Requiem by J. Rutter, performed by the KCOV and the Promenade orkest @ Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
Posted: 26 May 2012 Filed under: Random 1 Comment »Going to the Concertgebouw is an entire experience in itself. First, the people in the audience. The average age is above 40 – at the very least – and everyone is dressed impeccably. I felt a bit self conscious, as I had gone to the Concertgebouw right after clinical skills training and I was dressed in a comfortable pair of black jeans with a pink shirt. Secondly, the building. It is a beautiful monumental building. I don’t know anything about architecture, but there were all kinds of engravings/bas reliefs in the walls and it really felt like a castle or something like that. The concert hall is surrounded by a long corridor and has entrances at each side – the entire atmosphere in the building is a setting of long past times, when people still travelled by horse carriage.
Then the concert hall itself – now I finally understand all this talk about accoustics. Before the concert, I wondered whether the harp would be amplified – the sounds of tuning the harp didn’t carry over the hundreds of conversations that were taking place. However, when everyone shut up and the music started, even the slightest whisper could be heard throughout the hall. Two people in front of us decided to comment on the music and a lot of people turned their heads and glared. The harp was clearly audible, even more than on the recordings which I’d listened. I always like it when I discover new aspects of music I know by heart – just like I immensely enjoy hearing the basslines during an Equilibrium live show (somehow, the bass lines are much less discernible on CD).
Still, this musical experience differs a lot from going to a metal concert. I’m used to enjoying music with all of my body – listening to the music (with ear plugs in, of course. Wouldn’t want to miss a grade 1 murmur…), moving to the music, clapping and cheering on the musicians. During a good concert by a good band, you forget that your legs hurt due to waiting for five hours – they manage to sweep you away. In a concert hall, you wouldn’t even think about moving to the music – you’re sitting rigidly in a chair and listening intently without tensing one muscle.
This makes enjoying a classical concert a very mental endeavor – it’s all happening in your head, you need to surrender yourself to the music in another way. Especially during the pieces I didn’t know well (Mass in C, Ave Verum), eventually my throughts drifted off and I found myself thinking about something completely else. And yet… there is this special athmosphere, the focused attention – in this suspended state of mind, where everyone submerges themselves in the music, there is also a kind of ‘togetherness’. An experience I wouldn’t want to miss.
Regarding the actual performance – it turned out that the choir consisted of professional amateurs. They sung very well but they were often just a little bit too late or too early. I didn’t notice this myself – I only ‘felt’ that the Requiem felt ‘off’ at some times – but my friend, who is really into choral music, said it was because of the choir’s timing. Quite interesting because they didn’t make actual mistakes… but it really diminishes the impact of the goose-bump moments in the music.
The music was great. I really liked it that the musicians were really playing together, not just playing their part but really playing as if they were ‘one’. And the harp! What a wonderful sound. This was the first time I heard a concert harp in a performance – absolutely awesome!!!
Finally, a youtube clip I wanted to share – apparently, one orchestra didn’t like this static playing thing so they made an entire choreography to be performed during playing. So everyone walks while playing (apart from the poor harpists…), sometimes they form groups, or ‘battle’ each other. All of this really suits the rather calm pace of the music. I think it’s a great way to express classical music.
Cancer isn’t a fair opponent.
Posted: 28 April 2012 Filed under: Curriculum 1 Comment »Usually, when speaking about people who have cancer, it’s said they are ‘fighting’ it. And when they finally succumb, it is said that they ‘lost the fight’.
Apparently, no one realized that it isn’t a fair fight. You can’t really fight someone who stabs you in the back… A cancer cell used to be part of the body, used to be a normal cell but then it suddenly went rogue and multiplied itself, shaking off all the regulatory systems the body uses to prevent such things from happening. Cancer is the ultimate betrayal, as your own cells will turn against you, trying to take over everything.
How are you supposed to fight things you can’t even see? After all, if you’ve got to miss work or school due to the flu, no one will accuse you of not being positive enough, not fighting the virus… But cancer patients are expected to carry their burdens with happiness – if you don’t, you might not get better and then it’s your own fault if you die.
