I wrote about harmonica virtuoso Jason Ricci on my blog a while back. It has always been amazing to me how some people can rise to the top and become successful while others more talented are often neglected or have to work like dogs to make a living. It has always been the case, unfortunately. A band I played with for over 10 years could never break out the grind of being a part-time local band. We all had day jobs because none of us had the willingness to take a chance on a shot that might never happen. A new article at Mercury News ( http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/15421107.htm) talks about Ricci's trials and tribulations on the road playing 300-320 nights a year for little money:

"Everyone keeps telling me they know someone, or they can help me, but nothing ever happens. I'm going to play 320 nights this year for a few hundred dollars a night. I'm getting really tired of it. I don't think it's ever going to happen."

His playing is a revelation, and at times seems beyond human capacity, hitting notes that few other players can find. Sometimes he stretches out impossibly long blue notes. Then he fires off a machine-gun-fast, perfectly precise volley to get people dancing.

At one point, he does a tribute to great harmonica players, including Little Walter and Magic Dick, wrapping their hardest riffs inside even harder ones of his own, orchestrating a solo symphony of five songs simultaneously.

And he doesn't just do it for an hour or two, like most performers. He runs at top speed for four hours a night, playing and singing, with barely a break between songs.

"He is to the harmonica what Eddie Van Halen was to the guitar," said Robert Bonfiglio, one of the world's most respected classical harmonica players, who saw Ricci play for the first time in Denver last month at the 43rd annual convention of the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica. "He has changed the instrument. It will never be seen the same way again. Players after him will want to sound like that."

I finally saw Jason a couple months ago locally and was blown away, not only by the amazing virtuosity of his playing, but also by his willingness to hang out with the fans and talk shop. His band is hot, and the music is original and catchy. Hopefully the word will get out on Jason Ricci and New Blood. The times seem right:

At a time when harmonicas have been getting the most recognition in years -- from "American Idol" winner Taylor Hicks to "America's Got Talent" runner-up L.D. Miller -- Ricci has been packing blues clubs across the country. He's played more than 300 shows each of the past five years.

I've been focusing more and more recently on my own harmonica playing, but I do it strictly for fun and love of music. I have come to the realization a long time ago that I have neither the drive nor the talent to ever become a full-time musician. Still, listening to Jason's playing has only made my own playing stronger.

Jason's site is at http://www.jasonricci.com. Stop by and buy a CD, or check out the tour schedule for a show near you.

Cross-posted at tom-muck.com.

The battery in the video camera is charged. The white shirt is pressed. The black bow tie is out and next to the polished black dress shoes. The big event is almost here.

After final rehearsals and a sound check on stage, the young musicians of the Summer String Institute will present their chamber music concert. It will include everything from Mendelssohn's Octet to Beethoven's String Quartet op. 135 to Brahms Quintet op. 88...as well as Hadyn, Mozart, and Schubert. Then in the evening, the kids do their orchestra concert, and that is when they wear their formal attire. We really will be able to march with the penquins.

It has been an intense week (not to mention a daily adventure on the area roads - ah, D.C. traffic!). Each SSI day started with either a sectional or full orchestra rehearsal. Then the kids had a rhythm class with a very entertaining percussionist. After that, each chamber group got together by themselves to work through ideas about their music.

The first break of the day came with a half hour lunch, and then came a private lesson for each kid. Next up was a coaching session for each chamber group, and as the final event of the day, a full orchestra rehearsal. After hours of music making (with a few quick card games thrown in between rehearsals), I assumed my son would be dead tired. He says he was not - that has to be either youth or a lack of knowledge about musician union rules!

The week went by too quickly, but now we can look forward to the upcoming season of the Howard County High School GT Orchestra with selections by Rossini, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Tchaikovsky.

Tomorrow is the first day of the high school National Philharmonic String Institute 2006. For one week my son will spend the day in chamber music rehearsals, orchestra rehearsals, and private lessons. He has been working hard to prepare his music, especially the Brahms Quintet in F major, Opus 88 and Tchaikosvky Serenade for Strings in C major

The National Philharmonic has a program called All Kids, All Free, All the Time that allows all kids from 7-17 to attend their classical music concerts for free. These concerts, as well as the summer institutes for middle and high school kids, are an opportunity to nurture the next generation of classical music lovers. Regardless of whether these kids choose to make music their vocation - and most won't because it's a hard way to make a living - one can hope that they will recognize music of quality as being one of the few remaining miracles left in an increasingly consumer-driven world.

