Oh my, I love love LOVE this article I read today! Personally, I am always noticing the way various chimes and alerts sound in the world.  (ATMs, cash registers, phones, vending machines, etc.) Sometimes they are beautiful and special, other times they are way too loud or too soft.  Often it seems like absolutely no thought went into it, which seems like a missed opportunity. The same is true for ambient music in public places, or hold music on the phone.  It's great when the music really matches the atmosphere, but not when it's just a boom box in the corner blaring music as a placeholder.  Music and sound are powerful forces, and they really impact the way we feel, whether we notice it or not.

So we got a big snow storm today in Portland, Oregon. As you would expect, people starting freaking out and getting worried about driving.  So I had some cancellations in my day.  The snow was so BEAUTIFUL!  I was very moved while watching it drift down in such a lovely and elegant way (with the backdrop of everyone around me being very worried, and watching traffic crawl by outside the window).  This was my musical response as I tried to just enjoy the beauty. 

It incorporates a little of the jazz song "Snowfall" and the Christmas song "Let It Snow" as well as some of the Robert Frost poem "Stopping By a Woods on a Snowy Evening."  

Enjoy!

A few things:
1. I've been preparing a bit of the Monteverdi Vespers for an audition I'm doing tonight. Seriously, does it get any better than this? Monteverdi is just heavenly music to me. 
2. Last night Abby and I parked in a space for "expectant mothers" for the first time. That was pretty cool. 
3. It snowed today in Portland for about 12 minutes. 
4. I had my first swimming lesson last week with Craig Gonzales, and I feel like a speed demon in the water now.
5. I started learning to play guitar at the beginning of this year, and now I can sort of play Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", Taylor Swift's "Mean", and an old praise and worship song I used to sing in church. There's even a video to prove that I can do this, but I'm choosing not to share it. I'm gonna save it for the end of the year, when I can show "before" and "after."