I've been inactive for quite a while. Sometimes parts of my life get stale, and so I don't do them for a little bit. Then it's usually refreshing to pick it back up. That's how I am with composing, and being proactive (ha.) and singing sometimes. Not that I don't enjoy them, it's just that sometimes they're overwhelming or I get distracted.
Now, I feel like I actually have something I could talk about. My life is a new kind of interesting, I guess.
This summer I marched with the Santa Clara Vanguard. It was the best summer I've ever had. Maybe I'll make a post about it. I'm back at UNT for classes, and I'm looking forward to them.
Today was the first day of school. I had one real person class: Jazz History. It sounds like it's going to be really fun; the professor's a nice guy, it's over a subject I really enjoy, and there isn't a whole of busy work, or a textbook. Hopefully, I'll just listen to a bunch of jazz while reading about jazz. Swingin.
I had my last auditions today, out of a pretty busy audition week, to say the least. Today I auditioned for which Concert Band I'll be in (hooray!) and which vocal jazz group I'll be in. I thought they both went significantly better than my other auditions, and I'll hear back about what I made really soon.
The other auditions were kind of a mess though. My first audition was the first round of concert band auditions. I hadn't played my marimba solo for three months, and I was nervous because I knew I didn't know it like I should. Instead of pumping myself up to see if maybe instinct would kick in and I would remember it, I got shaky and thought too much and couldn't remember... any of it. I just stopped after the first long phrase of the piece, because I knew it certainly wasn't going to get any better. Then I played the snare drum piece pretty well and sight-read in the wrong key.
Not even an hour after that was my jazz lab band audition. I kind of knew I wasn't as prepared as possible for it, since I couldn't practice at all this summer, but I had worked for a week or so, and I felt more confident than previous lab band auditions. I was the first auditionee, and I sat down and read the first chart pretty well, with a little logistical error, no problem. The second chart was the kicker, though, a fast samba, maybe not fast for some people, but too fast for me. I couldn't solo in the solo breaks, couldn't catch the hits in time, and was generally a mess. The third chart wasn't so bad, but I was still dealing with how bad the chart before it was.
Yesterday I had my orchestra audition. I woke up at eight, got to school at nine, had a little meeting, and waited. I sat and read through music, sang the excerpts in my head, went on a walk, got lunch, tried to take my mind off of the audition, and did everything I could do, really, before I auditioned. And even then, I still had extra time on my hands. My time finally came around five hours after I arrived, and, except for a minor slip up on the first little piece, I thought I did pretty well, about as well as I was expecting myself to, definitely in contention for... well, something. But the scores didn't reflect that, and I got dead last.
Those first three auditions are all different situations. In the first audition, for concert band, I knew I was going to do poorly, knew I played badly afterwards, and in the end, didn't end up in a good place. For the jazz audition, I was feeling good, but didn't play as well as I hoped, and didn't make a callback. In my orchestra audition, I felt great before, played as good as I could have hoped, and placed pretty badly.
There's something to learn from all of these situations, I think.
First of all, don't come in to an audition knowing that you're unprepared. Ever. That's something I definitely should have known anyways. And then, if you are, either play some head games with yourself and figure out a way to be confident, or, if it's bad enough, don't audition.
In the second situation, there isn't really too much to do but keep working. I'm not too upset with the results; realistically, I don't think I would go see a band with me drumming in it yet. So I'll keep reading and working on my chops and coordination and balance and time etc. etc.
The orchestra audition is the most concerning to me. What's the difference between what I heard and what they heard? Are my ears not good enough? Am I playing some weird rhythm sometimes and not even realizing it? I'm not upset at the panel or anything, because I definitely wasn't the best person at the audition, but I'm just curious to find out what the difference was between myself and the guys that got the job, because I couldn't tell a huge difference from my perspective. And that's kind of upsetting, to feel like you did well, but the people that really matter don't.
Anyways, sometimes life is a bummer. Sometimes you spend so much time focusing on one specific thing that everything else in life falls apart a little bit. But I'll get back on my feet, and find other cool crap to do besides play in orchestra and lab bands.
I'm taking lessons with Mark Ford and Henry Okstel this semester. I'm really excited to take lessons with Professor Ford, partially because he knows what he's doing, and partially because maybe the fact that he knows what he's doing will motivate me to be on my game. I'm really excited to be taking drumset again because I can practice in solitude again, and playing set makes me happy.
There's some other cool stuff going on but I can't put it all in one post! Besides, I have to go to bed, I have things to do in the morning.
M
No comments:
Post a Comment