Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium

High-altitude training is a concept that is familiar to any of us who have watched the Olympics or the Tour de France. However, the practice of using extra-difficult training situations to build one’s performance capabilities can be expanded to include a lot more applications than simply riding or running in thin air to that normal air feels thick.

When we hear commentators discuss high-altitude training on TV, they always make the point about how much stronger the athlete feels when they return from 8,500 feet above sea level to sea level. What we forget is how crap they feel, and how badly they perform when they first move from sea level to 8,500 feet.

Somehow, I was reminded of this when David Hoose and I were talking last week after I had spent the morning working with his conducting students. Most music students tend to treat every learning situation as a performing situation- this means that they’re more focused on avoiding mistakes than on what they’re learning. In a lesson or masterclass, nothing rattles a student more than making a mistake, but the mistake could easily be the least of their problems. If you miss a cue, at least you knew it was there and can get it next time. Better to focus on the concepts still unlearned than to worry about maintaining your dignity as a performer. Failure is the ultimate teacher, and there’s always time to recover your pride.

Suzanne and I had our own experience of a bit of high-altitude training in our Saturday morning dress rehearsal with the Cambridge Symphony….

I may get in some trouble for saying this, but I’m starting to view the fact that so many churches I perform in have a climate that would make the last survivors of the Franklin Expedition to discover the Northwest Passage, who spent over 2 years with their ships frozen in solid ice, shiver from the cold as definitive proof of the non-existence of God.

Of course, the congregation of this church would not know what I am talking about- on Sunday mornings, the church is warm and cozy and fully heated. However, for a mere rehearsal with 90-odd musicians, it was bitter cold- see your breath, let your teeth chatter cold (ever play an oboe with chattering teeth?).

Now, if I had 90 guests coming to my house, I’d make sure they were pleasantly warm. If a church were really God’s house, wouldn’t He make sure the heating were turned on a few hours before the arrival of His guests?  Shouldn’t an omnipotent deity at least ring the caretaker to say “I’ve got 90 musicians coming on Saturday, can you put the heating on the timer?”

I used to work in a church with lovely acoustics in Manchester that was also always an icebox for the rehearsals. Before each concert, the orchestra manager would call and remind the caretaker to turn on the heating Saturday morning, and after every concert the head of the ladies committee would want to know if it was better than last time “we turned it on extra early for you this time- 1:30 in the afternoon, nearly half an hour before your rehearsal,” she would crow with pride.

Any OES members who can remember me breaking a mild sweat on January nights in the Vert when the heating there wasn’t working can testify to the fact that I don’t get cold very easily. (Fortunately, the frequent lack of heat in the Vert is only proof of the non-competence of some of the people running the building, not the non-existence of a monotheistic deity). However, this time, in spite of 3 layers, including a thick wool sweater, I was freezing, as were the many musicians in their parkas and ski-caps. Worse yet, my poor cello was nearly frozen solid. Normally, I’d put the G and C strings of my cello against just about any instrument in the world, but at that temperature, it sounded like a plywood box with a cold.

Of course, the heating was turned on. We could tell this because it makes about 85db of white noise in the room, making it even harder for the orchestra and soloists to hear each other.

Finally- what is the deal with carpet. Carpet is death to music. Let me repeat that- CARPET= DEATH TO MUSIC. One of the biggest disappointments of my years in Pendleton has been my failure to convince the wise heads at the city government to remove the nasty carpet from the Vert Auditorium to reveal the lovely, antique floorboards that lie beneath, a simple, inexpensive procedure that would have transformed the orchestra’s product. This church obviously has put some effort into becoming a music venue, as is obvious from the acoustic clouds that swoop and swirl overheard in the gale force winds coming from the heating system. Why then, carpet this beautiful old building?

Anyway, it was a somewhat frustrating morning, until I remembered my conversation with David earlier in the week. This could be my high-altitude training for the week, and there was no point in worrying about my first performance at 8,500 feet. I resolved to let go worrying that I wasn’t playing the piece as well, or making as nice a sound as I could under easier conditions, and instead use the morning to figure out how to build my capacity to weather tough ones.

When we returned for the sound check the next day, the church was toasty warm from the visits of the morning parishioners. Once again, Suzanne and I felt like we were playing on proper instruments instead of toys, and we had the luxury of being able to feel our fingers and toes. I no longer shivered between phrases, and at one point, I even felt a blessed drip of sweat on my brow!

