Whores, every last one of you!
Yesterday was Concerto Competition. I worked half of my day at the ballet and then had lunch and came to the school. This left me with 3 hours to practice before the competition. I used a fair chunk of the time and was feeling prepared. I listened to a few friends play and was impressed.
I don't know if I've ever watched Brendan play as a soloist, and I've heard lots of him bitching about how things aren't good and whatnot, so in all honesty, I took his word and didn't have high expectations. Nevertheless, I was quite impressed. It was a very musically involved performance with excellent tone and musical line. The technical elements of the flute are far different than that of piano, and fast runs and all that left me in awe. I've tried playing clarinet/flute before, and the coordination of which fingers to lift and to place down always throws me off. So yes, hats off to Brendan.
Every time I hear Deena play the Grieg concerto, it gets better, which is a good natural progression that musicians always aim for. Her cadenza was super terrific. She had done a masterclass with my teacher about a week or two ago, and it was exciting to see what a difference can be made in one sitting. She had been unsure of how much of the changes she could incorporate on her own, without someone coaching her in the background, but I think she found a way to incorporate most of them in a way that was comfortable to her. This was an impressive chunk from the Romantic Repertoire and it was performed very well! Yay Deena!
When I first came out of my performance I drank water and went piddle, but then I opened my score and made a listing of all the little things that went wrong in the concerto. Just as an acknowledgement so that when I have to play this again for my jury, I know what to work on. Once I finished making the list, I was able to affirm to myself that none of the misplaced notes or shaping of phrases were that big of a deal. I felt, and was reassured by Deena, that I had pulled off the piece quite well. And that is how I felt about it: quite well! I made one mistake, which in my mind was unforgiveable; I cut the orchestra (Beckie) off early for one of my entries. I know exactly why it happened. It was right before the big octaves section that I had worked so hard on, so I was anxious about that as well as the fact that I've never really counted how many phrases actually go in that orchestral tutti. This is something I need to rectify. As a result, I was leniant about taking the octaves as fast as I should have, so this section was further, less impressive than it should have been. Nevertheless, the octaves were at a speed that was still impressive, a noticeable speed up from the orchestra heard right before. Overall, I think I was more expressive than I have been other times playing in lessons and whatnot, and I paid much more attention to the musical line. In Rubinstein's own writings on his own music, he exclaims that the music is less about the exact notes as it is about what they mean. This statement totally does not line up with modern performance practices, but to hell with that, I'm justifying my actions here, phooey on that!
I had decided going in to the performance that if things had been going badly in the first half, I would just improvise my cadenza on a theme of 'mary had a little lamb'. I even went as far as playing through that theme in the opening key of Gb major and knowing how it related to the harmonic progressions suggested by Rubinstein. I could feel the anticipation of Beckie beside me, and my own as I was playing the Gb Major chord and wondering if I actually should...
I ended up not doing it, regrettably, but oh well. The cadenza went well the way Rubinstein had intended it. I think next year, when I do this competition, I will improvise my own cadenza. Maybe by then, I will be good enough to pull it off.
All in all, I felt very good about this competition and now we all play the waiting game. I really hope I am one fo the winners, because next year will likely be my only chance to play with the U of M orchestra. Anyway, there were a lot of great performers from what I've heard and others heard. Good luck to all!

I know you're reading.

Hmm, so noone seems to be commenting lately...
If I took this as a lack of interest in my life, I'd probably stop writing... actually no I wouldn't, I'd continue to ramble. But I know there are many annonybloggers out there. So, this buds for you!

So, reading what I wrote yesterday... today seems not to have been productive.
We were told that we absolutely shouldn't skip today for the only class I had, even though it would end early. He lied. It turns out we didnt cover anything important and certainly not in any detail. So I ended up on the bus for and hour and a half both directions so that I could sit in class for 30 minutes!! Not Impressed. I did,however see two fellow performer/students play concertos today in preperation for the competition tomorrow. They did very well, and I wish them the best of luck tomorrow.
When I came home, most of the day had gone by, and I was tired, I ended up eating late lunch and falling asleep on the couch. I practiced the first page of my concerto... I could try and sit here justifying how making a good first gesture in the piece is very important, so the work I did on the opening was important.. but not as much as it would have been to address the other issues in the piece. Nevertheless, I have quite a bit of time in the afternoon which I will devote to last minute perfections and rehearsing with Beckie before the competition. The university singers concert tonight was nice. I really wasnt all that in the mood for choral music. My only beef really was the overly white choir trying to sing gospel. As much as I joked about it being cause there were too many mennos in the choir, I still don't understand why more effort isn't spent getting beyond the notes. Singing in an academic choir is great when the notes on the page are the art form and the performance is meant to represent that masterful creation (ie Bach and Brahms choral pieces), but in gospel or african or native american pieces, more attention needs to be paid that the notes are western music's attempts to reflect the art form, whose notation we are often not fluent in.
Other than that, all is well

Wow, long day.
9:30am "Les Six' project organising and writing
11:30- Chamber group rehearsal
11:45-Composition lesson
1:30 Chamber Music Performance Exam
2:30 Piano Repertoire
4pm bus to Polo Park to meet Fiona for 5pm
5:30 Maestro Project Dinner at The Norwood Hotel
8:30 IGA to buy green koolaid/absynthe
9:30 "les Sis" project filming.
midnight-finished filming and therefore finished the project.

Tomorrow will be good. only the one class, possibly masterclass stuff, but Contemporary Class was cancelled but I will still be paid for it, yay! Im gonna spend the whole day practicing for Concerto, and going to Univ. Singers concert as an audience member in the evening... then drinking most likely.

All in All today went much smoother than I feared. It wasn't as tiring either, else I wouldn't be writing this. Composition lesson was good, I got some nice compliments from the Prof, which is nice to know that Im not sucky at it. Always a good sign. I felt good about the Chamber Performance.. Oleg, our coach, was the only prof there , andit went as good if not better than usual, so we will do well with this as our exam. The free food at the dinner was good, but there were no free diabetic supplies.. kinda the reason I brought Fi. Shes a good eater adn loves heping me shop for drugs.... oh well. I learned a little more about diabetic retinopathy and its emminence for diabetics. One (out of date) chart they showed, made it clear that after 20 years of diabetes, 100% of the sample had appearance of some retinopathy, not neceisarily problematic, or symptomatic, but present nonetheless. Not very inspiring, but oh well, I still have 4 years to go...

Reminiscing

I'll get to the reminiscent bit in a little while.
This morning Chris, Jason and I worked on our project for 20th Century for 3 hours. We got a good start on it, and now we know what has to get done for certain.... we are filming it on thursday night and finishing writing it on thursday morning. It's a tight schedule, but Im sure it will all work out in the end. The best part of working on the project was that we decided that the school would have too many distractions for us, so we went and worked at Perkins, which is now Frisco's, but they have the same food and stuff.
Now, this afternoon, I had lots of running around to do. For student loan, I need to get all my workplaces from the summer to sign a form and say how much I made. I went to AOV, but it has to be filled out by a district manager, so I'll get the form in a week or 2. Winpak was efficient as usual. I will hopefully get my ballet one done on saturday or whenever... No real rush, but I'd like to have money sooner than later. I talked with my old manager at AOV for a short while and everything seemed to be exactly the same with her. Apparently after me, there were 5 other people who worked for about a month and then left because they found a better job or similar reasons. She stands her ground that she can't bear ill feeling towards anyone of them cause she want's people to go for something better. Nevertheless, it's unfortunate that she gets stuck working 6 days a week with double shifts and whatnot while trying to find new people all the time. Oh well. She's very pleasant and it was nice to say hi and whatnot.
My experience at Winpak was different. When Iwas working there, I always felt like just an employee, just a manual labourer. Im not sure if that was truly the was we were treated, but thats the picture of myself I painted while I was working there. Whenever I went to Human Resources, I felt like such a tool, so needy and like I needed to grovel. Today, I felt more empowered. I believe its because I'm no longer part of that union. There was something about being part of that socialist coallition that made me function less as an individual, more as a small meager part of a larger power. Kinda like a Borg... in conclusion: Unions are evil.

