Sleuth

Practicing the trumpet is kind of like detective work.

Well, first it's like getting rid of a dog in footie pajamas, because James followed me down into the basement and laid in my lap while I warmed up, begging me to come upstairs and play hockey and/or color pictures for him.

"Later. I need to practice for a bit and THEN we can play hockey."
"I wanna play hockey now."

After setting James up with something to do on his own for a bit, it's kind of like detective work. It's a matter of finding, through careful analysis, exactly what needs to be improved in your playing, and then working out tricks and solutions for how to get the "fix" in place.

I made a long (almost 40 minute) recording of myself working on some materials last Friday morning then another recording (in three chunks) over the course of Sunday of the exact same stuff, except in reverse order. (So that I was fresh on what I was fatigued on during the previous session, and vice versa) Today was about listening to both versions of the material and figuring out what needed working on.

I started out by listening to the Ballerina dance.
Everyone hates the Ballerina dance. Or at least, everyone in my family hates the Ballerina Dance.

Familiarity breeds contempt

I actually don't mind it so much. It's a nasty little excerpt, but I usually play it pretty well without too much work, so if I'm getting it back up to shipshape condition I shouldn't have much trouble. But it didn't sound great on either recording. On the Friday recording the tempo was too quick, and the internal rhythm ended up being uneven. Plus, the high note was present but a little weak and wobbly sounding. The Sunday recording was also too fast, and the last two measures ended up sounding like I was playing them in a different tempo.

My solution was NOT to put on a metronome. I've put in the requisite metronome work on this piece many years ago. I figured that if I put the metronome on I would just play with the metronome and it would be okay, but since you can't actually play with a metronome (you play with a snare drum, which can be either very steady or wildly inconsistent) it would be better to practice a stronger internal "click" by slowing the tempo down slightly and evening out the internal subdivision. I reconfigured where I putting the emphasis measure to measure (the big arc starting 3 after 136 is a pick-up, not a downbeat) and put in an alternate fingering.

Run it again. Yes, it sounds better.

The hardest part is just counting the rests correctly. Seriously.

Next up was the waltz.

On the Friday recording I was trying to "finesse" the first note too much and it didn't speak very well. On Sunday it was plenty loud but I didn't get my embouchure set right for the first big slur and there were a couple of missed connections. In both recordings the inner time from note to note was kind of okay, but not quite SOLID like you'd want it to sound. Solution: click off the piece in my head by hearing the triplet rhythms that start 3 before 151. It evens out the time, makes you set your chops right from the beginning, and somehow gives you an easier beginning to the first note. Rhythmic stability helps a lot with soft entrances. I listened to a couple of different recordings and there was a huge range of tempi and dynamic interpretations. (It doesn't help that there are two different editions of this piece.) My goal? Prepare all the extremes, but offer up something as in-the-middle as possible unless I have a compelling reason otherwise.

When I turned off the recording I heard sounds of distress from upstairs. James had...well, James had gone to the potty and ended up getting stuck. I rescued him and agreed to a break from practicing long enough for some hockey. We turned over two storage ottomans for goals and hit a tennis ball around the library. Apparently he'd also been sticking stickers all over the downstairs wall when he got tired of coloring. When hockey time was over ("the first period is finished, the zambonis need to clean the ice") I was a little more specific about what he could and could not do while alone upstairs.

Back to the basement. Tchaik 4.

The correct sound color for this guy is "paint-removing bright."

Tchaik 4 can trick you. On the one hand, the high A-flat is the worst, most frackable note on the C trumpet. You could view this as just a test of how many A-flats you're going to crack. On the other hand, there's the whole question of demonstrating the difference between the duple and triple subdivisions, and whether or not you should stylize the 16th note of the triplet. And, if you're hearing the low brass part as you play, there should be some extra weight on the note of the downbeat of A and 3 before A. 

On the Friday recording it was the final bit of material I played after going for about an hour and a half straight. So I was kind of pleased that everything came out--but I kind of sounded like I'd been going for an hour an a half. (If you're playing the whole symphony you have to do this exact same fanfare towards the end of the fourth movement, so it's good to practice it gassed.) The Sunday recording sounded bold and fresh, but I split the entrance one before A all over place (missed high) and then must have been too flustered to shape the rest of the measure the way that I wanted it.

