Somusing

• Paul Dukas, Fanfare pour La Peri
• Francis Poulenc, Sonata for Horn, Trumpet, and Trombone
• Claude Debussy, Prelude No. 8, La fille aux cheveux lin
• Maurice Ravel, Selections from, Ma mère l'oye
• Darius Milhaud, La crèation du monde, Op. 81

This was the first of GTMF's free "Inside the Music" Tuesday concerts this summer. It was fabulous, of course. These events are hosted by the very funny Roger Oyster, principal trombonist of the Kansas City Symphony, who usually tells a little something about the composer and/or the piece. The concerts are about 75 minutes long and the music is generally varied and accessible.

I was especially eager to hear "La fille aux cheveux lin" ("The girl with the flaxen hair") because I've played it on the piano. I thought maybe they'd be playing an arrangement for a small group, but it was the original piano piece, and it was played beautifully by Deborah Moriarty. She was doing amazing stuff with the pedal that I've never even tried to do. I loved it.

My other favorite piece was Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose). This was originally written as a piano duet and Ravel later orchestrated it. But this performance was an arrangement for string quartet and piano, and it was stunning. I'd like to find a recording somewhere, but I'm not sure where I'd find it. Might be worth learning the piano duet with my son, though it sounds hard.

I took Phin and Lillian to the Jackson Hole Symphony's open rehearsal ($10 for adults, free for kids 6 to 18, or something like that) on Friday. Here's what they performed:

• Tragic Overture, Op. 81, by Johannes Brahms
• Violin Concerto by Alban Berg
• Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 by Ludwig van Beethoven

They started by playing the National Anthem, because they would be playing it for the 4th of July, and then they went through each piece, only short-changing Beethoven's 5th towards the end, because they were running out of time. They would play through the entire piece and then go back to certain places in the piece at the direction of the director ('cause, you know, he directs). There was a guest violinist for the concerto (Akiko Suwanai, playing a 1714 Stradivarius called "Dolphin"), which was a 20th century piece, not super easy to listen to.

The rehearsal lasted about three hours, and this is what I learned:

• I like Beethoven's 5th very much. Of course everyone is familiar with the beginning, but I don't think I'd ever listened to the whole thing, or if I have, I wasn't paying attention. Unfortunately, I think they skipped parts of it during the rehearsal.
• It was too long for kids! Although Phin and Lillian did pretty well.
• I loved watching the rehearsal--it's cool to watch and hear a group that actually listens to and responds to their director--but it's very different from watching a performance, and I felt kind of frustrated that I wouldn't be seeing the performance later that night.
• But tickets are $52 for the weekend symphony performances. $10 for students, though! Which makes me want to send my kids in without me.

Grand Teton Music Festival has free events every Tuesday night for the duration of the festival (end of June to August 14), though, and my goal is to go to every one that I'm capable of attending. I'll blog about those, too.

I've been thinking about starting this list for a while. When I was a teenager, I was pretty loyal to a certain kind of music, and I was definitely a little uppity about only liking alternative music, which at the time was called New Wave. Or something. Most of what I listened to seemed electronic at the time. I say "seemed" because I didn't have a very clear idea of what produced various sounds, and I thought I was mostly listening to synthesizers. (I didn't know, okay!). Now I know better, for the most part. But anyway, here are a few songs that I've grown to appreciate as I grew up, mostly in the last few years. (Maybe the years from age 38 to 40 aren't typically considered growing up years, but it would be depressing if I didn't think I was still growing up.)

"Rock the Casbah" by the Clash. I've never been a big fan of The Clash, and I especially hated "Should I Stay or Should I Go." (He should go! Clearly!) But this cover is awesome. And this cover is pretty good. And now I even like the original, which turns out to have interesting lyrics and a terrific bass line.

"Thriller" by Michael Jackson. If I had to hear this more than once a year or so, I wouldn't like it, but it's fun to hear around Halloween.

"Thunderstruck" by AC/DC. I can't explain this. It's ridiculous, but it has that great guitar riff, and Angus Young's insane vocals make me smile and/or laugh. I probably should have liked it as a teenager, but I had my standards, and they were generally anti-guitars. (Again, I didn't know that New Order and Cocteau Twins used guitars. I was dumb!)

