Branford, tell us what you REALLY think

I think once they get to him, these kids have been treated in such a way that it must infuriate him. I have to admit that this is a symptom of society, what we could call the Lake Wobegon effect. Lake Wobegon is of course the fictional town in Minnesota where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

It is hard for kids of today to understand what it was like growing up in a different age. A month today is the same as a year in the past. As technology hurtles past us at this incredible rate, the amount of recordings you can download on itunes far surpasses the amount of recordings that we had at our disposal at the local Sam Goody....sam what?

it's out of his hands

This video defies description, because we don't have a clear enough view of what has happened. The violinist looks like he knows what he is doing, but the violin looks like it has been pulled by the scroll away from him. I can only assume that the conductor with all of his waving got his sleeve caught in the scroll and pulled it with him.

The soloist is all smiles at the end so we assume that the instrument was not damaged.

I worked with a conductor who was telling me how he had conducted somewhere and the podium he was standing on gave way as he was leaning towards the cello section. He landed IN the cello section and let a cello break his fall. It was heavily damaged and he had to pay for thousands of dollars of repairs.

copying the greats

I find it amusing to watch people do impressions of others. I think as musicians we all copy someone else at some point in our studies. If it isn't some artist you admire, it may be a teacher. I myself seem to gravitate towards what I hear and copy that. I know as a student that i played with a pianist who also had played with my teacher. She said she had no problem with following me since I breathed like my teacher. I knew then and there that I had to stop that....copying the breathing, not breathing in general

So it is that I show you three videos of immitation.....

first the cellists:



Now the baseball players:




Then of course there is the great copying the not so greats.....