Life after the Audition

I have survived.... I have made it to the other side.... I am done with my Curtis audition. It was very straight forward. There were seven of us auditioning this morning. Once we were all there, we pulled numbers out of a mug to decide the order. I was second. 30 minutes before your audition you had access to a warm-up room (They deserve a blog entry all by themselves for they are wonderful!). My audition went well..... at least it was much better than last time I auditioned there; and while I was suffering from nerves, it could have been a lot worse. So all in all, I'm happy with it. It wasn't a wining performance, but it wasn't terrible either; and the important thing is that it is OVER, so now I can go on with the rest of my life- which is learning how to play this instrument of mine. So to celebrate, I walked over to the nearest music store and bought two Vivaldi concertos so that I can start preparing for my jury in May...... rest isn't in the musician's contract; and the only entry for it in our vocabulary is, "Rest - A musical symbol used to denote silence."

Snow Angels

Sarah and I had fun in the snow this afternoon.

First we made a snow fort- ostensibly for the cat, but I don't think she particularly wants a snow palace.

However, there was a fall out over who would be serving as regent... I lost.....

Sarah the Victorious carried out swift justice and disposed of the body.....

On closer examination, it was found that life had not been fully extinguished. Sarah, who is also called the Merciful, allowed that justice had been done and that the defeated party was repentant and so joined in the reviving process.

So they all lived happily ever after.

We trust that you have enjoyed this little snow tableau, but we are plagued by doubts.

For futher details please go to www.quillpenchronicles.blogspot.com

For the Birds

It is so nice to hear the birds again. I have missed them all winter and now they are back to announce SPRING! It is lovely to walk down the street and listen to them in the trees singing their little hearts out. Soon I will be waking up to them calling to each other outside my bedroom window- the problem is that they seem to wake up a lot earlier than I would like!

Warming-up is overrated

Is is the little things in life that we take for granted. I am having the unique problem of being incapable of warming up before I practice. I never thought I would be admitting this, but there is something good about Temple's practice rooms. Minuscule, dark, and decrepit though they be, they have a balanced temperature (we will ignore the fact that they only have one temperature- hot). Since this week is spring break, I am trying to adapt to playing at home again. However, in a non-insulated, 300-year-old house one might expect drafts. The blustery weather this week as taken this tendency and magnified it ten-fold to the point where there is a continuous draft in the upstairs "conservatory." I have retreated to the third floor, but this has not improved matters much. I am still having trouble getting past the warming-up stage. I practiced for 40 minutes this morning and my instrument still felt cold- this must be good practice for something, but I don't know quite what.

Platonic love

Today in Intellectual Heritage my professor began discussion of Platonic love- love of the soul- by putting this poem on the board. I thought it was a beautiful picture of what love should be- a true, unselfish love. It was written by Yeats for Maud Gonne.

When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

It could be worse.....

I might be a little biased since he is one of my favorite composers, but if you are feeling depressed, you should try listening to Shostakovich. This suggestion might be a new step in the history of psychology, for it does not come because he is lively and uplifting. Rather, if you are thinking that whatever you are dealing with is unbearable, listen to Shostakovich and realize that it could be worse. It has been stated (I believe by him) that Shostakovich never wrote a happy note. His music flows from some of the darkest points of Russian history. He wrote great music, but not "happy" music.

Catching up

I will try to catch up, since I haven't blogged for a while. The reason? My week is trying to kill me. It is the week before midterms- enough said.
So I will try to sum up the week with things that I have learned:

• Changes in weather are nice, but they "play bloody hell" with my reeds... (sorry, that's a quote from Wooster and Jeeves.)
• Playing low notes on the contra makes my vision vibrate.
• I play with a lot of back pressure, which means that I breath too often for my own good.
• Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra is NOT sight-readable.
• Agreeing to more than two gigs in a weekend is not the best idea.
• I am not joking when I say that I can't play Heckel contras, because I tried last night. I can't reach half of the keys, so I can only play the lower two octaves..... see point two.