I'll just go over the important points because most of what happened between now and the last entry was pretty boring.
1. Orchestra. I'm principal in University this semester, and I have absolutely NO idea how that happened. In any case, we've done two concerts so far, and they both went pretty well, although I really don't think I'm shaping up to be principal material. I need to work on being more prepared for the first rehearsal and basically acting more principal trumpet-ish. However, I am excited for the opera that we're going to start playing after spring break (this week). It's got some trumpet-y stuff and it should be fun.
2. Jazz band. Jazz band is my absolute favorite thing every week, except maybe for lessons. We actually get to play, unlike in orchestra, where we have to sit for five minutes between each playing section, and we sound really tight right now. It is awesome. Although I'm kind of disappointed that I'll have to miss most of Phantom camp to play the Big Band Extravaganza. That's going to suck because it's visual camp and I need to learn my spot but I won't be there. Jazz band is still awesome though.
3. Phantom Regiment. I'm still in it this year - I haven't been cut yet :) And I'm really excited about this summer. Our show is The Red Violin, and the music sounds awesome. I'm sure the visuals are going to be awesome as well. One of the pluses of Phantom is that I've been working out a lot to prepare for it, which has been good for me. I've never been in this good of shape, so it's really cool to go do things that were hard for me to do before which are suddenly easy. Hell, even WALKING is easier. I'm definitely keeping in shape when Phantom is over, because I don't want to lose this.
That being said, this summer, or at least the first month, is going to be HARD. I've been talking to some vets about the physical demands of the summer and stuff, and I've seen some Youtube videos that make me scared. I mean, playing the climax of the show while jazz-running 4 to 5's across the entire field, and then turning around and doing it again and again? That's kind of ridiculous. I really hope I have the willpower to go through with all that. But bottom line, I'm excited because at the end of the summer, it will be all worth it.
And now an update;
It's officially spring break and I'm back in Atlanta. Already it's been awesome. I went caving yesterday for the first time in north Georgia and it was fantastic. We drove up to this cave called Petite John's (or Petty John's). It was cold and drizzly out, and the people I was with warned me that because of the rain, the cave was going to have a lot of water in it. The walk-out was only about a hundred feet in, and it was several degrees warmer in the cave. It was so humid in the cave, though, that it was about 55 degrees and you could see your breath, looking like smoke, every time you breathed out.
The highlights: The first really challenging section was a part where the cave got extremely narrow, about a foot or foot and a half wide, and about 2 feet tall. Then it got narrower, and twisted a little before making a right turn and going up. I had to do a bunch of acrobatic twisting and had to really squeeze through a couple places. If I was the least bit claustrophobic, I would have died, but I'm not so it was awesome. After that section, there was this part called the 'pancake squeeze.' It was just like what it sounds like. You had to flatten yourself out like a pancake and sort of shuffle along sideways on your belly for about 15 feet before the room widened out.
In one section, the cave got really vertical. The vertical drop was about 20 feet, and the horizontal distance was only about 3 or 4. Luckily, the passage was narrow and twisty, and there were ropes set up with loops in them to grab onto. Going down was pretty exciting, and also freaky. You had to go over a little ledge, and I couldn't see where the floor was below me, so I had to swing myself out over the edge, clutching onto this rope, and not know where I could put my feet. My friends guided me down alright, though. We had to go up through the same passage, too. Going up was less freaky, but more difficult. There was a moment where I got kind of stuck in position - I had gotten myself wedged about 3/4 of the way up the passage and my left leg was stuck up by my chest with my knee resting on the rock and my back shoved against the other side of the passage. I had to wriggle my way back up, all the while afraid I was going to lose my grip and fall back down the 15 feet I had already come up.
In another section, the water was flowing really fast and hard, and the level was up because of the rain. It was still only calf-deep, but there was water pouring through the ceiling in several places. The passage we had to go through had been eroded really smooth, but it was so narrow we had to walk along it sideways, and it wasn't ever straight up and down. It also twisted and turned back on itself several times. It was cold and wet and really close quarters, but it was really cool-looking.
All in all, I really enjoyed caving and I totally want to go back and do it again. It turns out we went down the wrong passage one time, so I'd really like to go back and actually go down the right passageway so I can see more of the cave. I think I've found a new sporting love :) in addition to rock climbing and running.
So, obviously some stuff has happened since I last posted. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say it's been pretty crazy. Of course, that's nothing new - my life has always been pretty crazy, in some form or fashion. A few things, though, I guess I should say, to show what's been going on in my life.
I don't really feel motivated anymore. I mean, I know I've always been a slacker and a procrastinator, but this year it feels like agony to do much of anything productive. It's a combination of not being able to focus (something that worries me), fatigue, and mostly just a prevailing sense that nothing is important enough to work towards. I really hope that it's just a phase that will pass, because I feel like I know what I want to do and what direction I want my life to take now, but I can't garner the energy or the drive to work toward it. What I'm really talking about here is my practice schedule. I've gone from practicing relatively lightly (2-3 hours) to hardly practicing at all. It doesn't look like its really affected my playing that much - I still sound pretty good, and I'm still improving - but I know that I could be accomplishing so much more if I did more. It's frustrating, all the more so because these are circumstances completely within my control. I am no victim of a schedule that's booked solid, or a cruel twist of fate, or anything beyond my control. I'm simply doing it to myself, and I hate it.
But whatever.
On a happier note, Marching Hundred is turning out to be pretty damn fun. Yeah, Colonel gets angry at us sometimes, and yeah it takes up a lot of time, but I've met a bunch of great people and my 8 to 5's have never been better. I'm hoping that even the easy marching of Hundred will give me a bit better chance of making Phantom Regiment this year. It's still going to be tough, and I need to do more, like actually working out, but my marching is a lot better than it would be now if I had sat this season out. Here's hoping that I make it!