Then, at concert time, they finally turned off the heating- the infernal fans went silent, and it was like stepping out of a vast fog into clear, albeit carpeted, sunshine. And the concert felt like the easiest go at the piece yet. Sea level air made us feel faster and stronger.

I have to say, I’ve worked under a lot of crappy conditions in recent years. I think I’ve learned a lot from it that will serve me well in the years to come, but one thing I’ve learned is that conditions do matter. People who run multi-purpose venues often treat the music part of multi-purpose as “allowing musicians to use the building,” with no consideration for creating a space where the musicians can hear themselves,  or for what the music sounds like in the hall. It’s all well and good toughening yourself up, but every musician who puts the work in should get to hear themselves in a decent space. We’re far more dependent on the spaces we work in than theatre groups or dance troupes.

A view from the podium

David Hoose- “Brahms Double…. You know, I’ve always thought of that as a rather “brown” work.”

Kenneth Woods- “Really… I’ve always thought of it as red, even though I know it’s kind of a thorny and problematic piece.”

David Hoose- “Well, that’s good. Red…. That, at least, already implies a certain degree of luminosity. I’m looking forward to hearing it…”

I relay this brief excerpt from my conversation with David on our way to work with his conducting class last Wednesday because it highlights our complex way of linking music and color.

I don’t even have perfect pitch so it would be ludicrous to claim synesthesia, but there are certain keys with which I have rather specific associations to color, if not luminosity. A minor, the key of the Brahms Double, for instance, is almost always red to me. Mahler 6- most definitely a red piece.

More often than not (Mahler 6 being a notable “not”), the red of A minor is autumnal- Brahms Double is certainly autumnal music to me. A minor red is the red of maple leaves in early November. The later Brahms chamber works with clarinet are autumnal in a more obvious “going for a long walk by myself in the woods to think about everything I’ve lost and miss in life” way. The Double Concerto is autumnal more in the way that Oktoberfest is autumnal. It is music of reflection, affection and celebration.

The first movement may be tragic, but it’s also an expression of Brahms’ affection for tragic movements-a tip of the hat to the Tragic Overture, the first movements of the 1^st and last symphonies and the first two string quartets. The second movement is so simple and folksy, coming from a composer who mastered the art of perpetual variation technique- it’s as if he’s saying “these are the kinds of folk tunes I’ve loved.” It reminds me of when Brahms and Bruckner found themselves at adjacent tables in their favorite pub in Vienna. When Brahms heard his rival order sausages and red cabbage he turned to him and said….

“Sausages and red cabbage- at last something you and I can agree on, Bruckner.” To me, that second movement’s theme is all sausages and red cabbage. Even though the movement is in D major, the cabbage, that sour, minor-key vegetable, is still resolutely red.

Then there is the Finale, a movement in which Brahms seems keen to satisfy himself and his listeners (while tormenting his performers), but not his acolytes and fans (Clara Schumann disliked the piece and Joachim was ambivalent about it), nor his supporters in the critical establishment. Starting from a jaunty, Hungarian theme, this movement is as close as Brahms ever came in mood, if not in sound, to Schubert’s movements where one seems to stroll from adventure to adventure, happening to happening, world to world, all in the same tempo. For such a large and powerful piece, the ending is most memorable for its complete lack of seriousness. It sounds like one’s fourth beer at Oktoberfest, not a serious-minded Brahmsian summation of formal elements. It also sounds, even in the major, rather red.

E-flat major, a tritone away, is also red, but a more physical, even virile red. The Eroica, Mozart 39, the Emperor Concerto, Mahler 8- these are red pieces without any Autumn at all.

This week, I’m conducting another Brahms piece- the radiantly golden D Major Symphony, no. 2. Most of my friends seem to agree that D major is golden or yellow- we even have a CD of a former Cardiff pianist called “The Key of D Major is Sunflower Yellow.” Bach’s 6^th Cello Suite is in the key of sunshine.

G major, on the other hand, is blue. F major is green, but less green than D major is yellow.

C minor, maybe my favorite key, has no color association for me at all. To me it is the key of the funeral march, whether that be the 2^nd movement of the Eroica or Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music. D-flat major is also my favorite key (why on Earth should I have to limit myself to one favorite key?). D-flat has a color, but I can’t describe it. D-flat is the 3^rd Movement of Beethoven’s last string quartet, a piece that is always guaranteed to make me cry. D flat is a tri-tone away from the blue of G major, but its beauty comes from its strangeness, its otherworldliness.

