Back to index of "this and that in my life" pages by Donald Sauter.
Dedicated to the proposition that every thought that's ever been thunk may be of interest to some nutcase . . .
ME: darr search; robinsonade
I've been down to LC once or twice since we spoke on the phone.
Still no great finds for you, unfortunately. Nothing came up
under "Darr" in any of the solo zither classes: M135, M136, M137,
M138, M139. (That doesn't mean he couldn't pop up in a
collection filed by someone else's name, say.) Also didn't find
any mention of the Mannheimer Zitherjournal or Zithersignale.
Haven't tried the chamber music possibilities yet, but would be
very surprised to come up with a hit.
The 1880 Ditson Robinsonade does have music. The English setting
to the music is by Nath'l Childs. It's 58 pages. I couldn't
risk copying it because the pages are so fragile. I was told
that the photodup division can handle such things, though. They
said you can find all the information for having copies made on
the LC website, so check that out. The call no. is
M1540.D22R6
author: Darr, A
TItle: Robinsonade
Hope that helps a little.
ME: One thing your pop arrangements do is raise in my mind again
the eternal (for me) question of when jazz eighths are
appropriate, or required. You call for them specifically in one
piece, but unless I'm way off the mark, they are needed in many
of the others. Some pieces seem like they could go either way.
Some seem to call out for jazz eighths, but then I find a
rhythmic figure like
_____
|-| |
which I have no idea how to handle in the flow of jazz eighths.
This is all just thinking out loud; I'm not bugging you for an
answer. Still, I'm so amazed at how something that seems so
fundamentally important is so rarely mentioned, never mind
discussed. For example, nobody ever says to play Joplin rags
with jazz eighths, but to play them straight is painful for me.
Another example that comes to mind is the intro section to Villa-
Lobos' Etude No. 8. I always singled this out as the ugliest
piece of music ever written. But then we discover that he
intended jazz eighths - and all of sudden it is *so* cool! So,
I'm baffled by all of this, but even more baffling is that I seem
to be the *only* person baffled by it all!
Again, thanks for the great batch of arrangements. Let me know
what else I can do for you at LC.
ME: am. guitar
Peter Danner's email is ... Do you know his "The Guitar In
America" collection, Bellwin Mills, 1978? The publisher did a
botch job on the reproduction of the facsimiles, but otherwise
it's very nice. I remember seeing a copy go on eBay once for a
dollar or two.
Did you ever find any of the early music tablature on my site?
Thought with your background in lute you might be interested. I
have pages of Guerau tablature, Campion, Mudarra, and I forget
what all. Just scroll down my index page to the tablature
section.
It was just an idle thought about you passing on your thoughts on
house music. I liked the way you put it. It's not like there's
a running discussion anywhere. In fact, the letters column in
the Soundboard has almost dried up, because of the internet I
suppose.
THEE: Re: THANKS
>Thanks so much for the stack of guitar arrangements!
You're welcome.
>You were overly generous - by far - but I won't argue!
It was easier just to flop the whole pile into the copy machine
and push the green button than it would have been to pick things
out.
>I jumped right in and am having a great time. They're a lot
better than most - if not all - the pop music arrangements I've
bought along the way.
Thanks.
>One thing they do is raise in my mind again the eternal (for me)
question of when jazz eighths are appropriate, or required.
If you had ICQ (see http://www.icq.com), it would be easy for me
to ship you quick and dirty lo fi recordings of excerpts, which
is easier and more fun than trying to explain my concepts. I
highly recommend ICQ.
>You call for them specifically in one piece, but unless I'm way
off the mark, they are needed in many of the others. Some pieces
seem like they could go either way. Some seem to scream for jazz
eighths, but then I find a rhythmic figure like
> _____
> |-| |
>which I have no idea how to handle in the flow of jazz eighths.
Which piece? On some of them do use straight 8ths, some not.
Sorry about the lack of notations. These were never intended to
go outside my room, but I am happy to share them. I like them.
>This is all just thinking out loud; I'm not bugging you for an
answer. Still, I'm so amazed at how something that seems so
fundamentally important is so rarely mentioned, never mind
discussed. For example, nobody ever says to play Joplin rags
with jazz eighths, but to play them straight makes me want to
barf.
I agree in the case of Heliotrope Bouquet, which I think of as
stripper music, and maybe others. However, some, like Lily Queen,
maybe my most favorite of all of them, is all elegance and grace
to me. The Lily Queen is a *lady*, kind sir, a true southern
belle, and she would *not* want to be associated with "*that*
kind of music!"
>Another example that comes to mind is the intro section to
Villa-Lobos' Etude No. 8. I always singled this out as the
ugliest piece of music ever written. But then we discover that
he intended jazz eighths - and all of sudden it is *so* cool!
Who has done a *good* recording of VL's Etude 8?
>So, I'm baffled by all of this, but even more baffling is that I
seem to be the *only* person baffled by it all!
No, I think you are the only person you know that's thinking
about what everybody should be thinking about. My favorite Joplin
player is Dick Hyman. Have you heard his Joplin collection?
>Again, thanks for the great batch of arrangements. Let me know
what else I can do for you at LC.
I think we are coming up on some dates when certain pieces I have
arranged lapse into the public domain, such as Ain't Misbehavin'
(1929) and some by Hoagy Carmichael, e.g., Stardust (1929) and
Riverboat Shuffle (1925). A facsimile of at least the cover page
showing the copyright date would place me on firm legal ground to
release recordings and sheet music. Would this sort of thing be
hard to find at LC? A corollary to this would be to find and send
me piano score or lead sheets for anything that you think might
make a good guitar piece, that was published in or prior to 1926.
I can't say I would produce anything right away, but it would go
into my collection of pending stuff.
Right now I am unable to tear myself away from Torroba's Castles
of Spain. I'm transcribing it off David Russell's brilliant
recording. It's like guitar lessons! With this method, it takes
not much more than a week or two to master pieces I could never
master from sheet music alone.
THEE:
I appreciate the help you have given. Also in a couple of months
I will be getting back to you regarding 19th century American
guitarists. Some of my favorites are Foden and De Janon.
ME: lc wgs mspap zip etc
Sure, it'd be great for us to get together with Hself at LC
sometime. I guess you directed him to my page on "tips for using
LC"? Although it could use a little updating, it's still more-
or-less everything I know about using LC.
Thinking about the WGS always makes me sad. I wasn't really sure
that it was sinking, though, because it always sounds like there
are good crowds at the meetings. Yeah, the newsletter has gotten
more "modest", but I don't remember much evidence that any locals
ever read our super-delux editions. :) Anyhow, I always wish
the WGS the very best, whether or not it ever works out that I
can jump back in.
Good news is that 3 weeks ago I started working at Seabrook
Elementary (a 9-minute walk) doing exactly what I proposed to the
principal - working all day long in one-on-two sessions with
*all* the 3rd-graders in an effort to get a standardized test
(MSPAP) score up. I love it.
That came to mind because it means that a Saturday would be best
for me at LC, although there are occasional no-school days, too.
Isn't that something about Risa and the GFA competition? And
then I was really bowled over to see in the latest Soundboard
that her partner Martha Masters came first! And I remember the
daysh, shonny, when they played for the WGS at Little Falls
public library...
THEE: It seems my memory of the Lily Queen was clouded. She does
let her hair down and do a bit of a soft shoe - genteel, of
course, in the late stages of the piece. Sorry if I caused any
confusion.
