Well, by went another relatively unproductive weekend.
The Jury will be thursday morning around 9:30. Now that there is a certain time, I can get organized and practice up to that point. I find it hard to keep a piece in good condition without a definate goal in mind. Anyway, soon enough, I will be done with the piece and all will be good! Provided I get to the national level of competitions, I'll have t brusgh it up again, but thats not for a while.
Saturday was a great day. Good times at the ballet, then there was the ballet xmas party in the evening. Deena and I went and brough spinach dip... all the food there was great and good times were had. The husband of the hostess(one of the teachers I play for) is a movie producer/entertainment manager, so we watched one of the movies that he name dropped. It was wonderful in that way of being so super bad. I did some practicing on Sunday night, but ya.
Today was also a good day. I had class.... it ended early, I was kinda bothered cause its the second last class, we should have done review... Im actually pissed off about that. Canata had an extra rehearsal today because last week was shitty. I was the only tenor there today, other than Jonny filling in with the second tenor part for parts of it. Mel and the sort were impressed/happy with my singing. He actually made a point of telling me I did a good job after the rehearsal. This is actually quite a compliment from what I know about Mel's habit of commenting only on the bad. It's so much easier to blend and have some ensemble, when I'm the only one there..... ontop of there, Its so much easier for the section to not sound like ass when a certain member of the section isn't there..... Oops, bitchy, I don't appologize.
After I finished writing my 20th century assignment, I tried to go home. I stepped outside and the 61 Downtown Super Express was pulling up, so I ran, but rather than stopping, it sped up and drove away. Then realising the next bus I could take would be 25 minutes, I decided "Screw it!" and went back to the school. I wandered for a bit, couldn't find a practice room, so decided to talk to a history prof.
Burly is one of those inspiring profs who loves what he does and gets really excited when students are actually interested. I went to try and get some starting points of advice for my plan to do a study of improvisation. We ended up talking for about an hour or whatever about this that and the other! He suggested that the issue I am probably more interested in researching, rather than improvisation historically, is performance practice and why improv doesn't have a recognized place within it. He was impressed with my desire to tackle what he sees as such a huge issue, and made sure that I know what Im getting myself into. If anything, Im more excited about this now than I was before.
It was wonderful and flattering. I haven't talked to him in quite a while, but just by listening to me say some things, he was comparing me to some of his former students who are off doing PhD work, stressing how important it is to follow up on those things we find interesting as they will take us the places we are really meant to go. I never even mentioned any interest or experience in composition, but he suggested that from my thoughts and approaches, I might end up being a composer. He recommended a book by Hindemith that he feels might inspire me.
All in all this was an amazing way to spend time today. I'm glad I missed the busses.
Tomorrow, I have a massage! It's going to hurt soo much... I can't wait. You should hear some of the noises and cracks my body has been making lately. A little frightening actually. Far too stressed, and I need to find a better way to deal with it than harbouring the tension in random parts of me.... well not so random... mostly neck and back and shoulders... which transfers to the arms and jaw. I actually I have a fairly really good understanding of mapping my tension routes, so I can manage it ok... but i still need to prevent it in the first place. more stretching I guess. I guess losign weight and exercising would help too.... why doin't I just get healthy - it would probably solve a lot of problems.
anyway, enough random dribblings for now.