-Four exams.
-86 pages of music.
-Lots of coffee.
-A proportional decrease in actual food intake.
-An exponentially related amount of sleep loss.
I've lost 8 lbs in the last 6 days.
...not that I'm complaining.
Feeling woozy,
-dubs
Showing posts with label choir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choir. Show all posts
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The Drunken City of Music and Collegiate Polytheism
I just took a sip of some super brassy green tea. (I picked up that little bit of lingo from a friend/Teavana sampler.) It just means I was dumb and let it steep too long. Noted.
The Savannah trip was a success. The choir sang better than it ever has before. Even including having to babysit a drunkard for the lot of Thursday night, I can't say I didn't have an awesome time.
I got the OK from the director to leave before everybody else (avoiding the dreaded Colquitt ordeal altogether) in order to get my I.D. card renewed Wednesday morning. It took 6 hours. Granted, it was 6 hours of me getting coordinate phone calls which is apparently something I secretly enjoy doing, and I got to test out some acting skills by being Mr. Pleasant towards the ladies at I.D. Services and GSU's Office of the Registrar when really, deep down inside they were giving me ulcers in every significant section of my digestive tract from stress. We finally got everything straightened out and I was permitted to take a new I.D. photo. I look like an obese child molester (that is, an obese man who molests children as opposed to a man who molests obese children) because they had the contrast set waaaaay too high and every shadow extends about three feet beyond its natural jurisdiction.
I'm already laughing about it. (Ha. Ha. Haaaaaa.)
Thursday's concert went really well. There were four really cute guys in the center of the 6th row and I wanted to pour acid on their faces for being so beautiful when I couldn't appropriately check them out because A) I was supposed to be looking at the conductor and B) my parents were there and they are bigger attention whores than I am, so-help-me-God-if-I'm-not-waving-to-them-with-my-eyebrows-every-time-I-get-a-free-moment.
After the concert, a few people went to local bars. I joined them at about 1AM, sybarite that I am, and drank what in retrospect was too much to drink for how quickly I drank it. Sure, I can handle a few shots of 151, an Irish Car Bomb, and a couple of Liquid Cocaines; unfortunately, I cannot handle 5 heavy shots of liquor and a chug drink in forty-seven minutes. At least I was completely aware of my surroundings and retained full memory of the night, I just had a really difficult time walking around and pronouncing more than three words per ten seconds correctly.
Not like W.O. He went into a narcoleptic stupor. I'd never seen a narcoleptic stupor before. W.O. and I had joined a few strangers at a table for no better reason than they had beckoned for our company and while we were talking, I heard a tremendous thud. I looked around for the source of the sound but could not find it until I realized that something should have been blocking my view. Something around the shape and size of W.O., which I found on the floor of the bar, thoroughly unconscious.
W.O. is underage.
A few companions and I hoisted him up on our shoulders, prepared to carry him back to the hotel, praying to any merciful higher power (Drunk College Kid God?) that nobody would notice us. And W.O. woke up.
"Whauhtghg sooo colldd and wheignadstidd..guh?" he sputtered. Being equally as drunk but without a chronic sleep habit, I experienced this dialogue a bit differently.
"Why are we outside?" he inquired.
"Yosau'rree junnnkkkaa frukaa, annnuuhheed. Oh-TELLmmm, warrddrrrbriihds," I responded in as much of a matter-of-fact tone I could muster. ("You're a drunk motherfucker and need to get back to the hotel for some water and bread.")
And then he went unconscious again. He woke up in time to make it up the stairs, then collapsed. Up. Down. Up. Down. His caretaker, the beautiful and generously-chested Z.H., was doing her best not to seem as opprobrious as she was feeling and managed to nurse him to sleep. I slept on a chair and woke up on the floor with a bruised knee.
Around 11AM, I'd just finished packing, I realized that 1) the choir had already checked out and that 2) I was severely hungover. I called my parents to let them know I would not be home until 3PM ("The choir's still here and decided they all want to grab lunch before they leave so I want to go with them!") and slept it off. I went home with a bloodshot eye, nasty smelling clothes, and a megalith of a headache, but at least now I could eat food and drink Gatorade. By 5PM, I'd gotten rid of most of the hangover and prepared myself for the piano recital.