ME: Subject: battlin' accents
nothing else - just came up with a better subject line, is all.
THEE: No need to apologize about any lack of performance notes
for your arrangements - yours are as self-explanatory as
anybody's. But since you were wondering, the
_____
|-| |
rhythm appears in ... by .... Have I embarrassed myself thinking
that one should be jazzed?
Thinking back on me and jazz eighths, I remember a time when I
would read about the use of inegales in baroque music, and feel
like, geez, I'll *never* be smart enough to know for sure when
and where you could or should use it. Surely you have to have a
PhD in musicology... All that changed when I heard a recording
by Rafael Andes playing Baroque guitar music - and he played
*every* piece inegales (with the exception of *one* variation in
a Visee passacaille.) And it sounded right and good. Hey, that
gave me the courage to try it!
By the way, I forgot to mention how nice and neatly bound your
arrangements are now, with foldouts for the 3-pagers, even.
Nothing but the finest treatment for the music in my
collection...
THEE: Re: battlin' accents
Ah, so that's the real reason for the call, huh? Just wanna hear
my Midwestern acccent? Or are you expectin' an Okie/Texas d-r-
a-a-a-u-w-l? That being the case, keep in mind I grew up amidst
the cornfields of Ioway . . . We're from Ioway, Ioway . . .
That's where the tall corn grows. Drat, been away so long I
don't even remember the state song.
Okay, okay, so that's starting to sound like I walked 10 miles
to school through the 3-foot snow drifts line. Actually, I grew
up in the state capital--not capitol, shucks. (Not corn shucks,
either!)
. . . What the heck, I could sing "Oklahoma," not that anyone
could stand to listen.
All of which reminds me of a Japanese friend living in Yokohama.
He works for an American software company, but also has a rock
band that plays local gigs & has toured England twice. They're
sort of a Japanese-clone of the band Queen--called Kween.
http://www.kween.com/
Anyway, my friend Yohei Eto sings, "Yokohama . . . where the
wind comes sweepin' cross the bay. And the wavin' rice, it sure
smells nice when the typhoon blows your house away." Can't
remember it all, but it also substitutes "Geisha girl" for
"honey lamb" in " . . . every night my honey lamb and I." Ends
up "Y-O-K-O-H-A-M-A, Yokohama, ah so!"
So I have many weird friends . . .
And, yeah sure, I s'pose I can give one of 'em a call.
P.S. I never was much good at math, and that includes counting
very slowly. Wrote you a check yesterday, and it'll be in
tomorrow's mail.
THEE: Re: arr. s doidge 11-1-83
>No need to apologize about any lack of performance notes for
your arrangements - yours are as self-explanatory as anybody's.
But since you were wondering, the
> _____
> |-| |
Literal, straight 8ths and 16ths, quarter note = 108 or so.
There. I just recorded 39 seconds of it. Can you get ICQ? If not,
I can upload it to my web site, but that's more work for me. ICQ
is my preferred way to transfer these files.
>All that changed when I heard a recording by Rafael Andes
playing Baroque guitar music - and he played *every* piece
inegales (with the exception of *one* variation in a Visee
passacaille.) And it sounded right and good.
Sounding right and good is the final criterion. The rest is
something to keep music majors busy.
>By the way, I forgot to mention how nice and neatly bound your
arrangements are now, with foldouts for the 3-pagers, even.
Nothing but the finest treatment for the music in my
collection...
Yes, that does make it nice to play, doesn't it? I do that too. I
have 3 ring binders.
THEE: Lazy Luthiers?
Hello Donald...long time reader...first time righter.
I have a question for you...I have this friend, see...he's a
luthier in a very small (pop.400) very high (9318') mountain town
in SW Colorado. He's very talented...among his woodworking
skills he's also the local SAAB transmission mechanic, a
carpenter, an EMT, a public official, blah blah blah...but he can
never seem to get the "ball rolling" on his luthier practice. He
builds very few guitars annually due to his incessant
overgenerosity towards others mainly with is time...and can
barely pay his bills...he's recently fired up a website but it
hasn't netted him any business that's panned into anything...
Our town here needs successful cottage industries like his might
be if the inspiration came in the form of a check and
enthusiasm...so, sagacious one....what advice would you give this
soul as redirection towards his obvious talents?
ME: talking good
Just got around to your latest email this morning - still
laughing my fool head off! Of course, I don't have any sort of
accent at all. Baltimoreans have been accused of talking funny,
but it's all lies. The main thing is the way we say long o's. I
swear we're the only ones in the whole country who get it right.
It's a very proper, British, pure long o sound, nothing else.
Everybody else coughs it up from the back of the throat and adds
an l sound. In Philadelphia, they can't even understand me when
I say "hoagie". They say h#&%$awwl-gey, or some such. People
have busted a gut the way I say Coke. Apparently it's "Colk".
Same with holme and olnly, etc. Seems very odd to me...
It occurred to me that if you really, truly don't need or care
about perfect margins and maximum utilization of the letter-size
page, I could *almost* as easily make copies to letter- or legal
size paper, for which LC charges 10 cents. Like I say, I'm very
particular about my copies, and it breaks my heart to make
anything less than "perfect" copies, but you're the boss. I also
claim that a little extra effort and expense in making the 1st-
gen copies pays off when one gets around to copying them. So,
I'm not asking you to change your mind - and I sure hope you
don't! - but I thought you should know that copying to smaller
paper is an option if the price per page is a problem.
We didn't get around to "doggies". Now, I promise you that there
was never a time in my life when I didn't know that "git along
little doggies" was pronounced doh-geys. (Ok, maybe
1st grade.) I figured my American Heritage would back me up that
doggie is also an alternative spelling for doggy (poochy). In
fact, that turned out to be their *only* definition for it. For
the stray calf, they *only* give "dogy" and "dogie". Now I
suppose you'll say the dictionary musta been written by some dad-
blamed easterner...
They closed the schools today because of the snow, but could have
easily just opened a little later. The street's are practically
clear now (11 am).
Did I mention my little pal Andre from the previous school has
been shipped to the one I work at now (Seabrook elemetary)? It
was great to see him. He's been wreaking havoc - and I've been
enjoying every minute of it! Sometimes they gang up on him
3 on one - and he just mows 'em down! Still trying to lecture
him, fer cryin out loud! I don't know how many, if any, of the
people at school besides the principal know about how thick Andre
and I used to be.
P.S. I recently came upon the word "'em" in Henry Purcell's
17th C. opera Dido et Aeneas. Cool, eh?
ME: What's in store in my tape is a bunch of late 19th C.
American guitar pieces and arrangements. My rule was, no run-
through and only one take. That should have been enough for the
easy (relatively) things I was selecting from, but I only
confirmed what I've known forever, which is that there is no such
thing as an easy guitar piece; every one has surprises and
problem spots, not to mention impossibilities.
I'm working at another elementary school now, doing exactly what
I've wanted to - working all day with kids 2 at a time in
sessions of about 45 minutes. I'm being paid as a substitute. I
sure hope they can recognize the value in it, and it turns into a
salaried position eventually.
THEE: Re: talking good
>Just got around to your latest email this morning - still
laughing my fool head off! Of course, I don't have any sort of
accent at all.
Oh, yeah . . .?
