Michael Tilson Thomas
I've received some criticism for my standup routine.
What my critic doesn't seem to understand is that the routine is a classical one.
Keeping alive the routines of the classical and romantic period.
It's a thankless task, but somebody's got to do it.
Yesterday, at the library, I fount the U tube orchestra site lots of audition vids, and a clip of the LSO playing the Tan Dun "Eroica"
Why do all modern composers have to rely on quotes?
It's either "based on a theme" of somebody else.
Or an "homage"
I'm sitting there trying to listen to Tan Dun, wanting to understand where T.D. is coming from, wanting to connect with a fellow artist in the only way I will ever be able to, and all of a sudden here's Beethoven casting his way too long shadow over the proceedings.
Phooey!
But anyway MTT is mondo great for doing the thing in the first place.
Blair Tindall of "Mozart in the Jungle" fame notes that MTT has been at the SFO way past the time that most artistic directors start to excite rebellion.
Please come to Seattle "M" and replace Gerry.
I did get a kick out of the percussionist's use of brake rotors and "mag" wheels
(Aluminum, really)
But wait! there's more! right after this commercial break when I will come back and repeat my sleazeball sales pitch once again forgetting all about my promise to show you how to become a millionaire overnight while sitting on your butt and fantasizing
Hi, welcome back, now, I told you that I would show you how to become a millionaire overnight while sitting on your butt and fantasizing, and that's just what I'm going to do.
But, first, the site had these wonderful masterclass videos wherein LSO musicians demonstrated the proper ways of handling your instrument.
Educational.
Almost wish I could walk and chew gum at the same time.
Or that I had a attention
When I was in grade school they were trying to get us tykes to take up an instrument I put in for the clarinet but they had too many clarinets and talked me into trying the trombone instead.
To this day I cant figure out how to make a trombone sound like a musical instrument although I know it can be done (remember Miff Mole?)
I can't even do that "Tiger Rag" glissando that everyone who shows anybody else how the thing works can do.
Bryan was good at that.
And Bryan is a noble man.
But I can almost play a clarinet.
So it's all their fault.
All of it.
I'm tired of typing, good bye!
What my critic doesn't seem to understand is that the routine is a classical one.
Keeping alive the routines of the classical and romantic period.
It's a thankless task, but somebody's got to do it.
Yesterday, at the library, I fount the U tube orchestra site lots of audition vids, and a clip of the LSO playing the Tan Dun "Eroica"
Why do all modern composers have to rely on quotes?
It's either "based on a theme" of somebody else.
Or an "homage"
I'm sitting there trying to listen to Tan Dun, wanting to understand where T.D. is coming from, wanting to connect with a fellow artist in the only way I will ever be able to, and all of a sudden here's Beethoven casting his way too long shadow over the proceedings.
Phooey!
But anyway MTT is mondo great for doing the thing in the first place.
Blair Tindall of "Mozart in the Jungle" fame notes that MTT has been at the SFO way past the time that most artistic directors start to excite rebellion.
Please come to Seattle "M" and replace Gerry.
I did get a kick out of the percussionist's use of brake rotors and "mag" wheels
(Aluminum, really)
But wait! there's more! right after this commercial break when I will come back and repeat my sleazeball sales pitch once again forgetting all about my promise to show you how to become a millionaire overnight while sitting on your butt and fantasizing
Hi, welcome back, now, I told you that I would show you how to become a millionaire overnight while sitting on your butt and fantasizing, and that's just what I'm going to do.
But, first, the site had these wonderful masterclass videos wherein LSO musicians demonstrated the proper ways of handling your instrument.
Educational.
Almost wish I could walk and chew gum at the same time.
Or that I had a attention
When I was in grade school they were trying to get us tykes to take up an instrument I put in for the clarinet but they had too many clarinets and talked me into trying the trombone instead.
To this day I cant figure out how to make a trombone sound like a musical instrument although I know it can be done (remember Miff Mole?)
I can't even do that "Tiger Rag" glissando that everyone who shows anybody else how the thing works can do.
Bryan was good at that.
And Bryan is a noble man.
But I can almost play a clarinet.
So it's all their fault.
All of it.
I'm tired of typing, good bye!
Labels: But first
posted by Lane Savant at 12:07 PM
4 Comments:
Hallo, Lane!
I agree: MTT is arguably the greatest living conductor!!
It would be great if he were invited to guest-conduct concerts at Benaroya, but exppecting him to leave the larger (AND BETTER) SFO for the SSO is unrealistic; I'm glad hw's sooooo great that the SFO wants to keep him!!!
You provide no link to the LSO site you mention in this blog; how did you get to it??
The LL arrives Monday, so I don't know when I'll next get to The Library to again access FFTL; it will be either when the LL wants to go there OR I have to do something downtown and she wants to go somewhere else alone; when one's TRULY "Significant Other" comes from 9 time-zones away for a visit, one doesn't want to abandon her unless she wishes it temporarily.
Tschuess,
Anonomann
Life is but a dream and dreams are all we have.
Everyone is a critic, it seems. Lane's stand up needs a little work, but what the hell, you could say that about Jay Leno too.
For the uneducated and dunderkopfs much like myself, LSO is the London Symphony Orchestra, and Tan Dun, when he is not collaborating with Lang Lang, wrote the theme music and score for CROUCHING TIGER, and let Yo Yo Ma play it. Michael Tilson Thomas is the celebrated conductor and director of the San Franciso Symphony, which would be called SFS, in order to fit into the SSO and LSO mode, enit? What the hell Thomas is doing in London is a mystery to most of us, or maybe he is just hanging out in Frisco and Santa Barbara a lot. I still can't get esoteric sites like Youtube at work, and never take the time to do so at home, so I miss out on the real excitement it seems.
Doug holding a trombone and pumping it for all he and it is worth is quite an image; almost too much for me this early in the morning; now a clarinet, yes, that kind of works, a ukulele is even more better.
Friday night went to a friend's birthday party; great fun. Saturday night went to other friends and played pinocle until 1am; great fun. Sunday screened FAR FROM HEAVEN in prep to show it to the club members this next Friday, then Melva and I trotted off to see THE READER, which contains a powerful performance by Kate Winslett, and has so many flashbacks and forwards that you get lost in the celluloid maze. So much nudity in it, you get used to Kate naked, like she was your wife or mistress or something. Strange about that, enit?
Here it is another blue Monday, wearing blue, feeling blue, barely pumped up enough to dive into the new week.
Glenn
Today is a moontan day, white shirt, small smile, ready to blog, to write, to think, to be.
Thought you would have had some sort of inspiration for another posting by now. If I look away, or get busy, you pump in two a day, and I get three behind, enit?
Melva flies to Atlanta tomorrow for a conference. Woman does like to travel. My soldier son-in-law is back in country, and will fly to see us, and his family, this weekend, will pack them up after their 6 month visit, and drive off to Colorado Springs Tuesday next; another chapter closed in our lives. What's next?
Glenn
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