Out of all my friends, I was one of the very last to get a cell phone. Then, 2 years later, I was one of the last to upgrade (yes, at MAX two years ago, people laughed at my phone openly). Cell phones have always been, to me, a phone. They make and take calls. I'm happy.

This year, right before MAX, we reupped our plan and replaced our phones. I wanted one that would go online so I could start checking sites and such. The only one my carrier (SunCom) sold that fit the bill was a Nokia 6670.

It's been quite a transition to remember that I can do things other than talk on it. I admit, I've barely tested any web sites on it, but recently, I began to remember occasionally that I could take photos (I even put a few up from my recent ski trip on my Flickr page).

Today though, I learned something really useful. I wanted some less boring ringtones, so I went to the Suncom site. They were simply awful. Hokey. I was complaining to my friend, Jesse Rodgers at the University of Waterloo, about it (he has the same phone) and he came back with a profound statement. "Just load an mp3 over to it." Huh? How in the world would I do that? Turns out that with Bluetooth, which I use to get the photos off my phone, I can put MP3 files on my phone. Who knew! :)

Thus began a slightly frustrating journey that Jesse helped me through (did I say "thank you" Jesse?). I'm sharing it here in case someone else wants to do the same thing.

1. Find the song you want to send over from your computer. Make sure it's in MP3 format.
2. Under your bluetooth menu, select "Send file..." Navigate to the file, click Send, and choose your device.
3. You'll need to then click OK on your phone to accept the file.
4. Nokia accepts this file as a text message and thus, it will appear in your Messages > Inbox. You must move it to your memory card for it to work as a ring tone.
5. It will likely start autoplaying. Hit stop. Click Options (on the bottom left) and choose Save. Place it on your memory card in the Sound Clips folder. Make sure to delete it from your Inbox to save space in the phone memory.
6. Now go to Menu > Profiles (either choose an existing profile to change or create a new one). Look for the name of the MP3 file you just saved in the list. Select it and Save.

Voila! Call yourself from another phone to hear your new ringtone. ;)

As you can see from today's strip, I am indeed 39 today (March 21st). Thanks so much for all the kind birthday wishes and e-mails I've received so far. My mom and dad reminded me today that 39 years ago, it snowed in Virginia. That's funny because today - in Virginia - they are calling for snow. Maybe not much but it's still kind of a weird sign, huh? Especially given the fact that my birthday also fell on a Tuesday this year. :-)

But anyway... just the other day, I bought Journey's live version of "Don't stop believing" from iTunes. And maybe the combination of my birthday and listening to that tune have put me in a bit of a reflective mood as I can't stop thinking about the fact that I never got the chance to see Journey live. I've seen a lot of great concerts live but every time I hear a Journey or The Cars on the radio or CD, I can't help but think "man, that would have been so cool to see them live just once"... you know, the big arena rock concerts... hearing the thunderous high pitched sounds of Steve Perry's voice mixed in with the great guitar and pounding piano and synthesizer sounds that were the signature of their Escape album...

But I can't really complain all that much. Although I'm not a huge concert goer, I've seen some really great concerts in my day. Some of my favorite:

Stevie Nicks - young and older.
Stevie Nicks was my first concert. saw her in Baltimore back in '86 when I was still in art school. Some friends of mine had two extra tickets but no way to get there. So, I told them if they gave me one of their tickets, I'd drive everyone there. That may not sound so adventurous but considering I was driving a '78 Chevet with a bad radiator at the time, I still don't know who got the better deal at the time.

Last year, at Nissan Pavilion (in my backyard here in Virginia) I saw Stevie one more time. Yeah, she's gotten older and a little heavier and didn't go through quite so many costume changes as she did back in Baltimore but she can still sing with the best of 'em!

Def Leppard - Hysteria Tour
Saw them while I was going to college at Radford University in southern Virginia. They had a theater-in-the-round so everyone had a great seat. Tesla opened for them and wouldn't quit reminding the crowd "who the hell they were" (even though they only had two minor hits at the time).

I loved Def Leppard so much that I made a pair of my own razor blade cut jeans just like Joe Elliott wore in concert and all their Hysteria videos.

