« Strange and digressing story within »
Had a blissfully strange day.
--> Got up early to go to my composition lesson, which was nice; I'm beginning to orchestrate an old string quartet I wrote a couple of years ago, and it's going quite nicely - I think I'm going to add some stuff to it so that it's more *current*...
--> Came home, listened to some Philip Glass and afterwards promptly fell asleep until 2:30, when I got up, had Spaghetti-O's (with little meat things floating around in it! Yummy processed foods, so good for ulcers/brain tumors).
--> I then drove off to my next round of music lessons: namely, the 2nd composition lesson, but this time in a group setting (not the Y[oung]C[omposers]W[orkshop] that'll start up early this year, around the first week of January!!! Then I'll had three {3} composition-related things going on. YAY!!!), as well as a music history class (possibly one of the most tedious and boring classes I've ever been in, and impossibly hard to do well in: I got a C- on a recent test because he expected us all to know like 50 compositions from the pre-Baroque/Baroque era by really REALLY obscure composers, like de la Guerre and people like that... but the reason for the bad grade is that there's absolutely no way to prepare for the test, because we don't have our own textbooks, nor do we even have recordings of the pieces themselves to listen to maybe more than once. And plus, Early Music sounds all the same; not my favorite cup of tea - the Lipton variety of music. The guy that teaches it sounds like he's going to die every time an utterance leaves his lips, and his sentences are always a sort of decrescendo until it's really hard understanding what he says. Despite the fact that he talks really slowly, and has a Utah-salt-flats sense of humor [i.e., incredibly DRY!!! Oh, if only I could bring him to school - then him and most of the teachers would get along quite nicely.), a conducting class (stessful, shameful, and ultimately humiliating, because I'm just starting out conducting, as well as another student, but the third kid has been conducting for quite some time, and is very VERY annoyingly good. MARVELOUS. Or something... Anyway, I had to conduct the Mozart Symphony No. 40 [da-da-Da da-da-Da da-da-Da DA!] today in class, and I was supposed to study it this past week, but I didn't, so I made a complete fool of myself, standing up there, pretending to cue in people when in reality I hadn't a clue what I was doing. SO. My teacher just glares at me, then laughs, then covers her mouth to restrain herself from hitting my nervously-tapping foot with a brick. Then I was done. *Sigh of relief*) and then FINALLY a performance class (I conducted a Bach chorale, and all the students sang along; really fun. SO MUCH BETTER than conducting to an imaginary orchestra. I actually did something good. Which was a good thing, considering that most everything else today was complete rubbish. Well, not everything. But most of it. And that's not acceptable. Or something.), and I finally drove home.
--> I just watched "Dodgeball" with my sister tonight. SO FUNNY! Unfortunately, that meant staying up 'til 2 O'clock again (the fifth time in a row this week, and definitely not my usual schedule). UGH!!! WHY CAN'T I GO TO BED?!?!?
I should be doing something productive, like composing. Or sleeping. Hmmm. Orchestrate, or dream. Write things that will never get played, or dream about big orchestras playing my music and a riot ensuing in the audience and my name in the newspapers the next day, and everyone clapping and cheering and the groupies outside the Green Room, and then the inevitable awards and distinctions, and the requests for me to go and teach at their schools, and give lectures, and compose them this or that, or conduct this great symphony, or be interviewed on the radio - NO, have my own radio show -, and then finally waking up and realizing that it's all a dream and that I can at least have some solace that while my career (if it might be called that - we shall see) won't amount to anything like that, I'll still have my dreams when I go to bed, and it'll be real there, and that will be all that matters. Because in the end, all I'll be is a name among thousands of others, in a "Who's who" book that doesn't matter, or a tiny reference on some crazy-person's website, or just in a phone directory. Yes, I think I would retain the most dignity that way. Phone books are so underrated; they're basically the book of life minus the whole salvation/Biblical overtones - but they still hold almost everyone's names - and by simply being an 1/8-inch, 7-digit # and an address would keep ME who I am. I'm not a number; that's obvious. By showing who I'm not, like a phonebook so beautifully does, I'm not judged, not hated, not even important. I'm allowed to be whatever the reader wants me to be. If, for instance, someone read a "Who's who" book, there would be an inadequate representation of me on a 1/4-page entry: it would show that I wrote "4 symphonies, 2 concertos (Vla, Vc, Pno), 12 Str. Qtets." (etc.) and omitting things like "Barret is generally nice, although if he's asked questions he doesn't know the answer to, he becomes introverted and stubborn, sometimes even mean..." Achievements aren't what make us who we are; the traits, the characteristics of our very self with which we daily carry ourselves mean the most rather than some stupid award we might win. That might never come. It's up to each of us to live our lives as if we were going to be written up somewhere, where it'll say something like, "Barret cares for his friends dearly, and tries to be a visible part of their lives, despite the fact that he can barely overcome the fear of being judged by them...." or "he was a loving husband, and always loved his family very much (even if things went wrong from time to time, or there were problems that had to get fixed)." Perhaps it's a fear that I'll never amount to anything, or that I'll become something that I don't want to be. Apart from working hard at whatever I'm going to become in the future (famous composer or not), the one main goal besides keeping my faith in God intact will be accurately representing who I am, and showing that through my actions and how I will continue to treat each one of you.
Sorry to put you through that. I don't know where that came from...
