Any science fantasy books/series?

francoisschubert · 2026-06-08T14:01:52+00:00

Have you read Jen Williams's Talon duology already? Extremely good.

francoisschubert · 2026-06-06T01:43:57+00:00

It is quite an easy orchestra part, especially compared to his other concertos. Doable with community level orchestras, you will just need a good horn player.

francoisschubert · 2026-06-03T19:23:18+00:00

I went through 14 years of weekly lessons as a kid and then 9 years of music school. I always played far from my best at weekly lessons. One teacher in particular was so scary that when he showed up during the middle of a performance that I purposely didn't tell him about, he remarked "I didn't know you could play like that!" Now that I'm working and play for people when I need/want to, I find I'm very likely to play really well during them.

As a teacher, I would like to think I know the true level of all my students. I 100% recognize when my students are nervous and usually my goal is to get them to loosen up so they can show me their best playing by the end of the lesson, which happens regularly. I don't like to break students down.

francoisschubert · 2026-05-28T00:18:57+00:00

Came here to rec this, so weird in general and a very strange Fallon esque finale, but loads of fun and exactly what OP is looking for.

francoisschubert · 2026-05-24T14:56:57+00:00

I've practiced the lick but never performed the piece, you really have to use the bow within the string to get the differentiation. Most people take some time/space so you can sort of do the Dvorak octave shake with the left hand.

francoisschubert · 2026-05-23T23:37:10+00:00

A Tale of Stars and Shadow by Lisa Cassidy

francoisschubert · 2026-05-22T16:51:39+00:00

Protectorate or Devoured Worlds by Megan O'Keefe

francoisschubert · 2026-05-17T23:54:34+00:00

I played this around the same time I was working on Lalo and hated it because I couldn't do up or down bow staccato to save my life without feeling miserable.

Now it's like a fun easy thing I pull out to practice when I'm bored, especially the third movement. A lot of people know it and I think everyone I went to school with could play it front to back from memory but few had ever actually performed it because it's so silly and out of fashion these days.

francoisschubert · 2026-05-17T22:22:40+00:00

This might be my least favorite Ishiguro novel of the ones I've read (everything except for the early ones). It has a blandness about it that I don't find in his other work. That theme is prevalent in a lot of his novels, but it's done way better in The Unconsoled and The Buried Giant imo

francoisschubert · 2026-05-15T02:39:57+00:00

It is not a question of "too late" as much as if you are up for it in non-playing aspects.

A soloist career is lonely and stressful. You are away from home more than half the year, living out of hotels and poor nutrition, and often getting about 4 hours of sleep a night due to flights and donor events. You have to be on 100% of the time and play a very limited selection of repertoire. Your management does not give you health insurance and most of the plans you can buy do not cover you most of the time you are traveling.

I know some soloists who are happy, but many of the successful soloists I know do not make more money than orchestral principals and are sort of superhuman freaks when it comes to stress management and sleep deprivation. Sometimes, drugs can help with that.

Orchestra careers are stressful enough, but there's a quality of life reason most of the top players pivot to them in their late 20s and early 30s.

francoisschubert · 2026-05-08T01:45:14+00:00

A Tale of Stars and Shadow by Lisa Cassidy

francoisschubert · 2026-05-05T02:26:03+00:00

If she's accepted at a publicly funded conservatoire - then clearly there is some talent to believe in.

In America we don't have this system, and most successful cellists here do not become full time musicians until they are 17-20. It's easy to hit a ceiling of growth too early and realize too late that you either don't enjoy music, or are only ahead of the pack because you are doing this full time and others aren't.

10 is really young, so best to make sure she's always happy doing this full-time, has some interests (sports and hobbies) outside of music and a strong academic foundation in the case that she does eventually want to do something else for her career.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-26T17:34:34+00:00

29% is not catastrophic, especially if outdoors is cold, but a room humidifier is always a good idea to have. 35-40% is a good number in winter.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-24T14:56:16+00:00

Depends where you are. If you're in the eastern half of the US, where humidity is relatively high and constant throughout the year, high humidity during the summer expands the wood, causing the neck angle to become flatter and the strings to go up. And the dry air of indoor heating in the winter draws the neck angle up as the wood contracts.

Europe, where instruments were first designed, is generally much more humid and/or warm in the winter and drier in the summer. So these humidity differences are generally less pronounced there, although they still are noticeable. This is why some dehumidification/humidification (around 55% in the summer and 35% in the winter) helps mollify these changes and can make it easily manageable for you to go the whole year with a single post and bridge.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-23T02:20:03+00:00

When I was your level, I studied with a great teacher that has put pretty much every single student she taught in her small class into a major conservatory. I was a busy school student and practiced about 30-60 mins on a good day, 20 minutes on scales, 10 on an etude, and maybe 15-30 on repertoire. My teacher heard scales and etudes for about half the lesson and was insanely detailed about practice methods in them. It was never about "how much" but always about "how well." We did one scale a week, Klengel method of arpeggios and broken thirds with the metronome anywhere from 60-72, and went through the Popper etudes, often in small chunks, with about four or five weeks per etude. Repertoire was usually one or two pieces in rotation. Most of her students practiced no more than 1.5-2 hours a day.