Well that was kind of short, but I'll probably remember more stuff later. Hopefully I won't wait another three months before I update this thing again.
I started freaking out today because I couldn't find my wallet, and I tore the house apart looking for it. Then I called the bank and cancelled my debit card, went to the mattress store and asked them to check out their delivery guys and see if they could have taken it, called Kristin, and then her mom, to see if I left it at their house, and asked at Target if they had it in their lost and found, after being told that I couldn't write them a personal check without my ID (which of course, was in my wallet) and having to get Sarah to pay for my stuff. When we got home, I called Kristin's house again to see if they had found anything, and while I was talking to Kristin's mom, I FOUND MY WALLET. I was just thinking, "there is no POSSIBLE way I could have overlooked this." It was in the daybed in the back room, squished down in between the pillow and my trumpet case, just chillin'. First I was like, OMG MY WALLET, then I was like, wow I feel stupid. Anyway. All is well in the world again, although it made for kind of a scary day. It just means I have to go to the bank on Monday to apply for a new debit card, which kind of sucks, but whatever.
So that was my adventure for the day. Other than that, life's been pretty good. I went to Cincinnati with Sarah on Thursday, which was an adventure, like our road trips always are. It's not a road trip until you get lost for half an hour and almost die at least three times. In the same vein, Google Maps is dumb. It told us to turn down a road that apparently didn't exist. -_- As did Mapquest. You'd think between the two of them, someone would have gotten it right.
Yesterday, Sarah and Katherine and I all went over to Kristin's house in Columbus to drink margaritas and wine, go to the pool, and chow on some delicious food as prepared by Mrs. Cazenave. OMG she's such an awesome cook. We had jalapeno and cheddar-stuffed burgers, sweet corn, and some zucchini with parmesan cheese and italian dressing that was AMAZING. And brownies, which speak for themselves. We also watched Old School, which was hilarious.
I think that's all the interesting stuff that happened recently. Well, I applied for a scholarship, but that's not interesting until you find out if you won it or not.
Band camp starts tomorrow! I'm actually pretty excited about it. It's going to be a whole different experience from anything I've done before. My high school marching band was kind of small and not very good, so I'm looking forward to being in a large band with some really good people. Also I'm hoping this will help train me for Phantom Regiment auditions so I don't suck at marching. I REAAAAALLY want in this year.
I guess I never did elaborate on Hawaii; I kind of listed all the important stuff, but here's the rundown:
We were there for a total of 10 days. Three or four of those days, we stayed at a swanky hotel in Honolulu, with an awesome view of Waikiki Beach (you know, the famous one). My sister was at a choral workshop with the Atlanta Young Singers, the Pacific Rim Children's Choir Festival or something along those lines, and we went to their final concert. WOW. It was incredible. I've heard the Atlanta Young Singers perform several times, but I'm always amazed at how good they are. I mean, they're middle schoolers, and they can sing in three, four, five- part harmony, in languages that, not only they don't speak, but that doesn't even use the English alphabet. And it's like, 'no problem!' They nailed every piece. And the singers were just one part. They also brought in groups performing traditional dances and songs and playing traditional instruments from cultures all around the Pacific Rim, even the obscure ones like the Maori or the Samoans. They brought in Taiko drummers from the Japanese Taiko school in Honolulu, they had Chinese lion dancers, Samoan gospel singers, Hawaiian hula dancers, a mariachi band, little Japanese girls dancing traditional dances that were almost too cute to bear looking at, all sorts of crazy stuff that you couldn't see anywhere else. And it was all very well-done. I was extremely impressed.
We went to a luau held by the Polynesian Culture Center, the pet project of Brigham Young University, and that was very nice. They had traditional Hawaiian dishes, including poi, or taro paste, which my mother hated, but I thought had a nice texture. There were more hula dancers, who were really good, some of which danced on canoes in the canoe regatta thing that went by beforehand. Then after the luau, we went to see a kind of Disney-fied hula exhibition, with dancers from the various Pacific islands, the headline of which was the fire-knife dance. It was crazy. This guy spun a stick, burning at both ends, around his body, under his legs, throwing it up in the air, spinning two, and then for the finale, he threw one stick to a guy standing up above him on a balcony, from like 30 feet away! Pretty awesome.
The pineapple in Hawaii was incredible. It was everywhere, of course, and even though it cost about the same as on the mainland, it was so much fresher and sweeter than anything you can get there. We went to the Dole pineapple plantation and took the tour, which was a bit short and not very interesting (I mean, come on, how much can you say about pineapple? You stick the tops in the ground, wait 18 months, and you have pineapple), but the famous Dole pineapple whip at the end was to die for. It was a soft-serve sorbet that tasted like the best pineapple you've ever eaten with the texture of really smooth, creamy ice cream. OMG.
I went surfing, which I was really looking forward to. I managed to get a few good runs in, where I was able to stand up all the way on my board and ride the wave in, but the majority of my attempts I either fell off the board whilst attempting to stand, or else lost my balance once standing and fell off. In any case, I got major board burn on my thighs, major sunburn on the back of my legs, and water up my nose, but I think it was one of the best things about the trip.
We visited Mount Kilauea, which is erupting, BTW. That was pretty cool. We saw lava bursts and gigantic, mile-high smoke plumes coming from the caldera. We went through a lava tube, took a bunch of pictures, bought some kitschy stuff, but mostly ogled at the lava flows hitting the ocean and spewing scalding hot steam up in the air. We were a good quarter-mile away, but it was still impressive. This was on my birthday, which was also cool.
