This blog post is going to be pretty random. I don't really have any school issues to bitch about, because I've been on spring break, and just started up this week. It was only a week-long break--hardly long enough to recover from the hell that was last quarter. I've just learned that I won't have any research papers to write this term, unless I have to write one for my conducting class, which I doubt. I'm taking Baroque music, which involves preparing two presentations: one on Handel's Messiah, and one on Bach's Goldberg Variations. I already know a little something about the variations, so that should be fairly easy. I also get to be in orchestra this quarter, because the principal player has tendonitis. It's been years since I've played in a student orchestra--hopefully I won't suck too badly. You're a little more exposed as a flute player in orchestra--I'll be playing first so I'll get all the hard solos. I guess I have to practice this quarter! I also just found out I'll be playing in a Leone Buyse masterclass at the end of April, so I really can't slack off. I've always wanted to play in a masterclass, but it might be kind of scary. I hope she's kind.
Anyway, I've been having a sort of dilemma with the flute, like I always have. What am I doing? Do I really like it? I've realized lately that one doesn't have to stick with the instrument they started in fifth grade, and that sometimes people outgrow their instruments. It's not that I don't like it--I just feel indifferent to it sometimes. Is this bad? I'm really not a big fan of flute literature--most of it's very fluffy and girly. There are no great Beethoven or Mozart or Brahms sonatas in the flute literature, so we miss out on all the good, juicy stuff. I don't even know if I like practicing it. Trying to control the breath and stay in tune while energizing the abdominal muscles and trying to stay relaxed everywhere else is like trying to spin plates with your hands and juggle with your feet. And do people care about the flute? I mean, really? Maybe in church, and maybe in an intimate chamber setting. But will your average 20-40 something go out of their way to pay for a ticket to a flute recital? And in jazz--no one takes you seriously unless you also double on sax. I'm trying to decide how far I want to go with this instrument. Am I happy being a church-playing amateur, or do I want more? All these issues spin around my head as I try to practice, which makes for very unproductive practice sessions. But the other dilemma is this: do I start playing another instrument, one that I might enjoy more, but which could take years to get to a decent level of playing? I don't know, but for this quarter I've got to focus on flute.
Other unrelated things: I found out a couple weeks ago (and didn't remember until now) that Chad of the folk-singing duo Chad and Jeremy, lives in Spokane and buys furniture from this store in Spokane where a friend of mine works. And apparently some other folk guy lives here too, one from the New Christy Minstrels, or something. I can't remember. Isn't that great? Spokane is really weird and random that way. It is getting more cosmopolitan though. We're gradually getting better, fancier restaurants, and a ton of posh condos are going up downtown. I'm hoping it'll turn into a Portland jr. within the next ten years, although who knows if we'll stick it out that long? I really like it here, especially the weather, which is so vanillla, that I never have to get kidney stones worrying about severe weather again. I just really really miss going to art museums, having good Chinese and Mexican food (seriously, there is none to be found here), coffeeshops that stay open past six, good second hand stores (either you have Ann Taylor or Goodwill--there is no inbetween, like Ragstock or Buffalo Exchange), good record stores, and never-ending opportunities in the fields of folk-music, puppetry, modern dance, the Alexander Technique, etc (I'm thinking of Cedar Cultural Center, Zenon dance company, Heart of the Beast, Tapestry folk-dance center, and of a woman I'd like to take Alexander Tech. lessons from in the cities. There are none here). So, grrr. I'll be okay for now.
Books: I did get to read something for fun over spring break. Gintastic gives great book reviews, so I decided to read Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. I really enjoyed it, except I kind of got lost in all the Classics and English Literature speak. Don't get me wrong, I love that stuff, but it all gets so heady and dense that I get lost and my brain glazes over at the mention of books and authors I've never read or studied. It was like A.S. Byatt for high school students. Very interesting, but hard to read at times. I was also kind of shocked? surprised? but the ending, which breaks into this weird science fiction/fantasy thing for the last thirty pages or so. I get that it's based on this old Scottish ballade, but the rest of the book was completely based in reality. I was kind of thrown off by that. Call me a philistine if you will, but sometimes I just need to read trash to rest my brain. Maybe I should balance it out with a terrible harlequin romance?
Other things: currently obsessed with June Carter Cash (and the Carter family in general), percussion ensemble and the marimba (is it too late for me to be a marimbist?), free-writing shitty short stories in coffee shops (really really shitty, but fun nonetheless), old homemaking books from my school's library, and watching Rick Steve's Europe on PBS. He's so dorky that you can't help but love him. It also gives me ideas of places I'd like to visit: Toledo, Greece and Turkey, Copenhagen....
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