Concert today!
Kresge Chapel, Claremont School of Theology, 4:15 pm
We will perform Bach – Concerto for Two Harpsichords & Pergolesi - Stabat mater
You may have been seeing a lot about String Theory and have been wondering, “What’s all that about?”. String Theory is our band where we play any type of music we want and also write our own originals. We’re a quartet of four professional out-of-the-box musicians. If you’re in the Inland Empire/Claremont area, now’s your chance to hear us live! We’ll be performing at the Blue Fin in Claremont on Sunday, April 22 from 2 – 5 pm. You can get directions from our website at http://stringtheoryquartet.net/upcoming-events/.
Yesterday we played an hour long set at the Anaheim Farmers Market where we premiered several band originals such as “Candy” by Sarah Wallin Huff” and “Forest of Cedars” with the completed vocal part. We’ve go an album in the works, so stay tuned and you’ll be able to get recordings of these originals in the near future. In the meantime, we’ll have videos up in a couple of days from the gig yesterday. Here are some pics from the Farmers Market. You can see more on the band site at http://stringtheoryquartet.net.
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Just had to share this! Here’s a video of what the orchestra sees:
In our culture of relentless competition and constant work, we can sometimes loose the sense of contemplation. The need to excel, to be the best, to accomplish more every day can sometimes cause us anxiety and a sense of bewilderment even in the midst of success. What is important for the human soul is to take time to switch from one way of being to another, back and forth from discursive to contemplative thought.
In the book ”Leisure, the Basis of Culture”, Josef Pieper says,
“The Middle Ages drew a distinction between the understanding as ratio and the understanding as intellectus. Ratio is the power of discursive, logical thought, of searching and of examination, of abstraction, of definition and drawing conclusions. Intellectus,on the other hand, is the name for the understanding in so far as it is the capacity of simplex intuitus, of that simple vision to which truth offers itself like a landscape to the eye. The faculty of mind, man’s knowledge, is both these in one, according to antiquity and the Middle Ages, simultaneously ratio and intellectus; and the process of knowing is the action of the two together. The mode of discursive thought is accompanied and impregnated by an effortless awareness, the contemplative vision of the intellectus, which is not active but passive, or rather receptive, the activity of the soul in which it conceives that which is sees”. Josef Pieper, “Leisure, the Basis of Culture”, English translation by Alexander Dru, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009) 28.
Pieper goes on to say how in the Middle Ages, ratio was held to be a human experience whereas intellectus was considered beyond human, touching the spiritual. If we find ourselves rushing even when we have not much to do, feeling anxious, then it could be time to rest and take in rather than give out, to experience beauty around us rather than try to own and control it. This takes a renunciation of ego, a letting go of the familiar, and an acceptance of the unknown, the mysterious.
Does this happen to you? I like to listen to the classical station while driving around in the car & often catch myself “working” and analyzing the music. I’ll start off by guessing who the composer is, what genre and period of history it comes from, how well the musicians are performing, wether or not they’re playing in as historically informed way, whether or not I could perform the piece and what it would take to learn it. Then I often start thinking of current projects that need to get done.This probably happens all the time to people in other fields as well. We go along unconsciously analyzing minute details. The suddenly something so beautiful bursts in and demands our attention and awe. Being aware of the different ways of thinking can allow us to switch from one to the other and so be able to see beauty in its more subtle manifestations. Discursive thinking is important, for it helps us to get down to the technical aspects of things and allows us to make things work and to make progress, but our thinking process should not be strictly analytical. We should also allow ourselves to experience of the beautiful essence of creation that is all around us, a beauty that is just out of reach of the analytical mind. To enter into the spirit of true art, to allow the beauty of creation to permeate our being, to accept the goodness around us, this is what our souls long for. We should have time each day for this.
If you live in the Ranch area and are interested in taking violin lessons, I’ve just started teaching at the Valverde School of Performing Arts located at 8217 Rochester Ave. Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730. Valverde is an artistic, creative, and family-oriented school that offers classes for dance and music. It has been owned and operated by the Valverde family since 2005 and the school has just moved to a beautiful new facility. I’m very excited to be teaching at the school. Right now I’m there on Monday afternoons. You can check out Valverde School of Performing Arts at http://vspa.net/index.html.
This St Patrick’s Day was awesome! Friends and family and String Theory all were over at my house! We were able to perform our new piece, “The Road” and get a video for you to see. It was really fun to write this piece, with and idea here and an idea there. It all came together in the end and I’m super grateful to String Theory for making it sound amazing! I hope you enjoy it! For more information about our group String Theory, you can visit our website at stringtheoryquartet.net. Here’s the world premiere of “The Road”:
Lyrics
Verse 1:
Give me the sun and a song and a road
and I can go a long long way,
but where will I go if I leave you behind?
For you say I must go,
But my heart says to stay,
Chorus 1:
So come, come along!
What is to stop us?
Leave it behind.
This first step we take together
will start our journey home.
Verse 2:
Together we’ll walk through the warmth and the cold
the dark and the light and in between,
For the story never ends until everything gets told
and everything gets told in the end,
Chorus 2
So come, come take my hand,
Onward we go now to start the dance
as our dreams come together
and our story becomes our home!
Verse 3:
All that I’ve ever wanted in life
was someone to love with my whole heart,
But who would have dreamed that you’d come today!
Let’s step onto the road
and we’ll be on our way!
Chorus 3
And here, here we are!
We’ll watch the sunrise
break into day
and the road that’s stretched before us
will guide us on our journey home!
While going about my daily business, I like to make connections between different experiences and ideas. Since music mirrors life, I believe these discoveries will prove thought provoking to many people, not just violinist, so I’m going to be writing down them down under the title, “Violin Tip No…..” This is the first of such articles. I hope you find them intriguing. Feel free to comment and add your own thoughts 
Teaching is exciting for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the frequent life-altering discoveries that are made while teaching children apparently simple exercises and lessons. This happened today in a way I’d like to share and remember. We started talking about the “art of listening”. When we’re studying music, there are two (there are more, but for practical purposes we’ll discuss two) main ways we can listen. They are 1) just listening to the sound coming out of the violin and 2) listening to the music in your head and imagining how you want it to sound. These two ways of listening go hand-in-hand. We can improve every day when we compare what we are really hearing to what we are imagining. When the sounds are alike, we know we want to do more of the same. When they are different i.e. when what’s coming out of the violin doesn’t line up with what we are imagining, we can objectively see the aspects that need improvement. This is a reason why, when studying music, it’s important to listen to other artists and also to use your own imagination so as to gain a clear picture of the sound you wish to capture.
I explained this concept of listening to my students today. All of them were under the age of ten. They already knew a bunch of stuff to listen for, but would need to be reminded again and again. This time I gave them the word for today’s lesson, “listen”. I told them about the two ways of listening and then told them, “Now play your piece and listen to the sounds”. After I would ask, “What did you like?” They gave answers like, “Oh, my sound was good”, or “This spot was smooth”, or “My intonation was good right here”. “Good”, I said, “I noticed that too. So you can continue to do more of those things. Now what did you notice that you would like to make better?” Then they’d say things like, “This spot was hard” or “It was squeaky” etc. Then I’d ask what we could do to make it better and gave some suggestions. The exciting part about all this was that they are now teaching themselves and all I have to do is guide them.
Life can be amazing when we listen. To just contemplate things that go on around us, to take in what another person is really saying, to ask if you are comprehending their meaning, this gives depth and connection to our lives and our world. We have so much in our own heads sometimes, it’s refreshing to sometimes just sit back and really listen.
