I know a few people in here speak Japanese. I have a question. It's a minor one. So, please message me at your leisure.

@RegDwigнt Awesome. I'm very happy for you. And now you're hooked.

But when you say "I don't know how you could be doing anything else" I suppose you mean the "general" you, not me in particular?

Because "singer" is among the many things I am not. I've done it some, but I just don't have the voice for it.

About the shaking and sweating: you do get over that, for the most part. You'll still have nerves before a performance, but you eventually get rid of those "I'm going to die out there" feelings. The first couple times I performed at Orchestra Hall I thought I was going to have a coronary. My blood pressure must have been through the roof. But somehow it all came around right. I didn't miss any cues, or come in too soon, or forget how to play, or any of that.

And the first chamber concert I performed there—the Rorem trio for flute, cello, and piano—I thought the audience must be able to hear my heart beating on stage. The opening movement had these held notes with vibrato, and my heart would add beats to that vibrato.

It's also pianissimo:

But we got a standing O at the end. Very gratifying.

I still have an audio recording of our performance on a cassette somewhere, but nothing really to play it on. And I honestly could never hear that little cardiac hiccup that seem so noticeable when it was happening live.

(Well, pianissimo in spots.)

Gets loud too. But the point is, the introduction is all naked flute.

Naked—that's how one feels onstage.

Anyway, congratulations again, and welcome to that heady world of performing on the brink of collapse.

@Robusto By the way, do you get the feeling that standing ovations are becoming more and more common?

In the Concertgebouw, it's every single time.

It's become meaningless.

And this happened over the past ten years or so.

The clapping also lasts longer and longer.

Almost ten minutes now.

@Cerberus Absolutely. It's like grade inflation in college. Everyone gets an A in grad school.

@Robusto Exactly, inflation.

Don't those people realise what they are doing?

It's inevitable at this point.

I refuse to stand up unless or until my entire company does.

Now if you don't get a standing O you must have sucked really bad.

Right.

It is time for a revolution.

A devaluation, if you will.

I went to a concert before Christmas that was good, not great, and I was the only person in the audience who refused to stand. I felt like a curmudgeon, but I held my ground.

@Cerberus What do you mean, your "company"? Do you mean your companions?

Haha, I was that same person in my concert hall.

@Robusto Yes, the people I was with.

Sometimes I just stand so I don't embarrass the people I came with. Stand, with half-hearted applause.

The word "my" and the context of a concert hall make it less appropriate..

@Robusto Exactly.

@Cerberus Yes. In America, if you talk about "my company" it normally means the organization you work for.

@DavidM What do you want to know?

@Robusto Or your company of entertainers.

Less likely, but sure.

In a concert hall.

I figured you might be imagining my performing tricks on the stage with my company.

Well, in that sense a company usually refers to actors.

Yes, actors.

@Cerberus Yes. I would pay to see you perform tricks on stage.

Performing some act, a play.

I'm sure you would.

But, oh, I don't turn tricks any more. Those were the days.

Paid a lot better than acting, too.

I don't think you're being serious now.

Am I ever?

Of course not.

BTW, not to change the subject, but did you ever read any Mary Renault?

Historical novels about ancient Greece?

Ah, you did mention her.

I once read part of the beginning of a book you recommended, about a boy and the ruler's horse, I think.

Yes. If you haven't, try The Mask of Apollo first. I really think you'd enjoy it.

It's about an actor in that turbulent time, gay, acting in plays, but devoted to his art.

I'll download the book on my phone and put it in my reading programme.

So as not to forget about it.

Do. I really do think you'll enjoy it a great deal.

It is done.

Now all that remains is to read it. ^_^

Once you start I don't think you'll stop.

Probably not!

I love reading novels, but I don't get to it as often as I'd like.

Do you?

I read all the time.

I'm rather compulsive about it, but I only read things I like.

Good.

I agree about the latter.

When I am given a book, I feel no obligation to read it.

Yes. It is incumbent on the book to draw me in.

I read what I think is worth my while, or what I am in the mood for.

@Robusto Hey! Thanks

So, my pool cue brand is Katana.

There are books whose first 100 pages are somewhat boring, but which make up for it later, such as the Lord of the Rings.

My wife, on the other hand, reads about three books a week, or more, and will read anything.

