New City Downtime

Here I am, one month into "Life in Germany." I am taking an intensive German course at the Volkshochschule. (you automatically get into the A2 class if you can pronounce Volkhochschule three times) I currently end each weekday with a German Headache, eine Kopfschmerzen, for those who were wondering. It sounds particularly painful when spoken in the local Dresden dialect. The locals all sound like they are rehearsing for the scene in My Fair Lady when Eliza has a mouth full of marbles.

In between German classes, I attempt to gather some practice and study time together. Whenever one moves to a new city, or a new country, it takes time to make connections. I am never particularly calm during these perfectly normal slow times right before and after moving to a new city. I try to guard against that little voice in the back of my head that tells me I will never get paid for working again. I imagine this little voice as a cartoon character devil sitting over my shoulder, trying to keep me from doing what I love. Sometimes I actually succeed in ignoring it completely. Sometimes.

Despite the fact that no one is actually paying me for working, there is actually a lot to do when one moves to a new city. Everything can and will become overwhelming. Here are a few things I recommend to stave off that little voice:

One is e-mail, e-mail, e-mail. Start with one person, send an e-mail. The next day send another e-mail. Assume that you won't hear back from anyone. Pretend that you are sending e-mails back out into the wild. Let them be free. Eventually you will get a reply, a really good reply. Which will lead you to more e-mails with more dead ends. Eventually you start building something. It is slow, painful, everything feels like a rejection. It isn't, people are busy, people have a lot on their plates. Most people aren't sitting by their computers, waiting to not respond to you.

Attend workshops, masterclasses, (if they are around) and performances. Make yourself known. Don't necessarily have any concrete goals regarding these outings, but rather the broader goal of just meeting people. You never know who might turn out to be a colleague, or even just a nice person. Nice people are important in new cities. Nice people can make an overwhelming city become a little more like home.

Another thing to work on when in a new city is update lists and calendars. I am a big list maker and planner. If I didn't have three different levels of planners, I would end up circling the living room wondering what I should do next. Not a pretty sight, it confuses the cats. Planning takes away the question, "What should I be doing now." You know what you should be doing. So, slow times are good times to review the longer term schedule and maybe cross one or two things off the list.

This only goes for double reed players and maybe the occasional ocd clarinetist, but make reeds, make reeds, make reeds. Down time is a great time get your stock of reeds up past the panic mode. If you don't play historical woodwinds, consider yourself lucky with the reed situation... at least it is only one instrument that is failing you on the reed front.

Listen to recordings. I always need to take more time to listen to recordings, in my  schedule it is the thing that gets pushed to the sidelines. It is good for one's musicality, for one's soul, for one's business. It is a good thing to do all around. Even better listen to a recording while walking around the city. Walking a good way to get one's barrings in a new city, and bonus, it is good for you.

General cleanup. One can update website, (mine is currently a mess) clean up finances, clean the apartment, (it is amazing how much cleanup a new apartment requires) cut the cat's nails. My apartment, in a freak turn of events has a refrigerator too many and about ten pieces of furniture too much. Freaky for having just sold all my furniture and moved to a new country. The tenants before us left their furniture, and it is simply too many pieces. So selling off furniture can be on my personal list, but generally not a problem for someone who just moved. If one has health insurance, a dentist appointment or a physical can always be a good thing.

Finally, take up a knitting project, start an art project, go for a bike ride, be a tourist. The tourist bit is important for new cities. I know I tend to have a certain disdain for tourists in my own city, they don't know where they are going and stop walking in random places, but it is OK to be the tourist every once in a while in your own city. A tourist who knows where they are going is much less irritating. Seeing the sights can be a good reminder on what makes your city special.

Here are some other industry freelancer's ideas on dealing with downtime:

http://blog.creativegroup.com/bid/291956/Freelance-Tip-Put-Slow-Time-to-Work-for-You
http://budgetandthebeach.com/2014/07/16/when-freelance-work-is-slow/
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/tips-freelancers-what-to-do-with-slow-days-and-dry-times/

Change

I really hate moving. Probably because I have moved so many times in the last ten years. Since 2004, I have moved to four different cities, in three different states and finally to a alltogether new country. A country where they speak German. A language that in the right hands can wrap words around complex thoughts, tie up all the loose ends into a bow, and present it as a complete complicated whole to the listener. In the wrong hands, well, no need to go into that. 

I have visited Germany several times before, and have spent a bit of time with J's family. This idea, that quite a few people in this world speak another language that isn't my native language, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of it. I have been watching movies with subtitles for many years now, have heard many people speak many different languages, and have done a fair bit of my own studies in German. However, this time was different. This time, I needed to keep reminding myself that everyone around me speaks German. Ironically going to IKEA and hearing and reading German, bizaare.

My brain is very confused with everything that I have done to it the last month. I either sold, tossed, or packed everything I owned. Gave almost everything that I owned to the nice truck driver in Madison, with the hopes that it would all arrive in Dresden some day through the magic of transport. I take my instruments, 98 pounds of clothes and treasures, and my two cats to the airport. My husband does not need to be taken, he brings himself. Then for one more layer of stripping, the cats are taken away to their secret place in the back, and the baggage is checked. Then we fly. 

I am waiting for my brain to catch up with that trip that I made. It doesn't quite yet realize that I have moved. However, there must be a part of my brain that realizes it, possibly part that wants everyone to speak English. However, most of me thinks I am on this vacation. It hasn't quite sunk in that this is where I am to live. As I build a new life here, I imagine that my brain will slowly realize that this isn't a break from life, it is life. A new life, on a different continent, with different street signs, different windows, and different foods. It is like a shift to a new dimension. A dimension that is similar to the one I knew. The foundation is the same, the clothing is different. 

Moving to a different country is a unique experience. An experience that I truly believe you cannot understand unless you do it yourself. It isn't easy. I never realized that before. I always felt that since I never really felt at home in the US, that moving elsewhere would be easy. I am not finding this to be the case. Maybe because I hate moving. 

Early Music News

Happy July 4th, to everyone in the US. I celebrated by watching Germany beat France in the world cup, and continuing the continuous packing. I have always enjoyed watching the world cup, I am proud to say that I am not a bandwagon jumper, but I am also glad to see soccer gain popularity in the US.
My own personal news is that I am updating my website, redoing the format and adding a german language section. I am quite happy with it so far, although it still has a lot of work, including a new background picture, but all in good time. Check out my progress at theresakoenig.org.

Early Music Now has announced it's 2014-15 season.
Amherst Early Music Festival begins.
Cape Cod Early Music Festival begins.

Early Music News

I will be starting a weekly "news' page where I will post things I find interesting and or of note. So here goes.

Story about an early string maker in DNAinfo New York, link here.

I am sure that everyone knows the website Partifi, a wonderful website that takes scores and makes them into parts. Particularly good for music that we only have scores for. What you might not know is that the couple who runs the website has put in a lot of their own money and a lot of time into building and maintaining the site, so if you use the site, please donate to them.

It is festival season! Madison Early Music Festival will be July 12- 19. MEMF has a special place in my heart, so it gets the first shoutout.

The Tide is Low

‘Classical music, trying to seem cool and less stuffy, reeks of some sort of fossilised art form undergoing a midlife crisis.’

Said by the man attempting to crowd surf an audience during a classical music concert. If you happened to miss it, the complete article is here. The man, Dr David R Glowacki, attended a concert at the Bristol Proms, a concert series begun in order to challenge the “elitist, unwelcoming atmosphere surrounding classical." Bristol Proms uses a variety of techniques in attempts to bring new audiences to classical music and break down barriers between artist and performer. What happened during this particular performance was that a "mosh pit" was created near the orchestra, drinks were allowed in, and audience members were encouraged to make noise when they felt like it. Dr. Glowacki became a bit excited about the alleluia chorus culminating with his own personal finale attempt at crowd surfing.

For me, the story is amusing and I love when audience members are scandalized, we definitely need more of this is the classical music world. The story also highlights an issue that concerns me when people start talking about difficulties and stuffiness in regards to classical music concerts. I applaud the brave performers and music directors being creative and trying new methods of bringing music we love to a greater audience and trying to break down barriers. I also agree that the standard symphony orchestra situation of overture, concerto, symphony with three concerts a week can be a creativity killer. However, when the addition of various multi-media or special effects are utilized, we need to be careful to not drown out the actual reason for the concert, which is the music itself. It is our job to bring new life to old pieces. If we are lucky, we can do this on a daily basis. Maybe with or without high tech gadgets or multi media. What we should focus on are the fundamentals of expression, and finding ways to enhance this. I feel that all the brave souls who try something new, first ask yourself this, am I doing this because it is cool, or because it enhances the expression that is implicit already in the music.