My mother and I arrived at the convention center at about 6:20PM, just enough time for me to get in there and warm up. Yamaha. Stiff keys, very bottom-register heavy, no real difference with the soft pedal; still a decent piano. I looked at the program and realized I was the closing performer in a recital presenting 27 winners and was suddenly very nervous for the first time in years about performing publicly. If there is one thing that I have never been satisfied by with my piece, it has been the ending, and it's often because I butcher literally the last four measures. They're all really dramatic, vulnerable notes, and I've never gotten the accuracy or the sound integrity I've wanted and everyone would hate me if I screwed up their final impressions of a two-hour long piano recital.
So, while I watched everyone play, I fed my carpal tunnel syndrome by incessantly twiddling my thumbs. My hands were sweating so profusely that I had to stop wiping them on my pants because it was making a noticeably wet spot. Some kid in 9th grade went and played a song I thought sounded harder than mine. Then some kid in 11th grade played something that was much harder than my piece. Why why why why why. One of my colleagues went up and played beautifully. The other followed her act with just as much grace and beauty.
And then it was my turn. And I'd been sitting down for two hours and my hands were no longer warmed up. And now I had to close the show. Maurice Ravel, Alborada del Gracioso, here I go.
Thoughts: The beginning. I'm so nervous I'm going to play too fast or too slow that I force myself to auralize the first four measures before I allow myself to play. 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,,- GO. Shit, too loud too loud, bring it down. No, it'll sound lame, wait for the decrescendo coming up in two measures. There. Quit speeding up, tap your foot, keep yourself in control. Oh shit oh shit, the first run, don't screw this updon'tscrewitupdon'tscre.... dammit. Keep going. Gather yourself. DAMMIT. I always mess that part up why don't I ever fix it augh. Slow down. Quiet. quiet. quiet. annnnnnnnd EXPLODE. YES. NAILED IT. QUIT THINKING SO MUCH.
Music.
Oh thank you Jesus, the cadenza. Relax. Just, make it sound Spanish. Picture Carlos plucking at the strings of a guitar while riding on a white stallion- trotting through shallow waves. Put in a little breeze and take off his shirt annnnnnd perfect. If this doesn't sound authentically ethnic, I don't know what does. Quit humming idiot, the audience will hear you and you are NOT a Glenn Gould. Just breathe and listen to what's coming out of the piano... just a deeep... breath... in... and...
Ahhhhhh.
Fuck, it's the coda. Alright, take it slow. Slow-ly. Just because you're in your own head doesn't mean you get to sacrifice grammar. Remember your practice with E.M. She said it sounded better when you put an ebb and flow on it and you liked it better that way anyways. Alright, you always, always mess up here... just slow down tastefully and no one will know that you just can't do it up to tempo. YES. MADE IT. ALRIGHT. GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO! FOUR MORE MEASURES! E.M. counted this for me, two on three, come on, YES! Alright cheat here, play an octave, it's safer that way... NICE. Just this one lassssst chord. FUCK. WRONG POSITION ABORT. FAIL. Hurry, just fix it! YES! STILL IN TIME! AHHHHHHHH-----
Applause. And suddenly, I feel like a music major again.
It was easily the best performance I'd ever had of that piece and, as it's the most difficult piece in my rep so far, my best performance, ever. It's time to show everyone that yes, I'm capable of being extremely musical, and it's time to give myself the courage to believe that I deserve to do so without crossing that tiny line that separates confidence from cockiness. So, on to more projects and competitions- on to a new line of work ethic and progress the likes of which I haven't seen for a good three years of lazy college-dom. Thank you, Drunk College Kid God for your supervision, wisdom, and for introducing me to Overachieving Manic Person God, with whom I hope to become well acquainted with the passing of each day.
Dear blog,
I'm a neurotic little spaz. I really do try to focus on living in the moment and enjoying every bit of conscious life I'm granted, my mind just takes over every now and then and I can't help it that I overanalyze and just think too much in general. I never mean to be insecure or bitchy, they're just reflections of passing thoughts, vulnerable or judgmental as they may be, I'm just trying to illustrate myself as it happens as truthfully as I can remember it. Please, please don't hate me.
Yours always,
-dubs
The Savannah trip was a success. The choir sang better than it ever has before. Even including having to babysit a drunkard for the lot of Thursday night, I can't say I didn't have an awesome time.