Creative bursts

So, it hadn't been a productive weekend for practicing really, and I realised that I still hadn't gotten any actual composition done yet, and I think he sorta expects to see something on thursday so I sorta started this weekend.
I had decided I wanted one of the poems (Old Dame Trot) to be in sprechstimme style (half sung/half spoken) so I started mapping out the shape of the words and thinking of what kind of piano accompaniment I wanted. I wrote down stuff vaguely for the first line and decided I wanted the piano to be rhythmic punctuation for the vocal line. It's been ruminating in my head for a few days so this afternoon I actually made time to do something, and the rumination paid off. I also had a creative outburst and started on another one of the poems. It's going to be a very simple setting of the poem with a very ethereal feel to the poem, very contrasting to the other.
Today was an ok day for practicing. Im not sure if I've mentioned it on here, but there is a terribly evil section in my concerto. It is a passage that includes fast running octaves, sixths as well as thirds. Bitches, all of them. Anyway, at last lesson, I could only play the passage at 150, and that was where it had truly maxed out... since then, David sanctioned me making a technical alteration to what the composer intended, which makes the passage easier to play without sacrificing too much of the sound. Really, the difference will be unnoticable, especially since noone knows this concerto. Today, I can play it up to 175. still a far cry from the 208 on the recordings I've heard.. but Im sure I can still get it faster, and it doesn't sound slow like it previously did. There are still a few areas that could be more secure in the memory, but I feel ready to perform it. I still have a week and I will do a lot of work in this week. The competition I'm playing it for isn't for money or scholarship, rather the winners get to play a piece with the orchestra or wind ensemble the following year as a soloist. I'd cross my fingers, but then those sixths passages won't happen!
I did some sight reading accompanying for a friend in a bind last week. She was super greatful and asked what I wanted to be paid... I said it didn't involve any prep or rehearsal so, I didnt want money or anything. She asked if I liked chocolate, I said yes, of course. Today she had brought me one of those big 2 layer Pot of Gold chocolate boxes!! I was extra generous and gave some to many people, otherwise I definately would have eaten the whole box. I used it to tide me over before supper because I now refuse to take the bus home during rushhour. It's also a great way to convince me to get more practicing done.
In closing, chocolate = productive day... I need to have more chocolate at my disposal. Also when practicing, I should drink more... I've gotten completely out of that habit. I think Im going to pour myself a snifter of Irish Whiskey and take a relaxing bath or something. Im feeling rather tense.
Good night

Recently, I've discovered that there is a whole new world of people who read my blog and never comment. One of these annonybloggers recently told me that they were secretly doing this, but they were enjoying it, then told me they had one too, but it was too private to share. What a withholder! nevertheless I respect that and enjoy the idea that I never know who is reading. Another friend of mine also started reading it, and caught up on my life, I didn't even know she was aware I had one...
New subjects, like that of the warmest joy in life.... Spite. The folllowing is a short account of real life events that have inspired me!

Scene: 20'th Century class

Professor: Ok, I am going to set the order for presentations at the end of term, so I need to know about any conflicts you or your group members might have. I'll go through each group now, and trust that you won't make up something to avoid going on the first day.
Chris (leans to me): Michael, we can't go on the first day, we won't be prepared...
Me: Well ya, but why? do you have any reason
Chris:
Me: (snickers)
Chris:
Michael: Well, Im not saying anything, if you want, you can
Prof: And the group of Chris, Michael and Jason?
Michael:
Chris: (in stern, 'i'm completely lying' voice) We can't go on the Monday
Prof: oh, and is there any particular reason?
Chris: I have a big thing, all day long.
Michael, Jason, people in general, and partially Chris:
Prof: Ok...
Michael and Chris: Speculation as to the hilarity and fittingness of the possibility that he would spite us and place us on the first day
--now, fast forward to the next class--
Prof: Alright, I have finished the order of the presentations. Please let me know if there are any conflicts, but otherwise, this will be the order.
Overhead Projector: Monday (the first day):
first group-Michael, Chris, and Jason

As a result, Chris and I have developped a whole new respect for this man!

Realising that this project is happening in just a little over a week, we have started working on the project with a bountiful vigour. It's going to be very fun, and interesting filled with really cool historical and analytical information about "les six". I'll keep you informed.

I feel so classy, yet also like a pirate.
I just got back from the dentist where they cemented in my new crown on my very back molar. It's GOLD!!!! I've never owned anything gold before, and even knowing that it is one of the cheaper types of dental material they can use, I can't help but feeling like a big man.
Im also frozen, but I don't know why they needed the freezing as it was a dead tooth. I think it's part of modern dentistry's catering to the pussies who can't handle a little dental pain. Suck it up bitches, I went through a root canal and my root wasn't even fully frozen. Maybe its that dental pain fetish I have... Perhaps I should go to Jerry Seinfeld's dentist, yes that's it, I'll go there!
Also, hooray for snow. You should have seen me, it was a full body production to get all of the snow off the top of my car, and there were wind gusts with snow in my face as well as ending up with more snow on me than was originally on the car... I rather like winter, not as much as fall, but quite a bit.
I think Fi and I have planned a snow fight for this evening, most likely in Rogan Park, so I get to test out my new bright orange winter jacket. Im excited!

one of the best sites on the internet

I had almost forgotten about this website, but was reminded of it today.
The website is called CryingWhileEating and the content is precisely that, people crying while eating. It is brilliant in so many ways. Many of them are heartbreaking, many are endearing, most are bloody hillarious.
Today, I went for hot smoothies at Timmy Ho's with Deena and Diane. She was talking about her boy problems while eating sushi and she was very near bursting in tears. I thought it would be perfect to have had a video camera there at that moment, just perfect. This is not to say that I am insensitive to her problems, but I think even she would laugh if she saw herself crying while eating.
I highly suggest everyone go there, theres lots and lots of examples, about 20 seconds each. It's even entertaining to read their name, what they're eating and why they are crying.

Aside from that, it was a very good day. Deena and other people from her teacher's studio played in a noon hour recital, and she was fabulous, YAY DEENA!!! The whole recital was great, no major screw ups and lots of variety in music!
Today was also (and still is) 50% off day at Value Village, so I went and bought 5 shirts, at least 2 have snap buttons up the front so im super happy. In fact, I just might go by the other Value Village later this evening if I'm heading out to that area.
Once again, I didn't actually get any practicing done today, so I'll get on that a little this evening. I found out I will be playing for a friends 3'rd year recital, yay flute accompanying. I sight read for her a week or so ago, so I take this as a big compliment on my accompanying. Mostly Im glad that the experience didn't leave her feeling that she never wanted to collaborate with me ever again...

