May 2009 Archives

So I finally bit the bullet the other day and set up an RSS reader for myself.  It's fantastic, as most of the websites I read are blogs of some sort (both personal and professional).  The only downside is that since it does all the checking for me, I don't know what to do with my internet browsing time anymore.

Speaking of which, for all you Rachel lovers out there, SmugMug has it's own RSS feed, so you can subscribe and see exactly when I update our photos.  (Grandparents can email me if they need help doing this.)

So here is the link to the feed: SmugMug RSS.  Enjoy!

I've noticed lately that Andy is not a name that is respected in the media.  Take for instance, one of the most famous current Andy's, Mr. Andy Bernard.

Let's see, he enjoys playing the banjo, a cappell singing, has a miserable love life, anger issues, and in general is a pathetic 'yes man.'  His only redeeming quality seems to be that he graduated from Cornell.

Next up is Andy from the show Parks & Recreation.  (Makes you wonder who that Andy was that irritated Gred Daniels so much.

Let's see, he broke his legs falling into a pit, treats his girlfriend badly, and still wants to live the life of a rock star (picking a band name and sticking with it might help).

Oh and of course there's Andy Samberg.

Ok, technically he's not a character, but he isn't doing us any favors.  Oh, and his real name is David Andrew Samberg.  Couldn't he at least be a decent human being and go by his first name?

The prejudice against Andy's continues into the Muppet world as well.

First up, is the Andy character from the 'Captain Vegetable' song.  Andy the Candy addict.  Gee thanks Sesame Street.


Finally, there is the Bad Andy of the Domino's commercials. Apparently, he was so bad they decided to make him part of their slogan.


I think it's about time for Andy's to be better represented in the media. What ever happened to characters like Andy Griffith? Those were the days. At least we Andy's get our own Awards.

So I finished coursework this spring, which included my doctoral comps, and at the time it was a really, really great feeling.  Not that I'm anxious to go back to that, but now I find myself in the position of trying to stitch together a full-time wage.

I suppose for most people, that involves find one job.  For me, it means having at least three.

Yes, three.

First of all, I have my piano studio, which has been going well, but I've haven't been actively recruiting too many students since I've been so busy with school.  Now that I have time for teaching more students, I'm recruiting a bit more, but having a baby has also made things a bit more interesting around the home.  Still, getting more students doesn't happen quickly.

Then there is job number two, which is adjunct work at Avila University.  I'm actually interviewing to get a bit of a promotion to an 'artist-in-residence' position, which would come with more money and benefits, but even that would be part time.  The trick with this job, is that while I maintain some flexibility in my workweek, I'm not sure what courses I might be teaching and thus am not entirely sure what my schedule will be like.  So when it comes to finding additional work, it either has to also be somewhat flexible during the week, or is more of a weekend/evening thing which then conflicts with the studio teaching.  Hmm...

So, then there is job number three, which should make up the rest (I hope).  I actually have several options for this.  One would be to get a church job, something I've never had for a variety of reasons.  This, though, would mean leaving the relationships we've built up at our church, though it would fit in nicely with my current schedule.

Another option is to go back to work that I've already done, which is high school choral accompanist.  Good news is that a friend of mine recently got hired as a choral director, so I have a job if I want it.  Like with my other jobs, though, the hourly pay is pretty good, but getting enough hours is tricky.  There is another such job that I'm also inquiring about.

Finally, there is the oddball option, which could include any number of things.  In this case, I'm actually applying for some random staff positions around Avila, which would be really convenient, but wouldn't necessarily pay quite as well.

Oh, and of course I still need to be working on a dissertation (for the DMA in piano), thesis (for the masters in theory), and developing professional contacts (like through a spiffy new website).

Ok, that's as long as I can go without doing this...

SmugMug has been updated, but I thought I'd post a few as well.

The site was down for a while there, but thankfully everything is back up and running.  As my web host has just shown, it's never a bad idea to have a backup of a backup.  Crazy stuff.  Anyway, a couple of new things going one.  First of all, I've been working on a new site for myself, something a bit more professional.  Presenting my new music site: http://andy-lee.com/music/  I'm debating on whether or not I want to just bite the bullet and register randrewlee.com instead.

Also, I had wanted to post this a while back (facebook followers I apologize).


Update: I went ahead and registered randrewlee.com, so expect it to be moved there in the near future.

Well folks, here is the recording from last night's recital.  I'll go ahead and post both the mp3 and wav file since they are both pretty huge.  Special thanks to Dr. David McIntire for doing the recording, which turned out very well.

anhourforpiano.mp3 - 112.2MB, 256kbps
anhourforpiano.wav - 609.9MB

If you have the patience, I'd recommend the full quality version, which sounds great on a quality sound system.  Somehow you can't really hear the page turns save at a couple of points, but you can hear the physical sound of the different keys being struck.

As far as my own performance goes, I am quite pleased.  There were a few points where I thought that I might want to make some adjustments in the future, and of course I can now hear the slightest fluctuations in tempo, but overall I am very satisfied with the way things turned out.

The only downside is that my timing is around 1:00:20 (once you account for dead time at the beginning and end of the recording).  This isn't bad, and is in fact only an error of 0.56%, but it should have been dead on.  The problem, you see, is that I while I had brought a little kitchen timer to use, I couldn't read it very effectively, so I just used the stopwatch function on the iPod that I had on me.  Thus, while I was exactly one hour on the iPod (ok, so I reached the final beat around 59:54 and cheated by putting a little fermata on the last notes), the actual timing was a little bit longer on the recording.  So, word to the wise, if you are doing something for which timing is important, DON'T USE the iPod stopwatch function.  Thankfully, I've been asked to do a reprise performance for a class next fall, so maybe I'll get a more exact recording at that time.

