My cello

It was already 4 years ago when I decided to purchase this cello made in Italy. Having used a German cello for years, I needed a bit powerful one as I was told to play the top of cellists in an orchestra. There was the famous "Swan Lake Suite" by Tchaikovsky in the program, which includes a real lengthy solo by cello. 

 

I don't know if it is common among Italian instruments or not but this one had some scratched injuries on the front board which had been well repaired. The placements of peg holes were not correct as well. It required a fairly big repair to make new holes later. I was aware of those defects in this cello but did not care for that. This Italian sounded powerful as well as sweet. I have not hesitated to buy this one. In addition to its power on all range, it sounded mellow and sweet especially on D string, which most other cellos are not very good at. I fell in love with this cello as soon as I played it for the first time at an instrument dealer in Tokyo.

 

I have practised a lot with this instrument. I could not forget playing all movements of the Nr2 piano trio in C dur by Brahms at a small concert. I loved it so much that it was a real fun for me to play it. Whenever I listen to the 2nd movement of variation, it really touches me. In the big earthquake, this cello being laid on the floor fell on the flower and buried beneath TV set, books and CDs falling down on the floor. It has not got any serious damage except for a few injuries on the front board.  I have indulged in playing with it even more since the experience of the earthquake. This winter, however, having had a family event as well as having felt that I won't make any progress any longer, I have quit playing it. For the past 7 months, I have touched it only twice.  

 

For the past few days, I again felt I should practise it again. I won't care if I clould not make any progress. Playing for myself is good enough. Dave K6XG, a fine baroque brockfloete and violin player, told me a few days ago that it was often good for musicians to take a month off from playing instruments. He said our synapses would get connected during that period. It might mean conversion from explicit memory to inplicit one requires a length of time in a particular person. Though I was quite suspicious of its validity in this old amateur cellist and my days off was too long for that psychological process. I decided to come back to cello.

 

I would start practising scales in C, D dur and e moll. My goal is to play some of the unaccompanied suites by Bach and that e moll sonata by Brahms. I used to play all the movements in my med school days. I wonder how far I could go from now. No complaint if I stay at the same stage or even regress a bit. It is just for my pleasure.  

 

 

 

Two dishes served by a house husband

Chicken cooked with onion, potato and eggplant tasted by balsamic vinegar.

 

 

Fried codfish with vegetables mixed by Japanese powdered starch in chinese style.

 

 

I could brag myself for these dishes, if the taste won't be questioned, which I have finished cooking in 45 minutes. It was after I had worked for a full day as a parttime. It is by househusband costless labor haha.

The golden ages have gone

Forty meters is getting quiet now after it has been very noisy for the summer months. A real fall has arrived on 40 meters for now. Beaming to the North America, I have called CQ for several times an hour before sunset. Only a QRS guy has called me from CA. His 50W with a dipole was good enough. No other takers now.

At this time in a day in this season of '60s, there were the K6NB and VK2NS group often heard on this band, as I have repeatedly written. Both of them were running QRQ with key board. Around both of them, several others were gathering, like KH6EFW, WB6CFN, VK2DO or K7UQH. All except for K7UQH have, however, gone SK for now. I was so excited to work with them with my simple set up. How kind they were to such a teenage new comer in Japan!

When I came back on the radio in 1980, there used to be the others on 40 meters around this time. I could give examples like W6JAL, W6VIJ, W6TBZ, W6TSQ and so forth. Most of them were night owls having lost chances to fall asleep. When sun set in, there used to be N4AR coupled with VS6DO. Both were pounding in like JAs. K5BGB, N5VV, VK3IM and the other ragchewers are not forgettable as well. W4BW was a real big gun those days. These guys have also made conversation on something more than reports and QSL etc. They enjoyed talking something on CW when the band opened pan pacific areas all of sudden. It was when I operated with barefoot into 14AVQ at the dorm in the med school hospital where I served residency. It was much fun for me to talk to those people. Most of them went inactive for now.

They have made the age at respective time. In a few years, however, they have gone silent or inactive. I sure miss them. What a loss for me! The golden ages won't return any longer. Now, it is my turn to make an age. There are, however, too few to do with on the band now. I am a kind of obligated to follow them. Thinking of such a thing, I was still going on calling CQ.