Billy Joel - I've seen Billy live five times, once with Elton John
Billy Joel's The Bridge tour was absolutely phenomenal. Me and my best friend, Jeff, were luck enough to get nose bleed seats at the very top of the old Capital Arena where the Washington Capitals used to play. I remember Billy grabbing a microphone and jumping into the floor seats while he was singing "Only the good die young". As high up as we were, it looked like beans pouring down an hour glass or something as the audience rushed towards him. I can still remember the sounds of the crowd bumping and hitting his microphone as he was still trying to sing.

U2 - Joshua Tree tour, RFK Stadium
I probably would have enjoyed this concert a lot more if I wasn't dealing with a wisdom tooth pushing through my gums at the time AND Bono slipping on the dam pm outdoor stage of RFK Stadium (due to a slight drizzle) and dislocating his elbow. Of course, the following concert in Philly, Bruce Springsteen played guitar to "help him out". But it was still a great time and a great concert even though I wasn't the biggest U2 fan in the world. Again, another concert attended with Jeff.

The Outfield & Jefferson Starship, Kings Dominion, Virginia
The Outfield had just released "Play Deep" and had a co-concert with Jefferson Starship at Kings Dominion - an amusement park here in Virginia. Best moment from this concert was the "older" lady beside us (of course, she was probably 39 or 40 at the time) who swore Jeff and I didn't "know no damn Starship songs" and bought us both a couple of beers when we proved her wrong (of course, I won't say how old Jeff and I were at the time).

KISS reunion tour, Nissan Pavilion
Stevie Nicks may have been my first concert but the first album (ok, cassette) I ever bought was KISS: Destroyer. So, finally getting to see ALL of the original members of KISS in concert together was a thrill of a lifetime - especially seeing and hearing peter Criss (my favorite) sing Beth was the best Father's day present my wife and kids have ever gotten me.

I was able to see KISS a couple more times but without Ace and then, later, without Peter (that was the Aerosmith/KISS tour). I wish Paul and Gene would have the guts to not let anyone else wear Ace or Peter's makeup if they are going to go out on tour again. I'd rather see new make-up designs from "non-members" of KISS then "pretend" the originals are still there. I sort of felt ripped off knowing Peter and Ace weren't there but others were wearing their "faces". Only Superman can wear "the cape", you know?

Aerosmith - KISS/Aerosmith tour, Nissan Pavilion
My wife was and is a much bigger Aerosmith fan than I am - especially when it comes to their older stuff. But I never thought I'd actually see someone out -rock KISS but Aerosmith did that night.

Huey Lewis and The News - The Sports tour
Well, I'm sure this WOULD have been a great concert had I actually gone. I bought Huey Lewis tickets from some "grandma cash" I got one year. And even though I bought the tickets in March, the concert wasn't going to be until the late summer. Two weeks after I bought those tickets, some guys I was playing summer baseball with asked if I would be interested in going to Winter Haven, Florida to participate in week-long baseball camp run by ex-pro baseball players.

It only took me a day to find someone to buy my tickets from me.

So... those are some of my favorite concert memories. What are some of yours?

With back to back trips lately (an actual skiing vacation to Colorado), I've been more than slammed. And through all this, the repeated narcolepsy of my computer has been loads of fun. ;) But the good news is -- my husband and I are at South by Southwest in Austin. Timothy does "music and movie" stuff, so this is the first conference I've had opportunity to attend that includes us both. Most have been more Macromedia/Adobe-related and I'm looking forward to hanging with a huge assortment of my favorite things -- geeks! Geeks from every walk of life doing every imaginable type of code. And is this city hoppin'!

I'm about to go register and get my real schedule, but looking at the options online, I see some great panels to attend... great friends to meet... and some great parties (pace yourself Stephanie)... Jen Taylor, Scott Fegette and Bob Regan are here from Adobe. We're having our annual Web Standards Project (WaSP) meeting, so there are over 30 WaSPs registered. A great turn out and some names I'm really going to enjoy meeting in person. And of course, I can't wait to reconnect and hang out with friends I don't often see.

I'll try to report back about the fun and learning... just to make your mouths water a little. And hey -- this Austin place is cool!

On this day - Jan. 27 - in 1756 the man many musicologists call the most natural musical genius who ever lived was born. Today the whole world celebrates, and even a city such as Nashville, where country music is the genre of choice, will acknowledge Mozart's staggering contribution to music by playing his Piano Concerto #21. Vienna and Salzburg are celebrating with lots of parties and events, and have a Web site dedicated to Mozart 2006. Even as I type, I am listening to Mozart's 1st Violin Concerto over the Internet on WGMS.

