Bach In the Subways Day - Year 3

So today was the 3rd Bach in the Subways Day - in celebration of Bach's Birthday!!

It was quite an experience...

Last year, the highlight for me was hanging out w/ Eric Edberg, my cello friend, and getting to see some of the other performers... including a really progressive jazz Bass player who basically improvised on impressions of Bach (which actually inspired my performances this year)

I'm not sure how much my Bach has really improved much since then (except that I can play faster now, so I can have more fun w/ tempo fluctuations... and my intonation is better) .. but like last year, I left feeling like there was value in Bach that I'd forgotten & that perhaps I should go practice Bach some more...

This year I retreated even further underground to the NQR Platform at Union Sq. (last year, I was on the main level) ... and I decided to do things a bit differently this year... I strapped the cello on to myself (still have some kinks to work out with that...) and incorporated my loop station & improvised a little bit... so I had fun telling people "I don't usually strap a cello to myself, and I don't usually play classical music" ... I also had fun telling the people from the NY Post about how Bach was definitely an influence on Cliff Burton/in some of early Metallica's work (with Call of Cthulu being a great example)... That didn't make it to the article they wrote up -  http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bach_underground_tS6cQEfkRLWPJXFe25LpnO

Lately I've been thinking about my attitude towards classical music... I've developed a somewhat antagonistic attitude towards the classical community (and subconsciously to some of the music), but now I'm starting to approach (what I hope is) a more mature way of looking at things, where I'd like to find (or create) the bridges between what I do & what they do, and encourage more people to cross those, and build their own, and just as importantly, encourage myself to grow from what the other side of the bridge has to offer. ... this desire comes from three things: 1.  Reading an interview with Lindsey Stirling in Strings Magazine.  2.  Reading Speaker For the Dead, in which Pipo admonishes Novinha that you aren't defined by the communities that you're not a part of, but instead by the communities you are a part of (paraphrasing) ... a lesson I've been beginning to learn over the last few years... I do everything the hard way! :p  3.  A feeling that I've had (which came up in conversation with my buddies from You Bred Raptors) that there really aren't a lot of resources out there for Rock string players (the way there's say Bass Player Magazine, or Modern Drummer, etc., etc.) ... there's basically just Strings Magazine & the New Directions Cello Site (and fb group), and maybe a few other things scattered here & there... I want to help change that... but I can't do it if I'm JUST off in my own world, doing my music thing

I didn't get a chance to see the other musicians this year, unfortunately, because I had to go teach afterwards ... but hopefully next year I'll be able to catch things a bit more