Hi everyone,
This Easter we caught the train up to Brisbane for the wedding of Rachel's old schoolfriend and bridesmaid, Rebecca Cunningham.
Let me say, right from the start, that I'm actually a fan of long-distance train trips. For 12 hours, I can read and not feel guilty. I love reading, but apart from the train trip to and from work (which is about half an hour each way), I usually don't read much because I keep thinking of stuff I should be doing around the house.
But on a train . . . what else can you do? Rach and I both finished about two books each on the trip up and down.
Brisbane was a very relaxing time hanging around Calvin and Skye's place (my best man and his wife). Exciting news there was that Skye is now pregnant, and demonstrated the point by looking under the weather most of the weekend and eating a lot of oranges. (A crucial sign of pregnancy if ever there was one.)
The wedding itself was a low-key but very nice affair, with Miss Rebecca Cunningham becoming Mrs Owen Klun. Rach got to catch up with some old school friends of hers, which was kind of interesting . . .
Caught up with a few movies and stuff on the weekend, which will be reviewed when time permits on Matt's Arts.
On the train back, Rach's nose kicked into overdrive. I'm not sure if anyone else knows this, but Rachel has a super-sensitive nose. So what might be a slight odour to you or me (in some cases, barely detectable) is an almighty stench to her.
In this particular case, it was the smell coming from the train engine. We were in the carriage just behind the train and Rach didn't enjoy it much . . . Within half an hour, she was breathing through a handkerchief. (Every now and again she would swap the handkerchief and hold Bromley over her nose.)
However, eventually, it all settled down and the rest of the train trip was conducted fairly uneventfully. By the time we got back to Sydney, we were pretty knackered, though. But we're slowly coming back to normal . . .
How was everyone else's Easter?
Hi everyone,
Some of you may have been wondering at the lack of blogging on the website over the last couple of weeks. I haven't really blogged since going to Katoomba Mens' Convention with the guys from Hurstville Presbyterian two weeks ago.
The chief reason for that is that I was rather convicted by the convention (which was all about work). I realised that the way I approached work wasn't really bringing glory to God.
So I put my head down, and I've tried to do a more God-honour job at work. One of the consequences of that was that a I haven't been blogging as much (which I tended to do as a form of procrastination). Anyway, I'll try to get better at writing here regularly on my own time, but I'm still trying to work everything out. So apologies also to those expecting emails or anything like that.
In my life, anyway, at the moment, things are a little bit low-key. (Not boring, just low-key.) I feel as if God is doing something in me at the moment, but quite what it is or where it is heading, I'm not sure. But I'll let you know shortly.
Hope you are all going well out there anyway. If I don't hear from you sooner, enjoy your Easter!
Went to a 4 1/2 hour Beethoven concert last night. I'll post the full review on my arts page shortly, but there's a couple of issues I got thinking about last night.
First one.
Rubato. Now, this really only applies to those pianists among us, but if you've done a bit with the piano, you may have come across this word. It's Italian for stealing or robbing (at least, that's what my dad told me) and when you're talking about piano playing, it refers to kind of playing fast and loose with the rhythm.
Imagine you were playing a piece on the piano and you played it at regular time, like a clock or a metronome. That would be playing without
rubato.
Now, if you were playing with
rubato, you might cut a beat short here, or stretch a beat out there. You play around with the rhythm, stretching or compressing it, as needs be, to add a spontaneous effect. It's especially noticeable in Viennese waltzes and Chopin piano music.
The reason I mention it is that I noticed the 73-year-old pianist last night seemed to be doing a fair bit of that. Either that, or he was having trouble keeping up with the orchestra.
Which gave rise to an interesting question . . . having done a bit of
rubato in my time, I've got to confess that I've occasionally used it because it gives me that extra bit of time to get my fingers in that awkward position that I couldn't manage if I had to play the piece at speed. The trick was always to make it sound like you meant to slow down there rather than have it sound like you were pausing to get your fingers in the right spot.
So was that guy playing with the time last night to add interesting spice to the Beethoven? ('Cause I had never heard these pieces played with the rhythm that he used.) Or was he struggling to keep up? I'll never know . . . We pianists are a devious lot with all kinds of cheaters' tricks up our sleeves.
The other issue that struck me last night was railings. If you've ever been to an orchestra concert, you'll know that the conductor has a little platform on the stage with a music stand. But behind him, between his back and the audience, is a railing that comes out of the little platform.
Watching Gianluigi Gelmetti last night, there were numerous times when he stepped backwards and was stopped by the railing. Now what I want to know is, was the railing invented because somewhere, sometime, some conductor, in the frenzy of conducting something crazy (like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, for instance) stepped backwards from the platform and went crash off the stage.
I wouldn't like to fall off the Opera House concert hall stage. 'Cause you wouldn't just fall off the little platform. You'd fall off the stage (a fall of about a metre and a half). The concert hall is built for such an occasion, because I was in the front row, and there was a clear space of a few feet in front of my feet in case anyone toppled from the stage. But I'd love to know . . . who was the guy who first fell from the stage? I bet you there's somebody in the history books somewhere who did it . . .
Maybe that's why they don't allow you to take video cameras into the concert hall. They don't want any conductor falls ending up on
Funniest Home Videos.