>Baltimoreans have been accused of talking funny, but it's all
lies. The main thing is the way we say long o's. I swear we're
the only ones in the whole country who get it right. It's a very
proper, British, pure long o sound, nothing else.
I recall the first time I visited the Virginia Tidewater region
around Jamestown. The first person I ran into in a shop was
British. Definitely British. But so was the second . . . and
the third . . . and . . . Whaz goin' on here, I wondered. Have
the Brits reclaimed the colony? Had I never spent time in
Virginia previously, I'd probably have thought less of it. But
all my in-laws in Western Virginia sure sound different! God
knows, I'm still trying to break Hself of saying cee-ment with
the accent on the first syllable. No, no, no . . . I tell him,
its cuh-ment with the accent on the second.
Then there's the battle I had with a Long Island friend in
graduate school. When he insisted on talking about toinaments, I
pretended not to have a clue.
>People have busted a gut the way I say Coke. Apparently it's
"Colk". Same with holme and olnly, etc. Seems very odd to me...
I can probably side with olnly, though I'll admit it makes no
sense, but Colk and holme--no way. Philadelphians can't talk
either.
>For the stray calf, they *only* give "dogy" and "dogie". Now I
suppose you'll say the dictionary musta been written by some dad-
blamed easterner...
You read my mind . . . but, perhaps, I only know how to spell my
stray calves, not how to spell them.
THEE: Ahoy Donald!
>What's in store is, like I said (threatened), a bunch of late
19th C. American guitar pieces and arrangements.
I'm sure I'll be interested. Of course, I'm still curious about
your reaction to "Guitar Running Thru It.." - ie: is it
UNBEARABLE for a person, such as yourself, who plays your
repetoire? Recently purchased 2 guitar-playing CDs (unusual for
me) 1 by Loren Mazzacaine [sp?] Conners & 1 by John Fahey. I'd
imagine you must be familiar w/ Fahey. He just died.
The CD I got by him, "city of refuge", has a letter as part of
the liner notes in wch Fahey says he was never a hippie, never
took drugs, has total contempt for the folk revival, & has
nothing to do w/ new age music. He was very fervent about the
above points.
I'm still embroiled in fighting the hospital's criminal
overcharge of me as you see by the letter reproduced below. Wish
me luck!
February 23, 2001
Dr. Callaway,
On November 4, 2000, I was admitted to the Emergency Room because
of severe tooth pain. Every step of the way I explained that I
have no health insurance & that I'm poor & asked what my
treatment would cost. I explained that if it were expensive I
wouldn't be able to pay. No one would tell me what it would
cost.
I was taken to an examination room where I told an intern what
the problem was & asked for a painkiller. He looked
superficially in my mouth & couldn't see any source of the
problem. He got a doctor who showed him how to give me a shot of
local anesthetic - apparently for the first time. I asked the
intern how long it would last for & he told me 2 days - which was
how long of a respite I needed before going to the dental school
on Monday. This turned out to be not true - it lasted about an
hour & a half (& ultimately proved ineffective ANYWAY). Even I,
a non-doctor, know that no local anesthetic lasts for 2 days!
I explained that I don't take drugs, even aspirin, but that the
pain was making me desperate & the doctor advised that I get a
prescription for penicillin & a generic painkiller. I was
resistant but I took his advice because the pain was so
unbearable. When I once again expressed concern about what this
was all going to cost me, the doctor said "I don't care if I get
paid". Given that I'm poor partially because I usually do things
for free & give things away, I took that to be a sincere
statement - because I have a similar attitude at times.
THEN I GOT THE 2 BILLS!
UPMC Health System:
Emergency Room: $187.00
Operating Room: $437.25
Pharmacy: $311.75
Univ of Pittsburgh Physicians:
Diagnosis 525.9 Callaway ER Dept Visit, Level IV(CPT99284): $225.00
Diagnosis 525.9 Callaway Inject Nevr Blck, Level IV(CPT99284): $150.00
TOTAL: An astounding $1,311.00!!!!!
There was no "operating room" - it was a simple examination room.
There was no "diagnosis" - I told the intern what was wrong.
This bill could be called "cubist" - I'm being charged from every
angle possible: for being in the room, for the drug used (at
about a 10,000% mark-up, eh?!), for the injection of the drug,
etc.. To say that this is outrageous is an understatement! To
say that this is an overvaluation of your services is an
understatement! To say that this bill is a felony fraud is
completely accurate.
In a bad year (say 1996) this would represent about 5 to 6 months
of my earnings! In a 'good' year (say 2000) this would represent
about 6 weeks to 2 months of my earnings! All for about 15
minutes worth of 'work' in the ER! THIS BILL IS A CRIME! I've
been offered the opportunity to apply for 'charity' to pay this
bill. I'm not a trained dog who has any intention of jumping
thru flaming hoops so that I can be robbed! The 'charity', in
this instance, would be strictly for YOU & your utterly greedy
hospital system - for which, conveniently enough, NO ONE IS
RESPONSIBLE! That is, those who create these ridiculous charges
are conveniently hidden in the bureaucracy.
Assuming that you were the doctor who said "I don't care if I get
paid" (& I have a witness to this) & assuming that you said that
in all sincerity (you seemed to), the only honorable thing for
you to do is to eradicate this bill in its entirety or to reduce
it to something reasonable - say less than $100.00.
The public relations image of doctors is that they 'care' about
patients. The ugly reality is that the medical system,
especially as it exists in the United States, is more of a front
for a truly incredible & out-of-control lust for money & power
that almost completely ignores any deeper philosophical issues.
My visit to the ER has caused more stress & emotional damage to
me than it was worth. I'm so stressed out by these bills that I
now grind my teeth in my sleep more than ever - which contributes
to my teeth problems. Whether the visit to the ER helped me AT
ALL is debatable. I can only hope that I have the strength to
NEVER visit the ER again.
THEE: Deutchland uber alles
Donald, Would you have a moment to try your hand at translating
the attached message?
I lost control and ordered a book from Amazon Germany!
THEE: Reviving Alonso
About a year and a half ago, (I think) I, with your permission,
used your ascii versions of Tres Libros in producing a set of
files in Wayne Cripps' TAB format for free distribution at his
web archive of lute music. Recently I have begun to set those
files in Italian style tablature, which Mudarra would have used.
I'm including all his "goodies": textual comments, ^'s, dosde's,
dedi's, etc (and perhaps a couple of dos-ee-dohs!). This is
becoming almost a corrected facsimile, I guess.
Here are some questions I have about the original (I have yet to
see a facsimile), if you have time to help me:
Rests: Does mudarra use a symbol for a rest, or just a flag over
an empty space?
Fermatas: Does he use a rhythm flag along with a fermata, or a
fermata alone? A couple of pieces (No. 15, e.g.) have internal
fermatas: same treatment for those?
High numbered frets: Does he use an "X" or a "10" for the 10th
fret? Eleventh occurs in there somewhere also, but I forget in
which piece.
Rhythm flags: Diamond-headed, or just stems with flags?
Text: Are the abbreviations for "dedillo" and "de dos dedos" one
or two words ("dedi/dosde" or "de di/dos de")?
Finally: I'm not sure about your notes for No. 3: you wrote ""dos
de" ... These passages start at m5r5, m11r2, m14r2, m19r3,
m19r1, m30r1, m42r1, m49r1."
The two entries for measure 19 look like a possible typo.