One of my favorite things was going up Mauna Kea. We booked a tour up the mountain with a company that served us dinner (bland), drove us up the mountain (bumpy, long, a bit nauseating from the smell of the boxed dinners), gave us parkas (warm, very necessary in the freezing temperatures at the summit), and took out telescopes to take advantage of the brilliantly clear night sky on the mountain and teach us normal people about the constellations and celestial objects (fascinating). We must have been out there for three hours, and I loved it, because I'm a space nerd. I tried to absorb everything they said, from the locations of various stars in relation to one another, to the names of all the zodiacal constellations. I learned more in that one night than I think I ever have about the constellations. I don't remember a lot of what they said, but there was so much information that what I do remember is a pretty good amount.
Another standout about the trip was the night snorkeling with the manta rays. My God, that was incredible. Those things were HUGE. The biggest one was something like 20 feet across, no joke. The smallest one was about 8 feet across. We went out in about 30-foot water on this boat with some guides who had a little too much Captain in them, which made for a funny trip, but the ray-watching was awesome. The plankton that the mantas feed on is attracted to light, so our guides shined big spotlights around in the water, and the mantas just swarmed. They did these big barrel rolls to get as many plankton as possible in a single mouthful, and they were so big that they would start the roll on the bottom and by the top of the roll, they were a foot underneath you. Of course, we were lying flat on our stomachs looking down, so they were a foot away from your FACE. I got some video which is mostly darkness because the lighting was pretty poor, but I did manage to get some awesome shots. Definitely worth it, and if I hadn't suggested it, my family would never have gone
All in all, the trip to Hawaii was one of the great trips of my lifetime, even though our flight back was delayed for 9-odd hours. I would definitely like to go back some day and soak up some more sun, definitely go scuba diving, which I didn't get to do this trip, maybe go on a boat trip, deep-sea fishing, dine at some more restaurants to try more of the local cuisine. I will definitely remember that trip for the rest of my life, though.
And that's pretty much my life so far. Trumpet is going pretty well. My improv skills are getting better, slowly but steadily, so I should be ready for that jazz band audition, and I just have a few more things to get in order before classes start. Here's hoping for a great year.
A rough rundown of what happened in July:
I worked a bunch.
I played another church gig.
I played the 4th of July parade and met this old trumpet playing dude, who invited me to a weekly jam session held at the musician's union, so...
I went to a jam session and they LOVED me. (How do you figure?)
I quit my job at Dunkin' Donuts.
I took an emergency trip to Bloomington for 3 days and got to see my roomies/best friends again for a little while.
And finally...
I went to Hawaii!
The things I like about Hawaii:
- Ocean breezes.
- The view from our hotel, and then later on, from our condo.
- Snorkeling.
- Taking underwater pictures while snorkeling.
- Snorkeling with manta rays at night.
- Our guides on the manta ray tour being obviously drunk.
- Hot Hawaiian men dancing the hula.
- Surfing! Even though I paid for it with a week's worth of sunburn.
- The beaches, of course.
- The beach boys, of course. (Not the Beach Boys, even though they were pretty good.)
- Sunsets.
- Going to the top of Mauna Kea and seeing the sky clearer than I've ever seen it, even though we were freezing our asses off.
- Seeing a lava flow.
- The open spaces.
- The pineapples!
- The Kona coffee....mmmm.
- Walking on the beach at night and seeing the crazies around spinning in circles.
- The tan. (But not the sunburn.)
- My father going against his nature and being relatively extravagant.
Altogether it was a pretty good trip. I will elaborate later, when I am not jet-lagged and tired.
A bit about my life for the past few weeks;
June 8th, I played a trumpet gig and they loved me!! I got hired by my friend Carter's church, and evidently they've had horrible experiences with trumpet players in the past, so I was a welcome surprise for them. They even applauded me! Which is big, because the Episcopal church is basically like the American branch of the Anglican church, which is VERY ceremonial and formal. Think slightly less pretentious Catholic cathedral service. And they applauded me! Happiness...
Plus I got paid a pretty good sum, which was nice. I'll need the money for gas, clothes, the DCI tickets, and several other things I have in the works. It was a good Sunday.
I worked a little that week, and I picked up my checks yesterday, so now I have MORE money! Yay!
I've discovered that, when they're not screaming and whining and getting into things that they're not supposed to and soiling diapers, I actually like little kids. They are very cute and very funny, and their emotions and thoughts are so simple and straightforward. They approach the world with a completely innocent and trusting curiosity, as if it holds wonders beyond their wildest dreams, and nothing in it could ever cause them harm. Also, they are really affectionate if they like you (which fortunately, they do like me) and they can't be anything other than genuine because they haven't yet learned deceit. Their honesty is refreshing in a world where so many people try to be something other than what they are.
I guess I have more 'mother' in me than I thought...
So that was the past few weeks. Yesterday I got an early birthday present in the form of a waterproof case for my cmera, so I will be taking lots of fish pictures in Hawaii :) Also, I found a new movie to put on my favorites list. It's called "The Legend of 1900" and I thought it was awesome even though I didn't even see the whole thing. It's kind of along the lines of August Rush, but with, in my opinion, a better score. I recommend it.
And now for something completely different. (Well, not really, if you think about it...)
I don't want to be a bitter musician. My greatest, deepest fear is that music will become mundane for me, that I will play so much of the same stuff over and over again over the course of my career that music will lose its magic and become simply an occupation, something that pays the bills. I have heard stories of musicians that grow bored and jaded of what they play, that the music becomes a chore.
Music doesn't deserve that. Music is brilliant, dynamic, fraught with possibility and energy, and I don't want to ever lose sight of that. It still bothers me, though, that it might happen if I'm not careful.
That's why I want to create music. Not in the sense of bringing the notes off the page and into a part of a recognizable whole - I want to write my own melodies, hear my own harmonies, channel my own emotions, have complete freedom in how my music expresses me. Music is condensed emotion, brought into physical reality by someone who knows no better way to express it. I express my thoughts and feelings no better than when I say nothing at all, but let the music speak for me. I want to write music. I want to bring the first sparkle of an idea that appears only in my head into the world, and frame it in harmony and allow it to blossom into variations and modulations and finally spiral down into repose and end as a complete thought, articulate and passionate as any book or painting or poem.
