The article starts with beets, which isn’t too bad. And adding cinnamon to your coffee, oatmeal, or toast, way cool. Take a peek and see what you think.
"Although some guys aren’t opposed to smoking some weed, most wouldn’t think of eating one. It’s a shame, really, since a succulent weed named purslane is not only delicious but also among the world’s healthiest foods.
Of course, there are many superfoods that never see the inside of a shopping cart. Some you’ve never heard of, and others you’ve simply forgotten about. That’s why we’ve rounded up the best of the bunch. Make a place for them on your table and you’ll instantly upgrade your health — without a prescription."
I’m in the middle of synthesizing music from three parts into one part for me to play for a theater production. There are over 90 pages in each book, cuts to consider, and instrumentation to balance. Some of it is easy, but all of it has to be proofed. I was going to try to have it done by today for our second practice, but alas, it was not to be. Out of town family visitors, practices for other bands, and work have conspired to keep me way too busy. I am now only on page 13 and feeling a tad stressed.
I’m creating parts for bari sax and bass clarinet, mostly from two trombone, EEb contrabass and basson parts. There is no simple way to do this. I know a lot of tricks but if I use the most common trick for transposing from C in bass cleft to Eb in treble cleft, I still run into F’s in the music that are sharped but remain F for me because of the transposition model.
I do it mostly by hand. We have a number of music editors but typing in the music is still a slow process for me. And scanning them in, I’ve been told is a hit or miss proposition. I guess I really should learn how to play bassoon, trombone, and contrabass clarinet. NOT.
I have to say, once you get the music prep work done there is a lot of practice that needs to go on to get the chosen instrument to sound like the replaced instrument. And then there is the challenges of getting your doubled instrument, in my case clarinet, up to speed so that the orchestra doesn’t think poorly of you. The audience rarely, if ever, know or hear the weak parts so they are less of a challenge to impress.
It looks like I will be playing bari sax, bass clarinet, and clarinet this go around. Last time I played soprano, tenor, and bass sax. It was much easier to do that, but still a challenge. Wish me luck.
In the category of more toys than I have time to play with is this very interesting project for sharing pictures and files any where, any time. This may become the answer to me having duplicate files on each of my six computers. :o)
Windows Live SkyDrive has just been updated with some new features, and with more storage. You can never have too much storage, right? Here are the highlights of these updates.
The SkyDrive team blog highlights some of the coolest and new features: http://skydriveteam.spaces.live.com/default.aspx.
In the ‘this is way cool’ category from the FEI company:
"A new microscope developed by the TEAM Project (Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope), supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, has recorded the highest-resolution images ever seen (0.05 nanometer and below). This is equivalent to a quarter of the diameter of a carbon atom.
This microscope will be delivered to the Berkeley National Laboratory in 2008 and will be fully operational in 2010. To achieve this resolution, this microscope mixes two technologies, SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) and TEM (Transmission Electron Microscope).
Such a microscope will allow to ‘study how atoms combine to form materials, how materials grow and how they respond to a variety of external factors.’
This is mostly for my brother Pete who has unsuccessful tried to help me become a decent guitar player. 90 percent of the songs I bang away on, he taught me when we were in Junior and High School.
A friend of mine on the musician alias at work sez, somewhere in a thread way too long to repeat:
"After watching the street musician vid, I pinpointed what the problem was in my mind: over ornamentation. A problem common in jazz as well, I’m afraid. As a singer, I’m impressed by singers with good breath control and range, but you can put the audience to sleep holding that high C for 5 minutes-it just becomes noise going nowhere. It might be different if you’re singing a song about a person engaged in a long period of waiting, mourning, trying, whatever, but ability alone doesn’t cut it. And it can be quite daunting, when you compare your own talent and its limitations to the plethora of other musicians out there performing-especially if you tend to isolate yourself.
I’m reminded of an old band leader of mine. He held the common audience in contempt; he was playing for the musicians (real or imagined) in the crowd. He wanted to impress them with his self taught guitar playing, his self taught ragtime piano, etc. When the audience treated us like background music he would go into a rage and show them with a kamikaze ragtime attack to show them what was what…. LOL"
Myself, I thought this was a nice piece. But then I’m not a professional musician, I just play one on TV. 
Dad and I have been talking about this blog and part of what he says is, "Lying is for the shortsighted." Hugh MacLeod is a very interesting blogger, artist, and social scientist. His blog, gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" is interesting to me on a number of levels. I love his insights and and art.
He made this characterization of Microsoft, called the ‘Blue Monster’ famous. As a matter of fact, I have it on the back of my laptop of work to continually remind me, "Microsoft, change the world or go home!" It’s functional in that I can find my computer in a stack of like computers and the logo talks to me. Hugh’s story by the way makes for interesting reading too.
Some people buy boats. Others buy vacation property. I buy musical instruments.
I have a small collection of vintage instruments like this Selmer Paris silver clarinet that plays like a dream. But I’m really a sax man. And to that end, I am working with a world-famous saxophone maker Benedikt Eppelsheim to create a one of a kind bass saxophone with an extended low range to low A. He is also providing a unique color (or colour as he sez ;o) that will come close to matching my Ref 54 saxophones.
I wanted the low A because of a bass sax feature piece called ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch’ by arranger extraordinare Ward Baxter, that is littered with low A’s. For a standard bass sax you’d have to lip the instrument down from it’s lowest note Bb to get a, for me, mostly sketchy low A. I toyed with having my grandson place a tube of cardboard in the bell for each low A, but there were just too many of them. But I am convinced this will be a very popular number for both my quartet and the Woodinville Community Band that my wife and I play with.
Part of the journey of getting a new instrument for your arsenal is learning how to play it. Although the fingering for all saxes (including but not limited to the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, F mezzo, alto, C melody, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass, sub-contrabass) are the same, the voicing achieved by adjusting your embouchure can be challenging. And for the vintage bass saxophone, I have a ’21 Buescher bass sax, there are alternate fingerings necessary to get some notes to speak.
Okay, so I’m guessing that if you’ve gotten this far in my post today that you can tell how jazzed I am about this new instrument. I’m so looking forward to getting some quality time on this bass sax. This will be a very busy Fall for the many bands that I play with. And the first practice for the Second Story Rep theater production of ‘A Chorus Line’ starts tomorrow.
Here’s hoping you have a great weekend, doing the things you enjoy with the people you love.
Quinn the Eskimo Vintage Horns
The Bis Key Chronicles 