What do I prefer most in Mozart's oeuvre? His operas. There are other composers I love as least as much, but no composer, none at all, wrote as gloriously for the human voice.

Several years ago when we decided to take the kids to their first opera, it was Mozart's Magic Flute that we chose. Not openly opposed, but probably not overly enthusiastic accomplices in this idea either (our son was no doubt calculating how many video games he could have purchased for the price of his ticket alone), the kids nonetheless tagged along with us to the Baltimore Lyric Opera House where our son's viola teacher was playing in the orchestra pit. What a wonderful experience it turned out to be! The kids had to agree with The Baltimore Lyric Opera House's recent radio ad campaign that ended with the tagline "Opera: better than you think - it has to be..." The Lyric went all out to make the opera accessible to kids, right down to a big, comical, purple dragon. There was the excitement of the opening overture, the anticipation over whether the Queen of the Night was going to make her high C's or not (well, she mostly made them), and the sheer fun of the interactions between Papageno and Papagena. And through it all was the most divine music.

Do something to celebrate Mozart's birthday today - even if you prefer some other kind of music. Join in the fun by taking The Mozart Quiz. Listen to 10 musical exerpts and decide which were written by Mozart. Post here and let me know how you did. You'll do better than you think - you have to. ;-)

Happy Birthday, Mr. Mozart!

Amid the news of Sharon returning to the operating room and the one surviving miner still in a coma, the tragedy of classical music doesn't seem like much of a story. Still, when I turned to WGMS on my car radio the other day, the Washington D.C. metropolitan area's only commercial classical station was no longer there. It had been replaced with an all news station, WTOP. The Washington Post carried the story on the next day's front page: WGMS is still breathing, but barely. Bonneville, the company that owns it (along with its replacement WTOP), moved it to a weaker signal that most listeners outside the city proper itself will have trouble getting. We can all guess what will happen next unless another company buys it.

I posted here last year when WETA, the NPR station that used to carry classical music, switched to an all-talk format. (The reports suggest that this has not been wildly popular-not that I am gloating too much.) I am now left with one NPR station, WBJC in Baltimore, that carries classical music with a signal strong enough for me to hear it. Think of it: a major metropolitan area cannot support classical music. What does that suggest for less urban localities?

As we drove to New Jersey during the Thanksgiving holidays, we heard a discussion with a pianist about the state of classical music. The pianist talked about "the tragedy of classical music" and how it is something that is perpetuated in part by well-meaning music teachers. They convey the idea that one needs special knowledge and training in order to appreciate classical music, when all you really need is feeling.

Do I listen to classical music and blurt out "Aha! An augmented sixth chord! Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen!" On occasion. But usually I am just trying to absorb the emotional meaning of a piece, something that is available to anyone with an open mind and a little sensitivity to beauty through sound.

Though I wish the unfortunate misconceptions about classical music would abate, I doubt anything much will stem the trend towards abolishing anything that is not part of mass pop culture. Now even our NPR stations, which originally were intended to take up where the Darwinism of capitalism left off, are abdicating their role.

Now all I can do is pray that WBJC hangs in there.

So this Christmas, I seem to find myself in a very nostalgic mood. Last night, while getting some last minute gifts - okay... after desperatly searching for that ONE %$#&^% gift I still haven't been able to find - I came across a Christmas CD called "Oldies but goodies". One of the songs happened to be an old childhood favorite of mine that I very rarely ever hear on the radio any more. It was "Snoopy's Christmas" by The Royal Guardsmen.

My brother and I used to listen to that song on the radio all the time on Christmas Eve as we were trying to keep ourselves desperately awake in order to see Santa. And even though I didn't care for the rest of the songs on the album, this one was worth getting so I plunked down my $5.00 and happily strolled out the store.
Along the way home though, listening to Snoopy fight the Red Baron during Christmas time got me to recall another long time tradition my family used to do on Christmas eve.

There was an old Christmas album my mother loved. There were a ton of songs on it but there was one selection that always seemed to hold a special place in my heart. It was a touching little story about a small Christmas tree that realized he was dying but a visit by Santa on Christmas Eve makes him realize what his purpose is.
It took me a while to find it since I didn't know what the title of the story was or who even narrated it. But thanks to lots of creative Google and Yahoo searches, I am happy to say I found it.

