, though.

If this trigger is pulled, Granny will grab her reciprocating saw and run all over campus in her nightie.

Terrific essay da capo.

A piano-technician friend once voluntarily made me a device such as you describe. The trouble was that it created need for a backward neck exertion that was even more bizarre than the normal way of holding the violin. I jokingly suggested counterweights to hang down my back from a pulley affixed to the high end of a slender vertical pole. This pole would stick up from its attachment at the back of a ring around my head. The other end of the cable, of course, would connect to the scroll. If anybody can draw this contraption it might be publishable in the humor section of Strings magazine. Remember to make the female model angelic-looking. (I just realized that this could bring on the invention of new techniques. Head tremolo, for example. Being a blond of sorts, I already have the musculature to do this well.)

I spent pretty much all of New Year's Day working on this very issue. One of my violins is emerging from a deeply astonishing stay with a luthier. This included yet another attempt by an expert to get some education into my thick head. The advice offered on this forum so far is excellent. Do you know an old player or teacher with a cabinet full of violin-related precious junk? Such a person might empathize with your zeal in adding another chapter to your "Life in Chinrests". If you try several different models, you might at least succeed in creating a show-and-tell presentation for your physical therapist and/or luthier. If all your preferred features appear in a single chinrest, count yourself lucky. At the moment, I'm inclined toward going ISO a tall ebony Flesch model with a big hump, covered with a loosely attached chamois, which may or may not have a bit of foam padding embedded in it. The shoulder pad issue is still unresolved. I have a long neck, a badly impinged left shoulder, and great jowls. Keep smilin'.

For whatever it's worth, we can be fairly sure that the caption was not written by the same person who wrote the article.