I Came, I Sawed, I Conquered...

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As a testament to the great range of experiences to be found in Second Life, and to the truly inspirational community therein, I'd like to present you with a simple truth...After 6+ years inworld I still find myself surprised and delighted regularly by things I've never before experienced.

And last week was no exception, as i found myself witness to some world class sawing.

Thursday afternoon, while we talked about cool stuff to do in SL, Mab MacMoragh indicated that she was going to a recital a bit later and handed me a notecard with details of the event.  The playlist at first appeared to be a bit above my payscale, culturally speaking, and described a concerto for oboe and a certain Op. 38, No. 2 in c minor as piano solo.  Although I don't speak Italian or Musician, I was able to translate this as meaning "an evening of musical frolic and cavortment".  It was then that I noticed words that appeared to be in English...."Musical Saw".

I arrived at the Amadora Recital Hall at 5pm for the recital and squeezed* into one of the seats in the back to avoid blocking anyone's view.  I was reminded again of why I love live music in SL.  Meeting new friends, the silly back-channel chit chat, the familiar sense of presence that comes from being in a concert hall, club, or pub...all of which are much cooler places to listen to music than my workspace...and of course the casual nature of the musicians' communications with the audience, something not always a part of real life shows.  In this particular case the musicians, our gracious hosts, were most hospitable.  The Schumanns were described by the aforementioned notecard as follows:

Kahuna and Sisi (Clarissima) Schumann are a Real Life married couple and have been performng together for the past 27 years. In addition to performing all over the world in Real Life, they have also performed extensively in Second Life. Kahuna plays the oboe, the English horn, the oboe d'amore and the musical saw and Sisi performs on the piano.

As mentioned, it was the musical saw that caught my eye and made me think "I just never know what I'm going to see next in SL", but I want to note that I don't mean to slight the beautiful music made that night with other instruments by my focusing exclusively on the saw.  Both Kahuna and Sisi are accomplished musicians and all of us in the audience were alternately hushed by emotional passages on piano and compelled to laugh and dance in our seats to the rowdy Yiddish oboery.

You do have to admit, however, that it's quite the conversation starter to being able to tell someone "Not doing much, just hanging out in a virtual world listening to musical saw."  And I learned some fun saw facts in the process!  For example...I always assumed that there was a particular musician-grade saw that was used to make that haunting, theramin-like sound.  Kahuna indicates, however, that he was playing a $4 saw picked up at his local hardware store.  Now that's cool....i think next time i visit my folks, I'll be raiding dad's workshop.

And so, if you are musically inclined, I encourage you to stop by the Amadora Recital Hall where you can find more info on classes, lectures, workshops, and of course beautiful music.