Ooh Knitting- Im making slippers. It's a really cool pattern made up of 7 individual squares for each slipper, and you sew them together. So far I have 3 and a bit squares.... but soon enough, I'll have made enough for a whole slipper, and wander around pretending Im some Prince Charming.. or a foot fetishist....hmm, fun either way!
Fi mentioned that we need to have another knitting party, we just haven't made time for it lately: soon to be rectified.

Weekend description

This weekend was weekendy...
Sister Heather (mine,not a nun) was in town. She and mother got along swimmingly and all was well.
I spent my remembrance day at home, probably practicing, but to be completely honest, I can't exactly remember what went on. I was fully intending on sleeping in, but didn't want to be completely disrespectful, so I set my alarm for 11am on the radio quietly. I don't think I actually woke up, but when I arose later on, I had vague recollections of a dream about remembrance day so I did listen and it encorporated itself into my sleep world. Despite not going to a service, I made sure to allow thoughts of the sombre and reflective nature into my head throughout the day.
Saturday was ok. The two dance teachers I work with were both absent, so I had substitutes for those classes. For the little kid class, the subwas the infamous choreographer. I was very impressed, she taught an excellent class, but there were some clashed between her and the assistants who are in the same program as her. I know there are personality between her and just about everyone there, but her teaching was better than other student teachers I've worked with. For the older classes, I was playing for the principal of the school. She was serious and had high standards. I think twice she complimented me on my playing/music whatever, so I know Im doing something right. We have a history [she was the first teacher I played for, it was a class of all little boys, and I didnt know what I was doing, so now she doesnt have high expectations for me, so when I play for her, she was pleasantly surprised]
I had lunch (during my 2 hour break in the middle of the work day) with Heather and Fiona. I finally got Fi to the twist cafe, cause they have this amazing Veggie Burger, so now she knows. Heather was draggin Fi around shopping for linens.... WOOHOO. Apparently Fiona shared my excitement, so we made fun of Heather. Add to that that heather had to park 10 minutes walking away, so she was super mad when she finally go there. But it was the kind of anger that Fi and I enjoy.
On Sat night we had a Cantata performance at the Manitoba club [which is a group of old rich white people having a fundraiser for... rich old white people]. It went well, and after they gave us food and wine... I wish I wasn't planning on driving later, or else I would have stayed longer and gotten just tanked. I had some wine and some food, then got a ride home and then went to Deena's. We rented Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... SHIT it was bad. I remember people saying that they didnt like it cause it was so different from the original, or saying that if you got over the differences it was pretty good.. I've never seen the original, and was fairly ignorant as to the book or story, so my idea wasn't tainted, it was just crap. I imagine that as a classic tale,there must have been some kind of moral presented, but how could anyone take those cracked out oompa-loompa songs seriously?!? That movie would have been much better either piss tanked or stoned.
Today was good, I slept in. Reign of Sound happened, and Sandra was there. Andy had mentioned that she was joining, but I didnt believe him, as I don't quite understand why. I was under the impression that Sandra and Richard both had a dislike going for one another unknowing of the others feelings... so maybe this will be interesting. Either way, I won't read too far into this, as it's good to have a nice powerful voice in the soprano section.
This evening, I had the strong feeling that I didn't get any practicing done this weekend, which aside from a little on friday, I didn't. Im not even sure if I got any done on thursday so i went to the school and practiced tonight., I got there around 7:30 and left just after 11, so I did at least 3 hours. Im happy with that. Anyway, Im gonna cut this short here...

