My Son, The Musician

We always liked when our children became interested in playing a musical instrument.
My background is in the "Arts", so I was always keen to find out when one of them showed an interest in something cultah'd.  

We found that the oldest son was a natural stage actor and singer from the age of 5.  It's hard to ignore when at the school wide chorus concert he was in at that time, when you overhear many parents in the audience asking their companions, "Who is that child?  He is amazing!"
And no, I was not imagining it. ;-)
He dabbled in the arts but by high school decided it wasn't for him.  His "acting" ability will stand him in good stead though as he pursues his goal of being a high school or college level History teacher.

The middle child, the Daughter, well, she was gifted in math and science, with nary an artistic bone in her little body.  She did take up the trumpet in middle school but I think that was more as a social thing to fit in.  She also sang in the school's chorus and performed in the musicals.  Though she was no prodigy, she did discover an affinity for the guitar as a pre-teen.  She taught herself to play it and when she continued to show interest we did pay for lessons.  She performed(or played back up for singers)at high school events but she hasn't decided to pursue music as a vocation.  It's a hobby she enjoys and the urge comes and goes.

When it came time for the youngest son to decide if he wanted to join the elementary school band class, he was MORE than ready!  I guess seeing his older siblings both learn and play the trumpet(plus his sister played the guitar and was teaching herself the keyboard), he wanted to do that(play music) too.  He never gave any indication as a little guy that he was artistic and we figured he'd try it and lose interest like so many kids do once they realize the work involved in learning and mastering an instrument.
But then, he told us that the hand-me-down trumpets, from his siblings, he would get to learn on were not to his liking.
HE wanted to play......the flute!
He was drawn to the flute from day one.  So I went on eBay and found a really good quality used instrument for cheap money so when he lost interest after a couple of years, I wouldn't feel bad about spending the money on it, and I might be able to resell it to boot. ;-)

His siblings tried to dissuade him from playing "that girly instrument".  They knew he's be teased for not playing the drums, the sax or one of those other loud brass instruments.  Despite their advice and influences, he decided on the flute.

And instead of losing interest after a year or two, he stuck with it.  He moved up to the middle school band and then was invited to join the high school marching band while still in middle school.  Once he was actually in high school, music became his life as a student.....well that and French class.  A day without a lesson or a music class or a musical after school activity was a day without sunshine for him.

At this point we decided to upgrade his instrument to a better quality one.  He was taking lessons through the school but the time came that private lessons were needed to get him to the next level.
He stumbled upon a wonderful flute teacher.  The local music store had an arrangement with instrument teachers and she was working with them.  Youngest got assigned to her for lessons and the two just clicked.  After a few months, the teacher went out on her own and youngest son decided to follow her instead of change teachers at the music store.  Then his 1/2 hour lesson expanded into 45 minutes.  He is pushing us now to pay for hour long ones.

This is all just a very long way to introduce this video(albeit a questionable quality video as it was taken with Daughter's phone) of #2 Son playing at the student recital for his flute and piano teacher, which was this past Friday evening.  It was his very first public performance as a soloist.

Youngest has been taking "serious" lessons for about a year now.  Though in the music world, he is considered a "late bloomer", he has made great strides in his technique. He has decided to go to college for music(if he gets accepted into a program)and work in some capacity of the music industry/business as his vocation.

Without further adieu, here is Noah performing "Sicilienne" by Gabriel Fauré

Sluggy

A Snappy Tune and A Cultured Lesson to Start Your Week

I have mentioned from time to time on the blog that I studied voice while in college.
During this time I worked my chops on anything from musical theater tunes to light operetta to classic opera, as well as lieder(art songs of the 19th century).

This vocal training required me to sing in foreign languages, as most lieder and opera were not written in English.  Though there are translations of most every song into English, when you study singing, you sing in other languages. That's just a given if you are serious about it.

 While I can't necessarily speak or understand these tongues, I did pick up a smattering of French, Italian and German. Singing in a foreign language is different than learning to speak that language.  While you need to be clear enough in pronunciation to be understood in that tongue, you also have to often change or adjust pronunciation to make the notes you produce more pleasing to the ear.
Ok, so I am babbling at this point.

I just wanted to share an aria(this means a song in operatic terms)with you all, that I always enjoyed performing.  It is a typical operatic brindisi.  Brindisi simply means " a drinking song".  Many Italian operas included them.  It was, as it were, one of the parts of the standard "let's write an opera" formula employed by composers/lyricists back in the heyday of opera writing.
A Brindisi was most always a merry upbeat tune.
This example is pretty much the most well-known brindisi.....as sung by the incomparable Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti....



I am sure you are familiar with that merry tune.  It's from the equally famous opera La Traviata by Guiseppe Verdi.  My one sentence synopsis of this opera.......It's about a French Courtesan(prostitute)who dies of consumption(TB)after she finds her true love(sort of).

I have always found that song to be amusing since this tune is sung at a party to celebrate Violetta's(the hooker)recovery from an illness.....only she really hasn't recovered, has she?lol

On to my favorite Brindisi....
It's from the opera Lucrezia Borgia by Gaetano Donizetti.
It's based on the legend of that wickedest of them all Borgia's, Lucretia.
Before Italy was known for the Cosa Nostra(the Mafia), they had the Borgia family.  Look them up sometime....
A funner bunch of people you'd be hard pressed to find! ;-)

Here is a painting that was thought to be a portraiture of Lucretia, done in 1515 by Veneto...

Anyway the one sentence plot of Lucrezia Borgia is something like this.....Though warned about staying away from Ms. Borgia by a soothsayer, 2 friends end up getting caught up in her world, get poisoned and die, right after she reveals that she is the mother of one of the two friends.

The friend of the guy who is revealed to be Borgia's son is called Orsino.  The singing part was written for a contralto voice.  Men are not naturally able to sing in this higher register and are either bass, baritone or tenor register singers.

Back in the 1800's  in Europe, in the operatic world, men were castrated before puberty hit in order to turn them into contralto singers.  This was a common practice in this field of work.....giving up your gonads and being able to father children in order to enjoy the accolades of being a successful and adored opera star.....a eunuch but an opera star nevertheless.
This practice of castrato was not outlawed in Italy until the 1870's.  A whole segment of teenage boys breathed a sigh of relief in Italy at that time I am sure. ;-)

On a side note, when I googled castrati this is one of the photos that came up....

So this particular brindisi since that time has been sung by a woman, because contralto is the lower regsiter in a woman's vocal range.  So that is why you have woman commonly playing man's parts in opera today.
Now you can go work that nugget of knowledge into your next cocktail party conversation.

The brindisi is called "Il segreto per esser felici".   In English it is "The Secret of Being Happy".
Yes, sing about happiness as you are being poisoned by the wine you are drinking.
You just have to love those crazy opera composers and their sense of humor!

Without further delay and babbling, here is Daniela Barcellona in an actual performance a few years back of Lucrezia Borgia, singing this brindisi......Godetevi questa! <---that means "Enjoy This".......




Sluggy