Psssst. Hey, kid. Over here.

I have to admit, I’ve been conducting a blogging experiment, and it’s been shockingly spry considering my blogging track-record of the past couple years. It’s true that the only apparent difference between what’s been happening there and this blog in its more active moments is that the layout over there is bare-bones and those 9+ years of archives are non-existent. Also, nobody’s had the chance to follow what I write yet (which…maybe that’s silly, because I know the point of blogging is so that people can READ what you write on the internet, but honestly, maybe I just wanted a chance to write, and simply that). I really hesitate to use the words “blog baggage” but…let’s face it. I was a really different person when I started writing in this blog under this title. For christ sake, I was sixteen. I have changed dramatically in those nine years (okay, almost 9.5 years). So has the internet. So has the world. That weighs some weird weight on my conscience. Perhaps a clean slate was the thing I needed, even though I realize just how stupidly psychological that is. The human brain is a silly thing, I’ll remind you.

More than anything, though, I need to write. Somewhere. It’s this incessant need of mine, and it’s been neglected so much in the last few years.

So follow my internet adventures. Or don’t. I’m opening the link up because I decided that this time around, I really don’t care if people read, or who reads, and I don’t intend to keep track. I’m more thrilled and satisfied by the act of writing. The nice thing about the rise of Twitter and Facebook is that people don’t blog as much, nor do they read blogs as much. I have a much-diminished readership on sheer principal of the fact that nobody cares, woo! Certainly, switching URLs twice in the last couple years has also helped.

And! I am leaving melody of certain three here. Forever. So that random people can play in my archives.

Also, in the news: What the eff.

That the very next day, my fingers would start to twitch. And certain neurons in my brain would fire. And lo, I WOULD WANT TO BLOG.

But it’s like I had to believe it was gone, like really gone, before I could want more. Or some nonsense.

I didn’t really come back to say much. Just to share a few photos from my recent crazy-ass roadtrip to Colorado. Also, to kind of be all publicly slack-jawed at the Nikon D7000′s autofocusing abilities. Behold, this!

And maybe this:

But especially this:

In fact, look at this again. Bigger. On black.

I can’t totally give the camera all the credit. I was behind the camera, after all, so that’s something. Whatever. I just know that of all the photos I’ve taken on my D7000, the third is one of my favorites so far.

So there you have it.

I’ll be back. Maybe. Maaaybe. If the internet is nice to me.

So there’s this thing where…I just don’t feel like blogging anymore.

I mean, maybe my 15 total entries over the course of four months, half of which started off with something along the lines of “look at me, I’m blogging!” or “I’m not dead, I swear!” tipped you off.

There are a few reasons, I think. There’s me. I feel like my life got suddenly kind of weird, and that unlike every other point in my life from the age of 16 when something got weird, I just didn’t WANT to share it  on my blog or let people in to see what was going on. There’s also the internet. Which is just so…annoying. I am just so perpetually annoyed at the internet. Just as I’ve become ambivalent about blogging, I’ve become ambivalent about all forms of social networking and in general the instant gratification and increasingly un-private made-up universe that is the internet. And if I wasn’t feeling it before embarking on a mostly-internet-free two-week-long roadtrip that was very much needed, I sure was feeling it after.

Also, I get so frustrated when I think about how much I abuse the comma. Commas are far too frequently abused. I don’t want to further add to that!

I will keep my blog here, for the entertainment (a term I use loosely in reference to the 8+ years of brain-garbage that have accumulated here) of others and maybe in case I shake this blog-ambivalence, or in case I just want to post some things about music. Or maybe I’ll come back in November for National Blog Posting Month, just to test the waters and see if my push-button publishing-ways are really dead.

Hi blog. How are you? I’m doing alright. But you look…different.

I’ve been having a tough time sitting back while yet another old obsession comes back to hit me in the face and then run rampant circles around me. This happens every so often. I shouldn’t be surprised.