One of the most memorable patients I’ve met, was a man who survived cancer. This man had indeed survived the fight against cancer… but he was also a veteran, a veteran of the invisible war waged within his body. And just like in other wars, these fights leave invisible scars.
Contrary to our expectations, he wasn’t really happy that he had survived. Yes, he was glad to be alive and to be able to see his grandchildren, but on the other hand, he felt like he couldn’t trust his body anymore. The chemotherapy treatments really took everything he still had left – he didn’t have energy anymore for simple things like enjoying a walk, doing household work. And what would prevent another bunch of cells going rogue? There was no way to say whether all cancer cells had truly gone. He felt like a time bomb.
Cancer is really like that. You can’t really fight it. You can only try to hold on and hope you’ll pull through, that the medication kills the cancer before it kills you.
People who are killed by cancer aren’t losers.
New recordings!
Posted: 12 April 2012 Filed under: Harp 4 Comments »It’s almost time for another harp lesson so I decided to record a few pieces today. It’s a good exercise for playing everything as correctly as possible. Of course, it fails quite some times – there’s a kind of running commentary in my head pointing out all of the issues and then I forget the notes even though I know the pieces by heart etc.
This is the Siciliana from the Petite Suite by Grandjany. I really like this pieces but it is HARD to play it well and to make it interesting. In the recording, my attempts at dynamics failed a bit because I was trying not to forget the notes like I did in the previous 8 takes.
Danses d’ Automne 3. I am really ready to move on to something new, unless my teacher has some interesting perspective to offer… It is not close to being ‘finished’ but I’ve working on this so long without getting adequate feedback to make it sound better. But at least, it sounds a bit like one piece now.
The last song from Automates! That means I’ve finished a book when I’ve finished this one. But it’s not finished yet, I’ve only studied it for a few weeks.
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A bit of folk! This is a breton dance called a ridee. I really like the vibe of the bass! It is hard to play correctly when recording, though…
Rutter’s Requiem
Posted: 7 April 2012 Filed under: Harp Leave a comment »About a year ago, I read about the Rutter Requiem on the Harp Column forums and I though, let’s look it up on YouTube. I didn’t regret it! I watched the video you can see below, there’s also a harpist in it.
This is one of the few pieces that made me go ‘WOW!!!!!’ when I first heard it. It took me quite some listening rounds to finally like the Handel harp concerto (I watched all of the YouTube Orchestra entries when I was bored – Maria Chiossi‘s entry really brought that concerto alive!). But this, it touched me instantly.
It turns out that the composer put quite some videos online in which he discusses writing the Requiem and the thoughts and ideas behind it. I couldn’t not share these, so here is the first video:
And they’re going to perform it in the Concertgebouw!!!! (Dutch equivalent of Carnegie Hall I think). Last year, a local choir in a little village in the middle of nowhere performed it on Remembrance day (when there aren’t any buses/trains etc) so I couldn’t go there to see it live. But now a professional choir and professional orchestra are going to perform! So I’ll definitely go there to see it! 
Musicality
Posted: 5 April 2012 Filed under: Harp 2 Comments »One of the hardest things for me is to make a piece sound ‘alive’. Adding things like dynamics, being aware of the musical sentence, transcending the written notes and CREATING something.
That always worries me. Because when people talk about musical talent, they always mention things like this. You can play the notes, but it’s better to make mistakes than to make pieces sound dead. And as I struggle to make my pieces sound like something that doesn’t sound like boring repeated phrases, I start pondering whether I’m actually good enough to become good at the harp, is this struggle worth it all, why buy a pedal harp when you obviously don’t have any talent and apparently, talent is very important and -
The scientist / positive side of me always says things like – but really good harpists practise a lot, you need to spend at least ten thousand hours on it, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TALENT – - and yet, as I struggle with dynamics in a piece, I can’t help but thinking – perhaps I’m very untalented.
Fortunately, my teacher is hugely emphasizing this aspect of harp playing. While I might have preferred to spend some more time on technical development, she continues to focus on dynamics, on phrasing, et cetera. I always went along, feeling I couldn’t really do it anyway but perhaps it helps and another perspective on playing might also be nice and it won’t hurt, will it?
