WSHSO in Benefit for Mercy Centre

Just want to let everyone know that on October 12 - that's this Sunday! - I'll be playing with the Washington Square Harp and Shamrock Orchestra (WSHSO) in a spectacular concert that will benefit a wonderful cause.

Founded 35 years ago in the slums of Bangkok by Father Joseph Maier,
The Mercy Centre runs over 30 neighborhood schools, four orphanages, a hospice for adults with HIV/AIDS and a 500-pupil kindergarten. It provides a loving home to over 180 abused, abandoned and orphaned children – one third of them born with HIV. Its anti-trafficking program protects the most vulnerable children living on the streets. Since 1973 the foundation has built over 10,000 houses in the slums. Everything they accomplish is in partnership with the poor.

My group, the WSHSO, is thrilled to be one of the performers in this all-star cast of Irish musicians and dancers as well as some English and Appalachian friends. Artists include The Green Fields of America (with Mick Moloney, Billy McComiskey, Ivan Goff, Jerry O'Sullivan, Dana Lyn, Athena Tergis and Robbie O'Connell), Joanie Madden and a Cherish the Ladies reunion with special guest appearances from Joe Madden and Mike Rafferty, Tommy, Moya and Fionan Sands, Frank Crocker, Jimmy Crowley and Donie Carroll, Mac Benford and UpSouth, The Burns Sisters, John Roberts and Tony Barrand, Dan and Bonnie Milner, The Washington Square Harp and Shamrock Orchestra (with Don Meade and Brendan Dolan), Matt and Shannon Heaton, Dan Gurney, Niall O'Leary and his School of Irish Dance with Kieran Jordan and more.

All performers are donating their services pro bono. All concert proceeds go to the Mercy Center.

Sunday, October 12th, 8 pm
Symphony Space (95th & Broadway)
Tickets: $50 / $35 / $25. $5 off with student ID.
For more info and tickets call 212-864-5400.
To purchase tickets online, click here: Symphony Space.

If you are planning to come, get tickets NOW - they're going fast and the concert is expected to be a complete sellout!!

Irish Musicians for the Mercy Centre is being made possible through the support of The Mercy Center, The Irish Arts Center, The Washington Square Harp and Shamrock Orchestra, and The Milwaukee Irish Fest Foundation, Inc.

© 2008, Linda Mason Hood
Truffles, Turtles & Tunes Copyright Statement

Flute Lessons with Mike Rafferty

Although a fair amount of biography and some good descriptions of Mike Rafferty's playing are available online (see links at the end of this post), I have yet to find anything written on his teaching. This blog post attempts to fill that void. What follows here are my reflections about Mike as a teacher and what I’ve learned from him over the past four years.

Took the Plunge

Yes, we finally took the plunge into the brave new world of Apple computers. I bought my husband a MacBook (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB RAM, and 250 GB hard drive). He finally received the new computer I had wanted to give him last Christmas! You may recall the Vista woes of my January 14 and January 19 posts. I was more or less convinced that Mac was the solution in my February 8 post. So what took so long?

My struggle with Lenovo over the returned T61 Vista laptop intensified over time. Aggravated, I sent back its XP replacement without ever opening the box. With two laptop purchases on my credit card, I thought it best to wait for the Lenovo refunds before purchasing a third computer. Lenovo proved difficult, but on April 29 I received the final credit on my Feb 5 returns. By that time, however, my professor husband had second semester work in progress on his old laptop. Not a good time to make a switch!

Finally, on July 9 we made our way to Apple's new West 14th Street store. We came away with a MacBook, a Time Capsule, a copy of Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition by David Pogue, and a MobileMe subscription for the free iPod Touch obtained through Apple's Back-to-School promotion. (The iPod was for me, of course!)

Right out of the box, the MacBook was fun. We laughed as the setup wizard instructed my husband to take his own profile picture using the camera in the laptop lid. I squeeled with joy when the spiffy little machine, in less than a minute, automatically established a wireless network among our three computers. (You have no idea how much time I've spent over the years setting up home networks, both wired and wireless.) Kazowee!!

File transfer was easy as well. I simply plugged the removable backup drive into the MacBook's USB port and copied over all the files.

Moving Microsoft Outlook's mail, contacts, and calendar was a bit more challenging. Following the advice in Pogue's book, I downloaded a $10 program from Little Machines called O2M (Outlook to Mac). The transfer to Mac Mail was easy - all the subfolders were retained and I was able to transfer a previously archived mail folder. The contacts transfer was equally simple. After the contacts were loaded, features of the Mac Address Book helped me merge multiple email addresses into a single contact and eliminate duplicates. The calendar transfer was the most tedious. My husband has birthdays and anniversaries as well as appointments, but they all transferred into iCal as events. Therefore I had to make some manual adjustments, but in the end the calendar looked and behaved properly.

I loaded some components of Microsoft Office for Mac -- Word, Excel, and Powerpoint -- plus Google Earth, RealPlayer and Mozilla's FoxFire browser. I imported bookmarks and reset the home page. Lastly, I went through all the relevant system preferences making adjustments which would enable the MacBook look and feel like his old computer as much as possible.

Pogue's Switching to the Mac book was very helpful. Despite being a bit chatty, it contained clear explanations and instructions. Knowing nothing about navigating the Mac operating system, I managed to do the work of a Mac Genius! (That's Apple-speak for "technical support person.") Apple would have done a free data transfer, but they wouldn't have been able to do all the customizations that I could do because I'm on such intimate terms with my husband's old laptop. Besides, the weekend I devoted to the data transfer and setup effort really kick-started my Mac education.

I just hope my husband's road to becoming a Mac user won't be too bumpy. This Christmas-in-July gift was intended to relieve his frustration with sluggish response time, continual virus infections, and frequent downloads of program and virus pattern updates. While the Mac will eliminate those issues, it will require PC habits be replaced with Mac skills. Nobody is particularly fond of change, but my husband trusts my judgment that this switch will be worthwhile in the long run.

And really, how can he not love this sleek black MacBook? It's a dream machine, with its fast response and its totally gorgeous screen graphics... yea, I know. I sound like a real Mac person now, don't I? OK, I'll admit it - I've been converted. And so has the cat!

© 2008, Linda Mason Hood
Truffles, Turtles & Tunes Copyright Statement

Blogging Statistics

 

Despite what it says on the logo there, I'm not going.  I was merely reading about the 2008 Blogworld and New Media Expo and the one-day Executive and Entrepreneur Conference that precedes it. Curious, I glanced through the presentation topics and scanned a good many of the bios. Sounds like great fun. Just reading the website was fun! Wish I could go. It might inspire an attempted career move.

But I digress...  What I wanted to point out here is their page entitled Important Blogging Statistics.  Click that link and have a look.  There are sure lots of people writing, but even more are reading.

Like you are, right now!

© 2008, Linda Mason Hood
Truffles, Turtles & Tunes Copyright Statement

Flute Choices for the Beginner

Recently I conducted an email discussion about the difficulties beginners face learning to play the flute. This exchange challenged me to further explore some of the factors alluded to in my February 2, 2007 post entitled Silver Flute vs. Irish Flute.

The email dialogue began with this question: If you've never played the flute, would it be better to start with a silver orchestral/band flute or a wooden Irish flute? (In the email context, the question assumed the learner would play Irish music some of the time if not exclusively.)

My answer: If the goal is gain a general introduction to flute playing, I recommend starting on the “regular” silver flute. It offers many advantages, detailed below, and there's no reason it can't be used for Irish music as well. The orchestral flute and the Irish flute share the same basic techniques of breath control, tone production, and physical coordination of arms, hands and fingers.

I would advise beginners of all ages to find a teacher -- a regular, classically trained teacher -- and take some lessons. A teacher will keep you from forming bad habits that have to be unlearned later in order to make progress. You’ll also learn to read music. Additionally, the discipline of preparing for a lesson organizes the learning process and leads you systematically through the rudimentary stuff. Definitely get a teacher.

What to expect: Absolute beginners should know in advance that producing those first sounds on the flute is difficult for most people. You must blow across the hole, not into it. Consequently, tone is initially encased in whooshy air sounds. Once you're able to produce a predictable sound on the notes that speak the easiest, the real work begins. Your lips and surrounding muscles (called embouchure in flute parlance) must learn to make the subtle changes required for the high and low notes. Afterwards, additional embouchure refinements must be made in order to bring the whole range of notes in tune with each other. Instruction books usually teach tone production by starting the beginner with B above middle C and simultaneously work up and down the scale from there until the student can play all the notes of the flute’s 3-octave range. Most people find the middle octave the easiest.

Advantages of the orchestral flute: Its larger and more rectangular blow hole help the beginner produce a sound more readily. Key placement is more comfortable, particularly for smaller hands, and closed-hole keys remove the frustration of not completely covering the finger holes. The orchestral flute has superior internal tuning of the notes of the scale -- that is, the flute is more in tune with itself. Finally, the flute's three-octave chromatic range means it can be used in a wider variety of musical styles – folk, classical, marching band, sacred music, jazz - opening up both social and musical opportunities, something that's particularly valuable for school-aged children.

Disadvantages of orchestral flute: Because of the more complex keywork, there are more things to break. Kids can be especially hard on silver flutes - bending keys, knocking off corks, fraying the pads, bending the springs, getting the flutes wet (resulting in possible rusted springs & screws and warped pads), even denting the body of the flute. Repairs can be expensive and frequent.

However... If you find yourself playing primarily traditional Irish music, you may indeed decide you want to play a more traditional instrument. While it's true that silver flutes are becoming more and more common in Irish sessions, you still run into a certain prejudice against the silver flute. If you are coming to the flute from the whistle, the fingering is the same so any tunes you know will translate to your flute repertoire. Teachers of the Irish flute may be scarce unless you live near a major concentration of Irish traditional players. Depending on the teacher, an Irish flute lesson might put more emphasis on learning tunes than technique. Also, reading notes is sometimes seen as a handicap as it can be used as a crutch to avoid learning the traditional way - by listening and playing back what you hear.

Advantages of the Irish flute: The wooden Irish flute has the distinctive dark and woody sound favored in traditional Irish music. Keyless flutes allow easy execution of traditional ornamentation (applies mainly to advanced players). Irish flutes are very pretty, and if you enjoy finely crafted wood, Irish flutes are especially nice to handle.

Disadvantages of the Irish flute: Its rounder, smaller blow hole makes it harder to get a good sound, particularly for beginners. Covering the finger holes is frustrating and difficult for beginners, particularly for those with small hands. Wooden instruments need oiling and require relatively stable humidity conditions to avoid cracks in the wood. The keyless Irish flute, the most popular model, plays only in the keys of D major, G major, B minor and E minor which limits its use outside traditional Irish music. The keyless wooden flute has a two-octave diatonic range unless you purchase a keyed flute. Irish flutes with keys are expensive, and because the keys are very labor intensive the waiting list for a new keyed flute is usually 3 years or more.

Before you buy: Regardless of what flute you decide upon, don't just go downtown and get something from your local music store. Let a teacher or an experienced player of either instrument advise you. Readers of this blog can also email me. I can help you find a decent new or used orchestral flute for a reasonable price. I can advise on Irish flutes as well. You should be able to get a flute that's adequate for a beginner (while still being a good instrument) for $400-600 USD.

In summary: Deciding which flute to play is an individual choice based on many factors. Those factors may change over time as your abilities and preferences change. Any flute in good repair can bring you satisfaction. The key is to learn to play it well. The better your technique, the more fun the music becomes. Don't fall into the trap of thinking a better flute, or a different flute, will make up for your lack of proficiency! Practicing and seeing your playing improve over time can be as satisfying as a good performance. A little time spent with the flute every day yields better long-term results than irregular bouts of practice.

All these thoughts about practicing have inspired me to finish up this post and go to work on a few new tunes and techniques. Hmmm.... now where did I leave my flute?

Rufus, an Australian Shepherd, fetching a flute!
Photo used with permission, courtesy of FlutesOnline.com.

© 2008, Linda Mason Hood
Truffles, Turtles & Tunes Copyright Statement

Finding an Interim Flute

Ever since I ordered a boxwood Irish flute from Peter Noy (as described in my May 9, 2008 post entitled Flute Dilemma Resolved), I've been eager to start transitioning my technique from silver flute to Irish flute. By the time my Peter Noy flute arrives in late 2009, I want to be ready for it. That means I need some sort of Irish flute now! And so began the quest for an interim flute. I watched the Chiff and Fipple Flute Forum as well as eBay, and I started asking all my friends with wooden flutes if I could play a tune or two on their flutes. Little by little, I learned what was available in the various price ranges and started to form some opinions.

In May, an interesting flute appeared on the Chiff & Fipple Flute Forum, a Terry McGee blackwood flute, the Grey Larson Preferred model with the Minimum Disruption Tenon. The owner was willing to lend it to me for a trial period. After a week or so I felt like I was starting to get the hang of it. However, I wasn't sure I would ever get much resonance from it, so I finally decided it wasn't the flute for me. I am very grateful to its owner for trusting me with it for a while. That was incredibly helpful. I took its picture before sending it back.


I started reading more and more about the Casey Burns Folk Flute. One of my friends has a Burns flute that I had borrowed a few times, so I had some first-hand experience with Burns flutes. Priced at $375, the Folk Flute seemed a reasonable interim flute.  However, the predicted delivery date would have been too late for me to use it during Catskills Irish Arts Week. I decided to keep looking.

About this time a Casey Burns Folk Flute appeared on eBay for $275. Bingo! It was made of mopane, a beautiful dark wood. It was the small-handed version which I thought might be a good as a transitional flute. Buying a flute without playing it -- or even seeing it -- seemed risky, but the Burns flutes have a good reputation and at $275, how could I pass it up? I had never before bought anything on eBay, so it took me until the last few hours of the auction to muster my courage and click the "Buy It Now" button.

On June 10, 2008 my eBay flute was delivered to me at work. I was so excited that I declared it lunchtime and headed for the park to try it out. I was very pleased. It played easily, had a nice sound, and the hole placement was really comfortable. At home that night I oiled it per the maker's instructions (which had thoughtfully been included) and started breaking it in.

A few days later I learned that it was virtually a new flute. The seller was a whistle player who thought he'd like to play the flute as well, but changed his mind after only a few attempts.  I felt like I had landed a real bargain - a new flute from the maker I had decided upon with no waiting period!  Here it is - isn't it pretty?  


I've been surprised at how much progress I've made over the last two months. I'm now able to predictably cover the holes and to play many tunes at a decent tempo. As I work on tone, my sound gets stronger and more resonant. Yes indeed, this Casey Burns Folk Flute will be a good interim flute for me.

© 2008, Linda Mason Hood
Truffles, Turtles & Tunes Copyright Statement

Sea Turtles Nesting in Palm Coast, Florida

My husband, Dan, is standing beside a nest of sea turtle eggs at Cinnamon Beach, a condominium resort in the town of Palm Coast which is halfway between Daytona Beach and St. Augustine on Florida's Atlantic Coast. We attended a family gathering there during the last week in June. I had no idea that sea turtles nest in Florida, so finding these nests was a delightful surprise. Little did I know that the East Coast of Florida is the world's second largest nesting site for loggerhead turtles.

Although loggerheads are the most common, leatherbacks and green sea turtles are also known to nest in the area. All are classified as either threatened or endangered and are protected by state and federal laws. Here's a closeup of the sign posted on all the nest sites:


According to the Volusia and Flagler Turtle Patrol, turtles have been nesting on beaches there for 100 million years. The Atlantic coast nesting season extends from March through October. Each nest contains up to 100 eggs. The eggs incubate in the sand for 50-70 days before the little turtles break out of their shells and scramble down the beach towards the water. Click here to see a Turtle Patrol video of a hatchling crawl across the beach and dive into the surf! (Be patient while the video loads. It's worth the wait!)

In our condo I found a copy of the Turtle Patrol's brochure (page 1 and page 2). It warns against behaviors which might prevent hatchlings from finding their way to the water. For example, light can disorient the hatchlings who generally make their run from the beach to the water at night. Apparently they head towards the glow of the horizon. Flashlights or lights from nearby houses can cause them to be confused and to head away from the water. The brochure also advises filling in any holes children might leave in the sand as well as holes made by beach umbrellas and cabanas, since deep indentations in the sand represent deadly hazards for hatchlings. Recreational vehicles should not be driven in soft sand, and all litter should be removed from the beach to ensure hatchlings reach the sea safely.

Even when all these precautions are observed, hatchling survival rate is pretty low. Only about one hatchling in 1,000-10,000 become mature adults. Some succomb to pitfalls on the beach, others become food for sharks, large fish, or sea birds. Storms are a problem too, since hatchlings emerge in hurricane season and are sometimes washed ashore by storms and stranded. They get sick from polluted waters and generally suffer from loss of habitat as beachfront development often means sand gets pumped in from the sea to improve the beaches and sea wall construction is undertaken to protect adjacent real estate. In fact, beach building projects during nesting seasion can result in burying of sea turtle nests. Life is truly hard...

If all goes well, the hatchlings remain in the coastal waters of the Indian River Lagoon which runs between the mainland and the barrier islands along most of Florida's Atlantic coast. They eat sea grass beds and are protected by the reefs near the shore. Eventually, they swim out to sea. Fifteen to twenty-fived years later, females will return to the same beaches where they were born to lay their eggs. While they do not nest every year, females will lay between three to eight clutches of eggs in a nesting season.

I was fascinated to think that only five minutes from the condo we rented, 200-350 pound turtles had hauled themselves out of the sea to lay eggs in the sand. One night I actually went down to the beach at midnight, hoping to see a big turtle. No luck. But after returning home, I decided to contribute to the work of the Volusia and Flagler Turtle Patrol by adopting one of the nests they protect. They will earmark a nest on Cinnamon Beach as "my" nest and will update me when the eggs hatch. Won't that be exciting? I may not have seen a turtle, but perhaps I'll get news about the hatchlings that emerge from the mound of sand above.


© 2008, Linda Mason Hood
Truffles, Turtles & Tunes Copyright Statement

Turtle Sighting in Lower Manhattan

Photograph by Michael Natale, used with permission.

Earlier this month Michael Natale photographed this turtle outside the Battery Maritime Building located between Battery Park and the Battery Park City apartment complex in Lower Manhattan. (see his 6/4/08 blog post) Based on the color around the edges of the shell, both top and bottom, it might be a very dirty slider or cooter, or even a western painted turtle.** All are fresh water turtles, so what was this guy doing in the brackish waters of New York Harbor?

Theory #1: He could be a pet that got dumped. Because of their plentiful numbers, red-eared sliders are the most commonly sold turtle. You can buy them in NYC’s Chinatown novelty stores and in every pet store that carries turtles. Sometimes they are given away as prizes at events like state and county fairs. Regardless of where you get them, it’s unlikely that you would receive any information about their care or about the habitat they require. If kept in a tank, you need a strong filtering system and lighting that gives off UVB rays. Acquiring a baby turtle may cost only a few dollars, but a proper habitat will cost at least $200. The cost will continue as the turtle grows and needs a bigger tank. Red-eared sliders can live 40 years and grow to 12 inches in diameter. Adult sliders need plentiful swimming space. Installing a pond in your yard is a good idea, as a 200+ gallon tank is impractical for most people. You can see why red-eared sliders get dumped when they get too big. People often don't know what else to do. But releasing them into a natural setting isn't good either. Being voracious eaters, they can upset the ecosystem, causing other species to suffer or die.

Theory #2: He could be a escapee from Chinatown markets. New York's Chinatown markets, like San Francisco and other Chinese settlements around the world, sell live turtles for food. Turtles are considered a delicacy. Chinese believe that eating turtle meat will bring wisdom, health, and long life. In an article entitled “Turtle Tragedy: Demand in Asia May Be Wiping Out Turtle Populations Worldwide(1),” Wendy Williams speculates that as China’s economic status rises, more and more Chinese people are able to afford turtle, which fuels the import trade. While some of the imported turtles are bred for export in the southern United States, large numbers of exported turtles are wild caught. Turtles are collected from all over the world, without regard for the impact on the species. Despite agreements at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, Williams’ article reports the sale of endangered species from all over the world. Even non-endangered turtles like red-eared sliders suffer because of lack of shipping regulations. Shipping conditions are far from humane, and enforcement is next to impossible because of the massive numbers being exported. Domestic Chinese turtles are commercially extinct, so the need to import turtles is great. One US shipper has a standing order for a ton of turtles per week for shipment to China. In his article entitled “Declared Turtle Trade From the United States(2),” Darrell Senneke reports 31,783,380 turtles were declared for export in over a 3-year period.

Theory #3: More likely this guy was purchased by a Buddhist in Chinatown and released in the East River. On August 7, 2007, The New York Sun reported on this ancient practice called fangsheng, or release of life. Practitioners believe that "setting turtles or other animals free increases a Buddhist's merit, which is believed to translate into a better rebirth." The New York Sun article told of a couple who rescue as many as turtles as possible (mainly red-eared sliders) from the East River and place them in the Central Park Turtle Pond. This practice is discouraged by Central Park gardening staff, however, because there are already too many non-native turtles in the pond. If you are inclined to rescue a red eared slider, Turtle Homes provides advice: http://www.turtlehomes.org/usa/red_ear_slider_adoptions.shtml

Speculating on how the turtle pictured above ended up on a Battery Park shore introduced me to a whole host of turtle issues. All pretty depressing stuff. As I learn more about the laws regarding turtle exports from the US, shipping conditions, I'll post that information here. Perhaps there are ways we can have a positive impact and improve the sad plight of turtles. I surely hope so. For now, I can take comfort in the safe, privileged life that I provide my two red-eared sliders. They bring beauty and joy into my living room, and they have much to teach me about the world in which I live.


(1) Wendy Williams, “Turtle Tragedy: Demand in Asia May Be Wiping Out Turtle Populations Worldwide,” Originally printed in Scientific American, June 1999. Reprinted by permission (New York Turtle and Tortoise Society, nytts.org/asianturtlecrisis.html). As viewed online at online at http://nytts.org/asia/wwilliams.htm on June 10, 2008.

(2) Darrell Senneke, "Declared Turtle Trade From the United States," World Chelonia Trust, http://www.chelonia.org/, 2006. As viewed online (at starting with the introductory page) at http://www.chelonia.org/articles/us/USmarketintropage.htm, June 10, 2008.


** After this post was published, Tony Simmons from the Red-Eared Slider Yahoo group and Yvonne from the World Chelonian Trust Yahoo group agreed that this turtle is a melanistic male red-eared slider. Tony says he sees them all the time in Houston where he lives. Here's another photo of a melanistic slider for comparison purposes.


© 2008, Linda Mason Hood
Truffles, Turtles & Tunes Copyright Statement