I got the OK from the director to leave before everybody else (avoiding the dreaded Colquitt ordeal altogether) in order to get my I.D. card renewed Wednesday morning. It took 6 hours. Granted, it was 6 hours of me getting coordinate phone calls which is apparently something I secretly enjoy doing, and I got to test out some acting skills by being Mr. Pleasant towards the ladies at I.D. Services and GSU's Office of the Registrar when really, deep down inside they were giving me ulcers in every significant section of my digestive tract from stress. We finally got everything straightened out and I was permitted to take a new I.D. photo. I look like an obese child molester (that is, an obese man who molests children as opposed to a man who molests obese children) because they had the contrast set waaaaay too high and every shadow extends about three feet beyond its natural jurisdiction.
I'm already laughing about it. (Ha. Ha. Haaaaaa.)
Thursday's concert went really well. There were four really cute guys in the center of the 6th row and I wanted to pour acid on their faces for being so beautiful when I couldn't appropriately check them out because A) I was supposed to be looking at the conductor and B) my parents were there and they are bigger attention whores than I am, so-help-me-God-if-I'm-not-waving-to-them-with-my-eyebrows-every-time-I-get-a-free-moment.
After the concert, a few people went to local bars. I joined them at about 1AM, sybarite that I am, and drank what in retrospect was too much to drink for how quickly I drank it. Sure, I can handle a few shots of 151, an Irish Car Bomb, and a couple of Liquid Cocaines; unfortunately, I cannot handle 5 heavy shots of liquor and a chug drink in forty-seven minutes. At least I was completely aware of my surroundings and retained full memory of the night, I just had a really difficult time walking around and pronouncing more than three words per ten seconds correctly.
Not like W.O. He went into a narcoleptic stupor. I'd never seen a narcoleptic stupor before. W.O. and I had joined a few strangers at a table for no better reason than they had beckoned for our company and while we were talking, I heard a tremendous thud. I looked around for the source of the sound but could not find it until I realized that something should have been blocking my view. Something around the shape and size of W.O., which I found on the floor of the bar, thoroughly unconscious.
W.O. is underage.
A few companions and I hoisted him up on our shoulders, prepared to carry him back to the hotel, praying to any merciful higher power (Drunk College Kid God?) that nobody would notice us. And W.O. woke up.
"Whauhtghg sooo colldd and wheignadstidd..guh?" he sputtered. Being equally as drunk but without a chronic sleep habit, I experienced this dialogue a bit differently.
"Why are we outside?" he inquired.
"Yosau'rree junnnkkkaa frukaa, annnuuhheed. Oh-TELLmmm, warrddrrrbriihds," I responded in as much of a matter-of-fact tone I could muster. ("You're a drunk motherfucker and need to get back to the hotel for some water and bread.")
And then he went unconscious again. He woke up in time to make it up the stairs, then collapsed. Up. Down. Up. Down. His caretaker, the beautiful and generously-chested Z.H., was doing her best not to seem as opprobrious as she was feeling and managed to nurse him to sleep. I slept on a chair and woke up on the floor with a bruised knee.
Around 11AM, I'd just finished packing, I realized that 1) the choir had already checked out and that 2) I was severely hungover. I called my parents to let them know I would not be home until 3PM ("The choir's still here and decided they all want to grab lunch before they leave so I want to go with them!") and slept it off. I went home with a bloodshot eye, nasty smelling clothes, and a megalith of a headache, but at least now I could eat food and drink Gatorade. By 5PM, I'd gotten rid of most of the hangover and prepared myself for the piano recital.
My mother and I arrived at the convention center at about 6:20PM, just enough time for me to get in there and warm up. Yamaha. Stiff keys, very bottom-register heavy, no real difference with the soft pedal; still a decent piano. I looked at the program and realized I was the closing performer in a recital presenting 27 winners and was suddenly very nervous for the first time in years about performing publicly. If there is one thing that I have never been satisfied by with my piece, it has been the ending, and it's often because I butcher literally the last four measures. They're all really dramatic, vulnerable notes, and I've never gotten the accuracy or the sound integrity I've wanted and everyone would hate me if I screwed up their final impressions of a two-hour long piano recital.
So, while I watched everyone play, I fed my carpal tunnel syndrome by incessantly twiddling my thumbs. My hands were sweating so profusely that I had to stop wiping them on my pants because it was making a noticeably wet spot. Some kid in 9th grade went and played a song I thought sounded harder than mine. Then some kid in 11th grade played something that was much harder than my piece. Why why why why why. One of my colleagues went up and played beautifully. The other followed her act with just as much grace and beauty.
And then it was my turn. And I'd been sitting down for two hours and my hands were no longer warmed up. And now I had to close the show. Maurice Ravel, Alborada del Gracioso, here I go.