As a bonus, here's the video of AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock and Roll," which features bagpipes. I didn't know this song when I was young, so I can't include it in the list. But I love the bagpipes with the guitar. That is cool.

On October 2, concert pianist Rudolf Budginas visited Idaho Falls to do a concert. That afternoon he gave a master class to three teenage piano students, one of whom was our son Zed. Our whole family was able to be there, and we all really enjoyed it.

The class was excellent. Rudolf was friendly and funny, but straightforward in noting areas for improvement and fun in guiding the students to better technique. A big part of his focus after hearing the students play was on getting them to relax and try to create the best sound for the piece. To not be boring. To enjoy playing.

He said that a key to improvement is not necessarily long practice sessions, but rather, hard work and focus on improving a particular deficiency during regular practice sessions. Just passing the time playing and replaying a piece won't result in anywhere near the improvement that focused, hard work with a goal will.

Which is advice that applies to most work I can think of.

Thanks for sharing your time & talent, Rudolf! And thanks to Ann Shively and others with Idaho Falls Community Concerts who made it happen.

Here's my brother, Colter, with his band Coconut. He plays drums and sings. I'm so proud! And not just because he's my brother. I really love the song.

Music Video for Techno by Coconut from The Heap on Vimeo.

It took me a while to like this, but now I love it. The last song is beautiful and moving, and I have been known to play it over and over again while driving.

The kids and I are listening to this right now. I haven't listened to a new album this much since Kate Bush's Aerial, and before that, it was years.

I'm calling it Fake 80s music. There are robot voices and other synthesizer sounds and a truly cheesy electric guitar solo. And I love it. It's fun to clean to.

Putumayo is a recording label that specializes in world music. All of their CDs guarantee "to make you feel good." So far I have found this to be true.

A couple of weeks ago, while I was showing my mom and two of my sisters some of the cool shops in our area, I bought Putumayo's Brazilian Lounge. We like various kinds of electronic music (or techno or whatever; I am easily confused by labels), especially lounge stuff by groups like Thievery Corporation),and I admit that I thought if I bought something Jon would like, he might not notice the money I was spending. (I also bought a floral mat made from recycled plastic, which I love very much and used as a sort of porch to our tent when we went camping recently.) Anyway, it was another successful music acquisition: groovy and mellow with cool Brazilian melodies and words. Shortly after I bought it, Jon said we needed to get more because he was in danger of making himself sick of it by listening to it too much. Now that's a good sign.

On Christmas Eve, we went to our little CD and other music stuff store to buy a CD for Uncle Chayee (that's Charlie to you). It turned out to be one of those shopping trips where we buy stuff we weren't planning to buy. This often happens to us with books and CDs. The CD I chose on a whim No! by They Might Be Giants, a CD for kids that is really great! I am not a big fan of most kids' music that I hear other people playing for their kids. Even though we have six kids, we don't actually own any of that music, so I could be wrong. No Disney soundtracks or Barney crap or whatever it is most parents buy for their kids. We are selfish parents when it comes to music. (This should be no surprise, since Jon is also known as The Musical Tyrant.)

This CD is the best gathering of kids' songs I have yet encountered. The kids love it and have been playing it constantly since they discovered it, and I'm not sick of it yet! It's funny and nonsensical and has lots of different styles of music. And it's intelligent and musically interesting. And there's a song about being a grocery bag. And about the Thomas Edison Museum ("the largest independently owned and operated mausoleum"--actual lyrics in the song). And about robots! And I still love it!

It's true that there is no song about dinosaurs, which would test me. But if there were, I think I'd probably love it anyway.

I'm so out of it these days that I didn't know Kate Bush had a new album (her first in something like 13 years) until a few weeks after it was out. And when I did find out (thanks to a friend and my brother, who figured I already knew), I knew immediately what my husband had ordered for me for Christmas.

Anyway, it's so great. I love it. It's like all my favorite songs by Kate Bush, only they're new and I've never heard them before, and I can spend hours listening to them in all possible forums: in the living room with all the kids' noise; in the car; on headphones late at night. Yes, I love it.