Friendship Concert

This Sunday I had the privilege of attending a concert near Louisville, Kentucky. The concert, The Friendship Concert, part of a 5 day workshop, brings together teachers and students of different backgrounds and ethnic groups in a Suzuki tradition, in memory to the vision of the founder of the Suzuki method Dr. Shinichi Suzuki. The concert this year featured twenty Suzuki students with a variety of teachers, a showcase and challenge of not only the student’s skill but of the teacher’s methods as well. The ages of the students ranged from age 5 to 18, the difficulty of the piece often reflected by the age. The pieces played also had a hint of ethnic diversity, containing a plethora of ethnicity in composers; ranging from Clementi from Rome, England’s Bayly, Danish Kuhlao, Poland’s Chopin, Rachmaninoff from Russia, all around European Mozart, and then an unbalanced hand full of Germans, Lichner, Bach and Beethoven. The pieces, as their composers and the students playing them, were unique and, for the most part, very well played. It was quite enjoyable.
It always amazes me, the art of music. The language it speaks to those that listen. Each musician brings out music differently; it would be a mistake indeed to assume all that is done is to play what is written. Like reading a book aloud, one can read the words easily enough; it is the emotion and expression that the reader adds to the words, their own invention, that makes it worth listening to. Music is an art, the playing of it just as much as the composing. There are those that take what is written and follow it exactly but they lack what it takes to make the music come alive, they paint a dull picture without color or vibrancy; it draws no emotion, it is boring and bland. They may have the best technique; they may read music perfectly, may understand every concept and may still lack the spark, the emotion, to turn music into something truly beautiful. It is a wonderful thing to listen to those who have captured the art of music, that paint a picture so stunning that is takes your breath away, that can play the music that lifts your spirits and can also paint a picture with music so poignant and melancholy that it can break your heart and leave you in tears. I will never cease to enjoy this language, this art.

In need of a workout....

Someone mentioned, not that long ago, that sometimes people may befriend those people of lesser intelligence simple to make themselves feel better. I suppose it is sort of like walking down the street looking for someone that may be more out of shape than yourself, that way you can say “hey, I don’t need to get exercise, look at that person, they are the one that needs it!” But of course, the difference is that when your intelligence is low enough, it never crosses your mind how unintelligent you are, whereas, when you’re out of shape, you normally still know it. But then again, round is a shape, right? ; )
Anyway, I have a hard time talking to people I cannot communicate with, wow, that makes sense! I don’t mind talking to someone smarter than myself, and I enjoy communicating with those I feel can both understand me and I can understand, but I find it quite exhausting to talk to those “other people” that I can not be understood by as my normal self. It is nice, once in a while, especially when I am having one of those days I feel stupid, to talk to someone on a different (lower?) level, but for the most part, when I meet one of those people that can not be prompted to think, I am lost indeed. The thing is, I wonder and worry sometimes if I am not the stupid person to others. How am I supposed to know if I am the boring person that they don’t believe is capable of being intellectually stimulating? It is scary :/ Not really though :)

Anyway, if anyone actually reads this pathetic blog, tell me something random and interesting, I am in great need of a those mentally imposing possibilities as my text books and lack of social interactions have weighed down my mental capacity into a blob of fatty matter than so needs a workout, more so than I do physically, before my caged mind becomes to obese to stir from these mentally enslaving chambers I am now in. (And that, my dear friend, is a very run-on sentence that you will kindly ignore and not hold against me ;)

Crazy Nephews and blind kittens....

Micah, my crazy nephew, decided that he needed to improve his vision, unfortunately he had a hard time getting his new glasses on his face. (please over look his messy looking face, actually bruises from constantly falling down at a certain doorway at J&J's, one of the joys of learning how to walk :/ )

He discovered that his kitten, Mimosa, fit the glasses just perfectly though. Don't you think she looks pretty smart with them on? ;)

As warm weather offers a brief (hopefully no so brief) reprieve from this hostile coldness that seem to be making “global warming” into a tempting joke, I find my mind turned once again to beekeeping. I saw one of my honeybees crawling around an a small snow drift and it reminded me that these little insects are soon to be getting to a very busy time of year them, busy for me as well at times. They have spent the majority of winter clustered in a tight ball, the bees on the outside beating their small wings to produce heat, much like shivering, for the body of bees on the inside. In the middle of the ball of bees there is the queen, being warmed and protected by her many cohorts, lucky insect.
During all of the warm months bees will protect their hive homes like their lives depend on it, and they do, however, as the bees huddle together conserving energy in the winter mice and pests often take this chance to destroy the hives food supply as well as the bees themselves. The bees, which would normally fatally sting the invading mice, are in a trance, of sorts, trying to stay warm. For this reason I strongly dislike mice. I once again think of becoming a “full time” beekeeper, there is money in it and I could find a good market for it, however, it is a big and risky step that I can not convince myself to take.
My doctor made a comment when I was last in his office; he said that beekeepers demonstrate how allergies work, he stated that the more often beekeepers are stung the more allergic they become. He stated this as an illustration and as a fact, though, as I was polite enough not to mention, it is erroneous to the fullest extent. As beekeepers are continually stung they develop a resistant to the venom that bees excrete, they eventually have very little to no reaction whatsoever. It is much like people that continually take pain medication; soon they must take very large doses for them to have any pain relieving effect at all. It is the same with babies and children that grow up in a completely sterile and clean environment, they are always more likely to develop allergies later in life because their bodies never got used to common allergens and the like when they were young children.