Thoughts: The beginning. I'm so nervous I'm going to play too fast or too slow that I force myself to auralize the first four measures before I allow myself to play. 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,,- GO. Shit, too loud too loud, bring it down. No, it'll sound lame, wait for the decrescendo coming up in two measures. There. Quit speeding up, tap your foot, keep yourself in control. Oh shit oh shit, the first run, don't screw this updon'tscrewitupdon'tscre.... dammit. Keep going. Gather yourself. DAMMIT. I always mess that part up why don't I ever fix it augh. Slow down. Quiet. quiet. quiet. annnnnnnnd EXPLODE. YES. NAILED IT. QUIT THINKING SO MUCH.
Music.
Oh thank you Jesus, the cadenza. Relax. Just, make it sound Spanish. Picture Carlos plucking at the strings of a guitar while riding on a white stallion- trotting through shallow waves. Put in a little breeze and take off his shirt annnnnnd perfect. If this doesn't sound authentically ethnic, I don't know what does. Quit humming idiot, the audience will hear you and you are NOT a Glenn Gould. Just breathe and listen to what's coming out of the piano... just a deeep... breath... in... and...
Ahhhhhh.
Fuck, it's the coda. Alright, take it slow. Slow-ly. Just because you're in your own head doesn't mean you get to sacrifice grammar. Remember your practice with E.M. She said it sounded better when you put an ebb and flow on it and you liked it better that way anyways. Alright, you always, always mess up here... just slow down tastefully and no one will know that you just can't do it up to tempo. YES. MADE IT. ALRIGHT. GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO! FOUR MORE MEASURES! E.M. counted this for me, two on three, come on, YES! Alright cheat here, play an octave, it's safer that way... NICE. Just this one lassssst chord. FUCK. WRONG POSITION ABORT. FAIL. Hurry, just fix it! YES! STILL IN TIME! AHHHHHHHH-----
Applause. And suddenly, I feel like a music major again.
It was easily the best performance I'd ever had of that piece and, as it's the most difficult piece in my rep so far, my best performance, ever. It's time to show everyone that yes, I'm capable of being extremely musical, and it's time to give myself the courage to believe that I deserve to do so without crossing that tiny line that separates confidence from cockiness. So, on to more projects and competitions- on to a new line of work ethic and progress the likes of which I haven't seen for a good three years of lazy college-dom. Thank you, Drunk College Kid God for your supervision, wisdom, and for introducing me to Overachieving Manic Person God, with whom I hope to become well acquainted with the passing of each day.
Dear blog,
I'm a neurotic little spaz. I really do try to focus on living in the moment and enjoying every bit of conscious life I'm granted, my mind just takes over every now and then and I can't help it that I overanalyze and just think too much in general. I never mean to be insecure or bitchy, they're just reflections of passing thoughts, vulnerable or judgmental as they may be, I'm just trying to illustrate myself as it happens as truthfully as I can remember it. Please, please don't hate me.
Yours always,
-dubs
Monday, January 26, 2009
Murphy's Law
I'm taking improv classes at Dad's Garage Theatre Company, and it fucking rocks. They're on Sunday nights, so I can pretend it's both the glorious ending to an exhausting week and a wonderful energy boost before the beginning of the next. Awesome.
I've been trying to look for opportunities to squeeze in the little games we're learning into my own life but have been disappointed that there's really no place on the streets of Atlanta among strangers to start a riveting game of "Zip-Zap-Zop."* I'm almost certain I'd get arrested for terrorism or something ethnic. One outlet I haven't been able to try where I'm almost certain it would work is with the University Choir- and I'll finally have an opportunity to test it out this weekend as we go to Savannah for the Georgia Music Educator's Association (GMEA) convention. Awesome.
*You stand in a circle. The person who starts says "zip" while clapping towards the person they're passing 'it' to. The receiver then repeats the action, instead saying "zap," passing 'it' to somebody who will have to say "zop." The game ends when someone breaks the cadence or the rhythm.
I'm beginning to notice that it's excessively difficult not to want to start a paragraph (or a sentence, even) with the pronoun "I." Sure, it's an account of my life from my perspective and there's bound to be more "I"s ("Is"? Is? I's?) than in a biography about Britney Spears ("From Belle to Bald to Bouncing Back!"), but still. Now I'm going to be all hypersensitive about it and it'll take me ages to begin new paragraphs. Dammit.
