Rediscovery

I did something that would probably horrify every professional musician on the face of the earth. I took a 2.5 month break from practicing. I can hear the whispered muttering now: She did what? She's going to get so much worse. How could she give up so easily?

But the fact of the matter is ultimately this: I needed it.

I needed it after eleven years of working to get into orchestras, working to sit in a better seat, working to get into college, working to sound ok at the next recital, working to pass a jury, working to fulfill the required practice hours, working for the sake of working to prove that I could. Somewhere in the midst of all the work, music - with the sole exception of playing with an orchestra - ceased to be music. It became a requirement. Not only that, but it became something I could use to show myself that I had something worthwhile to offer society.

So I took 2.5 months off. Did I lose some ground? Yes. Does my embouchure get tired after ten minutes? Yes. Do I find this pathetic? Ha...you'd better believe it. But I think the benefits outweigh the consequences here, dire as they are. Suddenly, music has more meaning. All throughout my lengthy hiatus I felt like something was missing, and practicing today - however briefly - made me realize what it was. One cannot abandon a method of offering praise to one's Creator without recognizing a sense of loss.

But now, with renewed clarity and purpose, mere practicing can be a form of worship that it never was before. What could be more beneficial than that?

I'm old?

So...I'm 22 now. My very numerological birthday was quite nice, since it included getting rid of my terrible license picture from when I was 16, hanging out with dear friends, and playing both Rossini and Brahms. Oh Brahms....how you fill my soul with joy!

But now it's on to bigger and more important things, like grad school audition number 2 on Friday.


I'm excited! Hopefully I will not be destroyed or something.

Eek!

I have my first grad school audition tomorrow....

Music Philosophy

Evensong at Church of the Advent only happens once a month. I guess that means that I'll be making the trek to Boston one time more frequently every month than I have in the past. In case you were wondering, Evensong is the evening prayer in the Anglican tradition where the liturgy is sung rather than spoken or chanted. It's truly beautiful. I'm really beginning to love the Anglican church. I love the emphasis on engaging all the senses, the connection to the rich history of the Church that stretches beyond denominational boundaries, the reverence given to all things holy, and the emphasis on very high quality music and repertoire.

How do you explain your deepest joy and passion with a world that doesn't share your worldview? How do I describe to my younger brothers - pop music lovers - that listening to the Best Loved Hymns cd on my drive to school in the morning is like having the Choir of King's College sitting in my back seat? How can I teach an orchestra full of middle school intermediate instrumentalists to play music without explaining to them that for me, sitting in the middle of the wind section, being enveloped in the glorious harmonies of Brahms Symphony No. 1, is a worship experience that can in no way be replicated elsewhere? The way I see it, music is a gift from God. This definitely doesn't mean that I have impeccable musical instincts, nor does it mean that I am particularly good at playing an instrument or singing, but it does mean that music speaks to me in a way that other things don't. Therefore, my life calling is to become the best musician I can be by practicing, by seeking good instruction, and by being involved in music for the rest of my life. To do less than that would be compromising a God-given gift.

Bach once said, "The aim and final end of music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul." Bach was a very wise man, if you ask me.

Umm....

This video is so weird that it had me laughing out loud to myself at 7:30 in the morning, sitting in my chair at school before 7th grade band started. And here I was thinking jazz oboe was a strange idea. What about one-man-band-plus-piano-and-blow-organ-accompaniment oboe?

Lorée!

In other news:

I HAVE A NEW OBOE!!!

I am beyond excited. Maybe one day, I will become truly excellent at playing it. Until then, I will continue to practice until my hands fall off or until Christmas is over. Whichever comes first.

Although I guess to become truly excellent I will need to practice after Christmas as well.

Veni, vidi, vici

That's right, grad school application number one! I CAME, I SAW, AND I CONQUERED! Ok, so maybe that's a little over-joyous since I still have 66% of them left to do, but it feels quite nice to have one checked off the list. Also, most of the work I did on it was concentrated into the last two and a half hours, so if I can do that again for the other two, it won't be so bad at all. However, it left my bed looking a little like a war zone.


