I Hate Winter

Can you see the frost on the windshield?  It's one reason I don't like this season...

This righteous dude here is Antonio Vivaldi and I guess he was a fan of all Four Seasons...get it? (I know, I'm a dork).  The Utah Symphony was reduced to a chamber orchestra and tonight they played the Four Seasons, a set of Baroque violin conceros.  The best part about the reduced orchestra was that there were no flutes.  I don't know why, but I absolutely despise the flute; I'm sure a lot of fabulous people play the flute, but I still hate it.
It was a fantastic performance... but of course there were those people that wouldn't shut up -the kind that always seem to be seated next to you.
I was pleasantly suprised to see a harpsichord (baroque keyboard- like a piano but plucked not struck) as part of the Basso Continuo.  The basso continuo usually consists of a harpsichord and a few cellos and a bass, and is a key identifier of most Baroque music.  The basso continuo kind of keeps time- like the rhythm section of a jazz band; from what I recall of Music 101, the composer would write out the "chord progressions" and the basso continuo would kind of improvise- like a jazz band.

Isn't the Bass completely awesome?  I played the upright bass in my middle school orchestra; my kook-of-a-stand partner used to twirl her bass by its neck when the teacher was working with the violins.  By the looks of this guy's expression, I'm thinking maybe most bass players are eccentric?

(*Embarassing Story: so when you play the bass, you have to set the music stand up really high. One time during class a piece of sheet music floated off the music stand and to the ground... so I reached down to get it while propping my bass up with one hand- genius right?  Surely enough, the bass slipped right through my fingers and just about took out one of the cellos.  There was a loud, attention-getting WHACK, and then dead silence as everyone looked up to stare at me.  Needless to say, I wanted to crawl in a hole- especially since the freaking scroll (part with the pegs) broke off.  I wish I could tell you that this was the only bass that was ever damaged while in my posession, but then I'd be lying...)

You should check out Chiquita's blog...

(P.S. we ate at El Pollo Loco...you're all probably starting to think that I'm a little loco.)