warning- long post, be prepared

Im just sitting here thinking that life is going pretty well in general. Im taking my medicine for my bronchitis, so that is presumably getting better. The coughing has definately lessened. Tonight I went out with my family for Indian Food. There's just nothing quite like an Indian Food buffet. The food was good and there was a drum and wind instrument ensemble playing in the background. It was the perfect atmosphere, as the music was not too loud as it would be intrusive, but it was present enough to have good rhythm and fun inspiring. My sister is in town for the weekend, and she wanted to go for Indian food. So far my sister and mother haven't had their usual emotional blow up at each other, so it's all good, perhaps it just won't happen.
In terms of music, I haven't had a bad lesson in quite a while. All year, nothing has even come close to the type of lessons I was having last year. I do believe I have made that shift in practice methods and dedication that David has been looking for and because of it, we are able to concentrate much more on musical rather than technical aspects. David derived a rather odd comment/conclusion at my last lesson, where we only worked on the Mozart. He has decided that I am a wonderful natural Mozart player and Im doing a lot of musical things naturally, BUT- and theres always a but-he's concerned that I don't have reasons for what Im doing, or that Im not aware of those reasons. The goal is to play Mozart beautifully and intelligently. David says that Im playing it beautifully, but theres room for showing more understanding.
It was exciting, we worked on shaping individual shorter phrases, but then shaping those phrases in a grander sense, in comparison to one another, to show their relationships. I guess the exciting part is that we're adding more and more levels to the piece and the performance.
There's less than (I think) 2 weeks until the concerto competition. This is a little worrisome, but I feel good nevertheless. There are just a few little areas that could be a little technically stronger, faster, clearer, but the memory is good. Once again, theres just a few key spots that I have to set in stone in my memory. It made me so happy the other day because my accompanist came up to me and told me that she loves the piece. The piece is not well known (I'll talk about that later) so she'd never heard it before, so it's a major boost of confidence knowing that Im not the only one with such passion for the piece.
K, now we'll use that piece as a segue into another topic. Short version = theres a kick ass competition this year that has a first prize of 10 thousand dollars, and the top three competitors play one concerto movement with the symphony orchestra for the final round. In the details, it says that repertoire choices are based on availability of orchestral scores. I checked, and was not surprised to hear that the scores are not available, and I will not be able to use the piece for the final round. I will not be telling this to David out of spite; he warned me that it wouldn't be a good piece because no orchestras would ever be playing it. I suppose theres some argument for him being right, but phooey on that. I CAN however use the piece for the preliminary CD audition, which I will. If I get to compete as one of the 12 semifinalists, I can use the concerto I did last year.
Next topic is this independant study course. Since the outset, it has been more hassle than I would have liked. Now the only thing thats being a bug is the paperwork, the new Dean decided I needed to be super detailed in my course proposal, so now I have been, and I'll hand it in on monday and all had better be fine. Basically, my prof and I are treating it as a first year composition course. The only difference is that it's going to be done in half the time, and for half the credit, but the same amount of work. All in all, Im super excited. It will result in two compositions, the smaller of which will be a chamber piece for 1-3 instruments... we haven't figured that out yet.
This is the big project: Im doing a voice and piano piece for my friend Jenn. The text is going to be from Mother Goose, making use of all the poems about "old mother.." or "there was an old woman". I plan on using a variety of compositional styles in order to emphasize the different character of each poem. This is going to be a super fun project and will be performed in a noon hour recital later this year.
Lately, I have been not at home much. Since I don't have piano lessons to teach or any real obligations during the week, I'm finding myself spending evenings at the school, following a long line of pianists that have done that in the past around the School of Music. In terms of socializing, I haven't really been. Luckily, Deena is also in the same line of dedicated pianists so we're able to spend time together practicing and hopefully try and motivate each other or whatnot. It's her birthday coming up, so If anyone has suggestions of something to get her (Deena, you can comment annonymously and I won't know its you) it would be very much appreciated.
I hung out with my friend Evan the other night and it was just odd to see how different we both are. We always have been, but ya, it's been a while since I spent any time with him. Basically, right now I am feeling more focused on music and feeling better about it than at any other time in my life. Right now, Evan is realising that he isn't all that passionate about pure mathematics, and furthermore, he is doubting whether the world really has any more need for another abstract mathematician. I think his plan is to get just a job job when he graduates so he can get his head on straight. This is sorta like me working in the factory this summer to reaffirm my love of the non physical-labour world. Only problem is that Evan doesn't have that mindset going in. He's just at a loss, he was so passionate about math when he started... but like he said, it's hard for a 20-something male to be inspired by a life of paper and calculations. Anyway, at the end of this year he'll have a BSc, so he can get a reasonably good job, hopefully though not good enough that he won't go back to school. In all honesty, he could apply at any school he wants, and get in with full scholarships. Damn smart people...
Another topic- Improvisation. Im still really loving it, and I've managed to get another fellow pianist at school, Kate, to start improvising, and it's very promising. Im also still practicing it, and trying to be more organised about it but I discovered that Im really not that special, or even that good at it:
Theres a resource on the net for pianists where you can post recordings of yourself and get comments from other pianists. This guy posted himself improvising a set of classical variations (8 minutes in length). The story= Every year, his undergrad school in brazil has a concert where all the piano majors have to improvise in a style picked from a hat. Every style from latino pop music to a full out fugue is included. He spoke very modestly about it, and raved about how the other people were much better, and that the guy who did the fugue was amazing. I listened to it, and from the way he spoke, I was expecting something not nearly as well put together as what he played. It was not completely beyond my current abilities, but beyond what I've been attempting.
Now I realise that in a lot of Latino cultures, improvisation is much more embraced in all areas of music and life, so it should come more naturally, but it made me realise that I am nowhere near as special as I thought, and made myself out to be in terms of this practice.
The result is that Im going to start pressing harder on my own abilities. I encourage those of you to suggest styles and then make me play them for you. It's a completely different thing when you play for someone, as opposed to randomly playing around alone in a practice room.
Wow, just in writing this portion of the blog, I've gone from being discouraged about improvising to being reinspired, YAY!
Hmm, what else can I take up internet space with? End of term assignments are starting to creep up on me, I should start to be more aware. I've fallen into that trap of being one-track mind, only concerned about the concerto, but I also have a 20'th century group presentation to get started on, I assume theres an Analysis paper coming up, but we're talking about that next class, so that will bring it into reality. Piano rep paper won't be due for a while yet, after the break I think he said. Chamber music performance is the thursday 24th Novermber, so right around the same time as Concerto competition. I really need to get off my ass and fix up those few little spots that need to be tidy. If not, they will make me look bad and technically weak, and I'd prefer that I not be the one to look bad. This Chamber group is a little frustrating because the violinist is not really technically advanced enough, and has had issues making it on time, if at all, to rehearsals. I would be fine with it if he just didn't play all that well, but its the ensemble things that are suffering. Anyways, we'll make sure to have extra rehearsals so that all is well.
Oh ya, back to composition, I'm thinking that's what Im gonna end up doing with my life. This doesn't really mark a huge change in my life, cause Im still doing the performance degree, but provided my comp prof doesnt tell me Im a terrible composer, Im gonna start looking into what I would have to do to get into a Masters Comp degree, aside from doign a comp undergrad. I know that by the end of next year, I won't have a big enough portfolio, but I could take a year or whatnot to work and travel and compose, then it would be good... we'll see. My main passion is still piano and performing so I'll do that as long as I can, but ya, just keeping my doors open.
I've started doing some score reading and looking into composition styles since my meeting on thursday with the prof... two general statements 1) George Crumb is weird ass! just crazy shit, and I couldnt get recordings to match up to the scores, so i was further confused... i don't know if I'll like what I hear...
2) I LOVE ARVO PÄRT! His music is SO gorgeous. We're gonna talk about his style and methods at my next lesson. It makes me want to write really luscious choral music.
Ok, I've written a fair bit tonight, and I think Im gonna go eat a samosa and watch tv.

Io sono diagnosi

J'ai visité le medicin aujourd'hui, et apres beacoup des tests, il m'a dit ce que j'ai.
Ich habe die Bronchitis.
It was super fun, this morning I went to get tests done.. I got to pee in a cup, I got to bleed for them, I got to blow something, and rub my chest against a flat metal plate. So SEXY!
The blood tests were good, breathing was not good compared to normally, but it was acceptable for my age standard. The doctor said that it didnt appear to be an infection, but there is some inflammation in my chest or whatever, so it's Bronchitis.
He gave me an inhaler that i get to use for a month, then he's gonna doa follow up. I damn well better be feeling A.O.K. by then. Anyway, the inhaler is a steroid which will reduce the inflammation so I wont have congestion and coughing and whatnot. Hopefully after a new days of taking the inhaler, it will be working its wonder and all will be well.
Anyway, Im a little relieved that it was what I thought all along. My mom speculated that it was proabably a chest infection, my dad said it was legionaires disease which were all justifiable from the symptoms I had. Some of the other not so applicable attempted-diagnoses were mono, syphilis, and crabs...
Aside from going to get the tests done, then later the actual doctors appointment, I managed to get a fair bit of practicing in today, as well as a nice little nap just before Ma 'n Pa got home. Mostly, I practiced Mozart today. I hadn't actually touched it since close to the beginning of the year, and I had forgotten how delightful of a sonata it is. And come to think of it, I dont think I ever got around to playing it for David yet this year(at least not the firts movement) so it will all be new and good when I play it for him on wednesday!

Blah

Im updating, but theres really nothing of interest to comment about, and Im feeling almost too lazy to come up with anything interesting, so I'll just fill you in on some daily events.
I worked at the Ballet today, I was tired for the 9am class and so was the teacher. Normally, the class of 6 year olds are able to fill the room with energy, but nope; they were also very sleepy. Apparently this was a common feeling all day. Later when I played for the same teacher, the other class was not really tired, but they were whiny and all teenage girl like and they were driving us crazy. I actually enjoyed it, Kristina is really funny when tired and crazy.
In the middle, I went for lunch with Dale because she also had a break. My usual practice on saturday is to go and eat at the twist cafe or wherever and have some quiet time, it was nice to have company today. On top of that, Dale slyly paid for my lunch. It was a super wonderful nice surprise and I love her for it.
Musical theatre happened today, which Im not happy about but at least it was with a different teacher. Result = music was actually actively involved in about 85% of the class, versus the normal 40-50%. By keeping them involved in the class and not letting them walk all over her, they were somewhat better behaved. Also, we started on a new song in the first class, which helps me get away from the debillitating anger I have for the musical Annie, but it starts a new hatred for Wizard of Oz.
Tonight my parents tried to take me to a fall supper at one of the random churches in the area; they don't really like God, but they eat his food. Unfortunately, the fall supper was sold out when we got there. I suggested a local restaurant called 'Hyjinx: Epicurious Eatery". I kinda knew it was a shithole to begin with, but sometimes that is an endearing quality. The server was nice enough, but one of those thatwas just daft enough to be noticeably so. The bread was stale-ish, my caesar salad was disgustingly overdressed and the croutons followed suit with the bread. Odd thing.. even though the croutons were soggy with dressing, they still managed to be hard from the stality. The main course was served in three stages, as in: my mother's, then mine 8 minutes later served with an appology for my dads food (future proche) being tardy... apparently the restaurant in which we were the only patrons was backed up in the kitchen.... then my father's food was served about 10-15 minutes after mine. By then my mother had finished eating what she was going to eat of her meal and I, having made an effort to wait for dad's meal, became disgusted with the new cooling state of my sandwich. I kept picking at my fries.
All in all the meal took far longer than it should have. The food was not very good at all. Mother didn't get her soup, nor her dessert. My dad kept his patience, because... well, thats what he does; stays tollerant in the face of all incompetence BUT when he finally got his fish, it was over cooked, and ya. Oh ya, the coleslaw was well.... nasty beyond even what Salisbury house serves up. Heinous factor of eleven(11).
Anyway, feel free to look up the word epicurious, or epicure and enjoy the irony as it relates to this situation.

tee hee hee

You Are A: Puppy!

