Been Busy

This school year has kept me jumping through multiple hoops and sometimes I feel as though I will crash and burn.  Miraculously I manage to work my way through this or that deadline, requirement and the day to day process of schooling my students in three dimensional arts.  I have been tweaking curriculum this year and that is always stress-producing as I need to figure out the best way to meet objectives and make it interesting for the kids.  I have incorporated some musical instrument construction into my ceramic's and Intro to 3D classes.  My ceramic's kids learn to work on the potter's and one of the forms I required was a simple open cylinder.  We took their glaze fired cylinders and stretched goat skin onto one open side and "voila!" they have a small finger drum.  They seemed to enjoy this challenge.  My Introductory 3D kids have been making  ocarinas from clay.  They are required to make them visually attractive and functional as well.  When they are voicing their instruments, it sounds as though I have a classroom full of morning doves. We've gotten some pretty cool results and the students seem to enjoy the process.  It is always rewarding when you see the smiles of success on their faces. 

In my free time I have been playing guitar whenever possible.  I have played during the last two openings at Fire Arts in an effort to combat stage fright.  The public attends these events primarily to see the work of the artist whose show graces the gallery.  This sets up the perfect situation for someone like me who is not a professional and is comfortable not to being noticed.  Most of the time the attendees are talking and not really paying attention to my playing.  It serves as a background and therefore my mistakes are not recognized by anyone but myself. 

 Apart from repertoire maintenance, my playing is taking the form of directed practice.  I am working at learning a few new pieces.  The newest crop that I am trying to internalize are Richard Gilewitz's arrangements of  "In Christ There Is No East or West"  and "St. Louis Blues".  These have been the focus of recent lessons and this past week Richard helped me get started on his composition "Sarah Natasha".  I have loved this piece since first hearing him play it back in 2008.  It is played in Open C tuning which at this time is my favorite alternate tuning.  It is chock full of really cool dynamics and rhythmic rasqueados and strumming techniques.  I suspect it will take years before I am really comfortable with it.  Timing is always an issue and my metronome never fails to kick my ass in the right direction.  Richard has really given me an excellent foundation and he continues to up the expectations as I get better able to handle more complex pieces.

Although the three pieces above are taking up a lot of my playing time, I am still working on some of David Walbert's Beatles' arrangements.  These are relatively new to me and although there is memorization happening, it is not reliable.  I really love Walbert's arrangements and someday hope to do them justice.  They are challenging and wonderfully melodic.  So far I am working on "Yesterday",  "When I'm 64", "If I Fell" and "Across The Universe".  The most frustrating aspect for me is that there isn't enough time in the day to do what I must do as a teacher, artist, spouse and guitarist.  This is not even accounting for those other roles as a parent and grandparent.  I have recently decided, after 30 years, to step back from teaching karate every Monday.  My arthritic knees will appreciate this change but it does feel odd to make that break.  More guitar practice will fill the Monday evening space. As I literally just told a friend, guitar doesn't hurt my knees.  

I did make a serious financial investment in a new guitar.  I did not need another guitar.  My husband is the first to tell me this.   Back in June of 2010, when I was at the Miami International Guitar Festival,  I had the opportunity to play Richard's Breedlove Signature 6 string and I was greatly impressed.  There were only eleven of these guitars produced and I had thought I'd never get a chance to acquire one.  Just before Christmas, I happened upon one offered for sale at a Missouri shop, Fazio's Frets and Friends.  In fact, it was new old stock.   This means I am the first registered owner.   It was built in 2006 but was kept in their in their humidity control custom guitar room.  It is a wonderful instrument, cedar top, rosewood back and sides, inlaid marquetry around the sound hole and an ebony fingerboard.  I have been spending the past few weeks bonding with it and although my Breedlove C25 is a nice guitar, this one moves into the realm of a great guitar.  The action is perfect!!!! The tone is beautifully resonant.  What more could you ask for?  Now I am the proud owner of both Gilewitz Signature Guitars as I owned the 12 string version for a couple years.  Yeah, I think I am now a confirmed "Gillahead".  Now I have to figure out which guitars in my collection will get sold to help pay off this new acquisition.