The story was an old radio play by Red Skelton. And, if you're interested, you can listen to the WAV format by clicking here. You should bare in mind though, that this is a very old recording so some things are dreadfully out of date.

But it's still a very touching story and takes you back to a gentler and perhaps a more simpler time too.

Now to get back home and start watching the 24 hour marathon of "A Christmas Story"!!!

When we drove to my parents' house in New Jersey for the Thanksgiving holiday, we hit many dead spots for radio stations with classical music. Finally we arrived in the Philadelphia area and got the frequency for a public radio station that was at that moment playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto.

It's sad to say, but finding classical music stations gets harder and harder. We mourned last year's demise of classical music on WETA, a public radio station that decided to move to an all talk format.

What is a classical music lover to do?

Go to the Internet!

This Sunday (Dec. 11), after about ten minutes of news (in French!), at 11:00 AM EST, Andy Hardy (the son of our luthier), will play a concert that will be broadcast live on the Brussels radio station Musique 3, RTBF. Want to hear a wonderful violinist and practice your French too? Just follow the directions below:

Go to http://www.musiq3.be and click on Ecouter en Direct, and then 128K.

The program is as follows:
Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonate N° 1 en Ré Majeur, Op. 12, N° 1,
Guy Ropartz, Sonate N° 1 en ré mineur (1907),
Gustav Samazeuilh, Sonate en si mineur (1902-03).

Our son is getting more serious about the viola, and his teacher decided he needed a better instrument. Scotty has been borrowing a 16 inch viola from his teacher, but has longed for a 16 and a half inch of fine quality to call his own. (Bigger viola, bigger sound-that kid likes to play BIG.) Last July we set our luthier, Ray Hardy, on the task of finding a really special viola. He warned us that it could take a while because finding good violas is not easy. Finally, after months of waiting, Ray sent us an email saying he thought he had something that would be just right. He did some additional "violin making" work on it- further graduation of the plates, new bass bar, carving of the neck, etc.

My piano teacher used to tell me you have to "earn the music" - sweat over it, investigate it, try to get to the heart of its meaning. Well, we sure earned this viola. The months of waiting were not *quite* over. We had an appointment at 4:30 on Friday afternoon to try it out. We left our house in a state of enormous excitement at 4:00 to make the 10-15 minute journey to Ray's workshop. We pulled onto Interstate I-95 and STOPPED. It turns out that there had just been a very serious truck and car accident that closed down all four lanes. I tried to use my cell phone to call Ray, but got mysterious messages about not finding service. To make a long story short, after sitting for one and a half nerve-wracking hours (with Scotty pleading please don't turn around!), we finally pulled up to Ray's place and hoped he would still see us. He let us in!

Ray had five glistening violas lined up in a row. My son picked up each in turn and played. He was dazzled by so much choice, so Ray said, OK. Now turn your back and close your eyes and just LISTEN to them while I play. After listening to the five, we all knew immediately which was The One. Ray let us take it, along with another one, to play for a week and show his teacher. Over the course of the week, we have fallen in love. His teacher corroborated. Buy it! he said.

But that was not all. And buy a new BOW of commensurate quality his teacher ordered. I hadn't even told my husband how much this viola is going to cost yet LOL. Now I am conniving and plotting and trying to figure out how I am going to explain the bow. Shrug. A bow, you say. Well, his cheap student bow had cost us $200. Ray explained our options for a new one: nickel silver, silver, and professional silver. We're talking about a lot of money for the quality we want.

Conversation in our house last night:

Me: Scotty needs a new bow.

Him: So, what will that cost? About two hundred?

Me: (inwardly choking): What? His OLD bow cost that!

Him: So, how much then?

Me (Thinking, Sheri, you've got some 'splaining to do): I am not *quite* sure. I will let you know after we test them out.

Typically a luthier will let you look at a dozen or more bows and then settle on a few to take home to try out.

So. Is it worth it? What's in a bow? Yesterday my son had his first lesson on the new viola. His teacher let him use one of his fine German bows. I was sitting in the teacher's living room and didn't know about the swap. I heard Scotty start to play. It was quite miraculous. The bow, the bow, the bow made a huge difference.

So here's the plan. We'll just bring home a few bows and let my husband hear how Scotty sounds. I am quite positive he will hand over that check without a word.