For this kind of playing, the solution is all about building confidence. So, I listened to a couple different recordings, made sure I had it in my head exactly the way that I wanted to, and then rolled tape. Played it once, yes, got it. Waited. Played it a second time, yes, got it. Changed up the tempo and played it a third time, yes, still got it. Played it way slower and played it again, got it again. Theoretically I should be way more confident when I do it for "real" because I can remember all those perfect reps in the basement. But really what I should be doing with this piece is finding ways to play it front of other people. (Preferably people who want to hear it.)

Last up for this morning was the end of Petrushka, the "ghost scene."

Technically it's Petrushka's ghost, but it can kill the two trumpet players

I only had one recording of this, from Friday, and I wasn't super pleased with it. The top Cs (Eb on a piccolo trumpet) all sounded way flat compared to the rest of the arpeggio, and the rhythm one before 107 (eighth note pulse stays consistent, quintuplets over four) was just outright wrong. I listened to a bunch of different recordings and felt a little bit better about the pitch issues--no one really plays this one pristinely in tune. (That is what muted piccolo trumpet means.) I looked for a solution. I tried switching the picc over to the B-flat side and the pitch got worse. I tried an alternate fingering for the high note, and it ended up sounding out-of-tune sharp (and more frackable). I tried to reconfigure where I have my slides, but the third valve slide on my picc is apparently frozen in place. I re-recorded myself and got a better take, but I'm still not sure exactly what to do for this passage. (It's a good thing that it's supposed to sound horrifying.) 

Probably the only solution is to buy more gear.

TWO WEEKS AGO:

J: What do you think we should get Daddy for Christmas?

James: I don't know. What do you think we should get him?
J: Well, what does Daddy like?

James: He likes to play the trumpet.

J: Yeah, he does. Should we get him another trumpet.

James: No, he doesn't need any more trumpets.

Incentives

Walking downstairs as soon as the boys are in bed and loading the dishwasher with the contents of the sink:
Ensuring that neither J or I have to come down to a dirty kitchen tomorrow morning, taking a piece of the domestic duties she was working on all day while I was gone. Also, making sure that there is no possible impediment to her making another batch of Christmas cookies. Also, reminding her that I am a great husband/human being and that she should be highly eager to sleep with me.

Going for a run as soon as the dishes are done:
Staying in shape and taking care of my heart as I get older. Also, not getting fat from all of the Christmas cookies that J keeps making.

Packing up the gig bag and walking in the cold down to practice for an hour and a half after getting in from the run:
The possibility of a great paying principal job down in Texas, satisfying the insatiable desire to prove myself and compete professionally, or at the very least staying in decent enough trumpet shape that the next time I pull the horn out of the case all my highs/lows/softs/louds/articulations can come out without too much coaxing. Also, a grudging but deep-seated love of the craft.

Turning down the thermostat to 63 degrees even though I'm really cold from practicing in an empty church and then walking back in the cold:
Saving money at the end of the month when the first winter RG&E bill comes.

Pulling out the laptop and trying to come up with some sort of blog idea while attempting to thaw upstairs in the unheated bedroom:
Keeping my dear and much-missed extended family in the loop about my little family and also the sort of things that I'm up to. Also, because I promised to blog every day this month and it would be really lame if I gave up six days in.

Going to bed promptly at 11 instead of staying up to watch the end of Sunday Night Football:
The knowledge that at any moment a certain 20 lb blonde baby in the next room is going to wake up screaming (probably because he's cold) and that someone is going to need to roll out of bed to go rock the little bugger back to sleep...

Dining

J and I make a great culinary team. She's the "head chef" of our kitchen, and takes care of most of the "skilled labor" food preparation. My role is to do some more basic low-skill jobs to make her life easier. She knows exactly how to delegate certain tasks to me so that she can make sure that she's freed up to flip something into the skillet at exactly the right moment, or to add an extra layer of glaze at exactly the right moment in the mixing process, or to taste for an elusive and subtle texture. I do my part proudly, though. For instance, I can....well, I'm able to...okay, so I'm not actually good for much of anything in the kitchen except for carrying the groceries in from the car (but not putting them away, because I don't know where the correct spots are) or maybe taking out the trash once the bag gets full.