I want to innovate. Music is dynamic, not only when it is played, but when it is heard. Styles change, and what was once new and exciting in music, quickly becomes staid and overdone. We must innovate, constantly finding new ways to express ourselves if we are to keep the music alive. I want to write in order to continue to make the music mean something to listeners old and new. I want to write and play and innovate with reckless abandon, boldly putting out ideas that no one has heard before, no matter how they are received by the audience. If my songs and stories fall on deaf ears, so be it. My music is first and foremost for me.
I guess I'll write music.
Quote for the day (haven't had one in awhile):
"Music expresses that which cannot be said in words and on which it is impossible to keep silent."
I really need to practice more than I am. I keep envisioning myself as this incredible player in the future, but when I put the horn up to my face, I don't hear me playing well enough to feasibly be there in 10 or 15 years. It's frustrating. I know i can work harder and can sound better, but sometimes I just don't have the motivation to put that effort in. I feel like all my friends are outstripping me by miles in terms of how much work I do, and it annoys me. I can do better. I should be able to, but for some reason, I just don't. I guess I'll just have to keep at it.
It's really hot in this room. Oh, Atlanta...
Well, I have to say, I'm hurting.
I've never felt like this before. I've missed things before, I've been melancholy about leaving people and places, saddened by the end of a good thing, cried over something lost that I will never regain. But not like this. I've never felt suffocated, drowning in a sea of uniformity and complacency. I've never felt trapped, like a wild animal in a cramped cage. I've never felt so alone that I wondered if everyone had disappeared off the planet, or if the world I saw through my eyes and heard with my ears and touched and smelled and tasted, was only a product of my imagination and i was really only a brain falling through nothingness, ever onward into eternity.
I miss it every day. I miss my friends, I miss my teachers, I miss having control of my own life and my own affairs and being free to do what I need to the way I wish to do it without being treated like I can't think for myself. I miss the feeling I get when I know I'm being challenged to my limits and I know I can deliver. I miss the triumphs, I miss the failures, I miss the good times, I miss the bad times. I miss the laughs, the tears, the midnight walks, the running from strangers with sledgehammers in the dark. I miss being there with people who KNOW, who really know what it's like, day after day, to love something so much that you'll devote your life to it, that you're willing to endure pain and drudgery and hard times to succeed. I miss the crappy pianos and the cold weather and the potholes in the roads. I miss the drunks in the restaurants and the frat boys playing frisbee on the lawn and the catcallers driving around late at night. I miss the buildings. I miss the people. Most of all though, I miss the music.
It's only been four weeks. I have two more months to sit here, atrophying.
God help me.
- Mood:
lonely
OMG the Phoenix Mars explorer landed successfully!! EEEE!!! I watched the NASA channel as it was touching down and was jumping up and down with the engineers in the mission control room on TV when they got the 'touchdown' signal. Now they're going to be able to see if the ice at the Martian north pole was ever liquid, and see if they can find evidence that life might have once existed on Mars. OMG SPACE <3<3<3
God, watching that made me want to be an astronaut again. I remember, back when I was a young 'un, I was OBSESSED with space travel. I went to space camp twice, and my favorite part was always the simulated shuttle mission. It was AWESOME. They put you in this mock-up shuttle cockpit and you have a manual of all the steps and preparations that you have to go through from about T minus 2 hours or so. The thing was LONG, several hours, but it was SO MUCH FUN. Each of the campers role-plays a different position, either in the cockpit itself (commander (my role ^_^), pilot, mission specialists) or in mission control (hell of a long list of people, but I think I was the communications officer once or something...oh, and there's that mission chief dude) - it's basically as close to a real space mission as a bunch of middle school kids can get. OMG AWESOME.
It's all coming back to me now - we did the moon-gravity simulator thing where you strap into this harness and bounce up and down which was kind of cool, and then the spinny-chair where you're flung around all over to simulate... I dunno, vertigo? That was fun too. We stayed in these awesome futuristic-looking bunks in this huge building and I drew a mission logo for our team, and I got a COLD, which wasn't so amazing, but the rest of the camp made up for that. Oh, and we learned about the orbiter and the different abort points during a mission and about the solar system, and we built a space station out of K'nex or something. That's about all I remember. I don't really remember any of the other kids, except for one of my bunkmates who was really afraid of roaches so we pretended that there were roaches in our room and she freaked out and started hyperventilating and we were afraid she was going to faint but she didn't so it was cool. And we took a picture outside with all the kids from the whole camp and the sun was in our eyes so everyone looks all squinty in the picture. And it was AWESOME!!
Let's see, what other space experiences have I had...
Oh, STT! The Fernbank Science Center had this program for gifted children in the sciences to go for the morning half of each day to the center and take 1 to 2- week introductory courses in most all the scientific fields. I was really looking forward to aeronautics and learning about how planes and space shuttles flew and stuff, but our teacher was kind of bitchy so it ended up not being my favorite. Astronomy was pretty cool, from what I remember of it. My favorite course from that was actually anatomy and physiology, which has nothing to do with space. I guess it was bcause our teacher was so cool. She was a black belt in martial arts and didn't take shit from nobody, and she made us take really good notes and gave us a hell of a lot of material and must have explained it in a really fascinating way, because I remember being really interested in the notes I was taking. That class was super hard, but I think I did pretty well in it. Anyway. Does not have anything to do with space.
More space stuff...
I did a science fair project my eighth grade year on rockets and how different fin shapes and sizes affected the trajectory and height of a rocket launch. It was really fun shooting off all those rockets, and evidently people thought my project was pretty cool because it went to the district level science fair, but I was more interested in shooting off rockets than finding out something useful about science, so it didn't go any farther.
