Laurel Black Music

Between visits to our new city to house-hunt and making sad attempts at packing up our home, I'm squeezing in as much practice as my forearms and sanity will let me. There's the part of me that says you should ALWAYS be practicing .  There's also the part that says your practice will be crap if you don't WANT to do work .  Then there's the other part that seems to always remind me that I PRACTICE BETTER when I'm also exercising and taking time for short meditations. There's no shortcut for hard work, for practice so tedious that you want to stab yourself in the eye with the end of your mallet.  But there has to be a balance, right?  It has to be ok that sometimes you have to clean the house before practice so you are able to focus on the notes and not on everything else you have to do. I wonder if other people can prioritize practice to the point that all other things are forgotten and ignored, and can they do that without the creeping anxiety of everyth...

This post is a continuation of my first Musical Arts and Crafts publication, which I have copied as the next entry in this blog. You know, in case you didn't get to read it the first time... ;) Alrighty. Musical arts and crafts is all about mounting scores into a large book that makes reading multiple pages and the resulting page turns manageable for the soloist.  There's something about it that shows a sense of ownership about learning the piece. When I'm fiddling with 20 loose pages I feel like someone who is barely trying to hold on, but when it's mounted in my book, I feel like I have control over my learning experience of the piece. It's very satisfying. What I have to share with you today are some examples of "things getting crazy" in the mounting process. In other words, I just mounted a score that was not pretty, required lots of cutting and folding and taping, and whose pages aren't even in chronological order. That's right, folks, so...

Yay, good news! I made the initial audio round cut for the Great Plains Marimba Competition! The coming Semi-Final and Final rounds will be held from June 17-20 in Oklahoma City at the Bass School of Music. I'm excited to know that I've passed that first round, and pleased that my congratulatory email came with comments from Mike Burritt on my tape. I think that's rather nice, honestly - some feedback before the actual  competition date.  But, I should admit that my rather prideful self read the comments and thought yes, I know that accuracy was excellent - thank you for noticing. And at other moments thought hey, yeah that part is rather difficult for everybody so...yeah, ok it sounds forced in my tape...guhhhhhhh he's right, need to work on that. I hope they give feedback to everyone, even those who were eliminated. I remember when I got eliminated in Italy and really appreciated feedback from Emmanuel Sejourne, even though he said things that I had surmised mys...

Not much has changed around here these days. Just keepin' on, keepin' on. I'm making videos about twice a week in preparation for competition. They're not made to share, but made for me to pick apart and plan the next day's practice session. Some have been close to being share-worthy, though!! In the meantime I made a satirical video about White Knuckle Stroll , one of the obligatory pieces in the first round. As it's by Casey I feel like I'm in the unique position of making fun of the preparation process. It's difficult to prepare a piece that is FAST and DOESN'T STOP. Practicing slow helps you learn it incorrectly, but in the end, how it feels to play it at tempo and how it feels to play it slowly are so far apart technically that there's no point in slow practice once the notes are down. Naturally, this makes preparation of this piece require organization, as I know I can't just practice it for 2 hours on a whim. I have to strategize w...

It's funny how at the end of May I always feel like Laurel, you have plenty of time. Make your little schedules and don't procrastinate. And then I make the schedules and I stick to them, but here we are at the beginning of July and I feel like I have SO MUCH left.  I suppose this is the life of a musician and a general busy person, really.  I enjoy being active but hate having too many commitments.  In the "achievements" category, I've memorized 4 pieces for the Italy Marimba Competition in September and am now in the record/critique stage of preparation, which isn't too far behind where I'd like to be.  I'm still working on the final round rep choice. I finished one class only to begin another this week. I prefer face-to-face teaching, without a doubt.  Online classes always result in snarky emails and students accusing you of "losing" their submissions.  Plus, I like to use my computer time for blogs, writing, and research, and ...

Technically, I'm on spring break. I don't have to teach a class all week, nor do I have to rehearse with any students. What I do have to do, however, is learn approximately 280 minutes of music to a level I deem worthy of playing in front of my colleagues. So what does that mean? It means Laurel doesn't get a break. Laurel spends hours at a piano hashing and re-hashing parts she learned long ago to make sure that the lines are correct, listens to the metronome for hours on end, and sings those bloomin' melody lines in her head until her brain explodes. Laurel also talks in third person when she's feeling a bit overwhelmed. In the spirit of making myself feel like I've accomplished something in these hours of practicing today, I thought I would catalog the rep I'm learning. Without further ado, Here's what Laurel has been cramming into her brain: with alto sax: J.S. Bach - 2. Sicilienne and Allegro (adapted from Flute Sonata No. 2) Paul Crest...