Random Monday: Growing Up, Artificial Lips, Jumbotrons and a Difficult Mistress

Reflections on the week that has passed.

• Artificial Lip Mouthpiece

  From Will Kimball’s blog comes this oddity. “No embouchure required!” claims the advertisement. It appears to incorporate some kind of artificial, rubber lip that somehow is supposed to do the buzzing.

  Like Lauren Bacall once said to Humphrey Bogart, “just pucker your lips and blow” I guess…

• A difficult mistress

  From a post at the Horn Notes Blog comes this great quote from Farquharson Cousins:

  The horn is a strange and unpredictable mistress. It has to be wooed to be won. Show fear and it will recognize it as easily as the horse senses the novice rider. The horn is not difficult. Like the game of golf we make it difficult through our own inadequacies.

• Jumbotrons at the Symphony

  An interesting dialogue at Lawrence Johnson’s Chicago Classical Review and at Ron Spigleman’s post at Sticks and Drones gets into the topic of large video screens at symphony park concerts.

  Myself, I love the idea of big video screens. It gives an audience member a closeup look at the action and it is a enhancement to the concert experience — especially in large park venue.

• Play Me, I’m Yours

  This project was featured on CBS Sunday Morning and in the New York Times. In locations throughout London, brightly-painted upright pianos placed in public locations are adorned with the simple instruction of “Play Me, I’m Yours.”

  From the Times article:

  Then came Martin Roig, 39, a wedding planner from Argentina, who attracted a circle of amateur paparazzi and had people sending videos to their friends with his impassioned renditions of several Scarlatti sonatas.

  “He’s not doing it for money?” asked Ilya Fisher, 45, who stopped to listen en route to the dentist. She came back a moment later with a bottle of water for the performer.

  Mr. Roig said he had not played in public since he was a child. “I felt like I was a little boy again,” he said. “I think it’s a beautiful idea, and it makes people nearer to the music.”

• Too funny…