jill.musick

There are certain things from “home” that are familiar and comforting when you see them in a different context. Here in Germany, some “familiar” things have taken on new meaning.

A reputable music publisher is Bärenreiter, known especially for their urtext editions of music (authentic to the composer’s original intentions, including bowings and other details). Seeing music with their name here reminds me that it is a German company, and Bären are actually bears! The name ‘Bärenreiter’ might mean something like ‘Bear rider.’ Cool and random! Gummi bears are also really good in this area (just ask David – he wants me to bring more of them home for the summer). This photo captures both the music and the gummy bears, both familiar things yet seen with new eyes.

One of my friends from high school went to Grove City College. A few people here at BFA also did. One day I slept at Liel Dorm as a sub for Lauren, the RA there. She happened to go to Grove City, so I saw her pillows and thought of my other friend! It was yet another small connection between my two homes, ironically through a third place I have never visited!

I’m way behind on blogging. There is a ton of stuff that has happened lately, so I’ll just sift through my pictures and start typing.

The BFA basketball season just ended last weekend with the championships in Wiesbaden, Germany. We had 4 home games this season, which was quite a lot – normally we only have 3. I didn’t go to every home game, but when I did go it was exciting. The following pictures are from February 17, the last home game and Senior recognition night.

It was a nail-biter, but the varsity guys lost by 1 point. The guys came in 4th in the championship tournament last weekend, though, so they redeemed this loss!

Tone colors: The past few weeks the high school orchestra has been experimenting with speed, weight, and sounding point to create different sounds with the bow.

Last Friday, we played around with speed and weight (fast/heavy, fast/light, slow/heavy, slow/light). We determined that fast/heavy is the loudest, and slow/light is the softest. As for the two in the middle, there is a different tone quality. I asked the kids to describe the sound of fast/light. The students said, “It sounds airy and light.” Then I asked them to describe the slow/heavy sound, and one student said, “It’s like Mom.” When I asked this comical cellist to explain himself, he said, “For most people, Mom is the fast/light and Dad is the slow/heavy. But it’s the opposite for my parents!” I’m not sure if he was referring to their appearance or to their personalities…. we’ll leave that open to interpretation!

Bow changes: Yesterday I was working with a couple violin students on making smoother changes in bow direction. Top-notch violinists can make an endlessly smooth sound – it just sounds continuous. These particular students had more of a sound of slapping a wall before turning around and going the opposite direction. It reminded me of watching Olympic swimmers. They too have to change directions fairly quickly, but they don’t just slap the wall with an arm or leg to turn around; they instead to a graceful “flip turn.”

We compared a bow change to a flip turn. Instead of just keeping the bow rigidly straight, it can round out a bit at the frog to soften the bow changes. Thinking of the visual imagery of a swimmer seemed to help the students smooth out the often crunchy sound of a bow change at the frog.

My history-teacher friend Katrina asked me if I wanted to go see an Austrian musical with her (she grew up in Austria). When I found out it was Elisabeth, I realized I already knew the music because we had played an arrangement in Stadtmusik Kandern (community band). Katrina went to relish the Austrian history, and I went to appreciate the music and everything else.  So today, I saw my first musical in German!

An example of melodramatic Austrian art, this musical is about the life of Elisabeth, or “Sissi,” the famed Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. Though she is a real person and the musical does document some actual events from her life, it is largely fantasized and exaggerated.

This famous portrait of Sissi showed up in the musical!

Luigi Lucheni, Sissi’s murderer, narrates. The musical begins at his after-life judgement, during which he must account for his murderous deed. His plea: innocence – she wanted to die. He then tells the story of her tragic life and her love-hate relationship with death.

Sissi was born a duchess in Bavaria (now southeast Germany). Her sister was destined to be the Empress of Austria – she was to marry Franz Josef, the heir to the empire. But when the family went to meet Franz Josef, he fell in love with the free-spirited and beautiful Sissi and proposed to her instead. The wedding bells tolled a death of sorts for her – a death of freedom and a carefree way of life and into the cage of royalty.

Death is personified; he struts around as a fair-haired man with a seductive voice. During times of Sissi’s doom and depression (at her wedding, after her loss of freedom, after the loss of her first daughter), he tries to seduce her. They dance and come within inches of kissing. He also influences Sissi’s only son to commit suicide.

My friend Kristin wrote a blog post about death’s personified roles in fairy tales and literature. She noted that “death comes to all, but death comes to some who are young and some who are old, and some suffer in death and some go peacefully.” In the case of the musical Elisabeth, Sissi went to Death gladly, even lustfully, though it was the weapon of a mad assassin that actually took her. Her son, however, was like a puppet being controlled by Death, even in his suicide. The contrast seems to stand on its head; one would think that a person who commits suicide would be longing for death, while a person murdered would feel that Death had stolen life. Yet in this portrayal of the event, the son was actually longing for his mother’s love, not for death; he had been deprived of his mother’s comfort by the overbearing mother-in-law (Franz Josef’s mother). Sissi in her depression did long for death, but it took the needle file of Lucheni to give her Death’s kiss.

It was a fascinating musical; it gave me food for thought and helped me brush up on the history of the Habsburg Empire (thanks to Katrina’s help!). As she reminded me, Sissi’s son’s nephew was Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the guy whose assassination started World War I.

Friday was the last Class Party of the year, and the last ever for the Seniors. With several students gone for away basketball games, the group was somewhat reduced, but they managed to create some ruckus.

The first organized activity was “friend making” – basically a re-named version of speed dating. Since most of the kids in the senior class know each other quite well, there wasn’t too much awkwardness. Then we had smoothies.

While we made and distributed the juicy refreshment, the seniors entertained themselves with conversations and spontaneous games of Ninja, Signs, and Bloody Knuckles.

The last organized activity was a competition to create the best outfit using a Gelber Sack (yellow recycling sack). Five teams came up with everything from a superhero to Jesus.

Overall, the evening turned out well. There were no major disasters and the kids mostly had fun without getting too bored. It’s a great bunch of seniors!

Kandern finally stayed cold long enough for some snow to stick. It’s beautiful!

Emily captured my amazing running outfit designed to withstand wind, cold, and bright winter sun. Tacky, you say? You just wish you could be this cool.

Emily let me borrow her GPS wristwatch so I could track pace, distance, and time. It was fun using it!

I was explaining natural half steps and whole steps (between E & F and B & C). Suddenly I realized I had drawn a couple birds!
The strangest things are motivational. Marit and I started a 45 day practice challenge – students try to get 45 days of practice before the Music Festival. If they make it, they get some kind of prize (exact contents yet to be determined, but they will probably include something edible). To chart their progress, I let them color in a box for each day practiced.

My youngest student declared: “I’m going to try to practice every single day!” A high school student enthused, “This is so exciting! I’m totally going to practice more just so I can color in my boxes!”