Comments on: String We Now Of Christmas

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:01:03 +0000

[quote comment="140667"]I know what it’s like to be related to a famous explorer.[/quote]

You’re thinking of Vasco da Gama. My wife is distantly realted to Vasco da Gamba, the pioneering leg surgeon.

[quote]Do you speak Portuguese?[/quote]

No, não uma palavra.

By: harmonicminer

harmonicminer — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:15:23 +0000

I know what it’s like to be related to a famous explorer.

Do you speak Portuguese?

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:51:03 +0000

[quote comment="140646"][quote comment="140641"] she is a viola da gambist[/quote]

I thought we rounded them all up and shot them during the great “Archaic Instrument Pogrom of 1974″[/quote]

Aha! Apparently several dozen escaped and are now living secret lives among us disguised as…ordinary string players. I think there’s a colony in Vermont somewhere.

By: michael lee

michael lee — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 22:47:39 +0000

[quote comment="140641"] she is a viola da gambist[/quote]

I thought we rounded them all up and shot them during the great “Archaic Instrument Pogrom of 1974″

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:24:13 +0000

Gosh, after reading the first part of the post, I really felt a need to jump to the defense of my string-player wife, but then she is a viola da gambist, so nobody would really care anyway…

By: Daniel Semsen

Daniel Semsen — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 05:36:14 +0000

Dave Takahashi is the bomb. In ‘02 he was the president of UCO or something, and he made T-shirts for all of the instrumentalists that said only…

“…and orchestra”

I love that dude.

By: Chad

Chad — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:17:40 +0000

I just have to say that I’ve had nothing but good references over the years from Dave Takahashi’s group of contacts. All of our experiences, and I know that Dave got some good work and gigs with not only me and our church (as I always pay guest players well) but also some recording and touring dates with Shelley (Tumes) on her gigs.

I think one thing that helped me avoid scorn (at least to my face) was that I didn’t bother trying to get articulations in there. I put really basic charts in front of them (I mean… they had notes and staffs and… well you know… accidentals and all) and then I would basically make the same speech.

“So… you guys figure out how to make this sound cool. The notes are cool, I know that, but I need you to mark up your own charts as we rehearse, cool?”

That’s worked for me… anyways.

By: Melody

Melody — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:46:25 +0000

So the cello auditions are done. They made us do blind auditions. This is hard because when they all sound pretty much the same you can’t remember small details to refer back to, like you know, the one with green jeans. Interestingly, two of the jr. high players had much better tone quality than any of the high school people. I kept waiting for somebody to come in an wow me, but no luck. Oh well, maybe I can plan to be out of town for next years’ auditions.

By: Stick

Stick — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 03:21:30 +0000

Attention all string players with attitudes:

http://www.garritan.com/cello.html

Check out the video demo down the page a little.

By: harmonicminer

harmonicminer — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 01:21:04 +0000

Thank you NOW.

But another possibility… instead of not selecting good players with bad attitudes, let them know you’re selecting them but DON’T appreciate their attitudes, and someone is going to be watching them….

It never hurts to increase a string player’s paranoia.

By: Jon Mann

Jon Mann — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:54:59 +0000

As a rhythm player who has often sat in the midst of string sections I agree 100%.

By: Chris Cox

Chris Cox — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 23:42:55 +0000

Dude. Preach. PRREEEEAAAACCCHHH! I’ve arranged quite a bit for string quartet, and each time my youthful exuberance is promptly squelched by the aforementioned “vibe”. Bitches is wack. I’m emailing you for these phone numbers.

By: Melody

Melody — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:47:57 +0000

I will be keeping this post in mind tomorrow morning as I judge jr. Hi and HS cellos for the county honor orchestra. I think I’ll choose the ones with the best attitudes. Some of those little buggers get really vain. By keeping the prima donnas out I will be doing a favor for the composer/directors of tomorrow. You can thank me later.

By: Moses

Moses — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:20:23 +0000

I’m surprised how much you like guitarists, considering you’re always making fun of my playing… :)

oh, forgive me. i’m a METAL guitarist… \m/

By: Strings » The Upward Way Press

Strings » The Upward Way Press — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:07:31 +0000

[...] Michael Lee explains it in his piece String We Now Of Christmas. [...]

By: Chris Hahn

Chris Hahn — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:57:08 +0000

at least you gave them music! 2 weeks ago, I was recording with a cellist in a vocal studio, and I literally sung her parts for her while we were there. Sing part, play it. Got it? Play it with the track. Got it? OK, track that one, and then I sing her next part and repeat. That’s what you get when you let the drummer run the recording session. :-)

By: Harmonic Miner

Harmonic Miner — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:29:30 +0000

Strings are just so hard to play well that people who get good have spent so much time alone in practice rooms that they don’t know how to relate to normal human beings, with, uh, lives. Occasionally they talk to other string players in the hallway outside the practice rooms.

A few manage to remain psychologically normal, and actually seem to like music.

It helps if you laugh at their jokes… if you can tell that they ARE jokes.

It really is about loving the music more than you love your station in life, whatever you think it is.

Cherish the moment, my friend…. they’re all too rare.

By: Stick

Stick — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 05:55:07 +0000

I was telling Mike the other day when he was telling me this story that the “attitude” comes across even in Polish. I was in Warsaw frantically writing arrangements for the 13 piece ensemble that was coming the next morning for 5 pop/rock tunes. And I was IMing Mike across the world having him help me with bowings and phrasing and stuff that I rarely have to think about when faking strings on the computer. Anyhoo, clearly my charts weren’t 1st class, but still that “look” was priceless.

At least in Poland, that 13 piece ensemble was something like $1200 for 5 tunes in 4 hours. No, not per person… total. Including the contractor. Crazy.

By: michael lee

michael lee — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 04:41:34 +0000

Daniel, 90% of my experience has been with those caliber players, film score pros from around the corner here in Burbank. I find that kind of onerous attitude all to prevalent among those pros.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 03:33:52 +0000

For the first eight paragraphs I was thinking “I guess we are not having strings next Christmas.”
I certainly hope all “our” players read to the end of Mike’s post so that we can plan on something moving for Good Friday that requires a capable and amiable string quartet.
“That Night, They Dreamed” was wonderful on December 23. I am amazed at the talent that was demonstrated here that morning.

By: Daniel Semsen

Daniel Semsen — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:43:24 +0000

Interesting. For the whole first 2/3 of this entry I was planning on contradicting you with a pleasant string experience I had myself recently…but then, alas, the last 1/3 made my point already. Well…blast…I’ll still share…but before I do, let me say that I have experienced the type of string players you’re talking about–but only at APU, with APU students…a long time ago…

Last Easter I got the $$ to hire a decent size string group (9 players) to play with my rhythm section. It took me a while to find anyone, and most of the people I called were already booked. I had gotten a list of players from a friend of mine that comes up here from San Diego to play on movie soundtracks all the time. I finally found one dude that was available, and in my exasperation, I asked him to contract the rest of the players (I don’t think he was bummed about earning a little extra cash).

He found the most professional, amazing sounding group of string players that I’ve ever worked with. These dudes were straight out of Burbank and Santa Monica. (One of them even had to cancel at the last minute because they got called to a film score session.) These were crazy-freaking-good players that were playing MY GIG!! They arrived a good 30 minutes before the call time, flipped through the music (a Clydesdale musical–need I say more), and played the hell out of it. It was by far the best string experience I’ve ever had.

IMHO-the attitude of the player is one of the main differences between the egotistical amateur, and the experienced professional.