...and you can't see the floor. It was absolutely covered in paper that I deemed now worthless and therefore recyclable. Whilst digging through all this paper/music, I discovered that I do not, in fact, play oboe. Instead, I play the hoboe. Who knew?


A welcome interruption came in the form of...well...they say pictures are worth a thousand words...


Ha.

And, of course, as life gets more busy (stressier?), my corner gets messier.


Once I finished, I made some celebratory oatmeal (steel cut oats, of course) with maple syrup, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and called it a night. All in all, minus the power outage that knocked out everything from Wenham to Salem, it was a very productive evening.

Recital COMPLETION!

So as of yesterday at 4:20ish pm, an event that I had been dreading for 3.25 years finally happened. I no longer have to live in constant peril of my senior recital! Hooray! Actually, it was kinda fun. Meghanne did my hair, which took a long time. A very long time. And a TON of bobby pins. It went in stages. First was the curling process:


One curl came out looking really cool! Also, my hair looks slightly blonde here. Weird.


While Meghanne curled, I played with sticky tack that I found on the table.


The curls left me looking a little like Shirley Temple, so then we put them up.


Then Meghanne did my makeup too, and then it was off to rehearse some Bach and Mozart before performing it for real. Then the recital happened!

Analysis:

Bach - violin and company, sweet. Jillian - decent

Mozart - decent

Intermission - spectacular

Herzogenberg - movement 1, fantastic; movement 2, decent; movement 3, mostly in tune; movement 4....apparently unnoticeable near disaster! But we ended together, so it was ok.

Saint-Saens - my embouchure was tired, so with that in consideration, decent

All in all, maybe not my best work, but everyone that was there said it sounded good, so I guess I'll take that. Let's just hope that grad school auditions are up to par by February!

Post-recital, we had a party! Lots of people came, including but not limited to:

My lovely apartment! (Note: please pardon the blurriness of all of these pictures. My camera is slowly dying.)


And our moms!


And Nathan, Sarah, and Andrew!


A lot of other people were there too, but I don't have pictures of them on my camera. Sad! (If you happen to have some, I'd love them!)

Finally, the day was over, and we took the bobby pins out of my hair. Whoa.


I needed some help with that, I guess...



Then I went to bed. All in all, a good day! And now I don't have to think about it anymore!

No good....

Sickness is a very bad thing to have two days before a recital. Luckily for me, I have apple juice and vinegar, zinc, and probably echinacea somewhere. I think I can fend it off. Argh.

Here we go....

Official recital countdown begins today, as it's only 1 week away...t minus six days (not counting today, of course).

To do:

-PRAAAAAAAAAACTICE
-Coordinate string/trio rehearsal(s)
-Practice
-Finish transcribing the viola part for Bach
-Practice
-Sleep? (HA!)
-Practice
-Oh right. Normal school.
-Practice
-Play a recital
-Not die.

That's all.

Practice Practice Practice

I feel the need to document this here:

I practiced every day this week, yesterday for 3 hours and today for 4. I plan to continue this for as long as possible. If I practice four hours a day, six days a week, for 16 weeks, I will practice 384 hours for the semester. I think this is manageable, but I will give myself 84 hours of leeway in case normal life and observation hours get in the way. If I seriously implement this new practice regime, I HOPE I'll be fantastic by the end of the semester.

Also, regardless of student teaching, I will be taking lessons and participating in Wind Ensemble and orchestra next semester. Let it be written.

We'll see how this goes.

New oboe bag!

I went and picked up my new oboe bag at the music store today. It's SO FANTASTIC! Maybe I'm overreacting a bit. I mean, it's just a case, much like any other oboe case. But it's such an improvement over my old huge baby blue oboe-music-tools-everything bag that I think it's worth the exclamation. It looks like this:

The only disadvantage is that I now have to carry my music separately, which means that I have acquired a much higher risk of forgetting it or leaving something crucial behind. I guess I'll just have to develop a new music-remembering system.