the missing month

Wow, a month, sorry about that. It can only partially be accounted for with the excuse of "busy-ness" since the past week or two has been spent largely reading books, staring out the window, cooking, eating, reading more books. Or sitting in the sun, on the terrace; or, imagine, practicing bass, or harpsichord, or g-violone. I realize not all of you are familiar with the Violone en sol; hell, I barely was, a few months ago. It looks like a viola da gamba: 6 strings, 7 frets, funny pointy bow. It is tuned similarly to a bass, with g-a-d-e (or f) as the top four strings, and then another c-g accounting for the other two. It took the role of the bass in small ensembles, but the notes sound at "8-foot" - that is to say, one octave higher than contrabass (my instrument) which sounds at 16-foot. Those "foot" descriptions refer to registers on an organ. Is this boring? Probably, I'm sorry. The gist of all this is to say that it's a useful instrument for me to play, if I'm going to keep doing old music, because sometimes the contrabass is just too low for certain ensembles. Here, for your enlightenment, is a picture I took of myself in the mirror in my practice room, with the g-violone.

Yes, yes, taken with my iPhone. At school. I think this particular instrument isn't the best example of its kind; it's pretty hard to make a nice sound. Forging ahead anyway, of course.

Probably I mentioned at some point in the past that spring was on its way, or that it had arrived. By now it looks like summer around here: trees teem with clusters, fistfuls of the greenest leaves you've ever seen; fields are full of dandelions; beer cans fill all the trash cans by the Rhine. Today we're having what I hope is a temporary break from the mid-70s weather we've been enjoying, but yesterday I managed a nice long bike ride in a north-easterly direction, toward a town called Riehen ("ree-enn"). I ended up following a little paved path into the middle of a field, then into something larger than a copse but smaller than a wood, past an overfull pond and a canal and something that I imagined would be called a sluice, if I knew what that was. There was a stone wall coming in at an angle from the edge of the canal, and a ledge that seemed to be slicing into the water, allowing it to run over the wall and into a lower canal and tunnel. Photos? Yes, of course.

Hipster colors courtesy iPhone and my own bad judgment, exercised while squinting at the tiny screen in full sunshine. Color manipulation stops here.

 so. nice.

slicey-sluice?

In one of the fields that bordered the canal, I saw two herons, and a little falcon of some type, hovering in the air awhile above some quick mouse. Quick, because I got off my bike and watched until the bird flew around looking for a new victim. I thought of that, just now, because a heron flew over my house. That happens pretty often here. Oh nature.

(A little aside here for some brain-vindication. Observe: "sluice, n. 1. a. An artificial channel for conducting water, with a valve or gate to regulate the flow: sluices connecting a reservoir with irrigated fields. b. A valve or gate used in such a channel; a floodgate: open sluices to flood a dry dock. Also called sluice gate." That is certainly what I was attempting to describe. So, if any of you already knew what a sluice was [DJ2!], you were not mislead.)

Upon arriving home, I gave my bike some of the tender loving care it needed after a winter spent in close proximity to snow, and unpleasantly cold rain, and other gifts of nature. The chain was entirely rust-colored, greasy dirt was clumped around the (hmm, which part could this be describing?) sprocket (?), more streaks of dirt covered - oh, who am I kidding? I may know what a sluice is but I couldn't label a diagram of a bicycle to save my life. Seat. Pedals. Okay. Anyhow, I cleaned it all off with a rag, and then I even put on new bar tape, since the old stuff was literally falling off. Riding to school today I was quieter than a cat on a carpet, everything was working so smoothly.

What else can I show you? A picture from the town of Eglisau, situated on the Rhine but upstream from Basel by about an hour, and as close to a paradise as I've ever seen. The river cuts a valley between high hills, both of which are covered in vineyards. Several of the surrounding towns (and maybe also Eglisau, I don't know) have natural hot springs. And the river is so much different than in Basel; it's a lazy, transparent green and still stretch bordered by trees and high banks on one side, and the town and fields on the other, rising sharply to vineyards. I didn't get any really good photos, I hope these give you a sense:

 lunch by the Rhine

 some lucky person's yard

on the left, the church where I played.

What else am I missing here? Hmm, the last big tour I went on? Right, Istanbul was at the beginning, Innsbruck in the middle, and sad, cold and gray northern Germany at the end. In Istanbul, it rained. And I had a cold. Also there were cats everywhere.

excellent-looking bookstore next to a well-stocked candy store

inexplicable hollow space between buildings filled 4 feet high with trash

 cat.

On the way back from Istanbul, my bass must have gotten a little extra-jostled, because at the next rehearsal we noticed light coming from between the fingerboard and the neck. The next morning I took it to my Geigenbauer - "violin builder" - Lubomir, who promptly gave it a little tug and pulled the whole thing off. I don't know if it's clear from the picture, but some previous repair had used PLYWOOD. Plywood, folks. And, what's that in the next picture? A nail?? Yes. A nail.

 Lubomir holds up the sad old fingerboard. Note plywood at base of neck.

 Clearly, a nail.

Needless to say, I decided to get a new fingerboard put on, as the old one was on its last legs. The new one is really nice and well done, though it's taking me some time to get the setup adjusted the way I need it. I bought some files. It's satisfying to make tiny adjustments and then feel large differences in the response and sound of the instrument. I'll keep fiddling around until it's good again.

The rest of tour was spent playing someone else's bass, not an ideal arrangement for a big tour with a nice orchestra. Alas. Also, I was sick nearly the whole time. Life can't be great all the time, I guess. I still had a nice time. The music-making was good, even if my part of it was stressful (how to play in tune? and other questions of that nature), and the people were nice. Funny thing about tour, after it's over you spend the next week or so seeing orchestra members on the street, in the grocery store, on the tram - everywhere around you, even if they're not actually there. Maybe you just get really used to seeing the same faces. I have another concert with the same group next week, which I see as a chance to redeem myself. Healthy Megan that Plays In Tune. Then it's a quiet month and a half of school work and long bike rides before I head off to France. School? Remember that? Me too, but only barely. No time like the present to get reacquainted.