On the other hand, I find the extreme sharp keys troubling, even upsetting. The F# Major of the Trio from the 2^nd movement of Bruckner 9 has always sounded like a nightmare vision of a Heaven that is tainted with insanity to me. C# major, which on the piano should be the same as D-flat is similarly cruel in its blinding glare.

Schubert understood the power of key better than anyone, even Bach and Beethoven. Only he could have understood that his final two chamber works, the G major String Quartet and the C Major String Quintet, would be more powerful for his use of such seemingly banal and naïve keys. He understood the power of simplicity where lesser artists worshiped the one-dimensionality of overt complexity, and also understood the deep pain of innocence lost.

But then, there is A minor- whether the blood-red of Mahler 6, or the Autumnal luminosity of the Brahms Double, which I miss already…. How ironic that almost as soon as the leaves turn red they begin to fall from the trees and turn brown again. Maybe David was right? From Autum red to brown is a journey of but a few hours.

A view from the podium

I am still at a loss for words to describe just how shocked I was to learn of the death of Richard Hickox yesterday. Richard was many things, but as much as anything, he was a force of nature. His ability to manage and thrive under a staggering workload while always seeming to project a torrent of personal energy in both musical and social situations gave him an aura of seeming invincibility. His tragically early death is the cruelest possible reminder that nobody is indestructible.

Richard was one of the first bona fide big wigs I met when I began to move a major part of my professional life to Britain. I had been introduced to David Murray, his administrative colleague at the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, through my work with Leonard Slatkin at the NSO. David asked me if I’d met Richard, and when I told him I’d been a bit reluctant to corner him as an unknown conductor new in town. My experience with “big cheese” conductors in America had been that unless someone introduces you, you’re only going to annoy them as a young conductor trying to strike up a conversation. David wisely counseled me that Richard would be surprisingly approachable.

With some trepidation, I waited for Richard one frosty November afternoon after a BBC NOW rehearsal. I caught him in the hallway as he left the rehearsal and quickly introduced myself and asked if he might have time for a chat.

Read more…

A view from the podium

I’ve moved a few miles up the East Coast, from Newark, Delaware to Boston, and from chamber music to a bit of concerto playing, Brahms Double with Suzanne.

It’s quite a paradigm shift, especially at an early rehearsal. A wise teacher once told me that one shouldn’t follow the orchestra too much at the first rehearsal, or you never get your way. “Lead in the rehearsals, even if you risk a train wreck, but follow in the concert and don’t impose any risks on the performance.” It’s good advice, especially if you have a few rehearsals to work with.

The upshot is that you have to take an almost opposite mindset when soloing from when you play chamber music. Of course, you still want to make music and interact with the orchestral musicians, that’s what makes it fun, but you also have to make sure, more than anything, that you are communicating your point of view to the conductor and the players. If you can’t project that, their job becomes infinitely harder because there is no profile for them to latch on to. After a week of trying to blend and match and anticipate, now it is more a matter of laying down the law, in the nicest possible way.

There are people who tend to be very good about keeping track of things like bow re-hairs and instrument maintenance. I am not one of them- I tend to wait until something breaks or until the re-hair situation reaches crisis point. Okay, I don’t “tend” to wait until something breaks, I actually “wait” until something breaks. There has been one exception in the last 15 years- this summer I took the cello to Colin Irving, one of the real geniuses I’ve ever met, his hands are blessed by holy powers, for a check up and tune up. When he restored the instrument 6 years ago, he told me to bring it in every 6 months, so right on schedule, half a decade late, I brought it in. 

A more typical case in point is the status of my strings. It would be scandalous to admit how long this last set of strings has been on my cello, because people have actually paid to hear concerts on them. I used to break strings all the time, even c-strings, so it never occurred to me just to take a string off because it was worn out. These were on there so long I had forgotten how long they were on there, if that makes any sense. When I got back from Biloxi it really hit me, especially as the A-string, which had seemed nearly indestructible was starting to sound nasty and raspy.

However, between stomach flu and family commitments, I completely failed to get new strings before coming to America, and once in Delaware, couldn’t quite make my way up to Wilmington, location of the nearest violin shop. Once here, the shops were closed until today, Tuesday, so I had to go through the first rehearsal on Monday on the old strings. Finally, today brought SUCCESS! It took calls to 5 places in town to find all the right kit (I probably would have been out of luck in Wilmington), but at 3:18 PM, I had my first new set of strings since………..

They’re on there, and, believe it or not, the damn cello sounds better. Why did it take so long, and why do I have the same issues with dry cleaning?