Because this wouldn’t have happened if Buffalo Daughter hadn’t released an album recently, titled Weapons of Math Destruction (which in itself is AWESOME), and if it hadn’t been ridiculously good and demented. I’ve been particularly obsessing over this track:

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This song is either about alien life or the singularity. So good.

Buffalo Daughter does that juxtaposition between electronics and typical band instrumentation so well. I LOVE the Moog-y bass line. And that flirtation between the guitar and Moog in the very opening in which you sort of can’t tell if it’s the Moog or a guitar. And it’s all just so delightfully dissonant. HOW COULD A PERSON RESIST?

Ugh. And I know this is where I get particularly…delightfully obsessive, but I spend way too much time thinking about the music I like and why I like it, and that can be difficult! After all, if you like something, shouldn’t that be enough? Shouldn’t one be able to just enjoy something one likes without all the stupid intellectualization of that thing you like?! Not me, apparently. I blame every music theory course I’ve ever taken.

I’m trying to refrain from turning this into a post about why I love Buffalo Daughter including about six audio examples of exactly why I love them. It is proving to be difficult. I am getting all fidgety. Hurrrrr.

At the same time, though, I want to blog more. I also want to share more music, and in general talk more about music, to get it out of my system, yes, but also to encourage people’s ears. I know my ear enjoys some weird aural shit, but somebody out there is probably looking for some weird aural shit and I’d just love to be the person to help them find it.

P.S. The new WordPress full-screen entry-entering function is FANCY.

Ways in which I am ridiculous:

Measuring parts and placements of things having to do with my cello. Yes. I am doing that. Just to have an idea!!

I love my cello. It and I get along swimmingly. And since it had that cosmic love-at-first-sight encounter with this Swiss bow back in March, we three have gotten on very very well, indeed. And then one day my cello had some intensive finger-board planing work done and lo, when it came back, things were not right. The sound was tight. The sound had some weird difficult-to-describe, gravelly surface noise…stuff. I went crazy! I whined to my mother! I whined to anyone who would listen! I moved the bridge, and while variables in the sound changed, the problem remained. WOE WAS ME.

During this workshop I learned exactly what I wanted to learn: where the bridge and soundpost need to be in relation to one another and how to get them there (it’s not so hard unless your soundpost is smaller than your f-hole, at which point you swear a lot and realize that wow, it’s easy to hear something like “put your soundpost in the f-hole” and go HURR HURR), and that’s not to say that every instrument should follow these exact measurements, as there are variables, and stuff. But through the measuring of things on my cello I’m pretty sure I know that this tight sound is soundpost-related, and I’m pretty sure I know how the soundpost should be adjusted. I am going to let my trusty luthier do this adjustment because I can’t risk causing something really bad to happen like, say, my entire cello collapse in on itself. But this knowledge of where things should be for optimal sound is empowering. My plan is to have the instrument adjusted and then yet again measure the soundpost position after the adjustment is finished to my liking, so that I can not only have my suspicions confirmed but then also know what the optimal placement for my soundpost is.

IT’S 9 O’CLOCK. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR SOUNDPOST IS?

I am looking at grinders on Woodcraft.com and BY JOVE I AM GOING TO BUY THIS ONE, that is what is going on.

That string instrument repair workshop kicked ass, by the way. Things I was reminded of immediately: I am not a master. I have not put in my 10,000 hours. In fact, I mostly feel like a bumbling idiot who can’t even manage to sharpen blades without also grinding my own knuckles on the slow-moving wet grinder. But by god, I have some kind of know-how I didn’t before, even if I’m going to have to practice the hell out of these skills if I want to use any of them practically and not just mess around on some junk-instruments. I know how to glue an open seam closed again. I know how to sharpen and fit pegs. I know how to set a sound-post and find the technically “correct” spot for it. I know how to plane a fingerboard. I know how to carve a freaking bridge to the right size (okay, actually, I think that by the time we got to that point my brain had reached maximum saturation, so I’m not sure I actually do know how to do that). And maybe one day, with lots and lots of patience and practice and obsessiveness, I will not just have the know-how but the ability to physically accomplish these things!