If you like Internet radio and you haven't heard about Pandora, I recommend you check it out. It's a Flash-based, Web 2.0 music player that works like this:

• You tell it the name of an artist or song that you like.
• Pandora analyzes the qualities of that song (or, if you entered an artist, one of their songs that it randomly picks) such as instrumentation, rhythm, etc.
• Pandora compares your song with others that have been similarly tagged in the Music Genome Project and creates a station for you based on the inherent musical qualities of your song.
• As you listen to your station, you can add more songs for Pandora to base the music off of. You can also tell it if you like a song it is playing or don't like it. If you don't like it, it will never be played again.

Before Pandora, I had been listening to Yahoo! Music often.  But Pandora is better because:

• There is no audio advertising, just a visual ad on the page itself. This is so much more pleasant than being interrupted every 10 minutes on Yahoo to listen to that same Vonage commercial over and over again.
  
• You can create multiple stations. This is especially important right now because I'm listening to Christmas music. On Yahoo, I could listen to Christmas music and rate it, but then it would get lumped in my one station and keep coming up all year long. On Pandora, I have a separate station for Christmas music playing just what I want to hear. I also have separate stations for my rock, my hip hop, and my mellow stuff.

There are some limitations to the service right now (doesn't have classical music (sorry Sheri), sometimes lags when you tell it you don't like a song, etc) but I'm sure it will only get better in time. 

The first rehearsal of Howard Regional Youth Orchestra (HRYO) took place last night. My son spent three happy years in the Howard County GT Middle School orchestra, but has now entered 9th grade. The new orchestra is a huge change, and something of a jump into the deep end of the pool. Where the middle school orchestra had been strings only, HRYO is a full orchestra. Where much of the music the middle school orchestra played was simplified adaptation, HRYO plays the original scores of standard orchestra repertoire - and at concert speed!

My son and another viola playing friend were the new kids in the viola section last night. Both boys are good about practicing and had thoroughly prepared their music - or so they thought. In middle school orchestra, the kids first rehearsed pieces at a slower speed, cleaned them up, and gradually increased the tempo. At HRYO there was no such coddling. The group started out right at the suggested metronome markings. I could see my son and his friend valiantly attempting to keep up and giving each other eye-rolling glances throughout.

These directors aren't kidding around. Here's what's up for the fall concert:

• Holst's Jupiter from his famous work The Planets. This is a great one for high schoolers. Kids identify easily with the dissonance and unpredictability of 20th century music.
• Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, oh my. Imagine Shakespeare's tragedy married to Tchaikovsky's height-of-romanticism music in the hands of kids. The constant key changes, top speed runs, and high drama make this a treacherous piece to pull off. I can't wait to see what the kids make of this masterpiece of incredible beauty.
• Beethoven's Fifth: (Sotto voce for this God of music.) So often Beethoven's music takes listeners through a deep psychological experience. He sets up the struggle, then travels through the depths of suffering, and finally emerges in a final movement of triumphant resurrection. The kids will never need to save Beethoven because he will save them...may they learn to revere him.

I posted my belated blues vacation report earlier on my personal blog (way too long to include here.) How sad that many of the areas we just visited are now under water and/or badly damaged. I hope everyone in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana is staying safe.

If you haven't seen the Carlton Draught Big Ad yet, you won't want to miss it. Very clever, and what makes it particularly affecting is the music, which is not an original ditty composed by a writer of music for commercials.

In fact, it's another classical music rip off, this time Carl Orff's chorus "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana. My husband tells me that years ago another beer company used the same music in its ads. Well, why not? Carmina Burana is probably the most famous piece of vocal music of the twentieth century. It is very dramatic and stirring, and it does what all commercials seek to do: gets your attention.

Being a good little proselytizer for classical music, this kind of thing delights me. If you read my last "saving series" blog piece, you'll remember that I talked about movies and classical music rip offs. Commercials are another great source of getting good music into the collective conscious. I'll take it any way I can get it. How many kids now know Aaron Copland's "Hoe Down" from Rodeo because of the "Beef: it's what for dinner" commercials?

And don't forget cartoons. An entire generation of kids learned the classics by watching cartoons. I remember a particular favorite: Bugs Bunny playing Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" while a mouse inside the piano ducked the hammers LOL.

Though not as many kids' cartoons feature classical music these days, I was amused to see a "Hey Arnold" episode that featured Bizet's Carmen.

I love irony, and this is the ultimate one: pop American culture saving classical music...