Maybe, this glass of lager has made me complain of the same thing again.

Sharing the same interests in music with a friend

In the meeting at Ham Fair yesterday, I have talked much of music with Len JA1IKA. He has praised of Glenn Gould playing Bach. I have totally agreed with him. What a beautiful touch Gould has made with this Intermezzo by Brahms! Each touch is leading to serene and brilliant tone like dews on a leaf in the morning.

 

He has played the Number 2 Symphony "Resurrection" by Mahler as a cellist in an amateur orchestra . What a joy it must have been for him. I told him I could not help weeping when I listen to the tune sung by Soprano with the phrase shown below in the 5th movement of that Symphony. This shows how Mahler has struggled in his life. His struggle and subsequent catalysis are coming into our minds with enormous emotion. He has nodded his approval to my story.

                                           O glaube: du wardst nicht umsonst geboren!
                                           Hast nicht umsonst gelebt, gelitten!

Unfortunately, he is not playing either violin or cello any longer. He told me he could play instruments until age late 60s. It has encouraged me to do a bit more effort with my cello.

I haven't known of Len until meeting him in Tokyo this time. But I have found a guy whom I could share the feelings and interests with. It is always good to have such a friend in my life.

A meeting at Tokyo Ham Fair 2013

Since I retired last year, I felt it was necessary for me to have social activity. I have planed a meeting at the Ham Fair in Tokyo 2013. The main purpose was to meet an old friend, Shun JJ1RZG, who had had a long career in ham radio since 1960s. He has been working as a pediatrician as well. We have promised meeting each other after a long hiatus. There were four other guys who would like to join us there. 

 

JA1IKA, a retired engineer and an experienced musician. He plays violin as well as cello. It turned out that we shared the same kind of interests in ham radio, music, engineering as well as politics etc. I would write about our interests in music in another article. We have had mutual friends in the US as well.

 

JA7WTH, who is working as an administrative manager at a hospital in Sendai city, has come back on CW after a long interval. He used to work as a pediatrician as well. He was willing to work with foreign hams on CW. The current issue for him is to get a proper antenna for HF better than the present random wire. He looked young and positive for his renewed hobby. I promised him a regular schedule on 40m CW once a week.

 

JA1KIH, an active operator as well as an engineer. Already retired from his work. I have known him for longer than 40 years for now. Even though not so frequently, maybe, once several years, we have met in person for that period. He has given us some valuable info and tips on the radio and the movements of the administrative authority.

 

JA3EGZ, whom I first met this time, has been a well known DXer in Japan. He owns a gorgeous antenna farm in Himeji. He is a representative member of JARL and let us know what had been going on in JARL. Now JARL has become a juridical person where only those representatives could be involved in the decision for its policy. JARL is almost bankrupted at present, so that they have decided to impose the annual fee to the life members. Evidently, such a change in rule is against the original contract between JARL and the life members. He has voted against that change at the representative meeting. Hopefully, such representative members as him will let us know what is going on in JARL.

 

JJ1RZG, an active DXer as well as a ragchewer. He told us he would chase as many DX as possible in the height of this sun spot cycle. He operates at his home in the mid of the downtown in Tokyo. He owns old equipment and an old hand key. He told me whenever he introduced himself as a pediatrician to hams in oversea, quite some of them asked him if he had known of me. I told him the same thing happened to me when I made self introduction to them. An experienced and sociable person.     

 

From left to right:JA1NUT, JA1IKA, JA7WTH, JA1KIH, JA3EGZ, JJ1RZG

 

 

 

In the meantime, I have looked around the Fair. There were some faces well known to me. Among them, I have talked a bit with JK7UST, K6RB and JE1TRV. Rob, K6RB, visited here to recruit some new members of CWops. It seemed successful. He kindly offered me to come back to the club. I suspended deciding that at present. He is returning homeland onTuesday this week and will get ready for CWT on Wednesday as well as the CWopen in this week end. I wished him a safe trip back to his home in Santa Cruz.  

 

There were some young hams at the place. But the majority was those already retired including myself. I took glances to the manufacturers booths. I was happy to find the booths of some university clubs. Though they were doing with the digital modes.