Honestly, it was a lot of trial and error and that humbling experience of being completely new to a set of very precise skills, which I think is actually a good thing to experience at times.

But more than anything? All I want to do right now is sharpen knives. I would be a little freaked out, but then I remember that I am the daughter of musicians who depend on knives and probably have some weird deep-seated obsession with them, whether it’s a good obsession or a bad obsession, so. You know.

And now I know where the effing bridge is supposed to be positioned on the front of any string instrument from the violin family!! SUCCESS!!

Also? I want to write an open letter to the city of Madison. I’m going to do that right now.

Dear city of Madison,

Thank you. For being excellent, and for showing me a good time, and for helping me to feel peace after a year of uneasy memories of you filled with anxiety and panic attacks and bro apartments and giant aquatic rats. Thank you for your hospitality and food and good people (um, and also, thank you for vastly kick-ass concerts on the Capitol Square in which the entire square is simply packed with human beings who are there to enjoy themselves and partake of LIVE SYMPHONIC MUSIC. HELL YES).

Yours,

Talia

John Green is excellent. For that matter so is Hank Green.

…

NERD CRUSHES. I have them.

Confession #1: I AM IRRATIONALLY PARANOID ABOUT STUFF (particularly orchestra gigs). I am a freelance musician. Last year I made a living from gigs and teaching, and that’s about it. The fact of the matter is that this is life, and I realized pretty quickly after finishing school and trying to find a “normal” type job that…shit. It’s tough out there right now, and if the gigs and the students come my way, I’m taking them. And I got lucky! Because it turns out people needed cello subs for EVERYTHING, so I was busy practically every weekend playing with an orchestra. Whoopee.

The thing I realized at the end of this past gigging season is that I was just a sub, and even if I was hired for every concert during a season, there is no guarantee they will always hire me in such a way, especially if I never auditioned for a position and there odd political happenings within the orchestra at the time. I can accept this part pretty easily because it’s FAIR. I didn’t take an audition? Okay, I’m not technically a member of the orchestra and they are not obligated to hire me. FINE. But unfortunately it leaves me in a position of EXTREME PARANOIA when I stop getting calls, because, to quote Roman from Party Down, shit’s random. And now that I’m thinking about it, I shouldn’t even call this irrational paranpoia. Because stupid shit happens in musical circles like this all the time. It’s happened to me, to others, what’s to stop it from happening some more? What am I talking about? Getting put on a SHIT-LIST. Seriously.

And yes, I know. I am good. I am responsible. I am always on time. I learn my music. I’m friendly and approachable and do my best to be upbeat and positive. These are all standards I feel are very important to uphold not only with orchestra gigs, but in LIFE, and I feel I’ve done well at upholding these standards. Unfortunately that’s not always enough. And this is where I get paranoid about very specific things, because people can get on shit-lists for WEIRD THINGS. Things like, use of words (YOU ARE ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR WORDS as much as your actions). Minor inter-orchestra misunderstandings. Taking over 24 hours to respond to an email (TRUE STORY). A facial expression interpreted as sneering when was actually more a look of confusion (TRUE STORY: HAPPENED TO A FRIEND). And without a contract, in this arbitrary universe, who is to say that something I’ve done hasn’t been interpreted negatively by another person who then says “off with her head?” WHO IS TO SAY? NOBODY?

So there you go, folks. There is a look into my paranoia-addled brain. Because it’s likely this is all for nothing and I’m just insane. The scary part is I WORRY ABOUT THIS KIND OF THING ALL THE TIME, and not just in the gigging community. So, yes. Justifiable paranoia? A little bit. Totally irrational paranoia? Also a little bit. Dammit.

Confession #2: I MISS MY NIKON D40.

