There are actually two journals, for two different long-distance bike trips my husband and I took. Click on “The Muffins Tour” to read about (and look at pictures from) our trip from Rapid City, SD to his hometown of Faribault, MN Fall of 2007 and “Muffins in La Belle Province” to see our May 2008 trip from Montreal to Quebec City and back. You can even find out why we’re called “Muffins” in the intro to the So Dak trip. Enjoy!

Orchestral instruments don’t come more treacherous than the French horn, either for the musicians who play it, or, when the going gets rough, for the listeners who find themselves within earshot. Sometimes you wonder how the instrument found its way from the hunting lodge to the orchestra.

Read the whole thing.

Heh. Here’s the follow up from the NY Mag

Yikes! Somewhere, Philip Myers is angrily practicing, weeping as he plays, the cracking and pitchy tones of his horn echoing through the neighborhood.

The only person in the orchestra with any conducting experience was the 2nd trombone player. He bravely and meticulously conducted the concert and it was a tremendous success.

The regular conductor had recovered by the next night and was back on the job. As the trombone player took his seat in the orchestra, the 1st trombone player turned to him and asked, “So, where were you last night?”

This is going to be a good one!

Community-based music organizations have within their ranks very special musicians: people who perform because they want to, for the sheer joy of performing music. The amateur instrumentalist is one who performs out of love, as the Latin origins of the word amateur refer to. But community orchestra players are connected as a group as well – they don’t just play for their own pleasure. In a way they embody the ideals of service and voluntarism that both our current presidential candidates are referring to.

In a recent speech in Colorado Springs, Senator Barack Obama remarked that “loving your country shouldn’t just mean watching fireworks on the 4th of July. Loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change it. If you do, your life will be richer, and our country will be stronger.” Similarly, Senator John McCain wrote in his memoir Faith of My Fathers that “nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause larger than yourself, something that encompasses you, but is not defined by your existence alone.”

Both politicians have had their adult lives defined by their service to the community. And playing in a community orchestra can create moments that define who you are, moments of sheer bliss where the pride of sharing your efforts at transforming the symbols on the musical page with those around you. And the collective efforts of all on stage surpass the efforts of the individual to create memorable experiences that are shared by all present in the concert hall. These experiences have the ability to encompass all in a cause larger than oneself, and can truly make everyone’s lives richer.