Oh, and then my senior year of high school, I took an astronomy class and basically spent the whole six months or so building this awesome 5-foot telescope from scratch, starting by hand-grinding the 6" mirror. THAT was tedious. Totally worth it, though - now I have this awesome instrument with which to peruse the heavens and further my obsession with space stuff.
I don't know why you needed to know all that, I just thought I'd tell you all about my background in spacey things. Maybe that's why I'm such a spacey person... har har...
But seriously, my first ambition was to become an astronaut. I was determined. Then, over the years, other interests caught my attention. I think after my initial drive to be an astronaut, I turned to writing. I wanted to write fiction for a living. That turned into journalism, and somehow that morphed into wildlife photographer, what with my love of exotic locales and a relatively free-spirited lifestyle. Along with that, I discovered a love for the natural world, which turned me briefly onto wildlife biology and ecology. As my later high school years passed by, I became interested in engineering, and for most of my junior year, that was my career path - that was what I was GOING to be. I wanted to do either aeronautical engineering (a throwback to my early years wanting to be an astronaut) or environmental engineering, or some sort of engineering involving finding new and better forms of energy, or something. Through all this, music was becoming more and more an inescapable aspect of my personality and life. It was the one thing that I really sat down and worked at, that I kept at above all else. Eventually, my love of it became so great that I decided to make a career of it, and here I am today. I have no regrets about any of the decisions I have made thus far. I am happier at IU than I can possibly imagine me being anywhere else. But I sometimes wonder what my life would be like had I followed one of those other roads. What kind of astronaut would I have made? What kind of writer? What kind of ecologist? What kind of engineer? Is this where I will eventually end up? I know I told myself that this is it, this is the decision I have made and this is what I will do with my life, but I wonder if I can really accept that. Do I say that simply because I am too afraid to try something else? Too afraid to change my mind after all I've accomplished, all I've been through? I will follow the path I have chosen for now. But sometimes...
I wonder what the stars would have looked like up close.
...That's all.
......Life is kind of boring right now.
kthxbye
So I tend to have trouble making decisions in life. I am by nature indecisive, which can cause problems. Like not getting stuff done because I'm not sure how to go about it, or not making major life decisions until the very last moment because I don't know what I want to do.
So naturally, about a year and a half ago, I was agonizing over what I wanted to do with my life. College apps were in, and I made the cut for Georgia Tech... AND IU. So what was I to do? Music or engineering? Were those even my only choices? I could do so much, and I was interested in pursuing so many things, that I couldn't decide.
Well, I made the choice to come to IU, namely because I loved making music more than I loved solving engineering problems, but I was still not completely decided about the direction I wanted my life to take. I thought, well if this doesn't work out, I can always switch majors, nothing is ever set in stone.
Well, it's now. I've been here for a year, and have gone through so much in that span of time, and I can now say this;
this is it. This is where my future lies. I will be playing the trumpet and making music as my livelihood. My passion is my life. I've made my decision - I've invested this much time and work in my music, and I'm not about to turn back now. I had to look at myself and ask myself if I would really be happy working a regular job with regular hours and regular pay, if I could fall complacently into that suburban American family mold, if I could give up the glory and passion of this pursuit and take a 'safe' job, one that I could be relatively assured of. And of course, the answer was no. This is what lights a fire underneath me. This instrument, this love, is what defines me and animates me. I couldn't be anything other than a musician because it's ME.
So I'm decided. No more fence-sitting. Now that I know this is what I'm, in a way, MEANT to do, I'm free to devote myself fully and single-mindedly to this pursuit. I can keep my other interests, but this is the goal. This is the one above all else. This will be my life.
Anyway. Enough with all that heavy stuff.
I'm pretty happy with myself because I am successfully integrating a new habit into my routine - running. I've gone running three times a week for the past three or four weeks, so the habit is, if a bit shakily, established. Now I just have to keep the momentum going so that this becomes as natural a habit as, say, brushing my teeth. It'll take awhile until I've integrated it that much, but it's a good start. And the benefit of getting in shape for swimsuit season is also nice :)
I need to contact more churches and beg them to give me their wedding gigs... -_- I think I can get a brass quintet together, which will help my cause. Spent about two hours in the library today collecting titles of wedding music for brass quintet. Most of it, strangely enough, was checked out, but I can find it other places, since it would be good to own a copy rather than make a bunch of Xeroxes from the library copy. Speaking of players, I already have one verbal commitment from a trumpet player to play in a quintet. Now I just need the rest of the people... there's myself, of course, and I know of several other musicians I could ask. I know a player for each of the instruments I need, I just hope they're all in town. Oh well. Here's hoping!
Meh, bedtime. Eartraining final tomorrow. It'll be a breeze, but only if I don't sleep through it.
The past few weeks have been pretty good. I'm gearing up for the end of the year - figuring out my fall schedule, trying to get jobs for summer, etc. etc. Still have to move all my stuff out and ask Kristin's mom if she's going to charge me to store some stuff in the house over the summer. Besides those things, there is the studying that must be done for various finals, namely that calc final...0_0 I think I can get at least a B though, which is what I need to get on it to pass the class with a B. I'm hoping for an A, of course, but I don't know how feasible that is. I also have to meet with a physics advisor tomorrow to figure out what classes I should take next year if I'm going to do a BSOF degree in Physics and Music. So yeah. Lots of stuff to do.
Anyway...