THEE: what stuff?
What kind of "dumb stuff" were they making up about you?
ME: I thought the old pictures of Shreveport were great, and the
"Grand Concert" clipping. "Skilled and *Magnetic*"... I dig it!
(In fact, I have half a mind to find myself in WC's family tree
somewhere - even if I have to adopt myself in.)
As always, greatly enjoyed your last email. Mind if I share my 2
favorite typos. Or maybe you intended them, they were so
wonderful - very Lennonesque, actually.
"pooring rain"
and
"Know, you didn't tell me."
>So you talk faster than you write, you mean?
Pretty pathetic, eh? Especially considering how slow I talk.
Yesterday (Friday) was "Read Across America Day" and the schools
have outsiders come in to read to the kids. I was asked to stand
in for one reader, a lady from the board of education, who would
be delayed a little. I wanted to read The Diffendoofer School to
the 4th-grade class. It was one Seuss was working on when he
died. It's a goodie, plus it's so relevant, being about an
achievement test with dire consequences. I was really pleased to
find it because I didn't remember the title (from when I read it
to a 2nd-grader last year) and wasn't really sure if it was
actually by Seuss. Then, I remembered one of my favorite poems,
The Ballad Of The Harp-Weaver, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and
thought that would provide good "balance". Lo and behold, I
found it on the library shelf with probably less than a foot of
poetry books. Anyhow, the lady from the school board showed up,
and I was preempted. But I noticed her looking over the books on
the table and thought she might like a suggestion. She was
appreciative of my recommendations, and went off with the 2
books. After she came back to the library, the first thing she
says is, "That was *really* a sad poem!" Whoops. What can I
say? It's fun to have a good cry every now and then. I hope
none of the kids took it too hard. I have to say that I've had a
very poor won-loss record relative to reading recommendations in
my life.
ME: Right now I working on putting Anthoine Carre's complete
baroque guitar book up on the web in modern tablature. I copied
an original down at the Library of Congress.
ME: Subject: hoagy
Thanks for going to the trouble to record a sample of Good Ol'
Boys, but my equipment is really quite primitive. If there were
any way I could hear it (which I doubt) I'd have to have a
computer whiz standing at my side. In fact I think there should
be a class action suit where everyone who ever bought any
microsoft product is awarded a full-time computer whiz who lives
in a cage next to the computer.
Forgot to mention that I'd be happy to look into some of the old
"standards" that will be entering the public domain soon. In
particular, I'd like to start with Hoagy Carmichael. I'm a bit
of a Hoagy fan myself, having been exposed to him by some
recordings of George Harrison, who is a Hoagy fan.
I'm so impressed the way you can learn guitar music from
recordings. Me, I'm locked into black marks on lined paper -
which has given me plenty of fun over the years. Still it would
be nice to be wired so that such-and-such a sound sends this
finger to that spot on the fingerboard. Seems like magic to me.
About binding music, all I can say is that a plastic comb binding
machine *changed my life*. It's great for lots of other things,
too. One of the best $130s I ever spent.
ME: mando orch
Thought I'd give you an idea of the sort of things I've found at
LC relative to mandolin orchestras and mandocellos.
As far as your main wish is concerned - works by Bickford, Munier
and Calace featuring mandocello - we might come up empty handed.
I've been through the original compositions for solo mandolin
class (M132, just 3 boxes) with no hits.
Then I started at the beginning of the mandolin orchestra class
(M1360). I figured that almost every piece would have a
mandocello part, figuring the mandocello was a basic part of the
orchestra. Actually, only a small percentage of the works have a
mandocello part. That confuses me. In a modern mandolin
orchestra, are the mandocello parts generally modern additions,
even of the music was originally for mandolin orchestra? And it
makes me wonder if the relative rarity of original mandocello
parts makes those pieces of interest to you.
For example in the A- box, only one piece called for mandocello -
The Diamond City by Acker. (It also had a cello part.) In the
Bs a few more showed up. There was a busy arranger named Marteau
who transcribed Beethoven, Bizet, Borodin and Brahms (among the
Bs). His editions were published in Paris. It looks like I only
jotted down one date, 1952 [1852?], which I suppose is
representative.
A few of the original compositions for mandolin orchestra with
mandocello would be:
Almeria, by Bara, european. (vc or luth)
Paris-Simplon, by Baraldi, paris.
Con Amour, Beaumont. (mc in universal notation)
Das Geheimnis, by Blume. (mandolon-cello)
etc.
Do you need anything from among that sort of material? If you
ever wanted to spend a day rooting through it yourself, let me
know. If using LC sounds intimidating, I assure you it's not.
Also, I asked my mandolin friend about mandocello, and he gave me
the name Jeff Dearinger. Are you in contact with him?
ME: still 25 cents to the $?
Yesterday (Friday) was "Read Across America Day" and the schools
have outsiders come in to read to the kids. I got pressed into
service because of a cancellation and read a couple of books to a
2nd-grade class. The first was a snoozefest called "Paper Boy"
(whatever that is anymore) and the second was a Seuss book about
a seussian birthday, which was fun and appropriate. The kids had
the idea to sing Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss at the end. It
rollicked.
This is classical??? "At Her Very Best is an [nana mouskouri]
anthology of all her biggest hits, including The White Rose of
Athens, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Only Love, Never On A Sunday
and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes."
I think the second email from amazon.de was just a newsletter,
which I tried to desubscribe you from. The first one, I'm still
working on. Sounds like they just need some tcherman marks from
you.
THEE: Re: still 25 cents to the $?
Please don't wait on my account. Besides we're all going to be
snowed in for weeks starting tomorrow, anyway.
Amazon wants money? Hmmm. I don't like the sound of that.
Thanks for your labors on my behalf.
I was surprised that Nana has crossed into the classical realm.
It sounds like someone should write a letter to "The Times" about
it, not that I begrudge her her success.
THEE: Since you know a Tolson, I'm also sending the Tolson family
records I received from distant cousin Leslie in Laurel. Who
knows; perhaps you know one of my other mispucha. In case you're
no more up on your Yiddish than I, you can translate that as a
very distant relative. Just one of my culture lessons from NY
friends.
THEE: The 4th Annual Laxton's Superb Awards
Congratulations! Your site has been chosen as one of the five to
receive a nomination for Best Beatles Journalism Site in the 4th
Annual Laxton's Superb Website Awards.
The awards, begun in 1998 by The Beatles site at About.com, are
the most prestigious Beatles Website awards on the net. We
receive thousands of votes a year and are supported by some of
the net's most popular websites.
THEE:
>As always, greatly enjoyed your last email. Mind if I share my
2 favorite typos. Or maybe you intended them, they were so
wonderful - very Lennonesque, actually.
> "pooring rain"
>and
> "Know, you didn't tell me."
Wow, I truly wish I could claim that these were intentional! My
students would get green or purple ink for these! (I don't use
red.)
>Then, I remembered one
of my favorite poems, The Ballad Of The Harp-Weaver, by Edna St.
Vincent Millay, and thought that would provide good "balance".
... After she came back to the library, the first thing she says
is, "That was *really* a sad poem!" Whoops. What can I say?
Man, *that* poem is a tear-jerker, though for sad weaving poems
my favorite is Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott." (Would it be more
of a tear-jerker if "Lady of Shallot"???) Yours would be far
more relevant to the kids, however.
