Quick Correction

It was brought to my attention that the concert (Reconciled: Revisited) on Sunday, May 18th is at 7pm, not 7:30pm.

Frustrations and Musical Matrices

Working this weekend tired me out. I can definitely tell is is spring. I don't want to do anything and when I do something, I feel tired and like I don't want to to anything else. Maybe its just because its becoming the end of the year very quickly and I'm seeing that some of my friends are already done with school and I want to be also. I'm just having a hard time focusing on anything besides horn and theory. I'm getting really bored and ticked off in Wind Symphony too. I was ready to perform the music about a month ago and people make so many stupid mistakes. I mean you really have to try hard to play 40 cents sharp and miss accidentals all the time. Thalia is getting better. The music is finally getting to a somewhat acceptable form (at least Hanson isn't yelling at the orchestra anymore) and the sub for principal horn was here last week and he's really good. I like playing with him. Brass Choir is basically done. We're playing 2 pieces for the concert Friday. The duet I'm playing with Kirstin is going really well. I'm excited to play it on Thursday. I'm starting to get a little nervous about En Foret. My practice sessions have been really good recently, but I still haven't played with Krysta. I think I'm going to go see I Puritani at Seattle Opera Wednesday night. I need an excuse to escape from all this chaos.

Theory was really good today. Andrew, Kirstin and I all totally understood what Dr Newby was talking about and we were rocking it. We analyzed this Bartok duet in class and we had it figured out in like 5 minutes and we spent awhile during class ripping it apart and looking at all the different pieces. It was really good. Then we entered the MATRIX. We learned about serialism which is 12 tone music. I don't have time to explain it or the complete mental capacity to do so. Basically you have all 12 semitones and you can't repeat one of them until all 12 have been stated. The order those 12 tones are played is called a Tone Row. The matrix is the 12 transpositions of those intervals (144 numbers). Confusing, huh? We rocked it. And I got an A on that Debussy Prelude we turned in (the Cathedral one). Sweet.

I think I smell a rant. So we had to take this English Placement test first quarter freshman year and I scored 1 point too low from testing out of having to take a class. So now I had to fight to not take it next quarter (which I can't because of how many credits I already have). I got the hold taken off my registration for tomorrow (Fall Quarter), but now I'm going to try and see if I can get out of taking this class altogether. I think its stupid that I have to take it because I get A's on basically everything and basically all the papers I've written in 2 years. I guess I will just have to see what happens. Some of SPU's policies are stupid and this is definitely one of them.

Here's the upcoming things I'm playing:
May 15 – 1:00pm: Duet with Kirstin (Practicum), Bach Theatre
May 16 – 7:30pm: Wind Symphony, First Free Methodist Church
May 18 – 7:30pm: Reconciled (Wind Symphony/Gospel Choir), First Free
May 22 – 1:00pm: Solo (Practicum), First Free Methodist Church
May 29 – 7:30pm: Thalia Symphony Orchestra, First Free, ($15, $10 students)


Oh and check out Battles. Those guys are crazy. Their music is awesome.

Catching Up

Greetings one and all from the pit of SPU. Things have been busy as usual. Carmen went very well. Those were two long days of playing. The shows were 3 hours in length (which included a 20 minute intermission). I met several horn players and made connections in 4 orchestras in the area. And had fun while doing it. The drawback though was the fact that all the extra time for rehearsals and the shows, plus squeezing work in around the shows completely exhausted me. Unfortunately the next week consisted of a German and Theory mid-term. Those 2 weeks kicked my butt. The Brass Choir concert on Tuesday went very well. In addition to playing in the ensemble, I played 2 movements of an Alec Wilder horn sonata. I also was honored with the opportunity to premiere one of my compositions, a horn trio. I have the recording on my MySpace music page. Let me know what you think. I would appreciate any thoughts.

For now I am preparing an Otto Nicolai duet with Kirstin for Practicum on Thursday. The piece is early 19th century and light sounding, but it is about 7 minutes long and is quite tiring. Learning a piece like this has been very useful and has been a huge help with ensemble playing. Friday, May 16 the SPU Wind Symphony is playing our Spring concert at 7:30pm at First Free Methodist Church. May 18th we bring back Reconciled, this time at First Free.

The past few days have been nice and have been a chance to relax of sorts. Thursday, Kirstin and I went downtown and picked up tickets for More Music at the Moore. We also saw the movie 21. It was pretty good. Definitely better than I expected. Friday night, Andrew, Kirstin and I went to More Music at the Moore. Great show. DBR is a musical genius. This show was completely acoustic. It amazes me the way that a concept like that can be carried out to such a high degree of musicianship and entertainment.

I'm closing at work the next two nights. I had a lesson this morning working on the duet. It went really well and Rodger had some great insights, as always. Now I am relaxing before I have to go to work, watching one of my favorite movies, Die Hard, with Andrew (he's never seen it!).

More to come later...