'night
»B«
--> Got up early to go to my composition lesson, which was nice; I'm beginning to orchestrate an old string quartet I wrote a couple of years ago, and it's going quite nicely - I think I'm going to add some stuff to it so that it's more *current*...
--> Came home, listened to some Philip Glass and afterwards promptly fell asleep until 2:30, when I got up, had Spaghetti-O's (with little meat things floating around in it! Yummy processed foods, so good for ulcers/brain tumors).
--> I then drove off to my next round of music lessons: namely, the 2nd composition lesson, but this time in a group setting (not the Y[oung]C[omposers]W[orkshop] that'll start up early this year, around the first week of January!!! Then I'll had three {3} composition-related things going on. YAY!!!), as well as a music history class (possibly one of the most tedious and boring classes I've ever been in, and impossibly hard to do well in: I got a C- on a recent test because he expected us all to know like 50 compositions from the pre-Baroque/Baroque era by really REALLY obscure composers, like de la Guerre and people like that... but the reason for the bad grade is that there's absolutely no way to prepare for the test, because we don't have our own textbooks, nor do we even have recordings of the pieces themselves to listen to maybe more than once. And plus, Early Music sounds all the same; not my favorite cup of tea - the Lipton variety of music. The guy that teaches it sounds like he's going to die every time an utterance leaves his lips, and his sentences are always a sort of decrescendo until it's really hard understanding what he says. Despite the fact that he talks really slowly, and has a Utah-salt-flats sense of humor [i.e., incredibly DRY!!! Oh, if only I could bring him to school - then him and most of the teachers would get along quite nicely.), a conducting class (stessful, shameful, and ultimately humiliating, because I'm just starting out conducting, as well as another student, but the third kid has been conducting for quite some time, and is very VERY annoyingly good. MARVELOUS. Or something... Anyway, I had to conduct the Mozart Symphony No. 40 [da-da-Da da-da-Da da-da-Da DA!] today in class, and I was supposed to study it this past week, but I didn't, so I made a complete fool of myself, standing up there, pretending to cue in people when in reality I hadn't a clue what I was doing. SO. My teacher just glares at me, then laughs, then covers her mouth to restrain herself from hitting my nervously-tapping foot with a brick. Then I was done. *Sigh of relief*) and then FINALLY a performance class (I conducted a Bach chorale, and all the students sang along; really fun. SO MUCH BETTER than conducting to an imaginary orchestra. I actually did something good. Which was a good thing, considering that most everything else today was complete rubbish. Well, not everything. But most of it. And that's not acceptable. Or something.), and I finally drove home.
--> I just watched "Dodgeball" with my sister tonight. SO FUNNY! Unfortunately, that meant staying up 'til 2 O'clock again (the fifth time in a row this week, and definitely not my usual schedule). UGH!!! WHY CAN'T I GO TO BED?!?!?
I should be doing something productive, like composing. Or sleeping. Hmmm. Orchestrate, or dream. Write things that will never get played, or dream about big orchestras playing my music and a riot ensuing in the audience and my name in the newspapers the next day, and everyone clapping and cheering and the groupies outside the Green Room, and then the inevitable awards and distinctions, and the requests for me to go and teach at their schools, and give lectures, and compose them this or that, or conduct this great symphony, or be interviewed on the radio - NO, have my own radio show -, and then finally waking up and realizing that it's all a dream and that I can at least have some solace that while my career (if it might be called that - we shall see) won't amount to anything like that, I'll still have my dreams when I go to bed, and it'll be real there, and that will be all that matters. Because in the end, all I'll be is a name among thousands of others, in a "Who's who" book that doesn't matter, or a tiny reference on some crazy-person's website, or just in a phone directory. Yes, I think I would retain the most dignity that way. Phone books are so underrated; they're basically the book of life minus the whole salvation/Biblical overtones - but they still hold almost everyone's names - and by simply being an 1/8-inch, 7-digit # and an address would keep ME who I am. I'm not a number; that's obvious. By showing who I'm not, like a phonebook so beautifully does, I'm not judged, not hated, not even important. I'm allowed to be whatever the reader wants me to be. If, for instance, someone read a "Who's who" book, there would be an inadequate representation of me on a 1/4-page entry: it would show that I wrote "4 symphonies, 2 concertos (Vla, Vc, Pno), 12 Str. Qtets." (etc.) and omitting things like "Barret is generally nice, although if he's asked questions he doesn't know the answer to, he becomes introverted and stubborn, sometimes even mean..." Achievements aren't what make us who we are; the traits, the characteristics of our very self with which we daily carry ourselves mean the most rather than some stupid award we might win. That might never come. It's up to each of us to live our lives as if we were going to be written up somewhere, where it'll say something like, "Barret cares for his friends dearly, and tries to be a visible part of their lives, despite the fact that he can barely overcome the fear of being judged by them...." or "he was a loving husband, and always loved his family very much (even if things went wrong from time to time, or there were problems that had to get fixed)." Perhaps it's a fear that I'll never amount to anything, or that I'll become something that I don't want to be. Apart from working hard at whatever I'm going to become in the future (famous composer or not), the one main goal besides keeping my faith in God intact will be accurately representing who I am, and showing that through my actions and how I will continue to treat each one of you.
Sorry to put you through that. I don't know where that came from...
'night
»B«