Now, what does this have to with music? Because we were exiled from our house for about a week, there was no practicing. Now that orchestras are starting up again, I have a renewed craving for playing and listening to wonderful music, and sharing those thoughts with my many new students. I’m definitely teaching a lot more this year, and so far I am happy about that. I will also be playing at my friend’s wedding in October on baroque violin with two other friends from Stony Brook. That will be a good time. Time to update the calendar and see you all soon!

She took us to the Abion Spreebogen Waterside Hotel, but we found out that we have arrived too early for check-in so we hung out and visited Schlecker, a store similar to CVS. We also took a leisurely walk through the Tiergarten towards the Cultural Center. Seeing the festival grounds and the performance stage got us even more excited. When we returned to the hotel, they even allowed us to have a late complimentary brunch where we delightfully pigged out on seasoned sausage and meatballs, fried potato pockets, scrambled eggs with chives, breads and pastries, and myriad kinds of yogurts and granola mixes. The best part was the self-squeezed orange juice stand. You also can’t go wrong with the multi-vitamin juice. But there were some things that I dared not try:

Satisfied and filled with food, we happily checked into our rooms and napped until our afternoon rehearsal.

Our rehearsal took place indoors at the Center, in a large area that had cool wall chalk drawings of tikis and a spacious stage. This was our chance to meet the sound engineers and stage managers, who were all extremely nice and respectful people (unlike many of those in the US), and to take as much time to soak in our surroundings and re-create that special Waitiki magic.

tiki drawings

Unfortunately, a couple key players were missing and we were still getting over some jetlag, but it was still helpful to play through the setlist. I always have an interesting experience with sound production equipment; I like to see what the professionals use. They gave me a simple tiny mic with some putty-like substance for adhesiveness. At first I let them place it underneath the strings between the bridge and tailpiece, but I got worried when it left some sticky residue on the surface as I pried it off. No putty on varnish please! For the concert, I attached it to the underside of the tailpiece. It worked out well I suppose. At least I was able to move around while I played but I still had to be mindful of the heavy winds in the area we were performing in.

After the rehearsal, Tim, Zaccai, Jason, Randy, and I ventured out into the city. We were all in the mood for some REAL German food, and we had to find it fast because man, we were starving. We got on the S-bahn at Bellevue and rode for 3 stops until Heckescher Markt. Then we walked to “Orange-burger” Strasse and found a place to eat (thanks to Lonely Planet).

beef stew with spatzle

It was interesting to see so many Asian restaurants along the way, particularly Japanese sushi places. Being musicians, we then went to the B-flat jazz club to check out the music scene. Man, we were shocked and amazed at how packed the place was on a Wednesday night. The cats were good too, but I was so exhausted that I just passed out after just 10 minutes. Later I learned that the other guys passed out too. Oops!

We finally got out of there and split up. Randy, Cai and I decided to head home (yes, we’re party poopers)… but unfortunately, we were in bad luck and then night ended on a sour chord with a run-in with the S-bahn train inspectors (ask us about the story). We were foreigners and they didn’t even give us a break! Anyways, we got home and said hi to Don Tiki before heading off to bed. What a day!

(Hmm..that pretty much sums up all the German I managed to soak in while I was there…)

I am finally back from two weeks of intense and crazy traveling. The Music Learning Leadership at UMUC started off well, as Randy and I were the technology consultants and had to be in charge of maintaining and constantly updating the MLL Web Sourcebook. If you’re interested, please read the articles about music integration and leadership, the corresponding school reports and case studies, and the video and Powerpoint presentations right on the website. We worked hard on it, yeah!

Pre-DAY 1:
Although we were dedicated to the MLL conference, we were very excited to leave on Tuesday for Berlin. The Continental flight from BWI to Newark was pleasant. As soon as we met up with the rest of Waitiki, things got even more exciting. We were even surprised that Don Tiki’s Delmar and Haejung showed up on the same flight. As we filed onto the plane, I could smell the newness of the plane and was impressed to find that each seat had its own touch screen monitor. The goodies that were displayed were various forms of entertainment from German training program to casino games. Since I knew we would be arriving in Berlin early in the morning, I decided to sleep as much as I could after watching Batman Begins. Randy, on the other hand, was way too excited to sleep, and he (as well as others) paid the consequences when we finally arrived at the Abion Spreebogen Hotel. Later I found out that Spree was the river the hotel was situated on.

Spree near our hotel

Our hotel was super nice; you can check out the video of one of the rooms below.

More later!

Stéphane Grappelli, one of the world’s most touching and inspiring artists in the history of jazz, became my fascination over the past week. I’ve listened and watched every YouTube video and read tons of interesting articles about him. I especially like this one. Because I’m genuinely interested in learning more about jazz and the style of playing jazz on the violin, I’m working on transcribing his version of Skylark and rearranging it to fit the new album. It’s a lot of work - my ears and dictation skills have become somewhat embarassingly useless, so this project will be very beneficial for me. Plus, for me to understand what I’m hearing, I need to break it down and analyze in detail. It’s definitely tricky to write out what Grappelli is playing, but if I listen to the whole structure and realize that it’s just made up of scales, arpeggios, and bluesy notes, I think it will be a lot manageable. It’s a fun project and it’s something I’ve never felt the need to do until now. I’m also thankful for a small lesson on jazz style from a friend who lives and breathes it everyday. It’s so cool!

Some favorite quotes/stories:
“Sometimes Grappelli went into other tunes spontaneously because he forgot what he was playing. One time, on stage, Grappelli asked guitarist John Etheridge in the middle of a piece what the song was. ‘I had to tell him,’ Etheridge said. ‘He’d completely forgotten.’ ”

Perhaps Grappelli’s secret was his ability to lose self-consciousness, to veer off into a transcendental state. A booking agent recalled Grappelli telling his players to stay with him when he went into his improv ‘because I don’t know where I am, I’m in another world.’

In August, I will be performing on keyboards with WAITIKI in Robert Drasin’s Voodoo band at the Tiki Oasis Festival (San Diego, CA). The last time I performed in Drasnin’s band was in Hukilau 2007, where we played a bunch of stuff from his Voodoo II album. It’s pretty mellow stuff with some catchy melodies and harmonies. My favorite is Puente Doble. I’m just simply attracted to those Latin grooves.

For my own reference, this was also the first time I used a wireless microphone such as this one. Seems pretty good! I’ll put up some sound clips later on and do some research and comparison. I definitely like the idea of having a microphone rather than a pick-up for what I do with WAITIKI.

May is just around the corner, but the weather has been strange. Tonight was very chilly, and I’m sure my fiddle (and my bones) are not feeling it. I will be devoting the next two months to intensive teaching as I will have a semi-student recital in the beginning of June at BSM. Time to crack that whip!

Besides the Gordon College concert this weekend, the number of gigs are slowing down. I guess this is what happens as the school year winds down, kids go off on vacations, and travel plans are made. WAITIKI, on the other hand, has plenty of performances coming up - check the website - and hopefully we’ll see you at one of them.