It is Tuesday, and I have had two days of all of my classes. I'm pretty sure they are all going to be great.
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I begrudgingly wake up at 7 to get to Theory by 8, but we're covering a lot of cool material and it seems to me that the professor knows what he's doing this time around. Then I have Physics of Sound at 10, which might live up to how cool it sounds, but I can't really tell yet. I'm excited for the knowledge, but not excited for the lab. And after lunch I go to Singers II, which should great, par for the course.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, I wake up in the same state of mind at the same time to get to Piano at 8, which should be a breeze. The teacher is really sweet and she manages class time well but I can progress faster than she can teach the whole class. Then I have Aural Skills, which will probably also be easy and with a cool professor, and after that is my Ethno class, Music Cultures of the World. Not only is the professor one of my favorite professors in 3 semesters of school, but we're covering a lot of stuff that I already understand... throat singing, Ewe people and African music, Gamelan... should be excellent.
Mondays and Wednesdays after Singers I go straight to Percussion Ensemble for an hour, then take some equipment upstairs to Brass Band for two hours, then bring it back and hang out with Jose Aponte in Brazilian Ensemble. It'll be pretty stressful having rehearsal from 12 to 5 two days a week, but it's soooo much better than a desk job.
Wednesdays I have South Indian Ensemble, and I would tell you how that is but it hasn't met yet. So more on that... Thursday? Remember, Mondays and Wednesdays are pretty busy.
I have one lesson on Friday afternoon, and the other one hasn't been scheduled yet. Looks like lots of class time, but hopefully a lot of time to do homework, practice, transcribe, jam, and maybe a little down time just for sanity's sake.
If anyone knows a good marimba solo, I need one for lessons. I'm pretty picky when it comes to a good mallet solo, but I'm always up to listen to new material.
Hope you're having a good semester/life
M
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
8/26
Today I learned to never trust a landlord.
If you have seen my house (or, just trust me on this), you would know that what we were paying yesterday was still too much. But now we have to pay utilities... well, in someone else's mind, we were always going to, but no one told us. So now this situation is a huge rip-off.
I have never personally hated on something on this blog before, and this is an excellent opportunity to do so, but there may be consequences involved that I don't want to add on to this mess I already have. Let me just say that so far, this whole leasing experience has been awful, and if it wouldn't look terrible on my credit score, I would probably back out; I'm paying way too much for a little room, air conditioning (maybe?), a broken water heater, leaky faucets, beat up walls and old appliances.
If you're not in my situation, here are some things you should do before leasing:
1. Read your lease.
2. Read it again. You skipped it, right?
3. If your agent seems shady, uninformed, or unavailable, find someone else.
4. Make sure you know what you're responsible for before you become responsible for it.
5. Walk-through your property with your agent to see if anything isn't how it should be before you can't contact him.
6. Read the lease again. Make sure you have a copy on you.
Not musical information, but still very necessary.
M
If you have seen my house (or, just trust me on this), you would know that what we were paying yesterday was still too much. But now we have to pay utilities... well, in someone else's mind, we were always going to, but no one told us. So now this situation is a huge rip-off.
I have never personally hated on something on this blog before, and this is an excellent opportunity to do so, but there may be consequences involved that I don't want to add on to this mess I already have. Let me just say that so far, this whole leasing experience has been awful, and if it wouldn't look terrible on my credit score, I would probably back out; I'm paying way too much for a little room, air conditioning (maybe?), a broken water heater, leaky faucets, beat up walls and old appliances.
If you're not in my situation, here are some things you should do before leasing:
1. Read your lease.
2. Read it again. You skipped it, right?
3. If your agent seems shady, uninformed, or unavailable, find someone else.
4. Make sure you know what you're responsible for before you become responsible for it.
5. Walk-through your property with your agent to see if anything isn't how it should be before you can't contact him.
6. Read the lease again. Make sure you have a copy on you.
Not musical information, but still very necessary.
M
Sunday, August 14, 2011
8/14 - New Semester
Hey everyone, welcome back!
I heard from my mother that my Granddad Andy really missed reading this when I left for Blue Knights last semester, so this post (and all of the others, really) are dedicated to him.
This summer was probably one of the best things that has happened in all of my 18 years of my life so far, and the experience of DCI and the Blue Knights organization will probably turn out to be one of the best and most influential experiences of my entire life. I would just like to start with that.
It did seem a little tedious in the beginning. All days seemed like they took forever... I had to drive to and from rehearsal for weeks at a time, I learned my part pretty quickly and then spent a lot of time sitting around while the keyboards cleaned, and I probably had a different attitude then than I did now. Because I should have known that it was only going to get worse.