I came across terrific items on ragtime dances (e.g. the
"scandalous" turkey trot, bunny hug, and grizzly bear), and I
made a delightful, fortuitious discovery. I'd meant to look at a
1912 Houston Post microfilm, but somehow grabbed 1914 instead.
Realizing my mistake, I started to rewind the film and return it
to its box when I couldn't resist reading the comics. What was
this? "That Irresistible Rag--They Must Dance"--a regular Sunday
comic strip. Amazing stuff, really; each week's strip centers on
a stereotypical black with little to do but play rags on his
flute. Each time he begins to play, another character or
characters (all varying from strip to strip) begin to dance,
sometimes getting into trouble as a result and ending up chasing
the music-maker, other times doing something that results in a
bit of good luck for him. For instance, one comic depicts the
flute player reclining under a bridge playing his flute as a
Chinese coolie-type passes overhead, a bag slung over each
shoulder. Hearing the music, the Chinaman comments, "Wee!
Somebody play velly fine lagtime!" In the next frame, he begins
to dance, and adds, "Gee! Golly! Can't make foots kleep still!"
In the next frame, he's really gettin' down, and, as a result,
drops both bags. The bags spill their contents--two chickens--on
the ground beside the man under the bridge. He snatches them up
and runs as the Chinaman chases him. "No chink in de worl' kin
run as fas' as ah kin wen ah's got chicken undah mah ahm!" he
exclaims. Imagine printing the likes of this in today's paper!
THEE: I was thinking more along the lines of other composers:
Fats Waller, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rogers, George
Gershwin, etc etc. Even Victor Herbert, Franz Lehar, Kurt Weill,
etc. etc.
Stardust and Ain't Misbehavin' go public in 2004. A reasonable-
sized sheetmusic/CD/MP3 project of 20 songs takes 1.5 to 2 years,
probably less in this case since some are already written. I
could absorb license fees on maybe four songs at $35/song,
that's $140. Still couldn't publish sheet music, but doesn't
matter because there isn't any money in sheet music anyway.
Actually, with my promotional capabilities, there isn't any money
in any of this, but it's fun to do.
>I'm so impressed the way you can learn guitar music from
recordings.
I guess I got that from years of playing in pickup jazz groups on
flat-picked electric guitar. Also, one of my guitar teachers made
me transcribe Johnny Smith solos from LPs. Life is much easier
now, using the computer in loop mode instead of picking up the
needle a hundred times per measure!
>About binding music, all I can say is that a plastic comb
binding machine *changed my life*. It's great for lots of other
things, too. One of the best $130s I ever spent.
That's an interesting thought. I like coil binding. What do you
think about that?
ME: for you an email yourself would like it gives
I suppose it's way too little way too late, but here is a
"translation" of amazon.de's message. I tried to shape up alta
vista's computerized translation, but one problem is the confused
tumble of little words in German - pronouns and prepositions and
such. The big problem is that I have a hard time understanding
business transaction instructions in perfect English (e.g. ebay's
final seller's fee.)
I know Nana has recorded classical things, and quasi-classical
things like a song version of the famous guitar piece by Tarrega
called Recuerdos de la Alhambre (yikes, I'm not sure of the
spelling, after having known this piece for 30 years!) So that's
why I'm baffled that she made the classical charts for a pop
record.
Saw a very nice symphony concert at U of M's new concert hall
last night. Finlandia rocked as never before.
Subject: Ihre Bestellung bei Amazon.de (#302-3169159-4681613)
Subject: Your order with Amazon.de (# 302-3169159-4681613)
Danke, dass Sie bei Amazon.de bestellt haben. Thanks, that you
ordered with Amazon.de.
Ihr Einkauf lautet wie unten aufgefuehrt. Your purchase reads as
specified below.
Wenn Sie sich wegen Ihrer Bestellung mit uns in Verbindung setzen
moechten, senden Sie unsbitte eine E-Mail an
bestellstatus@amazon.de (oder antworten Sie einfach auf diese
Nachricht).
If you would like to set because of your order with us in
connection, transmit to us please a E-Mail to
bestellstatus@amazon.de (or answer simply to this message).
Bitte beachten Sie, dass Sie den aktuellen Stand Ihres Kontos und
Ihrer Bestellungen jederzeit abfragen koennen, indem Sie den Link
"Mein Konto" am oberen Rand der Web-Seite anklicken.
Please you note that you can test the current status of your
account and your orders at any time, by clicking the "my account"
link at the top margin of the web page.
Ebenso koennen Sie verfahren, wenn Sie noch nicht versandte
ME: Subject: mudarra tab
Sure, I'd be glad to help. My first idea was to whip up answers
to your questions. Then my second idea was to send copies of
relevant pages. Then the best idea came - why not loan you the
book? I'd be more than happy to. It weighs a little under a
pound so, sending it back would cost $1.30 (unless for some
reason the package goes over a pound, which would cost $1.75.)
Yes, you were right about the M19 typo. The second one should
have said M23. You will see that sometimes dosde was run
together, and sometimes "dos de"; and the same with dedi. You'll
have fun looking up the answers to your other questions. For
example, neither of your guesses for Mudarra's rests was right!
How does he do it (heh heh)?
My computer equipment is still primitive, but one day I'll see
your good work with the Mudarra tab. I probably mentioned this
before, but if you have any interest in any of the other tab on
my site, I'm sure you would have a much easier time working with
my input files rather than the ascii tab itself. Right now I'm
working on putting up the complete baroque guitar book of
Anthoine Carre.
THEE: mudarra tab
I am delighted and awed by your willingness to loan me
your book!
Thank you!
THEE: Re: for you an email yourself would like it gives
Thanks for the...hold on, I'm listening to the final fuzz on
"John, John (Let's Hope for Peace)."
Ah, there that's better.
Thanks for the translation. So, what do you think, am I getting
my book or no?
I just ordered a John Tavener (sp?) CD from the Musical Heritage
Sale. It's part of their warehouse blow-out sale and costs
$4.24.
THEE: Subject: Mudarra credits
For your consideration: My intention with the Tres Libros files
is, as before, to have them posted on the Web for free
distribution. This "corrected edition" of the pieces being based
on your scholarship and musicology, I want to be sure you are
given proper credit.
I hope I'm not making to big an issue of all this; afterall,
there're no big bucks or career boosts involved here, just
sharing.
THEE:
Since I'm a self-trained lutenist turned guitarist, my technique
is lousy. A lot or what I've seen of say, Foden, for example
(mostly from Doug Back's two Mel Bay books) are beyond me. The
selections you made for the WGS newsletter are pretty much on a
par with my skill, and more important, I find them entertaining.
Maybe I should just say "Send me a bunch of your favorite finds."
On the other hand, I tend to have completist tendencies, so I'm
tempted to say "How about a full photocopy of "Superb Guitar
Solos", or "I just lost a buy of 'Brainard's Instumental
Collection' from Alibris, how's about a copy of that?"
I noticed several pieces in you LC list that were interesting,
but I don't know how organized you are, and I resist treating it
like a catalogue. I'm interested in the Hayden/Strauss "Blue
Danube" that you list, to make a pair with his arr. of "Pizzicato
Polka", and the Fiddle tunes by him are intriguing by title; I'll
be guided by you as to their musical worth. Most of the Hayden
I've seen on American Memories seems hardly worth the trouble.
