A Switch in Time

As a musician, I've always been interested in the difference between duple and triple time signatures, that is between 4/4 and 3/4.To my students, I usually describe it as a square and a triangle, respectively.The first is used in most rock beats, and the second in the waltz and ballad.

4/4 has  more of a lockstep feeling, and 3/4 feels more fluid , more relaxed, almost cyclical. 

So now that we are switching from the summer's schedule to a more rigorous school and piano lesson schedule, it's a bit like changing the time signature from 3/4 to 4/4 in the middle of the song. It takes a little while to accept the new time. And while we welcome the change both ways, (what if our schedules never changed? ) the new time feels foreign at first.

So give yourself a little transition time. Don't change everything at first, and practice the new rhythm before you expect yourself to perform it flawlessly.  Before you know it, it will become comfortable, and about then it will be time to change rhythms again!

The Blog's the Thing

In the bard's eerily haunting story of Hamlet, our mourning hero plots to snag the conscience of the king who he believes has murdered his father to seize the throne.He stages a play to dramatize a story in which a king is poisoned. So a not to spoil the outcome, literary experts still debate whether or not he achieved his goal. It certainly wasn't the first time a popular art form was pressed into service to make a point!

Enter: The blog.

According to  http://blogpulse.com/ there are about 144 million blogs. At least that many people (with many more blogs added daily) have something they want to say, and they're saying it!  It is certainly an art form gathering a considerable amount of weight. There are marketing blogs, spiritual blogs, comedic blogs, and the list goes on. People are looking for recognition, following, self-expression, even hoping to warn the general public of certain ills or to promote a cause.

 I'm having such fun blogging! Perhaps we'll all get tired of it, or something else more fascinating will come along, but for now, the blog's the thing.

I'd love to hear from you. Why do you blog?

The Maze

I've just used up 45 minutes trying to launch an application that would enable me to be more comment and discussion friendly on my site, only to find I'd somehow deleted every comment on this blog:-(. 

But, not to worry. I'll continue posting and we will begin again!

Every fall, my daughters take a trip to the biggest corn maze I've ever seen.  Of course they go at night, and getting lost is half (most) of the fun. There are maps made to help you find your way, and several aerial view stations set up so you can look at the whole thing (if you can find the stairs to the platform). It is great fun, and the corn is growing green and tall right this very minute in preparation for this year's maze.

Sometimes the computer and it's marvelous electric 'brain' is like an intricate maze that I make my way through, turning down one path, because it's there and looks good, and then finding it a dead end, or worse, a trap. 

But the process is challenging! For an over 50 Mom who gets lost on the way to the Bart station in Dublin (even though I've been there dozens of times) I'm not ready to quit learning any time soon.

Thanks to you, my reader, I am energized to keep attempting to connect and communicate until absolutely gagged by my own ineptitude.