Q&A with Vienna, December 2006

[Vienna]

Back from Berlin, luggage has exploded onto my office floor, parking tickets have been separated from L.L. Bean catalogs. It's cold and drippy here, in that way that makes noodle soup taste really, really good.

I'm glad to stop moving for a bit—for the reliable internet access, if nothing else.

So...what have y'all been wondering lately?

[Reileen]

Back from Berlin, luggage has exploded onto my office floor, parking tickets have been separated from L.L. Bean catalogs. It's cold and drippy here, in that way that makes noodle soup taste really, really good. I'm glad to stop moving for a bit--for the reliable internet access, if nothing else.

So...what have y'all been wondering lately?

O HAY SUP

Manage to read any good books lately? I imagine that even with all that moving around, you must've had some stationary time in airports and on planes and maybe on cars (if you don't get carsick reading in cars like I do ).

[Kay]

If you had the chance to pick anyone's brain (let's say for 10 questions), who would it be?

Also, if you could cover a hip-hop song, which one would you choose?

Welcome back! Hope the trip went well.

[sod2002]

Vienna,

Welcome back from Europe...

Hope it was great and new fans for you. Thank you again for a wonderful show in Brooklyn NY on 11/30. I am still telling friends about it and buzzing over how incredible you were, and just converted a co-worker today...she ordered Dreaming through the Noise within 10 minutes of hearing my CD's in the office!

My question (bet you were wondering where it was?) ...you seem to be doing a lot of NY shows now (very thankfully)...how do you like playing in NY and do you have a favorite spot to perform? Hope we are a good audience for you...

also hope you saw (and liked) my recent customer / fan review on Amazon for DTTN.

Wishing you a good time in SF later this month and very happy holidays and happiness in the new year. You are wonderful and thanks for the gifts of your song, music, and words!

Sincerely....

Steve Odell
Mount Kisco, N.Y.

[spud]

hi vienna youre by far my favorite piano player from san francisco.

i only have one question for you this year. will you vote in my poll?

[cmooreNC]

Hey, there.... happy "home" days for awhile. I hope the feeling of constant motion wears off quickly for you.

My question is about the show in Philadelphia on January 21st for the DVD recording. Since my wife and I have decided to make the trip up, we were wondering who all you're expecting to have with you for the performance? Or if you would rather not say because you want to keep it as a surprise...

[Laura]

Hello Vienna! Welcome back! I'm glad to hear all is well and that you're enjoying (what I'm sure is) a much-needed rest.

My question is in regards to your travels: other than the scrapbook section of this website, do you document your experiences for your own satisfaction, like in a physical scrapbook or journal? I'm a scrapbooking fanatic, and I've always dreamed of getting the chance to travel Europe and return with a book bursting at the seams with little pieces of my journeys.

Hope all is still well for you, and thanks for reading!

[spyfferoni]

Vienna,
I love your music and had the pleasure of seeing you in Park City and the amazing house concert you did in Salt Lake City. Now on to my questions...

You have been traveling quite a bit. Is there anywhere that you have fallen in love with and would possibly consider living besides San Francisco?

What is the funniest/strangest interpretation of you have heard of one of your songs?

Thanks,
Tyffanie

[Luminosity]

Wow, most of my burning questions have already been asked in the last 2 Q&A sessions ... don't know if I have any vaguely intelligent queries left!

At the risk of sounding clueless: when you record a song in the studio, are the singing and keyboard parts recorded separately? Or does that depend?

Any advice on improving piano technique? My sight-reading is atrocious, but I've played-by-ear since my early teens and it's all come a fair way since then. Actually, I've found that transcribing (is that the right word?) your songs is helping me avoid that rut of always regressing to the same chord progressions.

Not too long ago you opened for Madeleine Peyroux in Vancouver, but I must've been in the middle of midterms because I couldn't fit the event into my schedule. Any chance of you coming back across the border sometime? (Maybe headlining at the University of British Columbia, or is that being too hopeful?)

Thanks for your time and thoughts, Vienna. You are awesome, in every sense of the word.

[Clarinet]

Hi Vienna!