Today I finally understood why. For me, music is always a stepwise process, stumbling and blundering along and then SOMETIMES there is this rare moment in which everything is clear and I notice something – that I actually made progress. Today I was preparing Opwekking 192 (a worship song) and I was just playing through it and then I noticed – wow, it’s doing something to me and it’s just boring worship. Actually, I hate playing worship on the harp, as all the nice and fast songs are hard to play ‘nice and fast’ and the slow songs are too cheesy. But today, it sounded different.
More alive. More dynamics. And I wasn’t even doing it consciously, I was just listening to myself and playing.
Perhaps that’s the key. Listening. Feeling what the music is doing to you. Today, part of that elusive concept of ‘playing musically’ became a bit more clear to me. But I guess it will always be a struggle…
Opinions in music
Posted: 5 April 2012 Filed under: Harp 4 Comments »There are plenty of – not all, but there are more than a few – harp pieces, no matter how beautiful your sound, how flawless your technique and how touching your musicality, that are just badly-structured, sugary, derivative, lacking in imagination, boring, cheesy, whatever – we spend hours discussing so-called major repertoire no pianist would do more than sight read through before returning the music to the library.
Lately, I started wondering about the harp repertoire. I’ve read similar comments to the one above and I’m always wondering – how do people come to such conclusions? Especially as they often recommend modern pieces* written for the harp – there’s no exception, it’s hard for me to like those pieces.
Is this because I lack certain insights in music theory? After all, I used to hate technical death metal and now I enjoy it and it helps me focus while writing things like internship reports that need to be finished in three weeks Or Else. I’ve forced myself to listen to a few pieces that are often recommended but that doesn’t really help. I only like the Third movement of the Ginastera harp concerto because Elizabeth Jaxon made a very nice video about it – it’s a funny melody but I wouldn’t say it really touches a string within me. This also applies to compulsory pieces for competitions, even for amateur competitions, there’s usually a modern piece that was specifically commissioned by the competition. How could I spend hours learning such a piece I don’t ‘get’?
And then you start thinking. I set mastering Fauré’s impromptu as a goal – when I’m 40 I want to be able to play that. I think Fauré is a very good example of the unimaginative pieces mentioned above – but somehow, that piece really resonates with me, something other pieces of music fail to do.
And I keep wondering – what is it that allows people to like modern classical music? I am really interested in an honest answer – I’d gladly like modern music but I’ve found, I can’t. I hope that doesn’t make me a lesser musician…
The point of this post? Very bold statements as to the quality of musical pieces without supporting argumentation can make people feel very unsure about their abilities to discern good music. (I like death metal, perhaps that speaks for itself…).
Disclaimer:
I’m very bad at naming classical music genres. I can easily explain most metal genres, but I haven’t really put thought into classical music genres. So all I know is that there’s really classical (Bach/Mozart/Handel) and more impressionist (Debussy) – and, well, modern. Salzedo / Grandjany / Renie are probably also modern but I like that music. I mean the music that involves weird tonalities, strange saw-like sounds coming from strings etc. etc.
Bacteria have rights too!
Posted: 4 April 2012 Filed under: Research 2 Comments »Before you start laughing, please consider this: isn’t it at least a bit appalling to grow hundreds of millions of innocent little creatures just to be able to harvest a part of their DNA?
During my internship, I’ve grown countless erlenmeyers of bacteria just to harvest a plasmid or a phage. It’s something you do thoughtlessly, just inoculate some broth with a bit of your freezer stock and the next day you’ll be able to harvest. However, they still remain living organisms and don’t always do what you want. As a rule, if you’d like them to grow not too much, they always grow extremely fast, and if you’d like them to grow fast, they always take their time and you can spend hours waiting until they FINALLY duplicate.
Of course, I kill millions of bacteria just by doing the dishes. That’s not the point. I’m merely wondering -how far have we gone, using other organisms as a source for ‘ingredients’…
It’s not just bacteria, there are also a lot of immortalized cell lines (some stemming from aborted fetuses) that we use for virulence studies. These studies are very valuable – and yet, these cells living in plastic bottles, it feels wrong. These cells were once part of a multicellular organism and now they’re living their lives as individuals in medium that sort of replicates their native circumstances. What did they ever do to us?