Tour started and it was a little rough at first. Food truck grub was decent at best in the beginning, I didn't get much sleep and rehearsal in the heat was awful. But, fortunately, I got lucky and adapted pretty quickly. Eventually, I was pretty content with peanut butter and jelly every once in a while, I got up as soon as the drum majors woke us up, and I realized that my job wasn't nearly as hard as carrying 5th bass or a tuba.
We performed at some pretty awesome places, including the Alamodome, the Georgia Dome, the Stanford Cardinal Stadium, Olympic Stadium in Salt Lake City, Mile High and Lucas Oil, and the only thing cooler than playing in the stadium was to see all of the people fill them up, and realizing that all of those people were there to support us, and to see how awesome we were. I was never nervous for a performance, and I never felt like I should have been.
Let's see. My book was pretty hard, I had a lot of fun. I don't know if any other corps would write a book like our Pit Instructor, Dan, would. And I know for a fact that I won't ever flourish in a Scottish Pipe Band that can shake a stick at our drumline. As an ensemble, we were something special, and it will only get better next year.
This activity prepared me for my real life in a lot more ways than I expected coming into it. I knew I would come out a better player, sure. But as a result of getting up on time everyday, I'll probably get up on time for all of my 8 am's (ugh). As a result of eating whatever I was given, I'll feel a little better about not eating Mom and Dad's home cooking everyday. And as a result of being around the same people everyday, I absorbed some of their best qualities and hopefully I've become a better person.
If I have the opportunity to come back next year and play for the Blue Knights, I most certainly will. The only looming issue is a financial one, and it will probably bug me until after all of the camps. As much as I love having money, I always, always feel terrible asking for it, especially if it's unlikely that it won't be repaid.
And that's what I did this summer in my world of music. Sure, I guess I worked on orchestra excerpts for like two hours and listened to crappy pop music, but the real story was drum corps, and it was the bomb.
Granddad, this semester, I'm playing in South Indian Ensemble, hanging out with a bunch of people that know what they're talking about and have a lot of cool stories and ideas. And I promise I'll tell you all about everything that I can remember.
M
I heard from my mother that my Granddad Andy really missed reading this when I left for Blue Knights last semester, so this post (and all of the others, really) are dedicated to him.
This summer was probably one of the best things that has happened in all of my 18 years of my life so far, and the experience of DCI and the Blue Knights organization will probably turn out to be one of the best and most influential experiences of my entire life. I would just like to start with that.
It did seem a little tedious in the beginning. All days seemed like they took forever... I had to drive to and from rehearsal for weeks at a time, I learned my part pretty quickly and then spent a lot of time sitting around while the keyboards cleaned, and I probably had a different attitude then than I did now. Because I should have known that it was only going to get worse.
Tour started and it was a little rough at first. Food truck grub was decent at best in the beginning, I didn't get much sleep and rehearsal in the heat was awful. But, fortunately, I got lucky and adapted pretty quickly. Eventually, I was pretty content with peanut butter and jelly every once in a while, I got up as soon as the drum majors woke us up, and I realized that my job wasn't nearly as hard as carrying 5th bass or a tuba.
We performed at some pretty awesome places, including the Alamodome, the Georgia Dome, the Stanford Cardinal Stadium, Olympic Stadium in Salt Lake City, Mile High and Lucas Oil, and the only thing cooler than playing in the stadium was to see all of the people fill them up, and realizing that all of those people were there to support us, and to see how awesome we were. I was never nervous for a performance, and I never felt like I should have been.
Let's see. My book was pretty hard, I had a lot of fun. I don't know if any other corps would write a book like our Pit Instructor, Dan, would. And I know for a fact that I won't ever flourish in a Scottish Pipe Band that can shake a stick at our drumline. As an ensemble, we were something special, and it will only get better next year.
This activity prepared me for my real life in a lot more ways than I expected coming into it. I knew I would come out a better player, sure. But as a result of getting up on time everyday, I'll probably get up on time for all of my 8 am's (ugh). As a result of eating whatever I was given, I'll feel a little better about not eating Mom and Dad's home cooking everyday. And as a result of being around the same people everyday, I absorbed some of their best qualities and hopefully I've become a better person.
If I have the opportunity to come back next year and play for the Blue Knights, I most certainly will. The only looming issue is a financial one, and it will probably bug me until after all of the camps. As much as I love having money, I always, always feel terrible asking for it, especially if it's unlikely that it won't be repaid.
And that's what I did this summer in my world of music. Sure, I guess I worked on orchestra excerpts for like two hours and listened to crappy pop music, but the real story was drum corps, and it was the bomb.
Granddad, this semester, I'm playing in South Indian Ensemble, hanging out with a bunch of people that know what they're talking about and have a lot of cool stories and ideas. And I promise I'll tell you all about everything that I can remember.
M
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