Beloved by all, puppies are energetic, playful, and loving. Your playful and outgoing nature is part of what makes you a puppy. Known for their loyalty, puppies make great pets for young and old alike. And an innocent puppy face can melt anyone's heart!

You were almost a: Duck or a Bear Cub
You are least like a: Chipmunk or a GroundhogWhat Cute Animal Are You?
This is totally right on the money! I love ducks so much, although they tend to get mad when I throw food at them rather than giving it to them in a less violent way... oh well. What's the point of throwing corn kernels into a pond if you dont try and hit something!?!
Anyway, let me know what cute animal you guys are, its very entertaining.
-Michael

Health related topics!

Well, I haven't had a General Practicioner for a very long time. Now that I'm ill, I need one. I called the phone number that tells you which doctors are accepting patients.
Assholes, apparently only one doctor in the entire city is accepting new patients... thats bullshit!
Before this service was available, or that I knew about it, I tried randomly calling doctors in the area asking if they would take me as a new patient, and they all said no.
Today, I won. I rose above the beaurocracy of the healthcare system! I phoned my moms doctor and said that I needed an appointment with my doctor(this was a lie, he's not really my doctor). She said she couldn't find my file, I said 'really?'. Then she looked up my name on the computer and said that I wasnt listed as a patient of his... I was almost caught redhanded. She mentioned that it only made sense if I hadn't been there since they became computerized 5 years ago... I verified that and long story short, I have an appointment with my family doctor on Monday.
In case you can't tell, Im very proud of myself.

Also health related, Today is the first day of November which is National Diabetes Awareness Month. This evening I volunteered by handing out info-cards to people at the local Giant Tiger. Generally people were not terribly receptive, often thinking I was selling something or taking donations, but really what do you expect from the class of people that shop at Giant Tiger. Notably, when I got home from volunteering, my mom was soon heading out the door to go to... you guessed it, the neighbourhood Giant Tiger store. I also have been known to shop there, but I'm just being aware of my roots!

Anyway, I will be making an effort to educate people about diabetes this month, because as a diabetic, it pisses me off when people don't know what they are talking about. I encourage everyone to go on the internet, perhaps start at the site I was canvassing for today which is slanted towards Type 2 diabetes. Here's some Michael Style info about diabetes, I encourage questions!
There are 3 types of diabetes:
1) Type 1 (my kind); aka Juvenille Diabetes, Insulin Dependant Diabetes, Diabete Mellitus.
In this kind, the pancreas does not produce any insulin and therefore cannot metabolize the energy from food, the patient is reliant on injectible insulin.
Left untreated: The body, unable to get energy from food, the body starts metabolising fat tissue, then muscular tissue, then if you haven't died yet, organ tissue.
Poorly treated: Blindness, Loss of limb, kidney failure, increased risk of heart disease/stroke.
2)Type 2; aka Non Insulin Dependant diabetes, Adult Onset Diabetes.
In this kind, the body either doesn't produce enough insulin or is otherwise less capable of metabolising food by its own methods. Sometimes this type can be treated by diet and exercise alone, but there are also pills which can be taken to aid in the bodies production of insulin.
Left untreated: May progress to Type 1 Diabetes.
Poorly treated: Blindness, Loss of limb, kidney failure, increased risk of heart disease/stroke.
3)Gestational Diabetes- I dont know too much about this type, but it is only applicable to pregnant women. The added stress of pregnancy causes elevated blood sugar levels and it is treated with insulin while the woman is pregnant. I believe it goes away when she is no longer pregnant. But there is an increased risk of Diabetes in the mother and child.
The NUMBERS:
2 million - number of Canadians with Diabetes
10% of those are Type 1, 90% are type 2, Gestational Diabetes effects 3.5% of all pregancies.
MICHAEL GETS POLITICAL
obviosuly 1.8 million people is a big number so the Type 2 population gets much more attention. Most of the funding for studies is aimed at research on Typ 2 diabetes.
WHY THIS PISSES ME OFF
In the early stages, if caught, Type 2 diabetes can be managed by diet and exercise, as in not being so lazy and sugarcrazed. However the majority of people with type 2 are on pills either because there was not enough info out there and they didnt catch it til later when pills were needed, or they were unwilling to change their lifestyle.
I have type one, Juvenille, meaning that I develloped it as a child and they still dont have an explanation for it. It was not my choice to be dependant on insulin, so it quite pisses me off when people dont take care fo themselves when they have the opportunity and then end up on insulin.
Anyway, enough about that for now.... feel free to askany questions and leave comments, my goal is to educate people so they know the risks and effects of diabetes.

Jack of all trades, Master of none.

This is why our society has not produced anyone of real excellence in a very long time. This century really has no mega composers like Bach or Beethoven or Chopin. No scientific greats like Einstein. And where are the great poets like Goethe and the sculptors and painters and everything good that our history has to offer!
I blame society and its effect on parents. Kids these days have their lives filled to a disgusting extent. They have soccer on this day, hockey the next, scouts and girlguides, swimming lessons, extracirricular school stuff and then piano lessons and voice lessons, and ballet class and whatever the hell else kids do. It leaves them no time to show what they are really interested in and good at by their simple displays of creativity and interest that they will find on their own. Not only are we stifling their creativity, but we are forcing them to devellop a mediocrity complex where they try to put equal effort towards everything in which they are involved. It doesn't matter if they would rather be painting flowers over and over again so that they make the flower more and more realistic and it comes more naturally... they are made to feel guilty about not spending their time having practiced their clarinet fingering or done their homework for social studies.
Our society tries to convince us that this builds better well rounded people that function better in our society... yes if our society wants a bunch of non specialists that can go from on unskilled labour job to the next, then YAY! we have quite the successful system....
BUT when we go to the opera, do you care if the soprano can kick a 30 yard field goal or if she can calculate the mass of 17.2 moles of graphite?!? NO,the only mass we care about is she is the fat lady and that she can sing like nobody's business!
Child prodigys were probably useful at some point in history... they could get a head start on learning rep and what not so they could develop a sense of musicality from their basic learning of the music. Now we don't even have specialised schools. There used to be music schools where you could send your kid and he would learn music and some basics so that they could get by, but not any more.
Mumbly Mumbly this world sucks.
And the worst part about it is that when the stupid parents realise their child is doing too much crap... what gets cut, is it the soccer that they paid in full for resigtration at the beginning of the year? is is the sports at school, or the homework? NO its the piano lessons that they end up dropping because it's the easiest.
WHORES, now I can't even come close to paying tuition without going into debt! BASTARDS

Elmo You scored 39% Organization, 65% abstract, and 64% extroverted!

