Storms are a-coming!

It is very windy today. When I lived overseas, the gales there would be 40-60 mph on average. So, you would think I would be used to it. For awhile, I was. Then I moved back to the States.
I often ask myself why I came back. Financially, I had to. I had finished my sophomore year over there and according to my contract with the USM International Studies department, I was to return. Oh, how I wanted to stay! I absolutely loved my time in Wales. The scenery was beautiful and unspoiled. The people were lovely and the culture was thriving. I desperately miss the people I was in choir with. The picture above is the choir I was in. Seven of us that day had just received our Dean's awards after having performed the Matins. That's what the green ribbons and medal represent. Those that are wearing navy blue ribbons/medals had been in the choir for 5 or so years and the one purple medal that is visible is the sign of a Bishop's Chorister, one step up from the Dean's. How I miss it and how I want to go back!

I must finish up this stuff for opera history. I really hope Dr. Hauer carries that same pride in me after this first test and doesn't think the lesser of me if I don't do too well.

DAY-O, Daylight come and we all go home....

Hahahaha, somebody asked me today why I am so happy. It's like a complete change of last week. God, I hope I'm not bipolar. That would suck....really bad. I told her I'm on happy drugs and it's just made me apathetic about a lot of things and really happy about others. And I was also wired on caffeine at the time too. I need to lay off caffeine. :)
Theory was fun this morning to a point. I didn't really understand the homework and I was desperately asking the elderly lady in our class for help. Oboe was good. Dr. Malone is like such a happy person and is a real joy to be around EXCEPT when she sneaks up behind you and does that knee thing to make you lose your balance. she did that to me a few days ago. scared the crap out of me. :)~ thank you dahling!
Dr. Hauer payed me a compliment today. He said "It is such a joy to have you in this class. You know so much material." I was floored. If I know so much material, then how come I don't test well? I just hope he isn't disappointed if I screw up the essays on my upcoming test. He's had us writing journal entries so he should know how I write by now. I have a really bad habit of writing what I think. Not just my opinion, but the style that I write in looks like it is coming straight from my conscience. Every time I do tests with essays, I always feel rushed because I try to compile my thoughts in a certain amount of time. I don't get it. Last semester, I made a 97 on the second test in Baroque. Understand that this is the highest grade I've ever made on test under Hafer. My essays on that test were well thought out. However, on the first test, I made a 77. And on the paper I scored an 86 or 88, can't remember which. He says my writing is unambiguous, but apparently with those grades, it can't be that way all the time. And on the last test, I did write out my essay questions prior to and I used my notes/handouts for material to study from. It just pisses me off that I can't write perfectly every time. Hafer did tell me to patient with the writing process because I am still learning and that writing is hard. How can I be patient when this is interfering with my GPA?
Carmen rehearsal was decent. THE WORK NEEDS TO BE MEMORIZED!!!

I am so sleepy right now, but I cannot seem to pry myself away from the laptop. I wonder why.

Brilliant mind. Average grades.

So, yeah...I got my Aural skills and 18th century tests back today. Average grades on both. I'm relieved about the AS grade because I knew the harmonic dictation was going to screw me over. It has been screwing me over since Aural Skills 1 (and this is 4). The other test was 2 points higher than the AS grade, but still nothing to smile at. What somewhat pisses me off is that I didn't study the Haffner Symphony and Beethoven's symphony No. 1 as thoroughly as I should have. If I had, then I would have made a B+ on the sucker. Cramming for music history is not smart. Someday, I will learn that. Also, I need to learn to trust my instincts more and just take the risk that the answer I put down the first time is probably right. If USM still offered the Church Music degree, I would so be doing that rather than Musicology. William Carey offers it, but I cannot afford to go there. USM has better credibility too.
I think I will be doing my 18th century paper on Mozart and Freemasonry. It seems like I can go far with that topic and I should be able to pull up a ton of information on it. We'll see though.
My voice lesson went rather well this morning. Dr. Nichols is going to let me do Schumann's "In the Wonderful Month of May" from Dichterliebe. It is short, and very sweet! And there is another Schumann piece he is having me do. Other pieces I am working on are Schubert's Die Forelle, Mozart's Non so piu from Le Nozze di Figaro, My Little Welsh Home by a welsh composer. I have to repeat the French Si Mes Vers by Hahn this semester. Also, The Beatitudes by Malotte, a Bach aria from the Pentecost cantata, and the Green Dog. Those are the ones off the top of my head. He did complain again about getting up early, but he didn't dwell on it like he has in previous lessons.
I am just now coming back from a wonderful dinner with my wonderful boyfriend, Mark. What an unbelievably sweet guy that God has placed in my life. Even before we started dating, he was still a really good friend.
Carillon rehearses tonight from 8-10. I will probably hit the floor when I come in from that rehearsal. Bells always seem to wear me out. I guess it is just the intense concentration, either that or Larry is just that intimidating. :)