As a child-care teacher, I could help but notice the "Twinkle
Little Stars Schottische (or was it Polka?)" Holland seems
interesting, but mostly for his race and bio., since his music
doesn't seem markedly different from his Euro-American
colleagues.
Mostly, I envy your proximity to LC and your apparent time to
make use of it, but I don't want to inconvenience you. I am
trying to put together a program of parlor music to take to
historical societies etc., so anything you can conveniently send
me would be much appreciated. From the small sample I've seen,
we seem to have pretty convergent tastes, so ultimately I'll
trust your judgement. If you say it's ok, I'll look over the
catalog again to see if I spot any other specifics.
THEE: webpage
I went browsing through your web page the other day but couldn't
remember how you'd told me to access the story about Andre. I
liked the rest of the material a lot, particularly the Beatles
stuff that my browser allowed me to see (my computer's been
crashing too often for me to get too much mileage out of it).
The Yellow Submarine note was particularly entertaining; I've
long thought they had something more to do with it than a few
knocked-off songs (though I found it interesting that Only A
Northern Song was recorded in the Sgt. Pepper sessions, according
to Volume 2 of the Anthology).
When I took the GRE in December, 1973, I discovered a mistake in
the Math section, and wrote the ETS without any success. The
problem involved a sequence of numbers, as follows: 2, 3, 5, 8,
and the question was, name the next number in the sequence. 12
was a possible answer but 13 wasn't, and any good Fibonacci fan
would have spotted the slice of that sequence. I was pretty
appalled...by the way, the last question on the exam is still one
of my favorite low-math problems: Take a shoebox of dimensions a
for height, b for length, and c for width. What is the length of
the longest diagonal in the box? I of course did not know any
formula, having not taken a single math class successfully since
my junior year in high school, but I had oodles of time at my
disposal, and was able to formulate the equation, D (the length
of the longest diagonal) squared, equals a squared plus b squared
plus c squared. It just struck me as so perfect...
THEE: Subject: Scudder is Moving!
All,
How many moves can a guy make in one month? Well i guess i'll
find out. This month, i am moving my home address, phone number,
ISP, email address, job, and job email address. So far, i don't
have a new job yet. (I've just been downsized at Oracle. Funny,
i don't feel any shorter.) But i can give you the rest.
"Now if i could only recall which box i put my sanity in."
"I remember it was a very small box."
"Ewwww. How did that box get so mangled? I hope that wasn't it."
THEE: Subject: Having a baby
Hi Everyone,
Hself is "with child". We just found out a few days ago. We
expect the "wee one" to arrive sometime in November. We're
really excited. All I can think is WOW (which is MOM upside
down)!
ME: Subject: mudarra project
I like the "non-printed header" form of credit. I wouldn't want
my name up in lights near Mudarra's since what I did was sort of
"mindless" (not that it didn't take time and effort and a brain.)
How would this sound:
"First-pass conversion from original tablature by Donald Sauter."
Would that make sense to the average user? I think of it as a
"translation" or a "conversion" rather than an "edit".
THEE: Subject: 10 11 21 32...
It would take way too much to give full context, but a funny
thing happened today at school which related to my experience at
the previous school, Glenridge Elementary. I got a reprimand
(very mild, though) for taking a student who was under in-school
suspension to her music class. You will see that doing the exact
opposite is one of the things that set off the principal at
Glenridge - *not* taking Andre to his "specials" once he made it
to the suspension room.
Well, while I'm here and thinking about it, might as well mention
how your Fibonacci sequence brought back a Glenridge Elem.
memory. On the last day of the previous school year the
brightest boy in the 4th-grade class I worked in wanted me to
sign his autograph book (is that what they're called?) I made up
a problem for him to solve. It was 2 sequences intertwined and I
asked for the next 2 numbers in the sequence. Well, one of the
sequences I used was 2 3 5 8..., thinking Fibonacci. (Maybe I
did something like 2 1 3 2 5 3 8 4 __ __) I thought he had
goofed up when he continued with 12 5... but then I saw that 2 3
5 8 12 was a perfectly valid alternate answer. I was surprised
that such a developed sequence could have 2 equally good
"recipes".
I'd like to read some of your stories. Most recent discovery is
a writer for kids or young adults named Elaine Konigsberg. Just
finished 2 books by her and I was thoroughly entertained and
impressed.
THEE: Subject: The Whale
Took delivery of "Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas" by John Taverner
tonight. That's Taverner with two r's. He died in 1545. I'm
thinking this is probably not the John Tavener who signed with
Apple. Oops!
Is this the worst mistake I've made with my album collection this
week?
THEE: Last night, as I was finally sorting and arranging the huge
stack of music you sent a while back, I noticed that it all falls
between 1902 and 1907, with a very few exceptions from the 1920s.
That's *very* strange considering much of the work I know of
comes later, particulary through the mid 19-teens. Makes me
wonder where it's hiding at the LC.
Tomorrow I have lunch with an 83 year old friend at her house.
She taught at the college for many years, but has now been
retired for a few. Not an early retirement, though! In the days
when I was stay-at-home mom with young kiddos, I enrolled in her
cultural geography class as something to do. I may have told you
about that earlier, so I won't go into it again. Anyway, she's a
hoot--very lively & interesting. We were scheduled for lunch
last Friday, but her house was broken into a couple of days
earlier, & she postponed the event. Since her uncle was Joseph
Stern, Scott Joplin's NY publisher, I'll take her copies of the
Stern violin parts you sent. I think she'll get a kick out of
them. Last time we got together, just before my semester began,
I heard her stories about spending weekends at Uncle Joe's when
she was a kid. He used to send his limo to the "poor" side of
Long Island to pick her up.
THEE: Tres Libros
Recieved the book today; I'm surprised at its small size. Makes
for lots of page turns!
Your new tab printing looks good: I envy your ability to make a
program to do just what you want.
THEE: Subject: Beatles/Playboy Site
Bless you for this collection! And god bless Al Gore for
inventing the internet to make it all possible. I'm writing a
book that I'm three weeks past deadline on, and I'm a bit
frantic. I was using an interview I did with Jim Petersen of
Playboy, and he'd referenced letter a father had written to the
Advisor about his daughter's obsession with the Beatles. Jim
paraphrased the Advisor's response, but I knew it wasn't right.
I mean, *I* understood what he meant, but it would be easily
misunderstood by others. It seemed a long shot, but I did a
Google search for the phrase "Playboy Advisor" plus the word
"Beatles." And there you were -- and there was the very letter,
and Playboy's response. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
THEE: Subject: Andre
Your essay on Andre brought back a flood of memories of my
experience teaching at ... in 1989-90. In many ways, it sums up
very eloquently why I am not a teacher these days. The sad truth
is that I'm a pretty fair teacher, maybe better than I am as a
lawyer (though I am ethical, and that is something a bit lacking
in many of my colleagues). But when I sat down and thought
things through, I realized that if I was forced to operate in an
adversarial position daily, I might as well have a chance of
getting paid for it.
At ...I got very little support from the administration, not
much guidance from my department head, no cooperation from the
bulk of my students, and damn little help from fellow department
members. I was the new kid on the block, and was perceived as a
threat. I wear that proudly, because ultimately I was a threat
to their complacent system.