I realize that it’s slightly crazy to complain about this, because I have a totally kick-ass D7000 which does all those things that my old camera didn’t do that 7 months ago I felt were really important to have in a camera at this particular point in my photo-taking life. Things like: crazy-advanced 38-point auto focus; compatibility with certain lenses like the 50mm f1.8 lens that didn’t autofocus on my D40; lots of other crap it would take years to mention.

But the fact of the matter is that I knew and understood my D40. Sure, it took 3 years to get to that point. Sure, it didn’t do everything. But shit, I knew how to get good photos out of it, which just proves that old adage of: A MORE EXPENSIVE CAMERA DOES NOT A BETTER PHOTOGRAPHER MAKE! Uh, or something like that.

Don’t get me wrong, I have NO REGRETS about my fancy-camera acquisition, or the selling of the D40 to Mark, who it would appear is taking some pretty kick-ass photos of his own on the thing. Maybe what I’m trying to say is that I overestimated my ability to jump to a new camera and start at the level that I’d left off on the D40. Even knowing what I know about finding the right exposure (probably my biggest manual-camera hurdle with the D40), the D7000 is foreign to me. I suspect it takes practice and diligence, the same level of practice and diligence that were applied throughout my 3 years of D40 use.

And obviously, I’m not starting from Square One of manual camera knowledge. I know some things now! And I think my D7000 knows some things, too. This thing keeps happening where I’m shooting, and I feel all awkward about how cumbersome and foreign the camera still feels to me and grumbling to myself and in general feeling a little like an infant. And then I look at the photos I’ve shot and BY GOD, HOW DID THAT GOOD PHOTO OR THREE HAPPEN (actually, maybe I should just attribute that to the D7000′s kick-ass focusing system. I mean. Whatever)? I suspect that sooner or later, there will be this huge and dangerous collision of knowing things, and the D7000 and I will be of ONE SYSTEM AND ONE MIND (or something).

Until then, though, I’d better keep shooting (which by the way, is more difficult than with the D40 because the D7000 is VERY LARGE).

Confession #3: There is no third confession. Move along.

I’m going to this instrument repair workshop in a few weeks. And there are some things I want to be able to understand that have a little less to do with “fix broken instrument!” and a little more to do with “change the way sometimes-fickle cello sounds.” Because here’s the thing — who out there is a string player and actually knows how to move a bridge and adjust a sound-post? NOBODY, THAT’S WHO. I mean, not true. Maybe some people. I understand that there are luthiers for a reason and that they are around for people like me and everyone else who has that one day where something moves, gets knocked around and then BAM — sounds different, maybe bad. So yes, great, I will happily take my cello to somebody and have them fix things when it sounds bad or when there are cracks or seams bust apart. Yes yes and yes. But there’s this thing about me, this weird Rational streak that sometimes lurks beneath my feeling Idealist surface that NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND THE WHY AND HOW OF SOUND and perhaps take extremely detailed and OCD notes about those whys and hows. I want to understand the science of vibration and sound in a stringed instrument. I want to understand this seemingly mysterious bridge/sound-post relationship and how minor adjustments change sound. I want to problem-solve. I’m tired of not understanding the why. I’m frustrated with doing this major bridge-moving guess-work. I’m beyond annoyed at the fact that my mother who plays the oboe owns a sound-post adjuster and actually had to learn to do that stuff and I never did and yet I actually play the cello, dagnabit!

So I have to learn this stuff. To indulge that Rational streak of mine. To help out my students who come in with their cellos sounding like there are feral cats living inside of them. To reduce the number of instrument repair bills I rack up and miles I put on my car in the name of GOOD SOUND. So that I can be my own master of sound and perhaps minor repairs (though I will leave the major repairs to the professionals, for real).

I do indeed look forward to this workshop.

Whoooooooaaaaaa.

Step 1: Watch the following.

Step 2: Check out aforementioned list cognitive of biases.

Step 3: Lose your mind.

Oh god.

On a slightly related note, I have a pretty serious nerd crush on Hank Green. I mean, seriously.