All of the dream, how does it mean
Sharon's Weekly Head Dump
During the summer I find it really hard to do pedal-to-the-metal hardcore practicing, even though in theory summer is an ideal time to cram in all the new rep learning while other things are going more slowly. I suspect this is a vestigial cycle from when I was in school (my teachers would give me my new rep at the end of spring in hopes I’d use the summer to get a head start, but I never actually did that—who does?) but it’s also just harder to be ultra disciplined during a season that inherently feels lazy and laid-back.
I’ve been feeling pretty guilty about the fact that my daily practicing isn’t as productive as it typically is, and that honestly I hardly want to practice at all right now. Then I read this in the latest post from Sarah Fritz’s Clara Schumann newsletter this week:
A summery fun tidbit—I thought I’d share Clara’s usual patterns in the summer. For the most part, she played almost no concerts from mid-June through mid-October. She stopped practicing and played piano only for fun for months. […] She wouldn’t restart her technical and performance prep until September when she began preparing for the season, which did not begin until the last week in October. Eugenie Schumann accounts in her memoir the sound of the piano filling the house when her mother would begin practicing again at the end of the summer. It’s a joyful recounting, as though when Clara began her practice again, she undertook it with relief and excitement.
I suspect these months off were an essential secret to the longevity of Clara's career—to maintaining joy in her artform, to staving off jaded feelings for over 60 years.
Clara Schumann didn’t do hardcore practicing in the summer either!! (You hear that, all my past teachers?!?!) This makes me feel a lot better. (I also recall that when I did a report on Yo-Yo Ma in elementary school, I read that he takes at least a month off in the summers where he doesn’t touch his cello at all.)
The tiny little problem is that I booked studio recording time for the end of August so I can’t take a break from work-practicing right now. All I can do is note this for next year; I’ll have to structure my schedule more intentionally to allow for a guilt-free summer break.
So if you care to find me, look to the western sky
This is less relevant to you if you get this newsletter, but sharing it here anyway—over on my personal blog I wrote a quick post on which platforms (including this one) I’m most active on right now given that I’m spending a lot less time on Twitter.
It’s not that I’m actively boycotting Twitter or anything, but I’ve just noticed myself opening the app way less (especially now that it’s that ugly X icon) and quickly exiting every time I do, because it is simply not a platform it feels good to be on anymore.
Boom, hear the bass go zoom
I know everyone else is already obsessed with this and I’m not contributing anything here, but I cannot get enough of this 90s Eurodance parody:
It’s just so, so spot-on. The lyrics, the beat, the costuming, everything. This sounds like a track I would have DDRed to in high school. One of my friends and I now repeatedly text each other “Life, it never die” to which the other responds “Women are my favorite guy.” One of my group chats may already have renamed itself to one of the lyrics. It’s so funny but it’s also such a legitimate earworm.
I’m mildly worried that when the whole song drops it won’t live up to this little clip, but for now all I can do is just keep rewatching it in delight. Arguably it may have already peaked given that it’s gotten a breathless writeup in Rolling Stone. What a time to be alive.
Life in plastic, it’s fantastic
I saw Barbie, I loved it, and I might be itching to see it again. I recommend not listening to the soundtrack until you’ve seen the movie, just because watching it with no expectations makes for a much better experience. (Likewise, I recommend not reading any takes before watching—anecdotally I’ve seen that the people who enjoyed the movie the least are the ones who read/watched Takes and went in expecting something completely different.) Once you have seen the movie, though, the “Best Weekend Ever Edition” of the soundtrack is the one you want, because it has [redacted]’s cover of [redacted], which in the movie is a riot but is legitimately also fun to listen to??
Also, “I’m Just Ken” may be on repeat in our household.
The needle drops in the movie were, imho, excellently done; I know stuffing a stylized movie with musical cues and beat drops is pretty overdone at this point, but Barbie pulled it off and the whole film just felt so damn fun. I enjoyed this interview with Mark Ronson for Vulture, which went interestingly into his writing process:
I wasn’t thinking, This has got to be the summer smash. It was like, I’m really inspired by this film. I wanted to give them something that’s got disco, but has an unexpected slightly harder edge to it. Greta had referenced the Bee Gees a bit. The thing about the Bee Gees that’s really sneaky: A lot of great pop music, when you listen to it, it’s not as syrupy and slick as you think.
Also, a piano friend sent this video, and I begrudgingly watched it thinking it was another “classical music content creator churns something out to capitalize on a pop culture moment,” but found myself genuinely amused:
What makes the video so fun, imho, is not the Barbie connection, but the extremely accurate read on multiple composers’ specific styles.
How come everybody’s dancing but you
I had no idea Carly Rae Jepsen had a new album coming out so imagine my joy when I found out about The Loveliest Time. As expected, the entire thing is a no-skips bops fest. My absolute favorite track on the whole album is “Shy Boy” which is such a banger.
I also really like the three-song chunk of “Psychedelic Switch” (which sounds straight up like a Kylie Minogue song), “So Right,” and “Come Over.” The latter perfectly embodies the spirit of this tweet:
Anyway, I’m off to continue listening to my earworms of the moment while trying not to think about the fact that it’s August somehow (didn’t June just start??)—see you all next week! 🎹