As I had done before, I've posted the full program notes written by the composer after the jump, which are meant to be read while listening.  They are literally self-explanatory, so I'll just leave it at that.

Hope you enjoy!

She's been quite active today.  This afternoon, she was just as awake and alert as could be, so we tried to give her as much face time as we could.  The video below contains one of the better moments.  Also, I got to watch her roll over onto her belly, which seemed to upset her very much as she was not quickly able to right herself.  I should have probably let her hang out there a bit, but I ended up putting her back on her back pretty soon.  We'll have to wait and see if she can repeat the trick.

Also, I am in the process of uploading the recording of last night's recital.  I am very pleased with the recording and my performance, but rather disappointed with the accuracy of the iPod stopwatch (but more on that later).  I should have a 256kbs mp3 uploaded in about half an hour, but the wav file will take a bit longer.  I'll post as soon as it's ready.  In the meantime, I will subject you to yet another video of my daughter.  (I totally understand if these aren't that interesting for you, but my mother-in-law called today to tell me to keep these videos coming, and since I happen to be fond of them as well, I will.)

We'll have to take some more pictures today and upload them to SmugMug.  In the meantime, though, my parents were in town this weekend and we got some great pictures.  This one, though, was my particular favorite.  On the right is my mom holding Jase (sp?), in the middle is me with Rachel, and on the left is my sister Katie with Jillian (Jillian and Jase are twins, the kids of some friends of my parents).

It is, if I do say so, one of the best pictures Carrie's ever taken.

More pictures added to the SmugMug account.  Also, some videos have been uploaded for your viewing pleasure.

Now that Carrie and I have a kid of our own (for all of 22 days now), I've realized something--we can't really thank our mothers, can we?  I don't mean that we shouldn't try, what with chocolates and flowers being in need of buying, but I don't think we can ever say thanks enough.

In the few sleepless nights that we've had, I am starting to get a glimpse of what my mother must have gone through.  Of course, she's put up with me for a good 27 years now (the words long and suffering come to mind), or to put it another way, 448 times as long as we have with Rachel, so it definitely isn't anything more than a glimpse.  All that makes me think, though, that I can't ever really say thank you to her.  All I can try to do is pass it along to my daughter as a way of saying thanks.  Perhaps that's why people seem to like grandchildren so much (that, and seeing their own children suffer through parenthood brings out schadenfreude like nothing else).

So thanks, mom, for everything.

Today has been an absolutely beautiful day in Kansas City, with highs in the upper 60's, sunny skies, and all this coming at the end of my semester.  Carrie had a baby shower she was helping to throw, so Rachel and I decided to hit the town.  Unfortunately, I neglected to bring my camera, but I think you'll forgive me as I was concerned about having the diaper bag, everything in it, as well as the Baby Björn ready to go.

Our first stop was shopping, though I can't say where yet because Mother's day is just around the corner and I don't want to spoil Carrie's surprise.  Needless to say, though, a rather good-looking gentleman with an adorable baby in tow garners a lot of attention.  People would say "hi" and sometimes even stop me to ask me how old she was.  When I said we were out shopping for our first Mother's day, most people were overwhelmed by the adorableness of the situation.  One employee even gave us a few freebies with our purchase.

Then we went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, with particular interest to walk around the grounds and to see the new Bloch building with its contemporary art collection.  I have to say that the building itself was really cool, and the collections were good as well.  Unfortunately my perspective on art museums has been skewed after visiting London and Paris, but I still really enjoyed our visit.  I daresay that people spent as much time looking at Rachel as they did some of the paintings, though.

Finally, went home and took a nap, which I thought was a great way to cap off a Saturday afternoon.

This evening I attended newEar's final concert of the season, featuring the music of Györgi Ligeti.  It was one of the larger crowds I've seen at their concerts (or maybe I was just later than usual), but I think there was a lot of excitement about a particular piece - his Poème Symphonique for 100 Metronomes.  Yes, that's right, a piece for 100 metronomes.  You can get an idea for what it was like with this YouTube video (things don't get going until 1:30), though this particular live version lasted about 20 minutes.  While it seems like something that would be tragically boring to watch/listen to, it ended up being a lot of fun and surprisingly brief.  The visuals of the metronomes spaced throughout the stage, watching them slowly die off one by one kept it interesting.  I'm really glad I got to see that live (and the other pieces, too, of course).

In related news, it looks like I'm finally going to be able to perform Tom Johnson's An Hour for Piano coming up in two weeks.  If you're in the KC area, and don't mind minimalist music, this recital should be a lot of fun.  (I'll even have drinks afterwards. To get an idea of what you'd be in for, this is a poor-quality recording I did a while back - An Hour for Piano.)  The venue is UMKC's Diastole, which is a nice house with a great piano, which should give the evening a more relaxed atmosphere than a sterile concert hall.  The official date/time is May 16th at 7:30pm and directions are below.  Hope you can make it.



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I've added some more photos to our SmugMug account.  Enjoy.  Things are going well.  She's gained back half the weight she lost post-birth, which is great news.  We're adjusting to the sleeping schedule, and thankfully with summer upon us we won't have too many obligations during these drowsy days.  Our only real problem is trying to eat all the food that people have been bringing us.  :)

Some of us are handling it better than others.