This test measured 3 variables. First, this test measured how organized you are. Some muppets like Cookie Monster make big messes, while others like Bert are quite anal about things being clean. Second, this test measured if you prefer a concrete or an abstract viewpoint. For the purposes of this test, concrete people are considered to gravitate more to mathematical and logical approaches, whereas abstract people are more the dreamers and artistic type. Third, this test measured if you are more of an introvert or an extrovert. By definition, an introvert concentrates more on herself and an extrovert focuses more on others. In this test an introvert was somebody that either tends to spend more time alone or thinks more about herself. You are mostly organized, more abstract, and both introverted and extroverted. Most people either love or hate Elmo. I hope you love Elmo, because that's who you are. You are both somewhat organized. You have a good idea where you put things and you probably keep your place reasonably clean. You aren't totally obsessed with neatness though. Elmo has the same basic approach. His place is pretty tidy, but he doesn't spend all of his time cleaning it up. You both are abstract thinkers. You definitely are not afraid to take chances in life. You only live once. You may notice others around you playing it safe, but you are more concerned with not compromising your desires, and getting everything you can out of life. This is a very romantic approach to life, but hopefully you are also grounded enough to get by. Elmo's whole life is based on fantasy and his imagination. In the beginning he was a regular character, but now he spends most of his time in this fantasy world. You are both somewhat extroverts. Like Elmo, you probably like to have some time to yourself, but you do appreciate spending time with your friends, and you aren't scared of social situations. Elmo spends some of his time with real friends, but he also needs some time just to chat it up with his goldfish. The other possible characters are Oscar the Grouch Big Bird Cookie Monster Ernie Snuffleupagus Kermit the Frog Grover The Count Guy Smiley Bert If you enjoyed this test, I would love the feedback! Also if you want to tell me your favorite Sesame Street character, I can total them up and post them here. Perhaps your choice will win!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 14% on Organization You scored higher than 81% on concrete-abstra You scored higher than 57% on intro-extrovert

Link: The Your SESAME STREET Persona Test written by greencowsgomoo on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

sicky, and Im falling apart

Im sickish with something. I've had it for 2 weeks at least closer to 3. Basically my only real ailment is that I have a terrible cough and a mild degree of phlegmatism. Nevertheless, on thursday of last week I was at the peak of my illness, I had random cold sweats and stuff that made me think I had a fever, but that was only for the day. I also had mucle isms: partially achy but also a little lethargy. For this reason, I've been avoiding practicing too intensely lately. It hurts mentally to not practice much, but I know myself. I have enough problems with tension and stress in my wrists, I don't want to overuse anything if it could cause damage. I've actually been doing well in that department. I've combined a battary of stretches and relaxation techniques that I developped while attempting both manual labour and pianoing during the summer (very taxing). I haven't had any problems really since the peak of the summer, but I started to feel the strain this past week, so I'm being proactive.
In terms of falling apart, here is a little backstory. I had a root canal a few years ago. Now Im in the process of getting a crown on that tooth. On Tuesday they did the tooth shaping and gave me a temporary crown. I didn't understand exactly how temporary this crown was to be. They mentioned that I should not floss it or eat sticky things as it might come off. So what did I do thursday night?I ate candy. What happened? It broke off.
Friday morning I called the dentist as soon as I woke up hoping I could get an appointment that day/afternoon. She told me to come as soon as I could, so I didn't shower and rushed there with stuff for school. I had to wait and it took a long time, but I had my temporary crown once again. Fastforward to friday night, Im eating salad at Tropikis with my parents and what happens... I had been eating on that side of the mouth and once again, in the same spot, the tooth breaks. I don't care anymore, if its gonna keep breaking Im not getting another one!
Other than those things, all is well. I partied like it was 1999 this weekend.... literally, I haven't been binge drinking to this extent since around then...(thats a lie..ohwell). It was a good weekend filled with 2 halloween parties, a long day at work, a bake sale during the work day, La Bohème(AMAZING!) and much much more!
I think Im gonna stay in tonight and get lots of stuff working. I have assignments to work on and practicing to get done, maybe I'll head to the school tonight to be productive. Im almost done my piano rep assignment, then I'll do some stuff for 20th Century. Yippee!

Good times

Well, I had my lesson today, and it was good times.
We talked about rep and changed some pieces around for recital...
Anything Bach related has changed.... we've decided to do the PDQ Bach piece based on Mozart's Turkish rondo... from the Sonata Im playing in the same recital.... because there is this relation... David freed me from the obligation to play the corresponding J.S.Bach Prelude and Fugue. The A minor P&F by J.S. is huge, like 9 pages, and would take up too much recital time. Instead, David suggested a lively rollicking P&F from WTC book1 in G Major. I like it, and Im going to do it!
I was a little worrysome about the lesson, cause -What if I felt good about the progress, but he said it still wasn't enough?!?- There was one page where different sections are at different stages of playability. When I played it, rather than play at the slowest tempo and have everything perfect, I changed tempos to suit their preparedness which threw me off and nothing was as good as it could be, cause I didnt actually switch tempos... i just planned on it. This apparently was not good enough, he questioned me on the quality, and I replied with some mumbling about how the different parts weren't in agreement in some kind of flustered jargon, that Michael does best! He started to talk about how if I use those methods , things will come together... and I made the tension particuarly visible by blurting out "I did, I made them do that and there's only so much I can do. The sections all go perfectly on their own, they just aren't as fast as they should be yet!" He could tell that I was a little on edge, so we went to another section with the understanding that that page would be better next week.
There was another time when I looked like an ass because I mentioned how a certain section didn't sound right to me when I play it as fast as the score says I should... and then near the end of that section, theres a Huge Ritardando... and I wasn't doing it cause it felt so awkward. After a few tries with him saying "just do what's on the page", he stopped me and had me start the section over at the fast tempo, and told me to do the Rit. Long before I got to the rit, I knew that I had just been stupid. It made sense.
He didnt appreciate what I did with the opening section, which was feuled by pure unbridled spite. Last week he complained that my opening section was too random and had no pulse... so he made me practice it with a metronome and said it better be perfect next week... so I did that, I played it exactly in metronomic time with the dynamics... but there was no tempo flux marked at all... so it was boring and unexpressive. He commented on the end result and I was quick to say "But you said to play it absolutely perfect in tempo"
I knew all along what he meant and what he wanted, however i didnt care.
anyway, ive been trying to type this for hours, and I give up NOW

just a little update

I've noticed a change in my practice ethic lately. Definately for the better. Im hoping it is a lasting difference, not just reacting to the recent events that could have easily scared me into practicing good for a while.
I guess the difference is that normally when I practice hardcore and in the style that David expects, I feel good about it after the lesson at which David tells me that he's happy about it, but I'm actually enjoying this method and seing it's fruits already. I've applied to not just to the Rubinstein, but on my own to the Brahms and the results:
The one in a-minor; not a particularly difficult piece, but I had quite nearly given up on the middle section because it wasn't working easily for me. I sat down and just decided that I was going to make it work, and now it does granted slowly.. but it works nonetheless.
g-minor; I hadn't worked on it in a while and yesterday I managed to speed it up by 27 metronome markings. Yet another significant step towards performance tempo.
I've also been applying these methods to the Rubinstein and they're working. The effects are not quite as visible because its a huge piece of music, but that one section I was avoiding like the plague now works, and pretty much up to tempo (the one we worked on in my lesson). There's lots to tidy up still, but Im excited to have it ready for the concerto competition in December.

