What to get for Mr. Pianossisimo for X’mas 2008?

In 14 days into Christmas, I know about what to get for Mr. Pianossisimo, my piano teacher, for Christmas. Mr Pianossisimo is a Chopin fan. I have an idea about a gift. Can you guess?

Here are the hints:

1. This thingy is already out of stock in Amazon.com. Luckily, Ms. Mommy Bach placed the order before it is out-of-stock. She is always so fast :) When Ms. Mommy Bach plays piano, her rhythm is always faster than needed. :)

2. We have two serious issues about this gift.

o The prints on this thingy are very small. Ms. Mommy Bach cannot read without her reading glass. She said they should have printed everything at least this big in consideration for Ms. Mommy Bach’s generation and beyond.

o This thingy takes foooooorever to upload entirely to my laptop. After that, then comes another long session of trying to figure out how to download from my laptop to my iPod Nano. Just as when you think you are done, Apple© upgrades its iPod Nano to the iPod Touch. And so, I need to spend many more long boring hours uploading from my iPod Nano to my laptop (again) and back again to the iPod Touch. Ms. Mommy Bach got indefinitely infuriated. Now that Apple© is releasing iPhone. Ms. Mommy Bach promises that she won’t buy me the iPhone for sure – to save my time L I wish there is an iPhone pre-loaded with this thingy. I am sure it would make a good Christmas gift for all of us. Maybe I need to write “A Letter to Mr. Sony Classics”, this time as a product suggestion. Where should I send the letter this time? He probably does not know we kids these days are spending more time on laptops uploading and downloading music than doing homework. For classical music students, it is even worse. We have to practice, go to few lessons a week, do musicianship homework, play chamber music …etc.

If you can read backwards, you know what this ‘ygniht’ is :)

“noitcelloC tekacJ lanigirO etelpmoC ehT : doulG nnelG”

hcaB .sM :)

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How do you Fugue when you play the Feel?

I am going to Maryland the week after Thanksgiving to participate in a Bach documentary by Michael Lawrence Films. I am very excited :) Guess what ? Ms Mommy Bach is even more excited. But she is not going to be on the film :)

Bach = Humanity vs. Bach ≠ Humanity

Every artist in the film talks about the above equation. Is this infinite equality? Or finite inequality? I don’t know what to say about Humanity. I want to talk about the feeling when playing a Fugue.

Mr. Harpossisimo, my harpsichord teacher, asked me the question when I first started my Bach project two years ago – “How do you feel when you play the Fugue?”

At that time, I felt like it was a mission to keep Mr. Mario (from Super Mario) alive by giving him 1-ups and those jumbo mushrooms. It was very exciting and a breath-taking exercise.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Pianossisimo, my piano teacher, asked me the same question after I finished playing a complicated fugue.

“It feels like chasing a lot of people in a maze. They start together and separate into their own tracks. I have to turn round and round. Sometimes I hit a dead-end and have to come out again and turn again. It is very exciting, exhausting. I have to keep finding all the ways around the maze looking for all the people. I have to try every track. At the end, they all re-unite at the end of this complicated maze and I am relieved I do not lose any of them!”

I wonder how Glenn Gould feels when he plays a fugue. Did Mr. Gould ever answer this question?

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First Page of my project

*
♥ ____
i √Bach

Let’s solve Bach’s music using our imagination!

Dear Readers,

Do you have a love for the music of Bach? The answer for most people, especially young musicians, would be a ‘no’. I play Bach on the harpsichord and piano. I would like to change the fact that most people are turned away from Bach, or have never even heard his music. I intend to bring Bach to everyone, all over the world. I want to bring Bach to all the kids who haven’t heard of his music or played it before. His music not only brings “happiness”, but also a sense of compassion. My goal is to start a series of i ♥√Bach concerts to the globe. I just hope that you all enjoy it!



Ms. Bach :) September 2, 2007


* it reads – ‘i’ times the ‘love’th root of Bach

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On the last day of the 'Year of Glenn Gould',

Ms. Bach made a speech in the Library of Congress in Washington DC in United States. Ms. Bach felt like a Congress-woman :)






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Dear all,

I am very happy and honored to come here today to receive the Davidson Fellowship award. It feels like a ... Grammy award for... kids!