Anyway, I always find the first rehearsal with orchestra quite a relief (unless I play like an ass)- a lot of things one stresses about in the practice studio (especially in a piece with 2 soloists), just aren’t an issue in front of 70 other players. Usually the 2^nd rehearsal is where you start to realize what is harder with the orchestra, so I’m bracing myself, but at least I’ve got my new magic strings.

There was a Facebook thread running the other day among some of my cello geek friends that was basically a survey of “what strings do you use?” I managed to stay off that one, but what I had on the cello was

Larsen A and D (strong)

Larsen G (medium)

Spirocore Tungsten C (stark)

The new set up is

Larsen A and D solo edition (strong)

Bel Canto Gold C and G (tungsten medium)

The Bel Cantos are even more insanely expensive, but have a more gut-ish sound than the Spirocores…… The Larsen G always used to lose pitch if I played loudly (which I tend to do a lot). I’ve used Spirocore G’s a lot, but they take forever to break in.

I think that makes this officially the dorkiest blog post ever.

A view from the podium

My busy and brief visit to the University of Delaware is nearly over. Showtime arrived last night after two days of rehearsals, and, in spite of foul fall weather, we drew a very nearly full house. Mitchell Hall is a marvelous venue for chamber music- nice acoustics, beautiful Georgian architectural features and a cozy feel for a hall that seats 650. We were also lucky to have an exceptional piano for the show.

First up was the Saint-Saens Duo for Violin and Harp, a piece I’d never heard before. It’s quite a showcase for the performers and shows Saint-Saens at his French-iest, which is how I like him.

Next up was the Mozart E-flat Piano Quartet. Xiang Gao had asked Kermit Poling and me to introduce some of the evening’s pieces- he drew the two Mozarts and I got the Beethoven. Kermit is one of these guys who just oozes natural musicality- he’s a wonderful fiddle player but also and accomplished conductor who is now mostly composing, and is playing piano on his orchestra’s chamber music series when he gets home. However, his intro showcased his other talent, public speaking, honed as the classical music host at Red River Radio in Shreveport. On a good day, I’ll put my concert-rap skills up against anyone after Lenny, but Kermit spoke with such ease and that effortlessly smooth radio voice that I was definitely feeling I needed to step up my game.

I’m not a big fan of down time in a concert, especially if I’m feeling good about things. When I conduct, I’m usually glad for an intermission so I can drink some water and catch my breath, but when I’m playing I’d much prefer just to play straight through and go home, but then the audience would miss out on their interval wine…. Tonight, my break was made longer because I didn’t play the next piece- the Mozart Duo for Viola and Violin. I’ve always had mixed feelings about this piece, mostly because I’m someone who likes to hear a bit more bass clef in my music, but they played it with tons of panache. Fortunately, I had a sound proof dressing room, so could play a few notes to keep fingers and mind limber before returning to the stage.

Finally, Xiang, Julie and I took the stage for the Beethoven “Ghost” Trio. I’ve written before about the frustration of playing trios with a pianist who is unable to tame the 9 foot beast, but that was not a problem this week, with Julie Nishimura’s deft and subtle touch (google alert for JN!). If anything, I had to work a bit to make as much sound as that damn 3 1/2 million dollar Strad Gao was using. Inspired and challenged by Kermit’s rap on the Mozart I spoke for a few minutes about the Beethove, taking care to make the audience laugh a few times. There’s certainly a wealth of things you can talk about in the piece. Beethoven in his middle period seemed to fascinated with changing our perceptions of musical time, writing some works that deliberately strive toward a meditative, almost trance-like suspension of time- an invocation of the eternal. The Violin Concerto is the most perfect example of these kinds of pieces. However, even as he was perfecting these huge movements in which our perception of time is stretched and ultimately lifted, he was also writing things like the first movement of the Fifth Symphony which are so compact that they feel much shorter than they are. The first movement of this trio is like that- relentless, focused, driven, but all in the spirit of effervescent celebration, rather than the rage of the C minor symphony.

I think it was a stroke of programming genius for Gao to program the Ghost and the Mozart E-flat on the same program as they are relatively rare examples of large-scale chamber works in three movements. In both cases, the slow movements are so powerful and the Finale’s so funny that a Scherzo would have been completely pointless. The Beethoven is striking because all three movements share the same tonic note (D), while the use of the subdominant key for the slow movement of the Mozart is much more typical. The slow movement of the Beethoven is in D minor, which is not only, as Nigel Tufnel so articulately postulated, the saddest of all keys, it was a very special key for Beethoven. Andras Schif calls D minor Beethoven’s key of “existential crisis,” as heard in the 9^th Symphony, for instance, while others have pointed out that almost all of his works which refer to the writings of Shakespeare are in D minor.