feeling much better

Two good things happened today that cause me to be over the negativity that was in my head yesterday.
1) I talked to Laura. She is a goddess who comands the respect of everyone in the musical world. I went to talk to her because I needed an honest answer to the question "Were the imperfections in my playing yesterday enough to distort my musicality and musical intentions?" This was the main issue I was having yesterday and part of today. If the mistakes I make cause me to sound like someone who likes music but isn't a pro at it, then I am not serving the music itself, and not doing it justice.
It would be selfish of me to pursue a career as a musician if that was the case. As a performer, one must know that they are presenting something of worth. This is why I have some major issues with some people in the school. It's one thing if you don't have the most beautiful singing voice, but you still decide to sing in a church or community choir or whatnot... but have the decency to accept that creating music (a thing of beauty) SHOULD BE BEAUTIFUL! So leave it to those who CAN make it beautiful and get yourself down to the Karaoke hall. David hinted at this point in my lesson. I have chosen to play a concerto this year that is 'off the beaten path' and he pointed out that when you play an accepted concerto like Beethoven or whatnot, if you play the notes as written, a lot of thetime the music speaks for itself.. but in a piece like the Rubinstein, you need to be able to play it even better so that after hearing you play, people will say, "Wow, I'm glad he unearthed that buried gem of a concerto' rather than "Oh, so THAT's why no-body plays that concerto..."
Laura's response was good enough to cheer me up. She said that she wasnt in the hall for it, but she was listening through the door ( she wasnt just saying that, I often see her ear pressed to the door) and she heard a lot of 'really great' sounds from the piano. Her advice in terms of the perfection was to remind me that it really isn't a reasonable goal, and thats the hardest part of being a musician, that there will always be those little things, no matter how small.. and its our job to get the music out, beyond those little things. Thank you Laura.
Laura is definately on my good list. Last year at the Genser finals, after the winners were announced( of which I was neither) she made a point to come over to me and express how well I did, and how many colours and textures and tones I got out of the piano.

2) The other good thing that happened today was my practicing. With renewed vigour, I aimed for perfection, and I was doing well enough in achieving it. Yesterday, during me lesson, we worked on a section of 4 bars and we started it at 60 bmp, and worked it to about 80bpm, and I felt like I was going to die. That was that half hour I mentioned. Today, I worked the same section as well as the next 4 bars after it. I worked this whole section starting at about 70bpm all the way up to 136bpm...and its reliable! I was really enjoying the sense of mastery I was feeling, and I only stopped because I had to go meet my parents downtown for dindin.
It was delicious, I had a baked chicken and brie focaccia... spectacular!!! YUMMY! Elephant and Castle.. good times.
ANyway, tomorrow will be a good day, Im going to go to the rehearsal with my choreographer.. she said shes been productive... although she still hasnt picked up the phone to get ahold of me...
then after that Fi and I are going to the Ballet. Dracula with music by Mahler... Im excited.

Midterm, Recital and Lesson, all in one day!

Midterm went well.
Recital, I felt went well, and I got lots of compliments from lots of people... we'll cover that soon enough...
My lesson was one of those ones where David had me just drill the technical elements of four bars for about half an hour... then we moved to another section...
This, as well as the talking, both physically and mentally drove home the point that David has been stressing with me: The importance of learning a piece to perfection so that the technical elements are completely reliable. It is at that point where you are truly free to perform without worrying about stressing about possible mistakes, because if you've practiced it a thousand times perfectly, chances are when you perform it... it will be perfect. As much as bells of "Never accept anything on blind faith" from 20th Century music history are ringing, David keeps reminding me that I owe it to myself and others that I reach that point of perfectionism and teancity, that I can decide whether it is truly for me or not. The idea is that most pianists who are worth anything work in this method, or have reached a high enough level of technical skill that they make their decision based on it's realism...
After we had moved from the piano, and were just talking, he said something to the extent of "...and if you never reach that level of perfection, you'll be always nervous about the little things that you aren't sure of avoiding.... and you'll get lots of congratulations from 90-some% of the population, a good ol' pat on the back...BUT those who know what it takes to get it to perfection will know, and while they will still recognise the work put in, they'll know it could be better"
Somehow in one sentance... not only did he completely discredit any of the compliments I received today, but also called into question my own judgement of musical worth. I really don't know, because I haven't even come close to perfection, as David pointed out to me "you've probably never been able to sit down to a piece that you know you can play perfectly with no mistakes or hesitations"... or even just once. My musicanship is always flawed with even just the little mistakes and errors. Im not expecting that everytime something is played it should be flawless... mistakes happen, like a car analogy... who knows when yer gonna get a flat tire, or overheated engine, or anything like that.... But I have never made that musical road trip having had a safety inspection and powertrain check, and servicing and filled with gas with an emergency kit just in case. I have not just developped habits, but based my musical experience on not doing these things regularly... if at all.
We also talked about how its incredibly difficult to see beyond mistakes to the musical expression and intentions of a musician.
The issue is not with whether I want to be perfect or not... I do want to at least give it that try... and I think I have been trying... but theres something blocking me. I don't know what it is. Is it possible for me to ever reach that level, or have the years, and lifetime of technical neglect and imperfections left me out of the running?
David thinks it is possible and I must believe in myself also. My problem is just in trusting his faith.... He was a prodigy that went to the best teachers even before he went to Julliard. He's been playing the rep Im working on since he was 14 years old. What does he know about not being technically equipped to display the colours and emotions and musical images that are inside of you. He's used to working with young prodigies and the sort who can do whatever with their fingers, and then trying to shape that into something intelligible as music. When I see/learn music, I know exactly what i want to happen, and how I want to shape the phrases, but then I get wrong notes in the way, whcih as he says, takes away from the musicality, so all he hears in the lessons is a pianist who can't adequately express his musical intentions. Everyso often he mentions how its frustrating that he keeps talking about this issue, and its not making much headway.... well its just as frustrating for me. Im doing what I can to try and change, and I've been spending 2 and a quarter years doig the same thing, in different ways, and still Im not good enough... not just technically, but as a person, as a musician.. I still have not developped the musical maturity to work up to a level of perfection that will allow my musianship to be understood.
Please note the discernable amount of displacement of anger, I mostly hate myself for my inadequacies, David is right, and I admire him immensely. The only problem is that I really dont feel connected with him.. Im not even sure that that is necesary though... I was strongly connected with my last teacher, and where has that gotten me... to a point where he doesn't respect what I am doing, or how I am doing, and furthermore that he belittles me infront of a choir rehearsal, as little as it were. It seems that I am not getting really any positive feedback from any source to which I would like it.
If someone were to come up to me and say that I'd make a good circus musician... I'd most likely run away to the circus.