This is why cooking for the boys on Saturday evenings is so stressful. They usually don't look forward to it any more than I do.

Sometimes J is able to get something in the crock-pot earlier in the day, and that's a nearly foolproof method of ensuring that we'll all get a hot and delicious dinner in her absence. I say "nearly" foolproof, because someone might have endangered their family and home by turning the crockpot to "Low" instead of "Off" when they took the chicken out last week and then left a quarter-inch layer of sauce that gradually turned to charcoal in the bottom of the pan until the next morning. Someone might have scrubbed hard to get the crock clean that afternoon.

But on days like today, there just wasn't time to get something prepared beforehand.

"Wait," I called to her as she headed out the door "what am I going to give the kids for dinner?"
"Uhh...bacon and eggs. But don't give Owen eggs. Check James' Berenstein Bears cookbook for a breakfast toboggan recipe that he wanted. He'll eat that."

The kids looked as concerned as I did.

We rammed around the downstairs for a bit and penned Owen into corners while we built tall block towers before turning on the soundtrack to Jaws and letting him loose. When they started to show signs of being hungry (screaming, whining, and crying) I decided that I couldn't put off dinner prep any longer and went into the kitchen to start working.

I was already too late, and I knew it. J doesn't dread cooking like I do, so she starts doing food prep BEFORE the kids are melting down from hunger. My work becomes exponentially harder when I put off food prep until they're screaming and tugging at my leg. I went into the kitchen and reviewed my plan:

For Me:
A rasher of bacon and an omelette. I love omelettes, and they always turn into a heap of nasty looking egg mush when I try to make them. I knew we had all sorts of delicious things to put in an omelette (sun dried tomatoes and gruyere cheese) so I was up for risking failure again to get my omelette. I looked up instructions for omelette making on incredibleegg.org and read the directions carefully several times. Yes, I was sure I had it this time. This was going to be fine.

For James:
From page 14 of "The Berenstain Bears Country Cookbook--Cub-Friendly Cooking with an Adult" I found the recipe for a Tasty Toboggan. I wondered as I looked at it whether I counted as "an adult" that was qualified to help a bear cup with this recipe. It basically looked like a piece of french toast on two pieces of bacon. I decided not to get over-ambitious and to just do a piece of regular toast instead of French toast. After all, I know my limitations. James thought it was very important that I make sure that there was a visible pat of butter on the toast. He's really big into making the final result look just like the picture. I also decided he needed to eat a sunny-side up egg.

For Owen:
A clementine, cut up and seeded. A piece of toast with jam, cut up into small bites. Maybe a couple bites of bacon.

This wouldn't be too hard, right?

I started with the bacon, and that went okay, except for Owen continually pulling at my leg. Bacon is one of those things I'm actually okay at. I can usually guess when it needs to be flipped in the pan and when it needs to come out. So that went fine.

Then I got out the eggs. One egg for James. I put that in the pan while Owen tugged at my leg and screamed. "Yes, I know you're hungry. Let Daddy work."

I got two eggs out for my omelette and attemped to whisk them up in a bowl while James' egg was frying. "Owen, no, stay out of the trash can." <set down the eggs on the counter> "Owen, what do you have in your mouth" <set down flipper> "Did you fish that out of the trash?" <go to pick up egg, knock one onto the floor which breaks> "AH, no stay out of that. James, come in here and sit on Owen until I get this picked up." "Hey Daddy, why are you cooking the flipper?" "AHH!" <pulls flipper out of pan> "Gah!" <pulls Owen out of egg mess on floor>

By the time I got back to James' egg it was burnt on the bottom, and then it broke when I tried to flip it. The toast popped as I was attempting to deseed the clementine, and I gave up on letting Owen roam free and let him scream out his hangriness in the high chair while I attempted my omelette. I shredded the cheese, cut up the tomato, and made sure that the pan was greased and hot.

I poured my egg mixture into the pan and made sure that I gently pushed the uncooked portions towards the heat in the center, then continued cooking, gently tilting the pan and moving the cooked portions as needed.