I had a lesson today, which went pretty well. Since it's the end of the year, we got to talking about summer and next year, and eventually what I was playing like at the beginning of the year, and it got me thinking. I've really improved this year. I think I've accomplished more this year than I did all throughout high school (except for maybe my senior year, when I really started to buckle down and work). It makes me wonder... If I had been working this hard ever since I started playing, where would I be? If I had really sought out every opportunity to get better and practiced hard, how good would I be now? Would I have gotten into a conservatory? Would I be winning national competitions and already have my name out as a great player? I suppose it's kind of a moot point now, but it's interesting to speculate. If I improved this fast this year, imagine how well I'd be playing had I known this was what I would be doing with my life.
Of course, I can't change anything now. And I'm happy with what I did accomplish during my previous years of playing. There's nothing I can do about where I've ended up, so I just have to work my ass off with what I have now because it's the only thing I've got. Now that I know where I'm going, I'll do whatever it takes to get there.
Quote for the day:
What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
- Mood:
thoughtful
I've been thinking. So Monday night we had master class with this guy from Germany. First of all, a little background. He's 27. He's been playing principal in one of the best orchestras in Europe for FIVE YEARS. Goddamn, that kind of talent...
Anyway. Most of what he talked about I've heard before, but one thing really stuck with me, and I think it might have the potential to completely change the way I look at life and how I work. He was talking about the discipline it requires to practice correctly all the time, to not give up when you're not getting it right, to perservering through trouble spots. The analogy went like this:
"Imagine four rooms, each connected to another, and they are all filled with trash and mess and the debris from everyday life, and your task is to go into each one and clean them out until they are put right and in order. The first room has a label on the door - it says "Extraordinary Self-Discipline." You must first go into this room and clean it out and put it right before you can enter the other three. This means that you have to have the discipline to practice what needs to be practiced - and not just to hammer away for hours, but to really consciously listen to what you're playing and go over it until it's right. Practice what you're bad at until you're good at it. Once you have cleaned out the room called "Self-Discipline," you can go through the next door. This one leads to a room labelled "Self-Control." Once you are disciplined, you must be able to control the way you play so you play correctly all the time. You must also control exactly what comes out of your horn. You clean out the room called "Self-Control," and can now go through to the third room, labelled "Self-Confidence." Once you have discipline and control, you know the depth and breadth of your skills and can play with confidence, knowing that what comes out of your horn is your best. Now that your technical skills are in order, you must learn to have the confidence to play the emotion in the music, to take risks in performance that will make the music better. Once you have cleared this room, you can enter the final room, which is "Self-Actualization/ Self-Esteem." Now that you have discipline, control, and confidence, you have accomplished what is necessary to play at the best of your abilities, and you are fulfilled. This is where the great players are, this is where you must be to play great."
I don't know what it was, but that imagery really spoke to me. I mean, if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. For instance, a lot of performance anxiety is caused by people thinking that they are not prepared enough to give a good performance. They are worried about their technical proficiency - that one passage they are still shaky on, the high notes, whether they have enough chops to make it through the whole piece. The simple answer is to make sure that you are always prepared. If you practice with tenacity, purpose, and drive, you can't fail. You will be prepared because you are always playing at your best. If you practice this way, you will be confident at your performances, which will lead to self-esteem after a great performance, which will motivate you to continue practicing with discipline, which will perpetuate the cycle - Discipline, Control, Confidence, Esteem.
Wow, that was a lot of stuff. I know, I tend to kind of ramble...
And now onto something completely different...
I've decided that I want to get, like, five different majors. I want a performance degree, but I also want a Music Ed. degree, and a Jazz Studies degree, and I want to do a Physics major, and maybe Business as well... crap. Curse me and my inability to make up my mind.
I've also discovered that I have a big ego. I can't stand the fact that some people are better than me at some things, especially at the one thing I am dedicating my life to. I want to be the BEST FUCKING TRUMPET PLAYER EVER. And it annoys me that maybe I won't be. Maybe I'll be a moderately successful orchestral/jazz/freelance musician, but never be really great so that the whole trumpet world knows my name, I solo with the big orchestras, I wow everyone with my incredible skills. That really bothers me. I have to be the best. Of course, I don't HAVE to be, and I'd probably live a perfectly fulfilling life if I wasn't. It still bothers me, though. Oh well. I guess it's just more incentive to practice.
Alright, I think I'm done for now. See you in June... :) Hopefully not, maybe I'll remember to write sometime soon.
I'm not going to do that anymore - get so wasted that I completely lose control and can't remember what I did the next day, and feel like crap the morning after. It's not worth it. There are better ways to have fun. You can have a few drinks but not get drunk and still have a good time. It was great to hang with my friends and let loose a little, but that was too much.
I don't regret it or anything, because I'm always willing to try something, but now that I know what it was like, I wouldn't do it again. And in a way, it was better that I did it with people I know because they could keep an eye on me.
You know, when I first came to college, I planned on going to as many parties as possible and playing drinking games and getting as wasted as I could a whole bunch. But that seems silly and juvenile to me now, at least right this moment. Everything in moderation, I guess.
Anyway.
Looking forward for orchestra to start. We're not playing great, well-known rep, but I've got some pretty good licks in my part. Also, jazz band is gonna be awesome, as soon as I start really getting into my improv practicing. I really want to nail that solo this next concert.
Calculus is a bitch, I've just realized. It's fun, but it's gonna be a bitch. I had a rude awakening when I got my homework back today and saw how it was graded.. DAMN. I'll have to actually study.
Still waiting on Hoosier Heights to call. I really want a job over there... hopefully they'll have an opening.
My new musical love is jazz. Especially jazz bass. OMG, Jaco Pastorius. And the Brecker Brothers, they're awesome too.
