Palestinian orchestral challenges

Today I rehearsed with the wind band at ESNCM. That is, we 10 people rehearsed in one of the three fractions of the wind band. The other two fractions, with 30 more people all in all, are in Ramallah and Bethlehem, respectively. It would be convenient to meet in Jerusalem to rehearse all together, but not all the kids from the Palestinian Territories are allowed to go to Jerusalem. So we meet in Ramallah. But only when we have a sceduled concert to get ready to, which we don't have now. But our conductor tries to get one, if not for anything else then for us to try to play in a bigger orchestra.

And once again I feel fortunate at home to play in a big orchestra, that can meet without thoughts of checkpoints, permissions and big distances.

Concert with Shmemel!

We went to The Lab (where the entrance stamp is a mouse - of course) to hear Shmemel play (again after suggetion from the couchsurfer community). They play a mix of klezmer, funk, rock, and with loads of energy! They were great - unfortunately we'd forgotten our earplugs (and the soundmaster was of the regular type thinking "loud is great"), so we couldn't bear to stand in front and dance with the other people enjoying the music.

The band had a wind section of three sometimes four musicians, electric piano, 2 guitars, bass, drums, and a very expressive-crazy lead singer. Well, all of them were very expressive, and you could see how they enjoyed to be on stage and play. Many were jumping up and down a good deal of the time. They don't have a CD yet, but might release one in July. And then we'll be there. With earplugs so we can dance!

Link to video with some samples of their music - but the jumping energy miss!

Language school found!

Yay, I've found a language school so I can learn Palestinian dialect, understand what people here are saying, and stop sounding Egyptian. It's located in the Old City very close to the Temple Mount, and it's a part of al-Quds University (Jerusalem is called al-Quds [the Holy] in Arabic), at the Centre for Jerusalem studies. The teacher is very sweet and cheerful and pleasant, and I got a whole page of new words from our 3 hours' lesson. The class started in mid-January, but I'm jumping in anyway. It's the highest level they offer in dialect with class lessons, and I want classmates for sociable reasons. The class is meeting each tuesday and thursday for 3 hours, and today we were 7 students. It's gonna be good.

Backyard nature

I know it's not nice to take pictures of people without their concent, but this scene was just too great not to share. I was walking the dog we're "babysitting" (annoying little thing when he barks and whimpers all morning before we've got up, but I enjoy the few walks we've taken), and in the green valley in our backyard I saw this highly religious Jewish man sit on his chair in the middle of all the green reading the Torah. And he was not the first I'd come across on the walk.
Wonderful that there's green retreats around, and wonderful that people are using them!

When music becomes noise

During the rehersal tonight with the Israeli amateur orchestra I play in, I reaslised how fortunate we are at home in Greve at the music school to be trained so well in good sound on our instruments, and that there's so much focus on noise and that we have to take care of our ears so we don't get hearing damages. Two things that really miss here!

I considered to sponser a SoundEar (see the picture), to make the orchestra aware of their own noise level - but then I also want a little sign next to it, saying "Thanks to Re'em JLM for sponsoring this great device, which made our rehersals so much nicer". [There are SO many of these "sponsered by ..." signs and memorables here, I think it's silly.] I had to use earplugs during the rehersal, something I never really need at home.

Oh, and we're also fortunate to have a good conductor, who clearly shows where which beats are. And she places them in down-strokes, not in up-strokes... (Which has confused me many times; where is the beat going to be?)

But otherwise it's a lovely orchestra with very sweet people. And I look forward to play with them, and try to play concerts also.

Oriental music concert

We went to a student concert at the Centre for Middle Eastern Classical Music, an Israeli music school close to the Old City. All the musicians did a good job - though the hall was too small for all the many people wanting to listen; maybe they heard about the concert via couchsurfing.org, as we did. I enjoyed 3oud and qanoun sounds, and the oriental rhythms, I was carried away by one of the group songs in two voices (I guess it was Hebrew; in Arabic you normally don't use harmony). It was funny to hear Israelis sing in Arabic (I knew "Zourouni" originally sung by Fairouz), because the r's are different, and Arabic have some more guttural sounds.

I wonder if this school knows about ESNCM and vice versa - and if they would be interested in making concerts together... Their interest area is the same (music, more specific Oriental music), though the students at ESNCM are considerably younger than those at this centre. Language might also be a problem, though maybe not the biggest.

O, patience!

I wish I had it. Patience. This time in the context of drawing. I went to the Jerusalem Studio School to see in their "Drawing in Daylight" was something for me. Three and a half hours in their hall with a variety of sculpturs (mainly Greek/Roman replica), my bench and paper, and willow charcoal - and I was angry with my... work after 2 hours. Stupid thing, it didn't look like I wanted it!

It made sence what the teacher said:
- Don't draw the contours of the object, but draw the shapes of the different shadows and light, the geometrics.
- Then tell about the relationships between the different tones [draw the greytones, shadows].
...I just couldn't make it look like the torso in front of me.

But when she added the next step:
- Now tell the story about the meeting between light and dark, between the tones. Do they argue, do they dance? [Is it a sharp edge or a soft toning from dark to light?]
And suddenly, and when I walked a bit away from my paper, it looked like something! I still need to get the proportions right, but I was pretty proud of myself in the end.

The "model" and my result, including chaos-coal-trying-scratches in the margins.

And maybe I've learned a little more patience with drawing!?

Concert with Goldschmidt, Singh, and Irshed!

Two of my musical "heros", Henrik Goldschmidt on the oboe and Bilal Irshed on the 3oud, were in Jerusalem tonight to play a concert in the Bible Lands Museum, together with their long time partner Singh on accordion (but I don't know so much about him).

It was a fantastic concert! Goldschmidt was, as always, very expressive and beaming with life and musical joy, teasing the audience with breaks and changes in the music so everybody stayed alert on what would happen next, his sound on the oboe as soft and charming as ever.

The seccond piece they played were a combination of an Arabic love song, a Danish psalm, and a Jewish traditional song. It started out very softly, the 3oud enchanting me with its deep, full sound, and the xaphoon (as I think the recorder with clarinet mounthpiece is called) took over with soft, sweet tones, the accordion being a harmonic drone in the back. I was moved.

And the rest of the concert continued with happy, fast Yiddish tunes, Goldschmidt singing about the teacher teaching his students the Hebrew alphabet (and we, the audience, we the students, who had to repeat after the teacher), Danish folksongs played in Arabic style, a bit of taqsiim [solo improvisation] on 3oud (not enough for me!), and other lively pieces.

It all ended too soon, but we had had a great time - and I almost feel sorry for all of you who missed it! For those in Denmark check out Singh&Goldschmidt's turnéliste, if you want to hear them (without Bilal on 3oud), or Bilal Irshed's page on when he plays. I recommend Fatma Zidan Group as much as Middle East Peace Orchestra - Fatma is my former teacher in Arabic singing.

Second 3oud lesson

A quote from my teacher today:
"The 3oud is a bass instrument!"
said with excitement and affection for his instrument - and I completely understand him. I didn't get to say "bass clarinet", but I thought it.
'Cus bass is nice!
The deepest string of the 3oud is tuned to F/ fa below the staff, the second to A/ la below the staff - and I got some excersices on octave jumps, an important part of the "zakhrafe" or ornamentations in Arabic music played on 3oud.