... is an all girls school. Believe me, there was no touching
while I was there, with one exception. I had had a rough evening
of it with parent-teacher conferences, and the next afternoon I
was still feeling the effects of a long night. I needed to run
off some mimeos in the copy room across the hall, so I had one
student lead the class in a discussion while I ducked out. One
student asked if she could come with me, and I could tell that
something was up. I agreed, but made her stand in the doorway
(students weren't allowed in the copy room) while she talked to
me. She asked if her mom had been in to see me, and it soon
emerged that her parents had had a knock-down drag-out right
before our meeting, complete with dishes flying and a pretty
intoxicated father. I said something along the lines of, you
must be worried that they're heading for a divorce, and she burst
out in these gut-wrenching sobs. I knew she needed a hug, but
instead, mindful of my job, I went over to her and patted her on
the shoulder once or twice.
I could easily have been fired for this. That afternoon I went
to a bookstore and got a book on what kids can do if a parent is
drinking, put it in a brown paper bag, and gave it to her before
school the next day, telling her to keep it at school, but that I
would find an empty room for her if she wanted to read it. She
did so. Of all of my students from that year I think about her
and my best student the most. Never did find out whatever
happened to her.
Anyway, teaching is a thankless job made worthwhile only by
seeing that light bulb go on in your student's heads while you're
in class. And it's tough to substitute that for decent pay.
One unrelated point, having to do with your $100 words. I'm
certain that somewhere in your Beatle entries you use the word
Yesterday, which is noticeably absent from your list...
Well, thanks for an enjoyable read. I'll try to get some of my
old writing to you (by now it really is old), but it may take a
while--I'm not great on followthrough.
THEE: Subject: Beatles game...
I just found your Beatles game page... I searched altavista for
"authorized allan bradley distributor" but your page showed up.
Go figure. Anyways, this is more for my dad than me. I was
going to print out the questions and answers, but I see that they
are not in order unfortunately. Maybe you did that on purpose.
I noticed that you might have a few orginal games to "give away".
That would be fabulous if you still have some. I am sure we
could find a suitable free will donation. If one is available
please let me know asap.
THEE: Mudarra Fun
I'm making great progress in "cleaning up" my Mudarra Italian
files, especially since I'm able now to check them against other
Italian tab.
Discovered something interesting in AM22 (pavana for guitarra).
There is an instruction at the very end: "De aq(ui) a los tres
puntillos." (from here to the three dots). Lo and behold, there
are three dots in a triangle configuration under m35 or m36r1!
[The chords are 0232 and 5333 in that measure--there appears to
be some confusion in the count]. It's like a dal segno, I guess.
THEE: la folia
fast
faster
faster
desperate
he wishes the memory
pure
unprepared
is he in a dream? where is she? the wind blows. ice pellets in springtime.
the wind swirls. curls. wild.
desire
desire
desire
she is gray. she is black. she is a swan in a cloud. she is the breeze
that kisses his eyes. she is a memory from long ago.
she does not exist. she never did.
he weeps for her. he weeps for a desire. he realizes not for whom he weeps.....
he loves her. he always has. he always will...he is in love with a dream
ann of hearts
THEE: Subject: Oh yob!
Wow, thanks for the e-mail from the Yalp researcher. Do you feel
like your mighty labors have been worth it? You should. Good
job! I didn't quite get what the book was that she's writing.
Where can we advance order it?
Yesterday (Monday) morning, my boss came into the office, sat
down, and launched into a discussion of the political climate
that prompted Verdi to write "Nabucco." What is it that makes
people want to tell me about opera? I guess it's my lucky face.
I took the car in for a wash on Sunday. Even after a "Super
Wash" ($9.95 with coupon), I can see traces of the egg on the
side of the car.
I note that "Candy" is released on DVD this week. Do I need it?
THEE: Subject: Tres Libros Project
I'm just about finished with my "corrected facsimile" of Tres
Libros.
I'm tempted to say I'm impressed with how few errors are
in the original, but that's really rather demeaning of 16th c.
artisans. Just because their technology wasn't as high order as
ours certainly doesn't mean they were stupid. On the other hand,
I'm somewhat surpised that the original files that you generated
in ascii format have gone through Mike Graham's convert.bas,
Wayne Cripps' TAB, Alain Veylit's StringWalker, and back again
through TAB with little change in the basic data. However, more
corrections were needed than in the original because of different
programs' inability to translate particular codes. Maybe any
continuity of data through the many phases of this project is a
reflection of my own (dare I admit it?) rententivity.
THEE: playboy advisor/beatles
Thanks for the kind words (about my Beatles/Playboy page.) I was
hoping it would inspire other Beatle fans to do the same thing
for *all* contemporaneous Beatle articles and references in the
media, but no luck. I also had tried everything in my power to
get permission from Playboy to republish all the Beatle mentions
in facsimile form, figuring it would be a very good seller, but
no luck there either.
If it doesn't add too much of an extra burden, I'd be curious to
see how you used the Playboy Advisor letter in your work some
day. Thanks.
THEE: Subject: little beatle game
Thanks for the interest in my Beatles Q&A game. Yes, I scrambled
the order of the answers so that you wouldn't see the answer to
the next question. How much fun would that be? :-)
And yes, I have extra copies. How does $4 sound? That includes
S&H. If that sounds like highway robbery for a little game in
card deck format, 3 bucks would do. I hope you're not afraid to
send cash - little checks aren't worth the trouble.
THEE: Re: playboy advisor/beatles
Sure. Here's the passage. A pity it'll lose its formatting in
the e-mail process, but you'll still get the idea:
There was also a certain New York sensibility about Playboy, a
cultivated cool that had very little to do with naked women and
much to do with simply being too imperturbable and in command to
ever have to make compromises. "Hefner always compared Playboy
to the Sear's catalog," says Jim Petersen. "We were a dream
book, and sex was only one of the dreams. For the first ten years
of its life Playboy was a jazz magazine with naked women in it.
We didn't discover rock and roll until about 1963."
This jazz mentality suited Barry just fine. After all, he'd
never been interested in the pop scene, preferring the ever-cool
classics to the seemingly transitory sensationalism of pop music
and culture. For years, Playboy felt exactly the same way. "My
daughter and a number of the other kids in the neighborhood have
formed a real cult over the Beatles..." wrote a concerned father
in a letter to the Advisor that appeared in the March 1965
edition of Playboy. "If they weren't so darned serious about
this, it would be pretty funny. But when Susan doesn't go to
church with us because they are having their own service in their
Beatle church, I start to worry a little. Worst of all, we have
to listen to that awful music over and over and over. What
should we do?" The Advisor's answer was reassuring, if not
prescient: "'And this, too, shall pass away,' said a sage about
another plague at another time. We suggest you keep cool until
the Beatle bugaboo likewise passes away, as it most assuredly
will. In the meantime, when Susan plays her records, do your
listening with earmuffs. Yeah, yeah, yeah." Oops.
"Our tastes and sensibilities were very much with the jazz world
and the showbiz world, the Frank Sinatra world, the Miles Davis
world," says Petersen. "I mean Hefner was an urban man at a time
when most of America had left the city for the suburbs. So he
was sharing the city with jazz musicians and showgirls. So
[Playboy taught the reader] how to be a man, how to be a success,
how to break the mold, how to be an iconoclast, how to do it your
way. This was the message on every page of the magazine. And
Barry Manilow just got swept up in that."