So speaking of all this musical stuff, I've found a musing for the day:
We just recently had auditions for orchestra and band and all that stuff, so everyone's been talking about performance anxiety and how stressful auditioning is and the competition and getting jobs in the real world and stuff. And it just got me to thinking - how did we get to this point? How is it that the love of our lives - the music - got lost in all this competition and stress and agony? We became musicians because we wanted to play MUSIC. We came here to practice our asses off and be taught by the best so that we could do that which we LOVE. Everyone wants to play like the best players in the business and win the top jobs and get their licks down better than anyone else, and the most integral part of our art gets lost in all that. Yeah, that's what it is - ART. The word itself means a form of expression, dealing with emotion and the feelings and experiences we have from the life we lead. That's what this all means; that's what the greatest players in the business have discovered, that music is not a contest, it's not an obstacle to be overcome. It's emotion, and the way you make it has to be uniquely yours. Otherwise, you're just one in a crowd, indistinguishable from the rest. Sure, you need to have technical skills to be able to play the most virtuosic pieces, but that's not the POINT. You must remember that your technical strengths are only the means to an end. And it's not enough to have dynamics, articulation, style, all down pat. There has to be something that comes from deep within you, that makes the notes you play and the melodies and harmonies you create come alive.
That brings me to another point - performance anxiety. Everyone gets nervous before an audition or performance, because they're afraid of making mistakes, of sounding bad, of doing something wrong. That's not the point of an audition or performance. The point is to make music to the best of your abilities. If they like it, fine. If they don't, screw them. It's YOUR ART. Play it like you mean it to be played. Don't be afraid that your skills aren't enough - they are. Trust that whatever it is that you're about to play is going to wow them and stun them with its beauty and pure emotion.
- Mood: contemplative
I get really BORED.
I mean, come on, it's been a day and a half, and already I'm lounging around the house desperately searching for things to do. I mean, sure there's always practicing... -_-. I think I'm going to search around for a jazz club or something that does an open mic improv night, just to go and see what I can do. And also work my ass off on my excerpts and Phantom stuff. Still.
BORED.
I haven't seen my friends yet, which is probably part of the problem. A lot of them are still in school... :( maybe things will pick up once they finish. I hope.
Musing for the day.
What is it that makes us really happy? Is it wealth? Status? Power? Relaxation? Or is it something more intangible?
The prevailing idea (at least in this country) is that happiness is a GOAL, something that can be quantified and measured and assigned a number so that each of us can struggle to pursue it, working ceaselessly towards a measurable goal. Happiness, however, has no unit. It cannot be measured on a scale or counted and stacked into piles. So, in our struggle to quantify happiness, we pair it (ultimately incorrectly) with wealth. Happiness is directly proportional to your wealth. Hard times = unhappy times. You don't just need financial stability to be happy - you need financial ABUNDANCE, financial excessiveness. "If I had a million dollars, I would be happy," is the mantra of the vast majority of our population. If we all had more STUFF, then we would be happy. But then, by definition, we would never have ENOUGH stuff. There would always be more to gain, more to hoard. And if enough = happy, and we never have enough, then we can never be happy. And that is the way it seems to end up, so much of the time. We have the highest per capita salary of any nation on Earth. We use the greatest amount of resources (an amount vastly and embarassingly disproportionate to the size of our population). We have the most robust economy of any nation on Earth. And yet, we don't seem to be any happier than anyone else. In fact, our quality of life is ranked 14th in the world. If wealth = happiness, and we are the wealthiest nation on earth, shouldn't we also be the happiest?
I guess, then, that happiness isn't wealth. Nor is it notoriety, as exemplified by the pathetic lives of some of the most high profile celebrities in this country. Nor is it power - those in power have, thoughout history, led usually notoriously unhappy lives.
But then what is happiness? We can't measure it, or quantify it, or label it. How do we know if we've achieved it? I think the answer is this - you don't ACHIEVE happiness. You LIVE it. It's a habit, like brushing your teeth. If your mindset is happiness, then you're there. You've managed, with the smallest effort on your part, something that people have been striving for (and failing to get) for, well, forever, probably, and all that time it had been right under their noses. Happiness is a state of mind, a feeling of contentment for your current situation, whatever it might be. Happiness is not the product of a logical process - it is an EMOTION, and therein lies its complexity. The reason we cannot achieve it is because it is not a REWARD, it's a sense of equilibrium and comfort. There are little things that make you happy, and big things. Every person's happiness is different, and it crops up at different and random times. So here is what you must do to be happy; find the joy in everyday life. Find out what makes you really happy, and do it. Do it a lot. Don't focus on gain as your goal, as your measure of happiness - you will only end up unfulfilled. Make your process of gain your happiness. Take pride in your work, and do good work, and you will be happy. And if your work does not make you happy, change it, or find an outlet, something that does. You deserve to be happy, RIGHT NOW. Not in five years. Not once things have settled down. Not someday off in the future, when your labors and toils and sweat over all these years will finally, suddenly, spring to fruition. Right now. Your life will not collapse if you stop seeking your happiness for one moment, and instead LIVE it. Go out and live your dreams, live your happiness. Whether you live in a three-story mansion with 8 acres of property and your own horse stable, in a split-level in the suburbs with a two-car garage, a dinky apartment in the inner city, a hut in the mountains virtually cut off from civilization, or any other place, you can be happy right where you are, right now. You don't necessarily have to be happy WITH where you are - not by any means - but in your pursuit of gain, do not forget that the process, not the end result, is what should make you happy. You only get this life, and then it's over. You're gone. You might as well make the best of the time you have - love your friends and your family, take pride and joy in your work, celebrate like there's no tomorrow, love the world you live in. It's the only way to be happy - but if you live it, you've got it made for the rest of your life.
Quote for the day:
What benefit will it be to you if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? - Mark 8:36 (yes, it's from the Bible, and yes, it's taken slightly out of context, but that doesn't make it any less relevant to my point!)