Researchers using animals often say that they never forget to respect them – by their sacrifice we can study virulence, physiology, cures for diseases, etcetera. Perhaps we as microbiologists shouldn’t forget to respect our bacteria…
Does this sound stupid? Personally, I don’t think so. I still do a miniprep on my E.coli. But sometimes I pause to think about the ‘order of nature’, what force gave us humans the power to do this to entire cultures of organisms… And of course, the Creator who made this all possible, comes to mind. Let’s not forget the One by whose virtue we’re allowed to explore all of this… but I wonder whether he actually meant us to do this to his creation.
Pedal harps rule!
Posted: 25 February 2012 Filed under: Harp Leave a comment »I’ve had the privilege to play on a pedal harp during my last two lessons. It’s absolutely awesome! Perhaps this sounds a bit odd to people who’ve played the pedal harp for most of their lives, but for me it feels like a dream is coming true. I’ve always wanted to do this and now it happens!
I was most surprised by the fact that I could get sound out of it. I’ve tried a pedal harp once during a regional harp day and the tension was so high that I could barely play it. Either this harp has a much lighter tension (it’s an L&H style 85) or my finger strength improved tremendously in just a few months… (I don’t know what the reason is. Perhaps that other harp had an unreasonably high tension? 
). Of course, there’s still a big difference between me and my teacher – she can really making it sing, but I can produce more than a whisper, at the very least 
.
Anyway, it sounds beautiful. I was encouraged to ‘play with it’ so I took the opportunity to improvise a little. WOW. Of course, my own harp sounds rather awful so I don’t have a good comparison, but the second octave under the central C sounds so beautiful! It really makes my heart sing. Yes, I’m being cheesy.
While playing my lesson pieces on the harp, I noticed that I really need to get used to the string spacing etc. but the difference isn’t as big as I thought it to be. Which makes everything a lot worse, as it will take at least 5-6 years before I’ll be able to afford my own pedal harp. So the wait is a lot worse now, now I’ve tasted what the real thing is like…
Also, I noticed that all the things my teacher stresses (making gestures at the end of a musical sentence, certain things regarding hand position and placing) make much more sense now. I can clearly hear the difference in sound! On the lever harp, it’s much less obvious so it’s easy to slip into bad habits again. On the pedal harp, my efforts are actually rewarded!
I also found that it is completely possible to play real folk music on the pedal harp! I can’t do triplets/trebles yet but cuts and strikes are easy to do and still sound good. When I get used to the higher tension, I’m sure I’ll be able to play fast reels and dances . This is VERY encouraging because I was afraid that the pedal harp would somehow make playing folk impossible.
I’m too lazy to record anything now, so you won’t have to suffer my harp plucking for at least one post .
On presentations
Posted: 21 January 2012 Filed under: Research 1 Comment »All master students have to do a literature presentation so I wasn’t exempted from that, even though I don’t have a background in the life sciences. It was a lot of fun but also quite stressful. After all, it was my first presentation in English and it was about a subject which I researched quite well, but I’ll never know as much as my audience does. In the end, everything turned out alright… but I’ve never been so nervous for a presentation.
You see, medical students at my university are literally drilled in doing presentations. Once in two weeks you needed to give a 30-minute presentation about your group’s ‘study assignment’ (a patient case and the theory connected to it). Presentations were graded, taking account things like ‘eye contact’, ‘body language’, ‘use of voice (inflection etc)’ — and there was also one item on which ‘content’ was scored. So, eventually, almost everyone became proficient or at least comfortable with giving a presentation in Dutch. For me, content was never a problem, but rather the ‘form’ – I’m usually quite nervous etc. So I got a lot of feedback and a lot of opportunity to try it, and most importantly, I got the experience so I knew I can do it (not perfectly, but I can do it) so that’s a great confidence booster.