Painting My Own Canvas

Good evening to all! Wow, what a day! So my alarm clock goes off at 6:30am, I reset it for 6:45, then 6:55, then 7:20. Ha, then I get up. Shoot I was tired last night after bells. With rehearsal from 8-10pm, one's brain is bound to be fried. Then, I read like 45 pages of that article for Hafer. I just hit the hay when I was done....dead to the world.
So, I drag myself out of bed, get dressed, primped, slip on the headphones, and head to the Cochran for a bowl of Apple Jacks and then to the FAB for another 20 pages of classic music. I did practice my scales, but the piano I was at had no bench, just a chair, so I was actually very low on the keyboard and it didn't feel too good on the wrists.
I head into theory for the morning and the first thing I see is Mardi Gras beads flying across the room. Turns out Dr. B, wife, and baby had fun over the weekend and the baby collected more beads than Danny Beard did. I made a nice odd 83 on the theory test, which in truth, I am relieved about. I could have made an A and should have made an A, but at the end of the test I rushed, and thus made stupid errors. At least, I made my leading tones go up and my chordal sevenths go down! Ha! Mastered!
My piano lesson was good. Started off with a rocky scale cycle. To be honest, I try to practice just the normal scales once a day, usually the first thing I do in the morning. I just haven't been in the scalar mood lately. The Shostakovich was a bit dodgy at the beginning. I think my mind was on other things, because it always is (hey! i know i'm scatterbrained! i take after my mother!)., but it eventually smoothed out. I just need to work on my phrasing in the right hand and remember to hit the right notes in the left. Firefly is coming along. With time, it will be up to speed and that piece is going to rock my socks off! Haven't worked on the Beethoven in awhile. Will do it though. I still can't believe ML, the abbreviation for Momma Leventhal (my piano teacher), crawled under the piano while dragging a bench behind her. She was doing it to hang a wall hanging. At her age, she doesn't really need to be doing that. She should have asked one of us more flexible younguns to do it. Even if it was like late at night, I would have come and done it. I may live in McCarty, a good mile at least from that building, but still on campus. Anyway, I now have an exercise for augmented chords! YAY!
Opera History was interesting, as it always is. Byron convinced Dr. Hauer to move the test to Monday, which gives us, especially me, more time to revise. Hallelujah! This means I CANNOT SLACK OFF IN STUDYING! I also need to finish the Classical Period timeline this weekend and ask Hafer if I can email it to him. The thing is going to be huge and if it is printed, it will be in color, which means more money on my part. Joy.
Choir was ok. I couldn't stop yawning through it. Thank God for Starbucks. The high B-flat sounded ok, I just need to support it more underneath and approach it from the top. And Mary is right, Flan needs to have 1-2 people on that note because when 6 first sopranos try to hit that note and miss, it sounds bad. It's at the end of The Battle of Jericho, which is a very energetic arrangement by Moses Hogan, and the high notes are relatively easy in this piece.
Today in rehearsals for Carmen, the chorus was only needed for No. 21 and then released. We have to be off-book for Acts I and II on Friday.
And tonight, FPC Bell choir was a hoot. At the very end of rehearsal, Dr. Smith knows we're tired and we want to get out of there. So he calls up "Let the Bells Peal," which has a ton of half notes for the bass bells. Well there is a certain bell technique that requires lightly tapping the bell on the table to make an echo effect. This technique is not written for use in this piece. But to annoy Dr. Smith, Mike, Patrick, Bearcat, Me, and Whitney are randomly doing this echo effect on random beats throughout the half-note line (which sounds really cool because being random, you never who's going to do it when). And what's even more hilarious is that we've been doing this since the beginning of the semester and he just now heard it and acknowledged it tonight. Now anybody who is observing would know that we are goofing off because we're just cracking up. Hahahaha. I love being young. Still wish I was 19, but you don't get everything you wish for. I have the mind of a 19 year old (the year I went overseas), but the stress of a 21 year old.
Aural skills test and 18th century test come back tomorrow. 5 page response to a 90 page article due tomorrow. 12:01 is tomorrow afternoon at the BSU. Carillon is tomorrow night from 8-10. Hopefully, tomorrow will not be a bad day. Hopefully, I passed both tests with decent above-average grades. Hopefully.

