the viola player
I met a woman, a grandmother, who was a violin student of Yitzchak Pearlman. She said back then he had never had a student before he told her to play […]
Performing
favourite panel
I played SXSW a couple times. The first time with my manager, the under appreciated Don Christensen. His company was called noise management, how great was that. We papered the […]
neo chapman’s pinky on the volume control
lot of worms in the way on the wet ground this morning in high park. didn’t want to squish them, walked carefully, came to a halt before one long skinny […]
stranded with clarinet
A man stranded on a desert island and found a clarinet washed up on the beach. He didn’t know how to play the clarinet and never thought about blowing into […]
Blind Loosa Bernstein and Slim Raphael
There was a songwriter at the open stage last fall, named Rusty, and every song he sung was about death or dying. One night, after everyone finished performing, a few […]
fatal
Soloing in concert is sort of like looking both ways before you cross the street, like playing with the idea that one mistake could be fatal, like it is about […]
first and only
In 1991, a Canadian fan living in Poland, organized three shows for me. Kraków, Kazimierz Dolny and Warsaw. The Poles were in the midst of devaluing their money, removing three […]
load out
mystery person shovelled my walk again like they did two times before. i suspect it is a certain neighbour and it pleases me lots that they do this before i […]
looptalk
Listened to a guy other night at the open stage perform with a machine that starts/ stops loops easily. It had a pitch shifter built into it, his voice could […]
heavy hitters
Some books about the mind direct a person to practise stopping thought and have methods like staring at a candle, sitting in lotus position, chanting a name like Honest Ed […]