However, when presenting in English, everything changes. Instead of being mindful of body language and how fast I talk and stressing important words, I’m thinking about grammar, sentence structure and pronunciation. English is really difficult in that aspect. For instance, compare the words ‘analysis’ and ‘analyze’. The stress is on a different syllable, even though the words are similar. So I manage to mess up and stress the wrong syllable – and then, halfway the word, I notice and I stop talking and think – what was I saying again? The same goes for the ‘difficult to pronounce’ words – those words using sounds and sound combinations not encountered in Dutch (the th sound, the word ‘mechanism’ (ARRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)) . Really, I’ve stopped and restarted a word countless times…
But… somehow, they liked the presentation. I felt like I’d done a horrible job. I actually felt rather awful. And yet, several people whose opinion I value, came to me and told me in private that they really thought it was good and interesting and etc.
Apparently, everyone apart from the people in my curriculum, really only care about the content. They are used to people stuttering in English, they are used to people not knowing which word to use – — because we (Dutch people) are all in the same boat regarding our language skills. So they have learned to disregard the form and listen to what the person is actually saying instead HOW.
And that was an important revelation for me. Yes, I really need to improve my English presenting skills (sorry, didn’t watch enough TV series without subtitles, like my husband and no I didn’t know that disguise isn’t pronounced like dis-gweeze) – but perhaps our curriculum has gone too far in only grading form and not content?
Yes, I’m still playing the harp!
Posted: 21 January 2012 Filed under: Harp Leave a comment »I realized that I’ve posted only two audio clips of myself playing the harp, so I decided to record a few more. That was about three weeks ago. This internship is really intensive! I’ve hardly got the time to practise regularly and I’d rather practise new pieces for my lesson than record the old ones. Anyway, I managed to record one, so here for your listening pleasure (or not!).
It’s Danses d’ Automne II. Even though I’ve spent many hours on it, it still sounds kind of lame, so my teacher and I agreed to move on to the next one. It still sounds a lot better than the previous recording, doesn’t it?
One of my major points of improvement (or whatever, I’m just using touchy-feely-medicine-speak) is dynamics. Somehow, I’m VERY BAD at it. During improvisation etc. it just comes naturally, but as soon as I learn a piece from sheet music, all dynamics go right out of the window and I manage to play pp parts extremely ff and vice versa. It seems as though I can’t do it anymore when I have to. Of course, I practise a lot on it, and then I manage to make parts sound a bit different from each other – but it’s nothing compared to how good harpists play. They make the piece come alive, transcend the notes – they can make an etude sound interesting an refreshing by their dynamic control. Yes, my teacher is such a harpist – it’s a real privilege to watch her play (and fortunately, she’s happy to play for me!). Sitting there and hearing the beautiful sounds she produces (do you know how awesome a pedal harp sounds when you hear it IRL instead of via youtube? It sounds beautiful) is a real inspiration. And I could blather on and on about the wonders of harp music and how awesome it is…
Things I’m currently working on: Danses d’ automne #3 (that one is DIFFICULT. Poor neighbours.), Rigaudon from Automates (compared to Danses, the Automates are easy) and Gigue from Marcel Grandjany’s petite suite classique.
That Gigue is really interesting. First of all, it’s actually quite easy, I can actually sightread it. BUT then the lever changes come. And suddenly, this easy-peasy piece of music is reduced to a wreck of dynamics (because, of course, when your left hand is flipping the lever, how can you still control the dynamics in the right hand?). So I will never mentally complain again that I don’t learn anything from these pieces – it’s probably a good preparation for when I finally get to play a pedal harp , after all, then you need to do pedal changes without messing up everything in your hands. The suite from Marcel Grandjany is also interesting because it contains interesting chord progressions (cadenzas?) because it was actually written for pedal harp (hence the need for lever changes). In the Gigue, it only goes to the harmonic minor and back to the normal minor (aeolian mode?), but in the Joyful Overture, it goes somewhere else (don’t know where, sorry for the lack of theory!) which was very interesting.
Sometimes, I wonder whether I’ll ever achieve my goal… but I convince myself that I need to keep practising, keep working and I’ll eventually get there.