A Moving Ordeal

Moving is always a pain. I know, I have moved many different times in the last 10 years, 6 times in the last ten year, and I am about to make it 7. Except this move, this move is the biggest, I am moving to Germany. To be exact, I am moving with my husband, life partner, partner with papers, partner in crime, whatever, and two cats to the city of Dresden. Some of you may remember Dresden from Kurt Vonnigeut's book Slaughterhouse 5, and that extraordinarily unfortunate event known as World War II. Today, Dresden has been mostly rebuilt, the people are much more hospitable towards people from the west, and one of the libraries there holds some very exciting manuscripts. Since this move will most likely be permanent, how does one do this? How does one move all of ones things over an ocean? We have 10 boxes, plus room for my bicycle, that will go from door to door, and then 1 checked luggage and our carry-ons for the plane. The carry-ons are already reserved for my modern bassoon and baroque bassoon, and the recorders that I will need right away will fit in my purse. So, that leave 10 boxes. 10 medium sized boxes. I think all of my music and scores and books about music would fill those 10 boxes. So I must downsize. This is how I am attempting it:

Going through all my music. Every single page. I am making five different piles:

1. Keep and pack. This is for actual purchased, complete, good editions of scores that I will use right off the bat. Music that I love, or will need.
2. Keep and store. This is for music that is either a good edition but I won't need immediately, music that is important to have but it isn't a good edition,  sentimental scores, or some of the more obscure etude books that I might need for students at some point, but not likely right away.
3. Scan and attempt to sell. This is music that is either a poor edition of something that I don't really need, duplicate copies of music, etude books so obsure it is unlikely that I will ever need it. Stuff that I am almost 100% sure I won't need, but am making a copy just in case. The scans will go onto an external hardrive which will be in my cary-on purse.
4. Scan an toss. Photocopies. I have tried to purchase as many things as I could, but when I was a student, this just wasn't possible. So I made a lot of photocopies. Additionally a lot of the transcriptions of early music are on photocopies. So these, as much as I would like to keep, will go onto that little hardrive.
5. Toss. Duplicate copies of music. Copies of music I am 100% sure I will never need. Incomplete photocopies.

Then the next step, is scan, scan, scan... This is talking multiple trips to the library, which has an amazing scanner that sends everything to my inbox. Then I open up the pdf's, label them properly so that I can find them with ease.

I am hoping with this method, that I might be able to ship one box of music and keep two boxes of music somewhere in the US. Wish me luck.  Of course this is not including music books, and scores which I am not sure what to do with yet...

Breaking In

A couple of weeks ago a recorder arrived in the mail. Oh happy day! The baroque Boudreau alto recorder is the newest addition to the Koenig-Schindelin household. I procured the almost new recorder from a friend/colleague of mine, who had thought he would play recorder, and then changed his mind. Wise man.  New, or almost new recorders are finicky little beasties (ok all recorders are finicky beasties) but particularly new recorders. One can play a new recorder for a few minutes a day, and then the recorder needs to rest.  The general consensus is 15 minutes a day for the first week. What torture, to have an exciting new instrument in ones hand, and only be allowed a few minutes a day. Particularly when one has a solo performance in two weeks. 

It is like dating someone new, but only for fifteen minutes a day. I guess the parallel isn’t exact. It is like dating someone for fifteen minutes a day who can completely change from day to day. On day one you might get the chain-smoking women with two troubled kids, on day two she is a is now a countertenor he with a lovely voice, and day three we are back to the chain-smoking women with two troubled kids, but now she has a jealous ex. Day four there is suddenly a man with a head cold. You never know who you are going to get those first couple of weeks.

Limits are required on practice sessions during this formative time in an instrument’s life know as “breaking in.” It is because the instrument needs to become accustomed to having moisture played into the windway.  It is an interesting turn of phrasing, breaking in something. As a bassoonist, I am constantly breaking in reeds. Once a blank is finished, scraping and playing on a reed are always in order, aka the breaking in process.  I don’t feel that one really “breaks” in a recorder. It is more coaxing an instrument out from under the foliage into the fresh air.

In my imagination, recorders aren’t made, but rather captured out in the wild, and it is up to the musicians to domesticate them, very carefully. Recorders carry this delicacy, this almost catlike skittishness through their lives, they cannot be played on too much, or else they become oversaturated with water. They don’t like extreme temperatures, or extremes in humidity. They will just close up shop over the smallest inconsistency in their surroundings.

I kind of like babying the new recorder. Maybe it will get tiresome over time. I have always played what people perceive to be the sturdy bassoon, an instrument that is definitely sensitive in its own way. The bassoon, rather than being a temperamental cat, is more like a swan. Swans are beautiful, unless one pisses one off.  It is an interesting change to now also play this little delicate beastie, the beastie that can fit in my purse.