New members.

[knight66]

Thanks Manuel, For a moment, I thought, oh Cordoba...Spain, I had a terrific holiday there; but of course, it is the Other Cordoba.

Mike

[karlhenning]

. . . but of course, it is the Other Cordoba.

Nebraska, Mike?

[m_gigena]

I didn't say I'm 22.

Nebraska, Mike?

I would love to settle 6 miles away from a place called Beaver Crossing.

[m_gigena]

Thanks Manuel, For a moment, I thought, oh Cordoba...Spain, I had a terrific holiday there; but of course, it is the Other Cordoba.

Mike

Ours is called "Córdoba de la Nueva Andalucía". But we refer to it just as Córdoba, CBA, "la capital", "la capi", "this dirty hole of humidity" (the title is mine, in use when I go back to the city after having vacations in a better place)´.

[franz.luigi]

Hello everyone, per Harry's suggestion, I'll introduce myself here. I've played the piano since age 5, sung in several school and church choirs, was a music major in college for 2 years before switching to a music minor (and major in linguistics & languages). I loved music theory and enjoyed ear training (I have perfect pitch so I found it quite fun), and also took conducting, orchestration, and keyboard harmony. Right now I'm considering going back to school some time in the not-too-distant future and studying composition.

My favorite genre is film music, my favorite composers being Patrick Doyle (I loved his Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). I also love the classical pieces from the Master and Commander movie soundtrack - Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3 (K. 206), Corelli's Christmas Concerto, Boccherini's La Musica Notturna delle Strade di Madrid, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. My favorite classical composer is Mozart; right now I'm really into his violin sonatas as I am teaching myself to play the violin (I got myself a Suzuki Master Class Series Violin as a late birthday present for myself a few months ago).

As for the non-music part, I love to read; I recently finished the Harry Potter books (read book 7 twice in a row). I also enjoy period films such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, The History of Tom Jones and Horatio Hornblower. I have a dog named Ludwig (my sister's dog's name is Wolfgang). My sister and I have a small business making and selling clothes and costumes for dogs and horses and we recently started a shop with gifts for musicians with original artwork (Mozartini). Anything else you'd like to know, feel free to ask. Nice to meet you all.

[bhodges]

Welcome to GMG, franz.luigi, and enjoy yourself here!  I'm sure you will find lots of kindred spirits.

--Bruce

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Interesting introduction, franz.luigi! Good to have some background. Now you're not only the 10 letters of your moniker. I hope you'll find inspiration and ideas here. I know I have (apart from bumping into the occasional obsessive, but that's only to be expected...)

Johan

[karlhenning]

Welcome, franz.luigi!

[Anne]

Hi, franz.luigi.  Welcome!

[franz.luigi]

Thanks for the welcome, everyone. I look forward to some good discussions here and hope I can contribute somewhere.

[Harry]

Welcome Franz! Thank you for your introduction.

[m_gigena]

I am teaching myself to play the violin (I got myself a Suzuki Master Class Series Violin as a late birthday present for myself a few months ago).

That never works, I suggest you to get a teacher.

[carlos]

It can work,if you're a genius. Think on Sammons.

[franz.luigi]

That never works, I suggest you to get a teacher.

I am planning on finding a teacher some time in the near future. I live in a remote area where there are no music teachers for about 40 miles. Hopefully we'll get some teachers here (our area is developing quite quickly) or gas prices will decrease soon.

[m_gigena]

It can work,if you're a genius. Think on Sammons.

Do you mean that Franz Luigi still has some chance of becoming one of the top english violinists of the 20th century?

As you said, you need to be a genius (like Gerardo Gandini), otherwise the practice time is a bunch of hours you will never get back. This is how I see it: I you purchased a brand new violin and advertised yourself as a violin teacher, do you think someone's going to pay you for lessons? No, and that's because they know there's nothing you can teach them. 

[BorisG]

As initiation, new members must listen to all available Zemlinsky recordings. "paulb clips" will do. 