 

No new products at the manufacturers' sites. Kenwood has demonstrated several TS990s in pararell on a counter. There were some people trying this new rig. I have just looked from behind of them. The displays looked beautiful. Icom has published a new software for IC7800, so far as I heard. Nothing new at Yaesu. One of the attendants at the lunch has shown a leaflet of SDR produced by a small company in Japan. In his opinion, SDR overwhelms the conventional gears in the function. SDR could be, however, much cheaper those most modern high end equipments. They won't get much profit from SDR compared with the conventional high end radios. That is why the other major manufacturers won't start publishing SDR at present. The users won't pay thousands of dollars for those like TS990 or IC7800 if they could get SDR with half or one third of the prices of modern DSP radio.

 

I was concerned about the audio quality of CW reception. Don WB6BEE told me at the night that, when experimenting down loaded SDR, it did not sound very good on CW reception. If it is the level SDR could yield as for CW reception at present, it may be sometime before SDR takes over the conventional gears with DSP. 

Spending a few hours with the above mentioned guys at the lunch, we have tied the ribbon there. We might meet on the air in the near future. I headed back home without going anywhere. It was fun seeing them in person.

An old shrine and temple complex Part 2/2

There was the property of a temple next to the shrine I had just visited. At the entrance, the shrine was on the left side while the temple was on the right side. In the last article, I have erroneously written either of those religious facilities had been moved from somewhere. In reality, the shrine was built next to the temple by an ancestor of clan Ustunomiya, a local leader in Muromachi era. He had been punished to be sent to Tosa area in Shikoku due to a political mistake by the government at the time. Praying for returning to homeland at a shrine in Tosa area, as the story tells, he was allowed to come back here in a year. When he came back here, he decided to build a shrine as a branch of the shrine in Tosa area just next to the shrine where the genereations of the clan had been buried. I had not known of this story until I looked up about the history of this shrine/temple complex.

 

This is the entrance of the shrine. It is paved and surrounded by cedar trees. Again, no tourists.

 



 

 

This is the building storing a Buddist statue in it. The priest and the family may live in the houses on the background.

 

 

The building seemed nail free again. Very beautiful and perfect craftmanship.

 

 

Another view of the building. The base made of the stones looked in good shape. I am sure the building has been cared well for the years in the past. They say there is an old statue stored in this building.

 

 

Another building in the temple. A beautiful straw roof on it again.

 

 

The yard is surrounded by old trees. The tree in the center on this photo is told to be over 500 years old.

 

 

Another view of the yard. You may see a few tombs on the top. There were dozens of tombs in the yard. There must be a number of supportive members in this shrine, who have been donating for the management of the shrine as in the case of the other shrines.

 

 

It was interesting there have been a shrine and a temple just nextdoor each other at a place. In Japan, different religions have been accepted at the same time. Shinto was established to be a religion authorizing the first governments in the history of Japan. It has been oriented to the political power, I believe. On the other hand, Buddhism underwent a reformation in Kamakura era etc, which urged it to be a religion relieving each of the people. Unfortunately, it has lost its vitality as a religion for now. Buddhism is only for funerals at present while Shinto is for the ceremeony in the new year days. I am proud of the histories of the religions and those historical monuments. But they are not alive for those who need relief by religion at present, I am afraid.

 

I feel relieved to visit such a place, though. Very quiet and peaceful. No crowds of sight seeing visitors. We should preserve such a place as a treasure from the ancestors. To those, who would visit our country, I would recommend you to visit somewhere like this, not popular but historical enough. 

Some harvests in my garden farm

It was my first experience to grow okra. I didn't know how it grows and bears fruits. Here is the flower. I was really impressed at it. For these okras have been badly damaged by hail several weeks ago when they were young and small. Now they have finally grown to bear flowers and fruits. A lovely flower, isn't it?

 

 

 

This is the fruits. I am wodering how to cook them. Boiled with the other vegetables or raw as salad?



 

 

The basils are fully blooming though the flowers are not very noticeable. They still look vivid and beautiful.

 

 

Wild tomatoes. Fully ripe. They say tomatoes won't grow well at the same place as the same species have been grown the year before. But this wild one is exceptionally good. The other tomatoes have often been damaged by the heavy rain a few weeks ago. I would praise this wild ones for it has grown so nicely by itself without any nutrients etc.