1/27/05, 8:18 p.m. --
Clarinet fuh. (?)
In commemoration of Andy finally making an update
to the front page of symposed for the first time in two months, I figured I should
update my page, too. Not a whole heck of a lot has happened since I returned to Mpls,
other than Steve, Alex, and Victoria driving up the weekend before last, which
was (as usual) a lot of fun.
The big news, however, came tonight when I got to play my newly-rented bass clarinet for the first time this semester. I had been told it was a nice instrument, and I had no reason to doubt except for the fact that I had played a broken one for half the previous semester before they gave me a different one that (mostly) worked. However, turns out the BC I get for this semester may actually be worth the $120 I have to pay to rent it from the school: it's a grenadilla-wood Yamaha YCL-622, with a low C. I checked yamaha.com (and google) and it turns out that this instrument began production in 1988, and has a current retail price of $8975 -- at least 4 times what my car is probably worth! It's considered by Yamaha to be their (alleged) top-of-the-line BC model, and being made of wood instead of resonite plastic, I might actually believe that. Also, since it goes to low C (instead of the standard low E or Eb common on most student clarinets), it is much more valuable (and more fun to play). This means I get a bonus extra 3 notes to play with my otherwise-sedentary right thumb =P
After playing on it tonight, I realized how much of a difference a good instrument can make. It's easily the nicest instrument I have ever played on in my life, with an effortless response on all but the highest notes. I was told the pads were recently replaced, too, which is also a first for me. Normally I get the ancient clarinets with the worn and rotting pads that are incredibly leaky, which makes it especially hard to play the lowest (and funnest) notes. Never experienced anything like it before, and I am definitely looking foward to band a lot more now. Hope we get to play some nices tunes to go with it. Tonight I broke it in by playing about the only march I can tolerate: Sousa's Liberty Bell March, better known as the Monty Python theme ;)
The big news, however, came tonight when I got to play my newly-rented bass clarinet for the first time this semester. I had been told it was a nice instrument, and I had no reason to doubt except for the fact that I had played a broken one for half the previous semester before they gave me a different one that (mostly) worked. However, turns out the BC I get for this semester may actually be worth the $120 I have to pay to rent it from the school: it's a grenadilla-wood Yamaha YCL-622, with a low C. I checked yamaha.com (and google) and it turns out that this instrument began production in 1988, and has a current retail price of $8975 -- at least 4 times what my car is probably worth! It's considered by Yamaha to be their (alleged) top-of-the-line BC model, and being made of wood instead of resonite plastic, I might actually believe that. Also, since it goes to low C (instead of the standard low E or Eb common on most student clarinets), it is much more valuable (and more fun to play). This means I get a bonus extra 3 notes to play with my otherwise-sedentary right thumb =P
After playing on it tonight, I realized how much of a difference a good instrument can make. It's easily the nicest instrument I have ever played on in my life, with an effortless response on all but the highest notes. I was told the pads were recently replaced, too, which is also a first for me. Normally I get the ancient clarinets with the worn and rotting pads that are incredibly leaky, which makes it especially hard to play the lowest (and funnest) notes. Never experienced anything like it before, and I am definitely looking foward to band a lot more now. Hope we get to play some nices tunes to go with it. Tonight I broke it in by playing about the only march I can tolerate: Sousa's Liberty Bell March, better known as the Monty Python theme ;)
1/07/05, 8:17 p.m. --
"Well, I'm back."
Finally made it back to Minneapolis, after a much-needed hiatus in Ames visiting family
and friends over holiday break. I was planning on heading back sooner, but the monster
blizzard that hit Iowa this week delayed my travel for a couple days -- not that I
minded terribly ;) It felt really good to not have any school or work obligations to
worry about, and I was plenty lazy while hanging out in Ames: I think I ate my weight
in cookies and sweets, managed to take in all three extended versions of the LOTR movies
in a single day, and watched a lot of football. It was a pretty awesome display of
slothiness, but it's time to get back to a more productive routine, I think. On the
two nights that it snowed this week, I managed to go for a walk in the snow, which is
always a lot of fun. Wednesday night I brought my camera along, and tried (mostly
without success) to take some pictures. I've put up a couple of the ones that turned
out better:
