Capitol Music - A Veritable Hotbed of Diversity

Our store has customers of every gender, race, background, and creed. This morning, for example, a young man from Poland came in looking for arrangements of jazz standards for his string quartet to play aboard a cruise ship. It took some time, but together we found several good choices. He apologized for his English (which was really just fine, and certainly better than my Polish!) and left with an armload of titles to take back to the ship. Then right after, we had a group of Austrians who were living in Australia - now that was an interesting accent.

People say music is a universal language. That really is true. As long as someone can explain that they want a Haydn piano sonata, we can find it for them, whatever other language barrier there might be. And when they play it, none of Haydn's charm and grace is lost in translation.

Our staff also does quite well with "Name that Tune." If someone just plays a melody, one of us is bound to know what it is. We each have specialties. Caitlin is our flute expert; John is our authority on classical piano. And me? Well, an eclectic mix of quartet and orchestra literature, musicals, new country, and 50's and 60's pop!

We cater to the youngest budding musicians and to the most senior. I remember once a man buying sax reeds told me he'd been in the Musicians' Union for eighty years - he said he had joined when he was 13, and was now a youthful 93!

This is a good week to think about diversity, and to commune with someone whose background may be very different from yours. You might learn a new language - or even make a new friend!

Do zobaczenia - Ron

Dusty Roads and Old New York

I like all kinds of music, and working here at Capitol lets me indulge many different passions. For example, today, during a break between customers, I picked out one of our song collections and played through one of Irving Berln's early "ethnic" songs. In them, he really captures the flavor of New York's lower east side at the turn of the century. Not at all politically correct, these songs are a far cry from White Christmas! But they are all clever and tuneful and really deserve to be better known.

Often I come home from an orchestra rehearsal, my head full of Dvorak or Brahms, and tune in my favorite country station. The songs are just as worthy as Berlin's. City boy that I am, I love hearing Tim McGraw or Trace Adkins sing about bars and trucks and fishing holes. I grew up right here in Seattle, far from any barnyard or dusty road, but listening to them I still feel nostalgic for a youth I never even had.

Good music can do that for you. It can create a whole world that you step into and leave your regular life behind. This morning I wandered into old New York and saw pushcarts rolling past brownstone apartments as people yelled to eachother out the windows. Tonight I may drive my
dusty old pickup truck to my favorite fishing hole. And sit a spell.

But first I should check my e-mail.

Ron B

Chance Encounters

Working at Capitol Music has always been much more than a job for me. It's a wonderful network of musicians, and even a source of great friendships.

The director of the Market Street Singers is actually a regular customer who became a friend, and later invited me to sing in his new choir. We have a concert coming up, by the way, June 25. Check out our website at themarketstreetsingers.org for the details!

One day I mentioned to a customer that I played viola. I forgot all about it, but a few weeks later another customer was here in the store and said he was forming a string quartet. He said they needed a viola player, and had heard there was one who worked here - so now I am in a great string quartet! No concerts to shamelessly plug, but I will let you know.

In both cases, I wasn't trying to find a new musical experience. I was just "doing my job," and the experience found me!

You must have similar stories you can share. Post a comment! I know you are out there, silently reading, unwilling to be the first to post. But who knows who you might meet if you do? It may bring you your next gig, or you may even meet that special someone, and you can tell all your friends that you met, just by chance, through a blog you found on the Capitol Music website!

Ron B

A Beethoven Kind of Life

I like thinking about life in terms of different composers and the major traits of their music. To me, Mozart is all about order. I enjoy playing Mozart, but it doesn't quite thrill me. Beethoven thrills me. My heart actually beats a little faster. There is order, but with it a wonderful kind of defiance. Minuets are fine things, but if you speed them up just a bit, you suddenly get a scherzo, a wild ride that may take you far from where you started.

I do like having order and structure in my life, but I also enjoy those surprising excursions into new territory. So sometimes, when life gets a little too Mozart-y, I start to shake things up, just to see what will happen. And then my world shifts, as that familiar structure gets far away and some exciting adventure begins.

Becoming assistant manager here at the store has been like that - new responsibilities, new procedures, new systems to create - it's all very Beethoven. Actually, at times it gets pretty Schoenberg! Still, there's enough of my old responsibilities and routine to provide a good balance with the new. And every day I see customers that I already know well and that helps ground me, too.

So, tell me, has your life been Bach-like lately? Sort of Bartok-esque? Or altogether full of Faure'?


Ron B