@DavidM Hello!

But it is 6 AM, I must go.

I replaced the shaft with a black carbon fiber one. How would you say black sword in Japanese? Kuro Katana?

Bed beckons.

@Cerberus I used to give books 100 pages, but no longer. Tempus fugit!

Ciao

Yeah.

Valete!

Laterz!

@DavidM Not quite. Not all swords are katanas, you know. But to use the adjective kuro you have to use -i, making it kuroi katana.

@Robusto Gotcha

黒い刀 is the Japanese way to write that.

So, kuroi katana makes sense.

My friend was suggesting that it needed a name b/c all good swords need a name. It was a joke based upon the brand name.

Do you want to suggest something dark and sinister?

It's certainly a thought.

Maybe try 闇の刀 then: yami-no katana, or "dark sword" ...

I like that. Thanks!

NP. Good luck, I'm headed to bed myself.

Thanks again. Good night!

Hence I decided for the safest option and sacrificed some chemistry in favor of simplicity. Years were denoted with atomic numbers instead, so that year 2019 (twenty-nineteen) became CaK. HNY is Happy New Year, yet lookin' like a cryptic yttrium compound. t' is a symbol for a time-reversing translation (used in crystallography).

Keep in mind I spent like five minutes from the moment I realized I'd like to post a non-canned new year congratulation till LaTeX completed compilation, and it was in the middle of the night:)

Is there any chemical validity in the cryptic yttrium compound HNY? @andselisk

@Robusto Yes I quite deliberately left it ambiguous.

Obviously I don't really mean you. But then again in a way I do.

I didn't mean singing per se. Just performing publicly in whatever capacity.

I know it's not all sunshine all the time. You've talked about that. One night you get them standing ovations, the next you play for a hundred indifferent people dining and talking over your art. You're still the same you, but now nobody gives a fuck.

So yeah I'm not talking about that last bit. You'd have to pick and choose, and as a musician you just don't have the luxury. Unless you're Barenboim.

Still, I can only imagine that even some of your lowest lows must've been quite a bit higher than my highest highs so far. And on more levels than I can be aware of at this point.

So there's that.

@Robusto Yeah I think I'm realizing there's something to be said for performing a piece several nights in a row.

Not that it will become routine.

But it will take the edge off the nervousness. Shave off the bit of it that's needless.

Yesterday the second half after the break was already more chill than the first. I still trembled like an aspen leaf, but only for the first two minutes rather than ten.

Of course in the classical world you rarely get a second shot. Most everything is one-night-only.

Duruflé will be several concerts. Let's see how that goes.

I had a listen last night. Reading along in the sheet music. Hauntingly beautiful.

And quite challenging. Precisely because most of the time most everyone's in unison.

@Cerberus you know for a while I definitely had that impression. But the more concerts I go to, the more it's a confirmation bias I'm finding.

Don't know about the Concertgebouw, of course.

But this hall yesterday, the audience is typically very lazy. And really, really old. They just don't get up.

If I recall, even after Hakola's clarinet concerto there were only like ten people standing. That's including myself.

Yesterday every last person was standing. Like WTF.

And it didn't even properly register with me at the time.

But now it does.

That's the only picture that I clearly remember, actually. A huge wall of people standing.

The rest of the time I was just looking at the conductor or the orchestra. Completely ignoring the audience like it was some kind of wallpaper.

Speaking of pictures, lemme see if I have any to share.

That's the hall. Dress rehearsal yesterday. Though we weren't dressed really. The lights are way too hot.

That's ten minutes before the concert in one of the waiting rooms behind the stage.

@skullpatrol No, I'm afraid chemically HNY doesn't make sense either.

That's the last rehearsal on Friday, in a community hall next to the choir's resident church.

@RegDwigнt See, I'm not about to start daily practicing again. I can fake it at this point, but to get good again would take a minimum of two hours a day. I really don't have the energy or the interest to do that.

Plus I would have to do more if I were expecting to take an audition somewhere. But there are no chairs open where I live, and I'm not about to move.

If I were back in Chicago or Boston I would be hooked into the community well enough to just play around (assuming I worked to get back my chops), but not out here.

I've toyed with maybe looking up a recorder group, but that gets boring as well.

Meh, me and my shadow, that's who I play with now.