- Mood:
bored
Tomorrow I leave this awesome, wonderful place to go back to another awesome, wonderful place - I leave these awesome, wonderful friends to go see some other awesome, wonderful friends - I guess the world is just an awesome and wonderful place to be! If you're me, at least. It's so exciting. My old friends, whom I haven't seen in months... and of course my family, but that's kind of a given. They're awesome and wonderful, too.
OMG, I have to tell you something wonderful that happened to me yesterday. I was playing routine on my C trumpet, doing lip slurs/flexibility exercises, and I just couldn't get the concert D out. It was really annoying. I could feel it wanting to come out, but it just wouldn't. So I took a break and decided to break out the B-flat horn. After about ten minutes break, I went back to the B-flat and did some lip slurs, and that concert D came out just as clear as day. It was beautiful. I was like the happiest person on Earth at that moment. It was beautiful. I already said that. Oh well.
And then, to make things even better, I was practicing the Pines of Rome orchestral excerpt (and I was really shedding it, because I was annoyed with not being able to get the intervals correctly), and Scott comes into my room to tell me that I sounded really good, and that I was making him feel bad for not practicing! I mean, not that it really means that much, but it made me feel really good about my playing right then. :D
In other news, Kristin Cazenave is a BEAST. We went to see her performance this weekend, in front of the Columbus Philharmonic, and she killed it. It was so clean, and clear, and pretty damn close to perfect. Damn I wish I could play the piccolo that well. Hell, I wish I could play the trumpet that well PERIOD. Rockin', I'm telling you. Rockin'.
No musing today. I'm tired. Early morning tomorrow, got to catch the airport shuttle to go HOME!! :D :D :D
- Mood:
excited
It's not that I sound bad or anything, it's just not clean. I can do better.
Anyway. Finals on Monday. I actually studied French last night. Crazy, I know. And I absolutely BEASTED at theory trivia today. Oh, it was awesome.
And now the musing.
Sometimes it's interesting how much we care what other people think of us. We spend the majority of our lives trying to look like, act like, and be like everyone else. Our lives race by as we hide in a corner, terrified that someone might pull us out into the light and say, "look - this one's different!" We trip over ourselves trying to be polite and considerate and to know how to say the right things at exactly the right time, all the time, every day. We paste a smile on our face, a mask that we wear to face the world, afraid to show it the ugly uniqueness underneath. Gossip destroys us. Not being accepted in the clique eats away at our self-esteem. We obsess over the fact that we don't know how we look through others' eyes. The mere thought that someone, somewhere, could be thinking something bad about us, right now, just tears our hearts out.
Why?
I don't really know. If you think about it, it's really not necessary at all to have people like you. It should never be our goal in life to be socially acceptable. You get no return from all the effort you invest in achieving that goal, and you can never really be sure if you've reached it. If you accrue mountains of "friends" just because you are afraid of being lonely, and then are stabbed in the back, stretched out to the limit being polite and keeping in touch with everyone, burdened by all their emotional problems, and racked with guilt when you make a social mistake, then perhaps loneliness is a more desirable alternative.
The friend that is worth having is the one that takes you as you are, untainted by society's expectations. I choose those friends that I don't have to wear a face for, the ones that judge me not on what I look like, or my social reputation, but rather on me, as a person. My convictions. My passions. My quirks even, be that as it may. I get along with most everyone else, but keep them at a comfortable, polite, distance.
I am, of course, as guilty as anyone else of worrying too much about others' opinions. I've caught myself obsessing and worrying and various other degrees of discontent with my social situation. I've wished I was more comfortable making small talk, that I was more good-looking, that I was better at expressing empathy, sympathy, happiness, anger, etc. And I realized something. IT DOESN'T MATTER. I have nothing to gain from being in the "in" crowd. And if I spend my energies trying to get there, I ignore the really important things in life - my real friends, my playing, my own happiness. So I will continue to be socially awkward, slightly shy, and not model material - and I'll still be happy.
Quote for the day:
"You never know just how you look through other people's eyes." - Cake (...I think. You know, it's from that song...?)
But anyway. Very exciting.
Oh yeah, and I got back today and went to practice, and realized that I sound like crap! I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I played for about 9 hours straight, mostly at fff, on Saturday, and then another three hours of the same yesterday... nah. I'm not complaining or anything, it was awesome, but I am kind of freaking out because I really need to be able to play well right now, what with the concerts and lesson and all.
Meh.
No musing now. Maybe later. Masterclass. Peace out.
I looked at a house with Kristin and Sarah today as well. It was very nice, but rent is $500 a month. This implies me getting a job. I mean, I suppose I'd have to get one at some point anyway... but still. Maybe I can get a job at Hoosier Heights (the local climbing gym), like I had down in Atlanta. That would be kick-ass.
It's kind of odd to think about having to work to make a living. I mean, obviously I knew it would have to happen at some point, but I've never had to work to make sure I could eat, or have electricity, or whatnot. The parents always took care of that. I did have a job back in high school, but it wasn't regular and the money I earned I used just as extra spending money. So it's like a rite of passage, in a way. Paying for my own rent. Depending on no one but myself for my own well-being. I like it.
Quote of the day:
The greatest joy in life is working hard at work worth doing.
- Mood: thoughtful
Sometimes, though, we are afraid of doing something for the first time. It is unfamiliar territory. We don't know what to expect. So we sometimes keep ourselves away from many amazing experiences because we don't want to do it for the first time. Yes, it would be wonderful if we could all have been doing everything since birth, but it doesn't quite work that way.
I say, go out and embrace those first moments. Do not be afraid of doing badly, or failing. Even bad experiences enrich your life and add to your wisdom. Be present in those first moments, too; remember them, because they are precious.
This is the first day of the rest of your life. A new day, a new opportunity to achieve, to succeed, to be happy. Reach out and take it - let nothing stand in your way.
Quote for the day:
Carpe diem. (of course.)
- Location:the dorm
- Mood:
happy - Music:The Hary Janos Suite
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