[Brian]

Name: Brian
Location: Houston, TX
Introduction Type: Way too long, but perhaps entertaining in a wordy way

When he was around 8, Brian's parents bought an upright piano for the house, ostensibly as decoration but perhaps in the hope that either Brian or his little brother would want to take lessons. Both little boys every once in a while would run up and bang the keys in random fashion for fun, although Brian's younger brother preferred sticking pennies between the keys. Eventually Brian figured out how to play the Ode to Joy theme, the parents decided they wanted to learn to play, and the two kids were put in lessons. Brian was a bad little boy and never practiced. The songs he was being taught were incredibly dumb things with titles like "Ladybug on a Leaf". It became clear that for whatever reason Brian's motor skills really stunk, and his hands couldn't function independently from each other. Concerned Mom took Brian to a specialist, who said "Well .................. you could play the bass drum." The family moved and the piano was forgotten.

Which is about when 12-year-old Brian fell in love with music ... However, for about two to three years his focus was jazz and other stuff (he still worships Tito Puente and Jim Croce). But gradually classical music gained a foothold. He listened to some Beethoven (he thought it blah), Dvorak's Slavonic Dances (he thought it weird), and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (now this he liked). He picked up a CD of "The Very Best of Grieg" at the bookstore, but his mom said "Grieg?!?! Are you sure you want to listen to that??" so he put it back. And at some point he started making up music in his head for fun. Eighth grade, school bus home every day, an invented "piano concerto", that he made up because the ride was boring, but there were never any real themes (he can't remember them long enough to get to the recap), just the piano banging away louder and softer and really intimidating orchestral thwocks. He was eventually able to remember some of the themes, before realizing some of them were taken from real composers.

Eventually he bought the Brahms symphonies (Toscanini) and other famous things his parents didn't have. He had to get a CD rack because his collection was growing too fast. (It's now at 150 CDs. And he needs another CD rack.) And at some point in time he joined GMG (was he 15? It feels like yesterday), and when he finally got a job for the first time at age 16, he celebrated by ordering 8 CDs off ArkivMusic, pretty much the largest package of anything he'd ever gotten.

He dated once, and guessed correctly that his date, whose idea of good music was the "Flaming Lips" (a psychedelic rock band from Oklahoma), would love Maurice Ravel. Now she lives in France.*    Brian now attends Rice University, where he loves the early, middle, and late romantics, is just beginning to realize how incredible Beethoven was, still composes in his head, has excessive admiration for oddball composers like Manolis Kalomiris, Reinhold Gliere, Kurt Atterberg, Aleksandr Kopylov, and Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda, and can't decide which he is more apathetic to, really really new classical or really really old classical, though Greta and others are working on the former. Brian refuses to listen to Schubert's chamber music so he'll still have something Great to discover later in life. He has only just discovered opera.

He is a Virgo, his favorite color is red, and he is taking classes in literature, religious studies, history, and philosophy.

*He also correctly guessed that she would like Josef Suk.

[Don]

Name: Brian
Location: Houston, TX
Introduction Type: Way too long, but perhaps entertaining in a wordy way

When he was around 8, Brian's parents bought an upright piano for the house, ostensibly as decoration but perhaps in the hope that either Brian or his little brother would want to take lessons. Both little boys every once in a while would run up and bang the keys in random fashion for fun, although Brian's younger brother preferred sticking pennies between the keys. Eventually Brian figured out how to play the Ode to Joy theme, the parents decided they wanted to learn to play, and the two kids were put in lessons. Brian was a bad little boy and never practiced. The songs he was being taught were incredibly dumb things with titles like "Ladybug on a Leaf". It became clear that for whatever reason Brian's motor skills really stunk, and his hands couldn't function independently from each other. Concerned Mom took Brian to a specialist, who said "Well .................. you could play the bass drum." The family moved and the piano was forgotten.

Which is about when 12-year-old Brian fell in love with music ... However, for about two to three years his focus was jazz and other stuff (he still worships Tito Puente and Jim Croce). But gradually classical music gained a foothold. He listened to some Beethoven (he thought it blah), Dvorak's Slavonic Dances (he thought it weird), and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (now this he liked). He picked up a CD of "The Very Best of Grieg" at the bookstore, but his mom said "Grieg?!?! Are you sure you want to listen to that??" so he put it back. And at some point he started making up music in his head for fun. Eighth grade, school bus home every day, an invented "piano concerto", that he made up because the ride was boring, but there were never any real themes (he can't remember them long enough to get to the recap), just the piano banging away louder and softer and really intimidating orchestral thwocks. He was eventually able to remember some of the themes, before realizing some of them were taken from real composers.