Vacation time! I'll be out for about a week until August 15. If anyone needs to get in touch with me, the best place is via my contact form at http://www.tom-muck.com/contact.cfm. This is best because of the thousands of spams I get. On my vacation I doubt I'll be going through the mounds and mounds of email that I get, but I will be checking my contact ticket system for emergencies.

I'll be a blues traveler for a week -- heading to Mississippi to go on a tour of some of the sites down there -- and ending up at the Sunflower Blues Festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi to see some great blues. Little Milton was scheduled to play, but died this past week. RIP Milton. 92 year old Honey Boy Edwards will be playing. He was one of Robert Johnson's contemporaries in the 30s, and has numerous stories of Johnson. Also in town will be Charlie Musselwhite, Sam Carr, and Pinetop Perkins, who is also in his 90s. Also, there is a documentary filming all week at the Ground Zero blues club in downtown Clarksdale by the guy who did Deep Blues and Last of the Mississippi Jukes. Ground Zero is part owned by the actor Morgan Freeman.

In between blues we'll be playing some poker at the Horseshoe and also in Biloxi upon arrival. Wish me luck. ;-)

Well it's finally happened; I'm turning into an iPod junkie - and I don't even have my iPod yet!

Let me explain.

About two weeks ago, I won a 20 GB iPod in a contest. It should be arriving at my door any day now. This is cool for many reasons:

1. My laptop has the same storage capacity as my iPod (ok, that's not cool, it's just sad)
   
2. I rarely win ANYthing
3. I was planning on buying an MP3 player this summer
4. My coolness factor at college should increase even more (hard to imagine getting cooler than my shirts, but it can happen)
   
5. I can download images while on a photo shoot
   

But yesterday, I thought I should investigate this whole iPod phenomenon a bit more, considering that I don't own any other Apple products of any description. I immediately went to the Apple web site and started poking around. One of the first things I found was FREE software in the form of iTunes. I'm a sucker for free software (even when you need it).

I watched a couple tutorials about importing music. I have a CD collection of over 250 discs, and wanted to make sure I could import them (yes, yes, all you iPod veterans, laugh at the noob).

So with instructions memorized, I started gathering a few CD's to make my first compilation. I wanted to be good to go when my new toy arrived.

Several hours later, I have imported almost 300 songs - over 20 hours of music - and I only just broke the 1 GB ceiling!

Rush, Pink Floyd, Boston, The Killers, Alan Parsons, Evanescence, Steve Miller Band, Billy Joel, B 52's, Enya, The Cars, Bare Naked Ladies - and much, much more - all happily sharing the same space.

I'm stoked. And severely hooked on iTunes. What a great app!

I even bought a couple songs off iTunes for the heck of it.

So, when I head off to the cottage this August, I can bring along more tunes than I'll even have time to listen to.

Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but I have another 100 CD's to rifle through. The work just never ends . . .

After reading my blog piece called Saving Schoenberg, my daughter asked me what composer I was going to try to save next. So, I thought, it's a series now, is it? Why then, let's spin a series within a series! With the recent release of yet another Star Wars movie, what better composer to save than the English composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934)?

If you're wondering what Holst has to do with Star Wars, you may not know that he wrote a piece called The Planets that saw a lot of heavy lifting from the Star War movie's sound track composer, John Williams. You can read all about it at A Young Person's Guide to Holst's Planets - Mars <http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/holst_mars_000309.html> Here's a paragraph from that page:

"Gustav Holst's "Mars: Bringer of War" will sound familiar to science fiction buffs, as much of the score of Star Wars consists of John William’s variations. In particular, compare the climax of this movement to the music accompanying the destruction of the Death Star."

Sneaky, huh? Someone's been tricking you into listening to classical music.

This brings me to an important point for anyone who would like to like classical music, but is at a loss while listening to hardcore composers. It really makes sense, especially for young people: start from what you know. Movie scores are a good bridge between classical music and what you know. Indeed, much movie music borrows heavily from classical music.

If you like the Star Wars music, first listen to Mars, the Bringer of War from The Planets. It is full of percussion, brass, and dare I say it? It gets going like heavy metal. From parents who want to give their children a little music education to anyone who wants something exciting to crank up on the car stereo while speeding down the Interstate, The Planets is a great segue into classical music. (I have an "audiophile sound system" in my car, and I am always sure to turn up the bass while listening to this piece, and to never let my ear stray too far from the fantastic orchestration for the percussion instruments.)