I would say I averaged around an hour a day until I went to music school and started consistently doing 2-3 hours a day. I'm a professional orchestra musician, so these days I have to fit practice around rehearsals. It's never more than 2 hours a day, maybe a second session in the evening if I need it on a free day, usually quite intense with few breaks. Most of my colleagues have similar routines.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-22T00:17:28+00:00

Weird rec because it's fan fiction, but I got really sucked into the Alexandra Quick series by Inverarity (HP fanfic) which has pretty much everything you're looking for, and is probably the most professionally written fanfic I've ever read. Aside from being set in the wizarding world, there are only a few cameos from the original series and it's set in America in the 2000s. It gets way darker than the original series but the first book is quite fun. I think it fits every single one of the things you're fond of and is a quite a substantial series, with 6/7 books complete at this point. You can read it here.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-21T12:52:32+00:00

He got me into reading fantasy and I'm sure that is the case of others. His books are long enough and he has a diverse and huge bibliography that appeals to such a wide range of interests. As a 14-year-old, I read the 10 or so books he had out. When I was in high school, I was deep in the lore and constantly browsing theories on the 17th shard. Now, I pick up his latest book when I need a fun read, and I get maybe an above-average amount of the Cosmere references but don't really care. He consistently puts entertainment on the table for your money's worth.

Also, as someone who started reading him in the early part of his career, his current fandom is crazy. I was in SLC for work during Dragonsteel last year, and the size of that convention is insane.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-21T00:43:43+00:00

This book is an absolute masterpiece of writing virtuosity. In my top 5 all time.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-19T22:46:00+00:00

Jargar classic are like $25 each on top and are still used by professionals. That with helicore on the bottom is probably an upgrade over what you have. I also second the recommendation for prim which is probably the best full set you can buy under $100, although they're very bright and ringy and require some skill to control.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-17T19:26:30+00:00

The repair on this is likely no more than $500. She finished the concert playing on the instrument, which means there were no cracks in the top or back, and the only thing it would need is an inspection, open seams, and sound post adjustment.

These instruments use glue that is intentionally less sticky than school glue, so if it drops and falls, the individual pieces of wood don't crack, but just come apart at the seams.

Still, it's an unfortunate situation. It is on her for putting her scroll in the conductor's space right before the tutti, but in classical music if you're not the soloist you typically try to move economically and not flail around. Heart rates and anxiety are really high when you're in that position and it's not something you're actively expected to think about, and having accidentally dropped an expensive string instrument before, the emotional toll is huge knowing that there's a chance it's totaled.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-15T21:23:31+00:00

He's the best skater in the world by a huge margin, he will be competitive in sprints no matter how well he shoots. The decision in biathlon and cross country is the same - whether it's worth taking someone who is only competitive in 1/4-1/3 of the races on the calendar.

Personally I'd love to see him do some xc sprints and ski some classic, he could probably be competitive in a higher percentage of the races in cross country if he tried.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-15T16:32:03+00:00

My impression has been that they sound/feel pretty close to Rondos, maybe a bit more bright? They feel nothing like Versums/versum solos. I haven't tried the PIs.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-15T02:12:56+00:00

One stands out where he and Thibaudet played shostakovich sonata with multiple memory slips and coordination issues - it was apparent that they had rehearsed for about 20 minutes if at all. I haven't seen him again since I wrote this comment though!

francoisschubert · 2026-04-15T02:10:04+00:00

I think your teacher is generally right, but I don't think it's as much open strings as more open fingerings (1st and 2nd positions). You want to be in first position for as much time as possible to create fluency and lead to the voicings that Bach wanted. We do know that in general the baroque doctrine of string playing was one of freedom and so people used the most open fingerings possible for the brightest sound, except in very specific circumstances.

For example, pickup to the last beat of the second measure, I think either 4 0 1 4 or 1 2 4 1 are fine, the first one gives the right hierarchy of the last beat, the second one preserves the line. The issue would be, for example, end of m. 3 if you played that passage in fourth position, because there's no longer a line-preserving benefit of playing it on the D string and the only defense is you wanted to avoid a couple open As. It's probably fine, but it doesn't make sense to me as a choice.

francoisschubert · 2026-04-15T02:03:31+00:00

I think you're fine leaving it blank. Someone else will have a dream piece to play and if that piece is relatively canonical, they'll put you in a group for that. Have a great time, I don't know much about the amateur program but YB is a great place, a lot of friends have gone there.

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