This slow movement, which has nothing to do with ghosts, is closest in spirit to me to the slow movement of the op. 18 no. 1 String Quartet, which Beethoven said was a depiction of the graveyard scene from Romeo and Juliet. This movement has that same balance of pathos, dread and high tragedy. It’s one of those movements that is so emotionally intense that it is quite tricky to pull off- you can’t just wallow in all that pathos, neither can you just play the notes and hope for the best. As performers, we all need our own emotional space for a movement that is so personal, so you can’t force the issue and try to make it happen, the piece just has to have space to happen.

Finally, Beethoven makes a wonderful joke out of the fact that the whole trio, rather naughtily, is all built on the same tonic. Throughout the Finale, again and again he’ll suddenly leap off of D major to a rather distant key like F#, as if we know we should have spent an entire movement in another key long ago. Then, just as quickly, he’ll work right back to the tonic, as if to say “no- there’s no escaping home in this piece.” It’s a damn witty way to end one of my favorite chamber works.

All in all, a wonderful night of music with great colleagues- it’s nice when you can come off stage thinking how cool it is to be doing what you love for a living…

A view from the podium

Tomorrow night I’m playing in a concert that is part of the Master Players chamber music series at the University of Delaware in Newark. This is the fifth year of this series, which was founded by violinist and U of D faculty member Xiang Gao, and it’s become quite a starry affair. Later this year, they’ll be hosting the Guarneri Quartet in one of their final concerts.

We’re doing an interesting program, where every piece has a different instrumentation- the Mozart Duo for Viola and Violin, the Mozart E-flat Major Piano Quartet, the Saint-Saens Duo for Harp and Violin and the Beethoven Piano Trio op 70 no 1, sometimes called the “Ghost” trio.

Given the range of instrumentations, every group is, of course, playing together for the first time, although most of us has worked together before in some capacity. I’ve worked with two of my colleagues, our host, Xiang Gao and violist Hong-Mei Xiao as soloists when I’ve conducted, so it is lovely to get to know them as chamber music colleageus instead of as soloists. Julie Nishimura, the pianist, is an artist-in-residence here- she and I played together once ten years ago. She’s a fantastic player and so easy to work with.

The story of that performance is a bit ironic- it was an audition recital for the position of professor of cello here at the University of Delaware. I didn’t get the job! I think that’s hilarious, because here I am ten years later coming in as a guest artist. Returning to the scene of my past triumph! I kept expecting some bright light in the adminstration to remember that they’d turned their noses up at me ten years ago and call Gao and tell him to find another cellist.

Last month when we played the Schubert C Major Quintet in Pendleton I joked with the audience that you could by hundreds of copies of my Chinese cello for the price of Parry’s Lupot. This week, I’m playing on my posh Italian cello, but, fancy schmancy as it is, I think you could still by hundreds of it for the price of the most expensive instrument on stage- Gao’s Stradivarius. He’s playing the “Lady Tennant,” worth about 3 1/2 million bucks, on loan from the Stradivari Society.

My new colleague this week is Kermit Poling, who is playing violin on the Mozart Piano Quartet. Kermit is the concertmaster of the Shreveport Symphony and a very accomplished conductor. His violin is interesting in a completely different way- we were complimenting him on it at dinner and he said it was made by a chap in Cincinnati named Damon Gray.

Now, Damon is/was a cellist and we were classmates at CCM before he got the instrument building bug. He’s more known for his cellos- I almost bought one several years ago- and his violas. “I’ve only seen one of his violins before,” I told Kermit, “which he made for a friend of mine.” That one belonged to Eric Bates, who is an associate concertmaster in the Cincinnati Symphony- he came and did the Tchaikovsky concerto with us in Oregon several years ago on a violin made for him by Damon.

Kermit then told me how he came to own his Damon Gray. “I bought if off an associate concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony who studied with me before he went to college…His name is Eric Bates.”

Now that’s what I call a small world moment.

So, I’ve still only seen one of Damon’s violins- this is the very same one Eric played the Tchaik on all those years back in La Grande and Baker City….

A view from the podium

Ken- We’re nearing the end of our very, very lengthy discussion with conductor Kenneth Woods about his performance last week of Elgar’s epic First Symphony with the Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra. Ken, you seemed very happy with the orchestra.