I've seen your show 4 times already in San Diego and took a picture with you at each of your concert, and I've never introduced myself thinking that you probably won't remember me. But from reading this forum, you do recognize your fans.

My question is: What helps you remember your fan's name and face when you meet so many of them in your travels in so many different concerts?

I'll make sure I'll introduce myself to you the next time I go to your concert!

Welcome home!

[JohnEZ]

Hi Vienna! Hope you're doing well Enjoy your time and rest at home

Actually I have a pretty irrelevant question, but it had me wondering for a little while. It's about Shasta.... "Clouds, the color of fire, and the scent of an orange peel..."

Is there any particular meaning or symbolism attached to these three things? Or is it something totally obvious that I'm missing?

Just wondering. It's random, I know.

Thanks,
John

[Vienna]

will you vote in my poll?

Oddly, given how many coffee references I've made in lyrics*, I don't drink the stuff. I like a mocha or cappucino now and then though. Caf or decaf makes no difference; I'm unfortunately immune to caffeine. Hope y'all are newly impressed with my long-distance driving.

I do love tea. Rooibos (red bush) tea in particular. Also jasmine oolong and longjing green tea. When we were recording, Helik got me on an afternoon Earl Grey habit too. Mmm, bergamot.

*I've also noticed that "pizza" has made into two songs so far. Gonna try working in "noodles" next.

[darthscsi]

Hey! In the spirit of the last time I had a chance to chat with to you, I have to ask: What happens to the songs we never hear? Or perhaps, how many songs or partial songs do you go through to get each song we ever hear about?

Oh, and any chance of producing a small album of the home studio recordings of the passed over songs we have heard at concerts? (covers would be awesome too). You know, just to have a recording without the espresso machine in the background

[Vienna]

Manage to read any good books lately?

Lots more than usual, actually.

poetry:

Transformations, Anne Sexton. Her take on various Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Darkly funny, occasionally terrifying. After Sleeping Beauty marries the prince and lives happily ever after, she becomes an insomniac.

Sailing Around the Room, Billy Collins. I think my taste can reasonably be called "middlebrow"—an affinity for things deftly made, interesting on multiple levels, unashamed of being pleasing and accessible. I especially love it when he says to "water-ski/across the surface of a poem/waving at the author's name on the shore."

New and Selected Poems, Samuel Menashe. Peculiarly appropriate for our age, somehow, with its terabytes of information packed into devices the size of fingernails. I can't figure out how all that meaning lives in syllables that small.

fiction:

Saturday, Ian McEwan. Courtesy of Sarah Harmer, who was reading it back in May. Man, I wish I could chronicle trains of thought like McEwan does. I wish my trains of thought were that coherent to begin with.

The 2006 O. Henry Prize Short Stories, edited by Laura Furman. David Lawrence Morse's "Conceived," which creates an entire mythical world (a village atop a giant whale) in twelve pages, gives me hope; it's his first published story.

nonfiction:

Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Suddenly I really want to go back to school and take stats classes.

Crucial Confrontations, Patterson, Grenny, McMillian and Switzler. How to talk to people in touchy situations, especially when you're pissed off. It was all in rather nauseating corporate-seminar-speak, but the information is solid. Surprisingly valuable for an impulse buy at the airport.

Sudoku Vol. 3, presented by Will Shortz. Okay, not exactly nonfiction, but I'm newly hooked on this stuff, and it makes great travel material. A couple of drunk guys in the subway in Berlin, making no headway with hitting on me in German, started calling me "Frau Sudoku."

[Reileen]

Sudoku Vol. 3, presented by Will Shortz. Okay, not exactly nonfiction, but I'm newly hooked on this stuff, and it makes great travel material. A couple of drunk guys in the subway in Berlin, making no headway with hitting on me in German, started calling me "Frau Sudoku."

If you ever decide to start writing novels/essays/plays/something that's not songs, you should use that as your pseudonym.

I have the revised edition of Freakanomics, as per a recommendation from my screenwriting professor, but I haven't read it yet. (It gets shoved aside in favor of the latest volumes of manga...)

Thanks for answering my question! I hope to be able to see you in Philadelphia, but if not, then I should be able to see you when you come back to the Windy City! ^_^