Anyways (HA!), we're going to Savannah on Wednesday. The itinerary says that we depart from Atlanta at 6:15AM, sing a concert at Colquitt High School at 10AM, and pull into Savannah at 6PM.
Wait, what?
Colquitt is apparently a county in the southwest corner of Georgia. We're driving in a big, fucking triangle. I fucking hate this choir. I hate it so much. This is due in large part to the fact that I'm driving myself and will have to dish out twice as much money for gas than I was hoping for- but the rest of my reasoning is legit. Six semesters being forced to be in choirs, doing ridiculous recruiting things for the vocal program (I'm a pianist) that take away my time in my own piano labs and academic courses, the school decides to take a chorus to China, I want to go, and it's closed to non-vocalists. Motherfucker. They're even making a trip to my own hometown a dreadnought of effort because they want to showcase to some podunk high school choir in the middle of nowhere before we go to a convention where we'll be singing for FOUR MORE HIGH SCHOOL CHOIRS. This is the most inefficient publicity I've ever seen arranged, ever.
Oh, but they're giving us pizza. That's cool. I mean, driving four hours for free pizza is a good deal, right? Right. ...right. In the meantime, I'm losing out on TWO accounting class, TWO computer information systems class, a legal business administration class, a microeconomics class, attendance points, extra credit eligibility, and my sanity and patience. We're leaving Wednesday before the sun rises and staying until after dark on Friday to do a concert that starts Thursday, 9PM in a city four hours away. I'm getting ulcers just thinking about it. I would like nothing more than to pour fermented urine into the eyes of everyone involved with planning this BULLSHIT.
And improv class is canceled for the Superbowl, motherFUCKER.
-dubs
I've been trying to look for opportunities to squeeze in the little games we're learning into my own life but have been disappointed that there's really no place on the streets of Atlanta among strangers to start a riveting game of "Zip-Zap-Zop."* I'm almost certain I'd get arrested for terrorism or something ethnic. One outlet I haven't been able to try where I'm almost certain it would work is with the University Choir- and I'll finally have an opportunity to test it out this weekend as we go to Savannah for the Georgia Music Educator's Association (GMEA) convention. Awesome.
*You stand in a circle. The person who starts says "zip" while clapping towards the person they're passing 'it' to. The receiver then repeats the action, instead saying "zap," passing 'it' to somebody who will have to say "zop." The game ends when someone breaks the cadence or the rhythm.
I'm beginning to notice that it's excessively difficult not to want to start a paragraph (or a sentence, even) with the pronoun "I." Sure, it's an account of my life from my perspective and there's bound to be more "I"s ("Is"? Is? I's?) than in a biography about Britney Spears ("From Belle to Bald to Bouncing Back!"), but still. Now I'm going to be all hypersensitive about it and it'll take me ages to begin new paragraphs. Dammit.
Anyways (HA!), we're going to Savannah on Wednesday. The itinerary says that we depart from Atlanta at 6:15AM, sing a concert at Colquitt High School at 10AM, and pull into Savannah at 6PM.
Wait, what?
Colquitt is apparently a county in the southwest corner of Georgia. We're driving in a big, fucking triangle. I fucking hate this choir. I hate it so much. This is due in large part to the fact that I'm driving myself and will have to dish out twice as much money for gas than I was hoping for- but the rest of my reasoning is legit. Six semesters being forced to be in choirs, doing ridiculous recruiting things for the vocal program (I'm a pianist) that take away my time in my own piano labs and academic courses, the school decides to take a chorus to China, I want to go, and it's closed to non-vocalists. Motherfucker. They're even making a trip to my own hometown a dreadnought of effort because they want to showcase to some podunk high school choir in the middle of nowhere before we go to a convention where we'll be singing for FOUR MORE HIGH SCHOOL CHOIRS. This is the most inefficient publicity I've ever seen arranged, ever.
Oh, but they're giving us pizza. That's cool. I mean, driving four hours for free pizza is a good deal, right? Right. ...right. In the meantime, I'm losing out on TWO accounting class, TWO computer information systems class, a legal business administration class, a microeconomics class, attendance points, extra credit eligibility, and my sanity and patience. We're leaving Wednesday before the sun rises and staying until after dark on Friday to do a concert that starts Thursday, 9PM in a city four hours away. I'm getting ulcers just thinking about it. I would like nothing more than to pour fermented urine into the eyes of everyone involved with planning this BULLSHIT.
And improv class is canceled for the Superbowl, motherFUCKER.
-dubs
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