(no subject)
At the moment, I feel vaguely like a real musician. I'm sitting here in my all-black concert apparel and practically floating because tonight's concert was everything a musician of my level of motivation and talent (neither very high) could wish for. We played great and had a great time - it was one of the most satisfying concerts I've been in in years. Our conductor, who is a music grad student, was positively glowing when we finished. You couldn't look at him and not smile. Music grad students conduct the non-music-major bands, and sometimes the group as a whole is kind of, eehhmm, 'iffy' in a middle-school-band kind of way. But for whatever reason, this particular low-stress ensemble worked, and worked really well at that.
This semester has been kinda rigorous academically, and I've been getting [low] grades that would have given me heart failure in high school, so rehearsal twice a week was always a much-needed release from the world of formulas and derivatives and proofs. I enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere of rehearsals, joking around with the other two students in my section, and playing the first part again :-) My biggest complaint about band this semester would have to be that I am so freaking tired of playing Grainger's "Seventeen Come Sunday," that I'm on the threshhold of no longer liking that song. But all things considered, it's been a great semester for me musically; clarinet has yet again kept me remotely sane.