I ended up with a heap of nasty looking egg mush.

Owen ate his clementine in about eight seconds and then refused to eat anything else, pointing instead at the big plate of monkey bread that J had made earlier in the day.

James was thrilled that I put a pat of butter on his piece of toast so that it looked like the picture, but then tried to eat a spoonful of just butter and almost threw up. He ate some of his bacon, but then just begged for the monkey bread that J had made earlier in the day.

I ate a few bites of my egg mush and decided that monkey bread would probably be better.

We're all really glad that I only cook once a week. The kitchen works way better when I'm just helping the master.

Afternoon of a Dryad

Although I am a young spirit, the roots of my tree are firm in the soil here. My name is Rosaceae, although in your tongue I'm known by the ugly name of "crabapple." I've been fortunate enough to come into the land of some good folk, and I was well-watered and looked after in my early weeks. Now the weather is cold and I'm preparing to sleep, but something one of the little ones said today gave me a fright. The father ordered new rubber tires for his automobile, and they were delivered to their door. He brought them inside, and I watched him show them to his little ones. The little ones played in them, and I was happy in their delight, looking in through the front window as I do and smiling on the hearth. Did you know they've brought one of my cousins into their home? One of the Abien family, a tall and prickly nymph by the name of Balsamea. She's all covered in lights and glass baubles, but she leans awfully and I suspect she'll drop her needles all over their carpet just to spite those little boys. (The small one grabs at her lower boughs incessantly.) But as I was saying, it was the older boy that gave me the scare. When the father drove his automobile back today with the new tires on it, the little one yelled at the top of his lungs to the mother: "Daddy saved me a tire and now we can have a TIRE SWING!" I hope that the father has more sense than that, but he appears to do whatever the little ones want most of the time. My arms hurt just thinking about a swing--even in adulthood we Rosaceae aren't particularly given to swings and treehouses and all those boyish constructions. He ought to see about a nice sturdy Quercus or Acer in the backyard for that sort of job. But then again, at least I have a family. My friend Cornus from next door has been sitting by an empty house for the better part of three months, and today when a woman stopped by to look at it with the realtor I overheard them talking about the "trumpet playing next door." Poor Cornus. But then again, she doesn't have to worry about tire swings.

Game Theory

We all do things for our spouses that we'd rather not, but we go along with it just because we love them and want them to be happy. Okay, everyone say what that is right now without thinking one two GO:

And now you know what to talk about in marital counseling.

I said "playing games."

We used to play Phase 10 all the time when we were dating. It was important for us to spend lots of times playing games, because we were college kids and we couldn't cook or drink wine. Also, J LOVED (and still loves) playing games and I liked getting to see her.

She won all the time. Maybe not every single time, but a ridiculously high percentage of the time. Her game-playing dominance was kind of like watching the Bills and Patriots over the past fifteen years, even down to her propensity to wear hoodies. (She didn't cheat to my knowledge...) I'll let her speak to whether or not she was a gracious winner and a good sport. (If you want to ask her about it, start by asking her what "the doggy" is.)

Anyhow, she agreed to marry me, and then I didn't have to pretend to enjoy playing games anymore.

Okay, it wasn't quite like that, but we definitely stopped playing games nearly as often as we did when we were dating. And I can't say that I really missed it.

Every once in awhile we'd get into something, like with the Wii. We've been through Wii sports phases, Mario Party, and even Monopoly. We play poker with great enjoyment when we visit Pennsylvania with J's brothers. But we've never picked up the regular habit of card games between the two of us again like when we were dating.

But now there's a twist: James likes games.

We were visiting PA last week and we played Battleship with James. He loved it. He was completely into it, and he played the game all the way to the end. He's always been fascinated with playing cards (and poker chips) and I think that he has the disposition to love card playing.

There may be a renaissance of game-playing at the Smith house. This is probably just--in many ways I took advantage of J's good faith when she walked down the aisle.

I just hope James doesn't get into Phase 10.

James Takes the Matter Up

James still regards his room as a structure separate from the rest of the house. Well, not HIS room. Technically it's a house he shares with George.

But that being the case, he needs Christmas decorations for him and George that are different than the ones downstairs. (In OUR house.)

