Ben Folds is the musicians' musician

Currently sitting in the nosebleed section of the Palais Theatre. That's BB of the dress circle, which is NOT the second row from the front, but second from the back. Work THAT one out.

So, gazing down upon the millions of people who bought their tickets before us (curses be upon them ALL), I can see a black thing floating upon a murky stage. It may or may not be a piano.

The trend to dress down when attending concerts dismays me a little. I'm not expecting full-lenght dresses, but what's with the denim? I half expected to see velour tracksuits and hoodies.

No, we're not dressed up to the nines either, but gig= frock up. So, for posterity's sake, I'm wearing a black lace shift dress trimmed with cream, black tights and patent Mary Janes.

Suzukisinger is in a tailored navy frock belted at the waist and high black wedges. Boys in denim and shirts (there's a which nymore, given the multitude of floating fluorescent screens in the audience.

To digress, had an EPIC group lesson today. If you count O, seventeen kids, aged 20mths to twelve yrs. Ability level pretwinkle (polystyrene violin) to mid-Book 7. HUGE and CRAZY.

Given that we have a concert scheduled in a week and a bit, I wanted to cover a fair amount of repertoire as well as really emphasize dynamic contrast and movement.

Interesting to see how focus differed for children (not necessarily the eldest or the most advanced) based on how practiced they are with group attendence. I have a couple who are particularly motivated by the idea that they're another child's teacher, others who don't care in the slightest; again, not easily or superficially correlated to the age or ability of the student in question.

A little while ago, while conversing with my first violin teacher, I mentioned my idea that personalities can be roughly divided into two categories: because of, and in spite of. That is, that behaviors are motivated because of the predicated response or in spite of it. I'm going to have to keep thinking about this. Questions welcome!

nb: Intervals need to be shorter. I've composed a massive blog post and suzukisinger and my lovely husband are now playing rock, paper, scissors (refereed by her husband, sitting between them)... And now the crowd are getting all excited...

Awesome gig. AWESOME. My first boyfriend introduced me to Ben Folds back in the day. Good times.