Isn't that lovely? I found it on a fashion website, of all places, but when I saw it was a Casals quote I had to post it to this blog.
Practicing today was 13 minutes of melodies, 11 of La Montaine, 8 of C.P.E. Bach and 13 of Sancan's Sonatine, with which I am completely in love. It's so fun to play! My accompanist is a little worried about notes, but I feel like my practicing on it so far has been quite productive, actually.
I made my recording for the CFC Solo Artist competition today. It was remarkably frustrating; I had to do eight takes of the C.P.E. Bach Allegro to get a presentable recording, but actually I think I'm happy with how it came out. But with each take, my hands and chin kept getting sweatier and sweatier. Eventually I had to let my mind wander a little bit while I played, just so I wouldn't psych myself out, and I found that actually helped a lot. In my first-year music seminar, the professor who taught the course (this was "Mind and Body Wellness for Musicians", just to complete the irony of what I'm about to relate) told us that any time we caught our minds wandering, we should stop playing and start over. Can you imagine? That's anything but a "wellness"-oriented attitude in my opinion.
Anyway, people think I'm weird for this, but I can't stand recorded auditions; I think there's too much pressure there. The judges (who are super faceless in this context) expect perfection, since you theoretically have an infinite number of chances to get it just right. Of course, some of us are flighty and have an extraordinarily finite (like, say eight) number of chances to get it right before we want to throw a total fit (there was some jumping up and down and swearing today; I think I scared the recording technician). Likewise, I'd rather have a face-to-face live audition rather than a screened audition. I only did one of those; it was at Interlochen when I was fourteen and it freaked me the fuck out. I really think face-to-face live is the best for everyone: I see the just-one-chance aspect as less pressure, and I also like to be able to make an impression by being punctual, smiling, and dressing appropriately (but oh-so-fiercely).
So, we're starting to study jazz in 20th-Century Musical Literature. The professor is very fidgety about it. When I write this blog and discuss popular music (well-executed pop music hugely emotionally and musically important to me), I often catch myself wanting to call it "secular music". Freudian slip, much? Anyway, it's an exciting topic for me, especially the blues--Dylan lover that I am. In that class I often find myself squirming around and desperately wanting to pipe up with my own opinions about all that stuff. That's what happens when you read the textbook for fun a year ago.
"At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the impulse to pit classical music against pop culture no longer makes intellectual or emotional sense. Young composers have grown up with pop music ringing in their ears, and they can make use of it or ignore it as the occasion demands. They are seeking middle ground between the life of the mind and the noise of the street. Likewise, some of the liveliest reactions to twentieth-century and contemporary classical music have come from the pop arena, roughly defined. The microtonal tunings of Sonic Youth, the opulent harmonic designs of Radiohead, the fractured, fasth-shifting time signatures of math rock and intelligent dance music, the elegiac orchestral arrangements that underpin songs by Sufjan Stevens and Joanna Newsom: all these carry on the long-running conversation between classical and popular traditions."
-Alex Ross, epilogue to The Rest Is Noise
...And I just got a great idea for a next post, but you, my two or three faithful readers, will just have to be surprised. I might be scarce this weekend, as I feel I need a break from campus and the boyfriend has offered to whisk me away to his family's house in New Carlisle, IN. Excited for a weekend of no parties or cable TV (I really am a fun person)!
I've decided to add a "what I'm listening to" tag at the end of my entries, just because I want to show off how well-rounded I am :-)
Right now, it's "Slow With Horns/Run For Your Life" by Dan Deacon, off his relatively recent album, Bromst. The dashing composer is pictured below.
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