Eventually he bought the Brahms symphonies (Toscanini) and other famous things his parents didn't have. He had to get a CD rack because his collection was growing too fast. (It's now at 150 CDs. And he needs another CD rack.) And at some point in time he joined GMG (was he 15? It feels like yesterday), and when he finally got a job for the first time at age 16, he celebrated by ordering 8 CDs off ArkivMusic, pretty much the largest package of anything he'd ever gotten.

He dated once, and guessed correctly that his date, whose idea of good music was the "Flaming Lips" (a psychedelic rock band from Oklahoma), would love Maurice Ravel. Now she lives in France.*    Brian now attends Rice University, where he loves the early, middle, and late romantics, is just beginning to realize how incredible Beethoven was, still composes in his head, has excessive admiration for oddball composers like Manolis Kalomiris, Reinhold Gliere, Kurt Atterberg, Aleksandr Kopylov, and Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda, and can't decide which he is more apathetic to, really really new classical or really really old classical, though Greta and others are working on the former. Brian refuses to listen to Schubert's chamber music so he'll still have something Great to discover later in life. He has only just discovered opera.

He is a Virgo, his favorite color is red, and he is taking classes in literature, religious studies, history, and philosophy.

*He also correctly guessed that she would like Josef Suk.

Tell Brian it's good to have him on board.

[Harry]

Name: Brian
Location: Houston, TX
Introduction Type: Way too long, but perhaps entertaining in a wordy way

When he was around 8, Brian's parents bought an upright piano for the house, ostensibly as decoration but perhaps in the hope that either Brian or his little brother would want to take lessons. Both little boys every once in a while would run up and bang the keys in random fashion for fun, although Brian's younger brother preferred sticking pennies between the keys. Eventually Brian figured out how to play the Ode to Joy theme, the parents decided they wanted to learn to play, and the two kids were put in lessons. Brian was a bad little boy and never practiced. The songs he was being taught were incredibly dumb things with titles like "Ladybug on a Leaf". It became clear that for whatever reason Brian's motor skills really stunk, and his hands couldn't function independently from each other. Concerned Mom took Brian to a specialist, who said "Well .................. you could play the bass drum." The family moved and the piano was forgotten.

Which is about when 12-year-old Brian fell in love with music ... However, for about two to three years his focus was jazz and other stuff (he still worships Tito Puente and Jim Croce). But gradually classical music gained a foothold. He listened to some Beethoven (he thought it blah), Dvorak's Slavonic Dances (he thought it weird), and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (now this he liked). He picked up a CD of "The Very Best of Grieg" at the bookstore, but his mom said "Grieg?!?! Are you sure you want to listen to that??" so he put it back. And at some point he started making up music in his head for fun. Eighth grade, school bus home every day, an invented "piano concerto", that he made up because the ride was boring, but there were never any real themes (he can't remember them long enough to get to the recap), just the piano banging away louder and softer and really intimidating orchestral thwocks. He was eventually able to remember some of the themes, before realizing some of them were taken from real composers.

Eventually he bought the Brahms symphonies (Toscanini) and other famous things his parents didn't have. He had to get a CD rack because his collection was growing too fast. (It's now at 150 CDs. And he needs another CD rack.) And at some point in time he joined GMG (was he 15? It feels like yesterday), and when he finally got a job for the first time at age 16, he celebrated by ordering 8 CDs off ArkivMusic, pretty much the largest package of anything he'd ever gotten.

He dated once, and guessed correctly that his date, whose idea of good music was the "Flaming Lips" (a psychedelic rock band from Oklahoma), would love Maurice Ravel. Now she lives in France.*    Brian now attends Rice University, where he loves the early, middle, and late romantics, is just beginning to realize how incredible Beethoven was, still composes in his head, has excessive admiration for oddball composers like Manolis Kalomiris, Reinhold Gliere, Kurt Atterberg, Aleksandr Kopylov, and Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda, and can't decide which he is more apathetic to, really really new classical or really really old classical, though Greta and others are working on the former. Brian refuses to listen to Schubert's chamber music so he'll still have something Great to discover later in life. He has only just discovered opera.

He is a Virgo, his favorite color is red, and he is taking classes in literature, religious studies, history, and philosophy.

*He also correctly guessed that she would like Josef Suk.

I enjoyed this one enormously Brian, thank you....

[Brian]

I enjoyed this one enormously Brian, thank you....

You're quite welcome, I enjoyed writing it.

Tell Brian it's good to have him on board.

It's not often we get to talk about ourself in the third person! ...