Indeed, Barry's letter to the Playboy Advisor, which appeared in
the December 1965 issue of the magazine, seemed heartfelt and
sincere, even though he neglected to mention he was married:
Music has always been a vital part of my life. Due to
financial difficulties, however, I had to stop attending music
school and accept a job at a leading radio and television
network. Through enormous good fortune, I have been promoted
very rapidly and at the age of 22 I hold a junior executive
position with a very generous salary. The only drawback is that
this position has absolutely nothing to do with music.
During these past few years, between working and attending
college, I have managed to musically direct and conduct three
full-scale musicals at various theater workshops in New York. I
now have an offer to take this last musical out of town for a
period of six to eight months at a good salary with the promise
of a permanent position as a musical director.
My musical wild oats are screaming to be sown, but it means
giving up my secure job. Leaves of absence are rare, so it
looks like it's either one or the other. Any suggestions?
B.M., Brooklyn, New York
Playboy's answer was swift and certain:
Follow your real interest and take the musical out of town.
At your age , your financial responsibilities are few. If you
remain in the secure job, you may regret for the rest of your
life that you didn't sow your notes. You can always go back to
radio and television: your ability was recognized once; chances
are it would be recognized again if not with your former
employer, then elsewhere.
"I look at that as one of our great letters," says Jim Petersen,
"because we read him correctly and we said, fly. Take this
chance." But Barry Manilow wasn't yet ready to try his wings, at
least professionally . Personally, his marriage was coming to
its inevitable end. In fact, by the time Barry's letter appeared
in Playboy, Barry and Susan had parted, and Susan had filed for
an annulment, charging Barry with fraud. They'd been married
just 18 months.
ME: Subject: alonso
Don't worry about rushing the Tres Libros back to me. Take your
time.
Good catch on the "dal segno" in AM22! I hope it goes back to
M35, which sounds better to me.
That sample of non-ascii tab I enclosed was actually produced by
my first tablature program. A few years later I modified it
(rewrote, more like it) to produce ascii tab, so I could put
tablature up on the web in an instantly accsessible form. The
original tab program was written in BASIC on a 286 (which I would
still be using if computer batteries were replaceable, grrr...
I'm up to a 486 now.) The tab was printed out on a cheap
Panasonic dot matrix printer (which I *am* still using.)
Nowadays, I only produce my tab in the ascii format. I can make
it look a little better by running it through another program
which converts the characters - and | to standard graphic
characters that connect and give solid lines.
ME: clouds
Can't say's as I'm hankering to see Candy. I'd be happy to let
that one stay on my "to do" list indefinitely.
Got a kick out of the article about opera in English. Nobody but
the critic can understand 5 consecutive words, ha ha ha... Did I
mention Ha"nsel und Gretel was in English with English surtitles
in Baltimore? Might as well have been sung in Urdu.
I'd be terrified to meet your boss. Tell him that I think opera
is an "exotick and irrational entertainment." That sounds pretty
intellectual, no?
I just completed my first ebay auction for a homemade
hexaflexagon. I used the [You Yourself] technique: start at a
penny and let the chips fall where they may. It went for a
penny.
Going up to Baltimore today. Plans are to make my way up to the
Towson Armory for a used book sale. From 6 to 8, all you can
carry for 2 bucks.
P.S. Do you read poetry? What does this mean? Does it have to
do with do with my La Folia guitar tablature? Or is she calling
me something? Who is Ann of Hearts? Should I be heading for the
hills?
la folia
fast
faster
faster
desperate
he wishes the memory
pure
unprepared
is he in a dream? where is she? the wind blows. ice pellets in springtime.
the wind swirls. curls. wild.
desire
desire
desire
she is gray. she is black. she is a swan in a cloud. she is the breeze
that kisses his eyes. she is a memory from long ago.
she does not exist. she never did.
he weeps for her. he weeps for a desire. he realizes not for whom he weeps.....
he loves her. he always has. he always will...he is in love with a dream
ann of hearts
ME: am. guitar
That's neat that you're putting a historical program together.
A few nights ago I finally got a chance to play the Neville
pieces with my piano partner. We both enjoyed them. Elmer even
insisted that I leave his parts there so he could brush his part
up (not that he needs to, and not that he actually will work on
it between our sessions.) Those pieces differ from most
everything I have in that the guitar parts really are solos, more
or less.
THEE: I dunno
Poetry is one of those things I just don't get. Sort of like
opera, come to think of it.
My colleague Hself and I both considered calling in sick on
Thursday, just so we wouldn't have to hear our boss natter on
about how great the opera was the night before. Actually, the
boss was pretty well behaved about it. He saw Verdi's "Don
Carlos." It was aparently trimmed a bit in this performance,
running only three hours and 45 minutes. He conceded that it
felt long in parts.
What I want:
My only must-have book of the moment is Joseph Conrad's "An
Outcast of the Islands." Are you reading this after your Towson
funfest?
Did you update my "Great Performances" [columbia lps] want list?
It now looks like this: 1-3, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 25,
27-29, 32-35, 39, 43, 45, 47, 48, 54, 55, 57-59, 61, 62, 64, 65,
67, 82, 83, 90, 99
Big day for sound. My brother-in-law, his wife, and two kids are
coming over this afternoon. My brother-in-law is bringing his
screwdriver because we're going to install that CD burner! I'm
probably going to turn the computer off a couple hours
beforehand, so we don't suffer a major setback by electrocuting
ourselves.
Sorry about your eBay setback. Sometimes you win, and usually
you don't. The last album I took back from you went for my
starting price of a quarter. On the other handel, my defective
copy of the Beatles' "Anthology" 3, which I started at a penny,
went for $8.07, and the recipient was very grateful. Go figger.
THEE: AM22/New Address
Yes, it does go back to M35!
THEE: could you please trascribe the script of "john paul george
ringo and bert" from your audio tape for me, please?
THEE: Subject: Guitar and Piano Music
You have an impressive list of music on your website. I'm
wondering if you know some web sites that offer free downloads of
sheet music arranged for piano and guitar duo's. Or if maybe you
could email me some scans?
[Sure, when pigs fly.]
THEE: FW: Countersteering
I found some time to research "counter-steering" on the Web.
Here is an EXCELLENT explanation of this phenomena, by a dude
named Thumb-Screw. JB and Danger Mouse get a bit technical, but
I am vindicated on all fronts (and it doesn't matter if your on a
bike or a motorcycle, the effect is identical) (this is experts
from a discussion string on a motorcycle site):
>MikeP: What exactly is countersteering into a turn, anyways?
>Thumb-Screw: MikeP--I too had great trouble grasping this.
Motorcyclists seem to have some kind of disease which prevents
them from explaining this clearly, causing them instead to fall
back on parroting the stock phrase "push right, lean right, go
right", as if that clarified anything. But it actually isn't that
hard to understand. First off, when they say "push right", they
mean it, quite literally. They really do mean to push the right
handlebar away from yourself, as if to turn the wheel to the
left, even though you are trying to turn right. The key is that,
at speed, your front wheel is spinning and acting like a
gyroscope, and due to the funky nature of gyrocopic motion, when
you try to turn that wheel left, *you won't succeed*. Instead,
the wheel (and the rest of the bike) will *lean* to the right.
The motion is converted to a different axis. The wheel will still
be going straight, but leaning. Try it. Ride straight down the
road, with no intention of turning, and push on the right
handlebar a little, and see what happens. Nothing really turns,
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