So once we finished setting up the Christmas tree yesterday and strung up all the lights and stockings, we proceeded upstairs to set up James' Christmas tree (the tiny fake one that we bought in North Carolina) complete with three decorations, a bow, and a window candle.

He even remembered which decorations he had from last year. An clay star with the letter R on it, a Winnie-the-Pooh ornament, and an "apple." (Really an old red bulb that used to have an R on it, but was long ago rubbed off.) "R stands for Christmas" he told me.

We didn't get around to setting up the odd strand of colored lights yesterday before we gassed out on finishing the decorating. James had requisitioned them by that point for his tree. (Me and George need some lights for our tree up in our house.) He went to sleep last night reminding me that we needed to set up his lights in the morning time. And also to have some Cinnamon Crunch Toast cereal.

The first thing he asked for this morning when his eyes opened were to have the Cinnamon Crunch Toast cereal, and then to decorate his tree. I'm not entirely sure that he slept.

He hasn't been holed up in his room (house) all day, though. He's set up a juice stand underneath our Christmas tree and is taking orders for juice and selling them to me, J, and Owen.

J is currently re-reading the Harry Potter books, and we were jokingly going through what we thought we might see in the mirror of Erised the other night. I asked "What do you think James would see in the mirror of Erised?"

We just sort of looked at each other for a long time. As someone who knows him well recently said "Isn't he just a psychological treasure trove?"

I don't claim to know what he wants at his deepest, most subconscious level. (And I'm not sure he knows either.)

But he definitely loves Christmas.

Cocked Hat

We were all hatted this morning. It was because we were all going outside for a run. In December, of course, in upstate New York.

I saw that the weather for the next few days was supposed to be gray and constantly rainy. My reaction to this was, as always, "thank goodness it isn't going to be snow." But my second reaction was "we ought to go for a run all together if we're going to get one in this week." I'll probably get up and run a few times in the early morning, even if it is rainy out. J might head out during the afternoons if there's hot coffee waiting when she gets back and/or the boys have been steadily driving her insane all morning. But this was our last chance to go out as a family.

So we put on our hats.

The boys look SO cute in their hats, which means that they don't want to wear them at all. James wore his James D. Bear hat, which is one of my favorite hats ever. It used to look huge on him, but now it's starting to look a little stretched on his bulbous head.

THE James D. Bear hat

Owen has a nice hood on his fluffy winter jacket, but J put a hat on him anyway. Owen does not appreciate hats. He doesn't appreciate his fluffy winter jacket, either. He can't move his arms in it, which means he can't suck on his fingers. And if he can't suck on his fingers, he can't cope with the world when he feels sleepy/cranky/happy. Even when he isn't sucking on his fingers, he thinks they should be in someone's mouth. This morning when he woke up at 6:45 am and I brought him downstairs to read with me on the couch he kept on trying to shove them into my mouth. Then he smacked the lampshade repeatedly with James' Greek flag. Kids are weird.

Anyway, neither kid was particularly happy about wearing their hats. James thinks that his bear hat is for "babies," but of course he doesn't want Owen to wear it and he refuses to wear any other hat. (Aside from his blue San Francisco cap, which is also super cute but not nearly warm enough for a two mile run in December in upstate New York.) Owen was distressed about being in his jacket, and about having his hood up, and about having a wool cap on under his hood.

We bribed them with cookies. There's a delightful Italian pastry shop up the road from us past Culver on Empire. It used to be the case that if we were feeling particularly indulgent I'd stop in at the donut shop and get a treat. After all, I'd reason, we just got some exercise and it's nice to have something sweet and well-made. Now we go running as an excuse to get up to the pastry shop. The donuts, while quite for being donuts, are long forgotten. Today we brought back some biscotti and a chocolate-almond torte.

My hat, for the record, is a black wool cap that smells rather awful. I don't really have a good winter hat. Somewhere down in the basement there's a black Carhartt hat that I've also been running in, and neither one looks particularly elegant with a peacoat and tails.

J, on the other hand, has a cool pink runner's hat. It's warm, reflective, and looks pretty stylish. I would say that it's the nicest hat in the family, but it doesn't have ears. So James' hat still wins.