My project is called 'I Love Bach'. My goal is to share the complexity and joy of Bach's music with the world, especially my generation of classical music students. I personally find Bach's music intriguing and challenging. For all kids who know what Nintendo is, playing Bach is really like trying to keep Super Mario alive all the time. It's a breath-taking exercise.

I personally find that the process of learning Bach's music can keep me focused and helps me to train my mind to think analytically in many subject areas.

My dream is to start a series of 'I love Bach' concerts across the country and around the globe so that more classical students of this generation can share this joy and appreciate Bach's music!

I want to thank my teachers, my parents for all these years of support and coaching, and lastly to Mr. Glenn Gould, my favorite pianist, for giving me the inspiration to start this 'I Love Bach' project. And mostly, I wish to thank the Davidson Institute for all they do for us kids with dreams and ideas.

Today happens to the last day for the 'Year of the Glenn Gould', as declared by the Glenn Gould Foundation, in memory of his 75th birthday and 25th anniversary after he died.

I hope all of you will go home tonight and download one piece of Bach's music to your iPod to help me with my mission of sharing Bach to everyone.

Thank you

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For those who ask Ms. Bach which piece of Bach music to download, please download the 1955 version of the Goldberg Variations from Mr. Gould. This is the highest recommendation from Ms. Bach :)

September 24, 2008

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Bounce back!

Ms Bach’s last email to Mr. Gould bounced back. :(

Mr. Gould was still concertizing in 1964. The Glenn Gould Foundation has not formed yet. Ms Mommy Bach said she forgot to tell Ms. Bach. She’s always like that. :(

Ms. Bach ended up writing a letter to Mr. Gould. The letter stopped in Boston in United States where they have great lobsters and the great “FromTheTop” people (http://www.fromthetop.org/). It then got re-routed to PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) in United States before it reached the Glenn Gould Foundation in Toronto, Canada. It took such a long way to send a letter. Sigh!

Share and enjoy! :)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/performer-bios/season-2/212/hilda-huang.php


Mr. Gould really needed a Facebook account to share his thinking, compositions, music, documentaries and all those ingenious presentations. Then we all can communicate using 21st century technology. ‘The’ Facebook :)


Ms. Bach Nov 17, 2007 :)
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Time tells time is passing away, but it does not tell us what is coming back in its stead. I can’t believe Google Gmail is allowing people to change "time.", at least that’s what Ms. Mommy Bach told me. I don’t need a time machine. I can send an email to Mr. Glenn Gould in his time right now.

Date: Oct 24, 1964
From: msbach@gmail.com
To: glenn.gould@glenngouldfoundation.org
Subject: a gift

Dear Mr. Gould,

I have been studying Bach’s last great instrumental composition “The Art of Fugue”, for quite sometime now. There’s a canon from an earlier version of Bach’s score that will be published some twenty years later. I know you probably would record it by then. I am going to do it now for my time. This is my gift to you. I hope you like it.

Love,
Ms. Bach


The Glenn Gould Foundation has declared year 2007-2008 as "The Year of Glenn Gould." There are events scheduled across the calendar and around the globe to commemorate the life and work of the great pianist, Mr. Glenn Gould. One 11-year old girl has embarked on a personal journey to commemorate this anniversary celebration in her own unique way. It is her mission to create a children’s version of the "32 Short Films about Glenn Gould." She has already completed the first 10 chapters and is ready to share her vision with the world of classical children.

Since her first recording of a Bach CD, her first encounter with Glenn Gould’s music, and her first obsession with Glenn Gould through the "32 Short Films about Glenn Gould," the young girl is enjoying a decade-long sojourn of learning and appreciating the music of Bach, as well as cultivating her love of Glenn Gould’s music. She carries a vivid vision of sharing her passion with all classical children of her generation through an adventurous and joyous journey. She would like you to join her.

Ms. Bach Aug, 31, 2007 ☺
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“Of all the music that really interests me – not just some of it, all of it – is
Contrapuntal music”
- Ms. Bach :) Oct 21, 2008

Contrapunctus #9 from “Art of Fugue”, BWV 1080


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