Ken- I was delighted- there is a lot of accountability there in terms of preparation and motivation, they have excellent string principals and some wonderful solo wind players, as well as a refreshing lack of passengers in the sections.

Ken- So you were satisfied with the concert?

Ken- Hmm… how to say this- one can be more than satisfied with the concert but not satisfied with the performance. I guess that means, this was a great experience, but if the next one was the same, I’d be disappointed. I thought the orchestra did amazingly well in assimilating the mountains of detail in this score- we spent the whole first rehearsal just decoding his articulations because people aren’t used to reading music so literally. Undoing all those habits takes tremendous concentration. Also, the technical standard was high. And they really make music- they watch, they respond and they initiate things. However, this was my first visit with them- I’m not sure that in a perfect world that this is a guest conducting piece. It would be lovely to do it as a music director, where you have a real rapport, where you’ve done other Elgar before, and where there is a shared Tonkultur.

Ken- Tonkultur- that sounds a bit pompous/old-fashioned. You mean a culture of sound?

Ken- I remember seeing an interview with Karajan from the last years of his life. He said something to the effect that the most difficult part of the job for him at that time was the absence of so many old friends and colleagues from the orchestra. He said he felt like he died a little every time someone left. Just this summer, my friend Philip said that when he was at Covent Garden, Solti would come back every year and the first thing he would do is look for the “old faces.” He’d squint his eyes and peer across the room “where are they- where are the old faces?”

Neither of these guys are what you’d call sentimental types. However, they were smart enough to know that, much as the fresh-from-the-factory hotshots may play cleaner, faster scales, it’s the old faces that carry with them the Tonkultur of the orchestra- its unique vocabulary of sounds, textures, articulations- the orchestra’s relationship relation to the hall they play in, their way of understanding every last little wiggle and twitch of their music director. It’s thrilling to do a piece like Elgar 1 with a great band as a guest, but the ideal is to do it with a band you’ve spent years building a rapport with.

Ken- You didn’t have huge string sections for this concert.

Ken- No. That’s kind of the curse of the non-A orchestra these days, but we didn’t have many passengers either. Earlier in the week, I heard the Alabama Symphony rehearsing an all-Bernstein concert with almost the exact same string count, except one more viola and one fewer bass player, and they sounded plenty big. The week before I saw the RPO, very much an A orchestra, do Dvorak 9 with quite small string sections, but in the Cadogan Hall, you don’t need 18 firsts- it would be deafening for one thing. If you’re going to have a smallish section, better to allow no weak players, especially in the violins, because they have nowhere to hide, and also to have a big bass section, so the sound has more fullness and resonance.

Ken- Don’t you worry more about the balance with the brass when you have fewer strings? Ken- Let’s face it, one trumpet player playing too loud can easily obliterate 20 violins. Most of the balances in Elgar are fine because he was a great conductor and knew how things would work. The only problems result from the difference in size, weight and power between modern brass instruments and the one’s he knew. Every once in a while, you need to ask the trumpets or trombones to back off a tiny bit, but that’s the same with any string section, no matter how big.

Ken- I guess I don’t have to ask you if you used vibrato?

Ken- Well, there were certainly places where I asked for less, and even none, and where I worked on more variety, and I would have gone farther in that direction if we had time. However, vibrato is really something you don’t want to get into unless you have time to, because color is so hard to talk about. Better to hire a concertmaster whose playing you love and who is expert at using the widest variety of vibrato and non-vib sounds and let them stamp their personality on the section over many years.

Ken- Well, we’d better wrap it up. Has anyone ever told you you were long-winded?

Ken- In my defense, this is way shorter than your interview with Gordon Downie, and I managed to avoid saying “The juridical tincture of such a definition is not incidental.”

Ken- Technically, you almost managed to avoid it.

Ken- Didn’t Jeremy Denk just do a self interview, with the added twist that one of his personae was Sarah Palin? Isn’t that a bit wittier than a simple self-interview?  Isn’t it also a bit lame to do your own self interview so soon after that?

Ken- I don’t know- irony is so 90’s. First, we’d scheduled this session before either of us read Mr. Denk’s piece. And, so what if he is wittier- okay, he’s a clever guy, but maybe he’s TOO clever. A self-interview is ponsy enough, but a self-interview with an infinitely annoying but highly ironic pop-culture figure might be going to far.

Ken- Sounds like defensive anti-intellectualism of the worst, er, Sarah Palin variety. “Maestro Woods- President Sarkozy on the phone for you…” Can’t you admit when you’re beaten?

Ken- Enough! I ask the questions here. This interview is over!