After you listen to Mars, you can move on to the other movements:

• Venus, the Bringer of Peace
• Mercury, the Winged Messenger
• Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
• Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
• Uranus, the Magician
• Neptune, the Mystic

Yes, Earth and Pluto are missing. The piece was written before Pluto was discovered in 1930, and you might want to speculate why Holst did not translate the planet Earth into sound. If you want to know about Holst's interest in astrology during the time he was composing this piece, or how Stravinsky influenced this work, you can read all about it at http://www.gustavholst.info/compositions/listing.php?piece_id=18

In spite of what you may have heard, however, you don't have to know what dissonance is, or what period in music history this piece is from, or what key signature it's in, or anything else in order to "get it" and fall in love with the music. Just enjoy. And who knows? You may very well save Holst...

You've all seen them, the "puzzle" games. Myst was the trailbreaker, leading to a mess of other titles. Some of them are very good and some stink on ice. They all shared one factor tho, namely that they were applications, and therefore a bit complex to create.

This had the effect of restricting the pool of talent that could be applied to the art. Well, those days are over. Thanks to the spread of Flash, huge numbers of folks may now turn their hand to the interactive puzzle format. Things are starting to happen in a big way.

Maybe you have seen "The Crimson Room" and other similar escape room puzzles. Those are great, but some truly insane artist/fiends have recently begun to produce exceptional work that goes way beyond mere "rooms".

Take for instance Hapland and Hapland 2, created by a nameless Brit maniac. This twisted individual seems to understand what puzzle people really like, and has created two games with only that stuff. These are really hard! Oy.

In a more artistic vein (but not an easier one) is The Archipelago, an amazing example of how rich Flash can get. Jonathan May is the author, and he's also got "The Dark Room" in there, but it's nothing like the other room puzzles. There's a "Return to the Archipelago" too, which has unique and superb visuals along with infuriating puzzles to solve. Very nice sound effects and music too!

I am definitely looking forward to an explosion in this genre, or should I say "dreading?" Hrmmmmmm...

Perhaps saving Mozart is not so impossible. At least most young people have heard of him. And now, with the 250th anniversary of his birth set for celebration in the summer of 2006, his name will again gain prominence in the media--well, at least as much prominence as one can expect for an "old master."

But what about Arnold Schoenberg? Never heard of him? Don't feel bad. Most people haven't. And if they have, and they have heard some of his music, they probably don't like him. Schoenberg is the father of 12 tone (or atonal or serial) music. You know: random notes and beeps and senselessness. Or so it seems. Actually, such music is elaborately planned construction. Schoenberg devoted a lot of time to chess. Does that tell you something about his organizational skills?

Last summer, on a trip to Austria and Germany with my son's orchestra director, we spent a day in Vienna. Upon disembarking from the bus, my teenaged daughter and I trekked to the Schoenberg Center. Even in Vienna, we had some trouble locating it. When we asked passersby, we got "Schoenbrunn Palace?" "No. Schoenberg Center. Arnold Schoenberg." Shrug. Don't know.

Finally we did locate it. We walked into a small, office-like lobby on an obscure floor in an obscure building. There was a young woman at the desk. No one else was there. We asked in our American English if we could visit the exhibit. The young woman looked at us-especially my teenaged daughter- incredulously. She seemed to think we had stumbled into the wrong place. When we convinced her we hadn't, she gave us each a headset with music clips and commentary to listen to as we went from exhibit to exhibit. She warned us that it was very cold in the exhibit rooms because the scores were kept in archive conditions. We assured her we didn't care.

Then for a glorious couple of hours, my daughter and I looked at original scores (under glass) and listened to examples of the music, as well as analysis on its meaning. We heard examples of every genre, from opera to chamber music to piano pieces. We heard the voice of Schoenberg, and then the voices of his children as they explained the passion in their father's music.

Passion? In 12 tone music? Yes. And clearly the ardent young woman and other curators of the Schoenberg Center felt passion for keeping his music alive, even for Americans. As we were leaving, I asked if the center sold a CD of the audio on the headsets. The young woman sadly shook her head no. We started to leave. A look of inspiration came over her face and she told us to wait. She got on the phone and engaged in a conversation in German. When she put down the phone, she told us to come back in about 20 minutes. The center's engineer was going to burn a CD for us!

And so he did. And that is how we came by a most original souvenir of Vienna, Austria. It will belong to my daughter one day. I will pass it on to her, along with a love of 20th century music, and along with an expectation that she will do her best to save Schoenberg.