Must read books!

  • Advice for Young Conductors - Weingartner
  • Anatomy of the Orchestra - Del Mar
  • Brigade de Cuisine - John McPhee
  • Heat - Bill Buford
  • Poetics of Music - Stravinsky
  • Tao Te Ching - Lao Tse
  • The Composer's Advocate - Leinsdorf
  • The Modern Conductor, 7th Edition - Green/Gibson
  • The Score, The Orchestra and The Conductor - Gustav Meier
  • Zen in the Art of Archery - Herrigel

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Bar 3 - "...be ANIMAL!"

Maestro Ozawa once told us conducting students at Tanglewood that we had to be "animals" at times, by which he meant that we needed to do something physical outside of our music.  Ball sports, running, swimming (don't know if curling counts), anything to break a sweat and to get us out of ourselves.  So I am running, every day a little more distance, a little faster, a little more incline.  And I review scores in my head while I run, try to think them through from memory.  Not as easy as one would think.

What are your hobbies?  What puts a smile on your face?  And if all you can muster is "Maestro So-and-So conducting Bla-di-bla's 8th," I'll open up a copy of Op. 23, No. 5 "Etude in the Key of Whoop-ass" on you.

Tomorrow's challenge:
Name 6 pieces in A Major by Mozart, apart from the 29.  Do they have anything in common?  Is it important?

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