Whirlwind

Mardi Gras break ends today. It has been a relaxing weekend, full of sleep, piano practice, and sleep. The nose goes back to the grind tonight with Carillon at 8pm. There is one piece that is completely kicking my tail. But rather than start at the end of the program, I will start at the beginning.
The opening song, Chester, is fun. It then transitions into Gramann's Celebration which requires counting like mad on the runs. Silk Road is cool, though it is easy to overplay the bell. It has such a quiet beginning and that G4 is so loud. The runs are surprisingly good and the chime part requires a bit more polish on my part anyway. Fantasy on King's Weston is my absolute favorite right now. It requires me to split my brain. One hand rings one rhythm, while the other hand rings another. And the themes woven in and around each other creates a really cool effect. There's also a lot of 3 vs 2 action in this piece. We took Faith out of the program. I didn't like that one much at all. Change Ring Prelude on Divinum Mysterium is wicked. The penultimate page of the piece has the meters in the following order: 3/4, 7/8 (2+2+3), 3/4, 6/8, 3/4, 7/8 (2+3+2), 5/8, and 2/4. So if you can't count to at least 7, you're screwed. Festive Fanfare is festive. It starts with shaking of my two bells, which are not bells one would normally shake. This is the exception. Rustic Dance is fun. I was moved back to my old bells, E/F4. The mallets at the end are awesome. You just have to remember to hit the bell and not the table. Amazing Grace is one word: gorgeous. Te Deum is wow, I think I've met my match as far as pieces go. There's a tough repetitive part in the middle of the piece and my musical moronic self drags on it every time. I guess that's why I suck at playing upbeats. One of the pieces at the Scotland festival will be In the Bleak Midwinter, which we played last year. I've requested my old bells for that piece, because in truth, it is a toughie.
Carmen is coming along rather well. We are supposed to be off book by now. There are still a few places in each act where I feel a bit sketchy, but with a little hard work and help from above, I'll be fine. Carmen is April 12 & 14 at Mannoni in Hattiesburg, and April 21 at Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson.
I have my piano lesson tomorrow. I did work on Firefly over the weekend and I did change one fingering because I hated that index crossing action. I love my piano lessons. They are so much fun. Curses to me for not taking them as a kid.
Voice lesson is Thursday. And I'm sick of hearing Dr. Nichols complain about me scheduling my lesson at 8:30 in the morning. For one, my afternoons are booked, and the free hours I do have in the morning are spent studying. I am taking 22 hours. I need to study at some point. I am already up there practicing. So what's wrong with me having a lesson that early in the morning? I just wish he would quit complaining about it. I love him dearly as a person. He's a good person to go to when I am down about something, but lately this has really been pissing me off. And it's hard to tell whether he is teasing me or not. My advice: Just accept it and drop it!
Wednesday, I get my theory test back. Thursday, I get my Aural skills test and 18th Century test back. Friday, I have my opera history test. Lord, I'm scared of the outcomes of those grades. In every Hafer class I have taken, I always manage to screw up the first test of the semester. The movements of the symphonies screwed me up this last time. I know one of the answers that I changed at the last minute, I had it correct the first time! grrr it makes me mad. I'm deathly scared of the Aural skills grade because I suck at harmonic dictation and I know it. The theory one is creeping me out because that last part of the Haydn string quartet was confusing me like mad. Studying for this opera test is interesting. I have an idea of what format his tests are in. And Dr. Hauer really is a great guy. I'm just worried over the essay questions. Dr. Hafer at least gives you examples of what he might ask on his tests.
I'm also still working on the Classical Period timeline and I should finish it up this weekend. Hafer said he did not care what format it was in. Mine will have to be the way it is on Word. It would take about a mile and half of butcher paper just to fill in the information
Must complete my Opera History study guide at some point today. Take care!