Julia got in to the St Louis symphony Youth Orchestra. She was convinced she hadn't got in, even though she did ok in the audition (not ostensibly blowing it at least), because everyone else auditioning was a 17 or 18 year old guy and she is a 14 year old, 4'11" girl. The judges, though, were behind a curtain and couldn't see age / gender / height. You know she didn't get in on sympathy either.

We also got some soundproofing insulation in a room in our basement put in this weekend, which muffles the sound of the trumpet considerably, which is a good thing since she's gone from the "have you practiced yet" phase to the "can you please stop practicing" phase, from parents reminding her to practice to "Mom doesn't let me practice enough."

My daughter's a pretty fine trumpet player. She auditioned for the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra this evening, with some heavy-duty orchestral excerpts from Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Rimsky-K. She also found out tonight that she got into another orchestra, the Young Persons' Symphonic Orchestra at Webster University's community music school, which is conducted by St. Louis Symphony tympanist Richard Holmes.

The funny this is she thinks she blew her audition for the YPSO, but she got in anyway. On the other hand, she did well in audition tonight for the SLSO Youth orchestra, which theoretically should be harder to get into. Since she's only 14 and a freshman in high school, she has more chances to get in if she auditions again.

It's not unusual for me to come home and find my daughter playing "Joy Spring" along with Clifford Brown. She's learned the heads to about a dozen or more jazz standards, mostly just from playing along to the records and learning by ear. "All of Me," "Doxy," "St. Thomas," "Now's the Time," "So What," "Oleo," "Cherokee," "Tenor Madness," Moritat." Mostly Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk. I hear her right now with "Birth of the Cool." I think it's "Boplicity." Now where could she have gotten this interest in jazz from?

There is/are only poetics, there is not "a poetic" of this or that. There are emphases within this, or statements of where one is "at" at a particular time. That's why a blog might state a different poetics every day, but in an evolving series. It's temporal and ongoing. You can't have a poetics, in the sense of possession; you can only participate in it. It's thinking I understood something the day before yesterday, but realizing it's only a partial understanding. That is why Alice is right to call poetics bullshit. It is an inherently provisional enterprise. (This is different from someone who never thinks about poetics in the first place.)

Poetics in the neoclassical sense of prescription, how boring is that? Poetics can only be descriptive, in the sense that linguistics is descriptive. Describing what good poets already do, not telling someone what to do. Or worse, what NOT to do.

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Cut down my MLA paper from 18 pages to 8. Ouch. But I could eliminate some "It could be argued that."

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Julia learned most of the first chorus of Rollins' improvisation on "St. Thomas." I found a transcription on the internet. It's 16 measures since the tune is in 16-bar AABC form. The ability to sit down for an hour and work on something like this. Who said kids didn't have concentration. The trick is finding something worthwhile for them to concentrate on.

I am getting more and more into the poetry of Olvido García Valdés. There are three stages in reading. (1) It's interesting but I don't really get it. (2) It just keeps getting better and better. (3) Discrimination. Some poems are more interesting than others; some flaws might emerge; both positive and negative aspects become sharply delineated.

I'm at stage 2 now with her. What I like most is the way my thoughts adopt themselves to the meditative rhythm of reading. It takes you to another place.

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Julia learned to play "St. Thomas" along with Sonny Rollins. (Just the melody for now, not the entire solo!) It's perfect for an eleven-year old because it is both simple and hip. You have to come in on the and of one so it's a little tricky. The trumpet plays an octave above the tenor sax. Then she learned "Moritat" from the same album (Saxophone Colossus.) (The tune is "Mack the Knife" but with an alternate title.) The same thing: simple and melodic, but extraordinarily hip, to get that phrasing right. It would have been a little easier if we'd had written music, but it's good ear-training to learn it from the recording. Plus it's fun to play along. I can find the notes on the piano and transpose to tell her what the notes are supposed to be. Her ear is better than mine, but notes are easier to find on the piano because you can "see them" in relation to one another.