This weekend was one of those that was very busy, and filled with stuff, and nowhere near as productive as I wanted to be...
The definate highlight of the weekend was seeing a 24 year old Russian girl play the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1. It's a pinnacle of music for piano. Fabulous music and impressively difficult. Reading in her Bio that she has been concertizing since she was 10.. I was prepared to be all bitter about yet another prodigy... but no. There was something that had developped out of her experience. Technique aside, which was nothing less than amazing, there was depth in her playing that showed a true musicality and emotional connection with the music. I was very impressed and happy that for the first time, I have seen someone that was or is a prodigy that was anything other than technical, flashy, energetic, .. the embodiment of unaged musicianship.
A group of the U of M F of M pianists talked with her after the concert, and she was amazingly humble and inspiring. She made a comment about just needing to know what sound you want to produce, and then finding a way to make it happen.... which also shows that she thinks musically first, then technically. This whole experience was altogether REFRESHING!
Also on the weekend, rehearsal for Reign of Sound as the concert is coming up:
Next Sunday October 23'rd at 7:30 pm at Holy Trinity Church (Donald at Graham)
The choral stuff is coming together relatively nicely.. it's amazing music to begin with. As well, I am officially comfortable and prepared for the piano pieces Im playing. I'll be playing them tomorrow in a noon-hour recital at school, and I feel good about it. Of course there is always more to do, but I'm very excited about this. I haven't played piano in front of an audience for a little while, so it will be nice to give people an update, and hopefully it will seem like I have actually improved over the last half year.
Today, I finally made it to that modern ballet class I've been trying to get to! The drummer is a bit of a personality clash... but he does amazing work. I really enjoyed the class. Interesting things they do in terms of movements and body flow. The musicality of the accompaniment was nowhere near as complicated or weird as I thought it might have been. The only difference is in the length of phrases, but its still always a 3 or a 2 or a 4 metre. In ballet, 8 is the magic number, phrases are always the same... but in modern, they have phrases of 5 or 3 or 7 or 11 or sometimes 8 also... basically anything, and it fits the movements of the class. Basically what I was going there was to get an overview of how rhythm fits with modern dance, and now I have a fairly good idea. My next step is to watch a piano accompaniment for a modern class at the Contemporary Dancers, which will give me a different, and more accessible understanding.

Today was an ok day. Practicing was productive. My goal was to say goodbye to Rex this morning and not be crying on the way out the door. It was hard, but I accomplished that. Coming home tonight was hard because my Mom is really heart broken. She spent the whole day at home, and he followed her around like the faithful dog he was and she felt guilty.
At school 2 of my friends had read last night's post and gave me knowing hugs today. I love my friends.
While in a practice room, I spent 20 minutes improvising as a therapeutic release and emotional experience. It always amazes me how powerful an experience it is to just let yourself go and create music our of nothing. It's one thing when I improvise for ballet, it's really structured and the goal is to outline the form of the music, rather than any emotion.
Don't get me wrong, I love improvising for ballet. the structure allows me to practice and improve technically and in terms of thinking logically about music. It's just such an overwhelming experience to let all the musical skills I've built over the years come together to create something that expresses to the best of my ability what I want to express. I still feel that the best of my abilities is not good enough. This is not to say that I wasnt satisfied with my improvising today, it was indeed rather cathardic. I just know that I still have technical impediments as well as not enough concentation.
The concentration is something Im working on. Thats one of the things I don't do so well with is theme recollection. I can create things from nothing, and repeat something similar to the original theme later, but I need to be more exact. I think I'll start practicing with hymn tunes. that wayt he theme will have to be exact and embedded.
I think everyone should improvise. Im not sure to what degree it's true that not everyone can do it. A lot of it is getting over the fear of putting out something that is not musically valid. I recently was in a practice room with a colleague, getting her to try improvising. I really think she can do it, with work at it, it would be super good for her. But it was blatantly obvious that she felt ridiculous doing it in front of someone.... I felt that way at first too, I would only do it at home, alone..... improvising on piano that is... DIRTY!
Anyway, its especially strong in musicians who are so classically trained for so long... We get used to only putting out music that has been tried by the test of time, music that has been accepted as worthwhile. Someone who is playing at an associateship level in university is used to playing music that dazzles the listener; they play mature, complicated music. When you start improvising, the material that you put out there is way down at the maybe grade 3 or 4 level... very simplistic stuff. But the learning curve is very steep. The reason its so simplistic at first is because its completely new, and the basic principles are what needs to be developed. In order for the mind to grasp those concepts, the actual technical aspects need to be so simple that they can be easily understood, and manipulated. Once those concepts are grasped, its simply a matter of thinking logically about what you are doing, and applying all the technical tricks to what you are thinking of. This is the point at which I am working.
I have finally become completely comfortable with the concepts and thought process of improvising. I find that the more I do it, the more tools of the pianistic trade I have to use. Im finding that a lot of the Rubinsteinean techniques I've worked on in my concerto have been working their way into my improvising... likewise with all the technical work I've done over the last few years. It's exciting to hear my playing, and musicality developing.
Anyway, I want everyone to at least try improvising, and Im more than willing to help you out in getting started. I think this will be my pet project, and while I was writing this, I've decided its gonna be my indep studay project for next year. Improvising: a comprehensive approach to practical applications and teaching.... something like that...
good night for now

Fun questions

I found this on a friends site, and it's fun, please fill it out for me... doesn't take much time


1. Are we friends?
2. Do you have a crush on me/are you attracted to me?
3. Would you kiss me?
4. ...with tongue?
5. Would you enjoy it?
6. Would you ever ask me out or go out with me if I asked you?
7. Would you make a move on me in a movie theater?
8. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:
9. Would you take care of me when I'm sick?
10. Do you want to tell me something that you couldn't before?
11. If you heard a rumor about me, would you defend me?
12. Do you/have you talk(ed) crap about me?
13. Do you think I'm a good person?
14. Would you let me sleep with you (in the same bed)?
15.Do you think I'm hot?
16. Would you call me just because?
17. Would you ever listen to my problems even if they don't involve you?
18. If you could change anything about me, would you?
19.Would you have sex with me?
20.Would you come over for no reason just to hang out?
21. Will you post this so I can fill it out for you?

sentimental post

Bear with me as I am sentimental for a while.
Earlier this evening I went for a walk with my dog Rex. We went to the park. Specifically, Michael Park took Rex Park to Rogan park. It was nice. It's been quite a while since Rex had been out for a walk because of arthritis and muscular problems. The pace was much slower and relaxed. He stopped to piss on all the fire hydrants between my house and the park. During our walk, I was reminded of bygone days, when he was a puppy and he would be so excited to be out of the yard and would pull me down the street, or how I used to take him to the park and make him go down the slide... (have you ever seen a mid to large sized dog go down a slide? it's really funny). He was the kind of odd puppy that, even though he is a black lab, he was afraid of water, to the extent that he would jump over puddles. I tried to rid him of this fear by giving him swimming lessons in the creek close to my house. I don't think this actually cured him of his fear of water, he probably still harbours some risidual resentment, but thats alright. Regardless, we had a good walk.
I am sad.
When I came home today, besides small talk, my parents told me that Rex was going to the vet tomorrow. He won't be coming home. They scheduled an appointment to have him put down tomorrow at 5:30pm.
For those of you who read my early posts, you might be thinking that this is what I've been waiting for, but it still hurts. Rex has not been well for a very long time. When he was still quite young he had chronic ear infections and tried everything, but he would scratch his ears til they bled. The only solution we found was Steroids. The vet told us he was a little weary about giving him them, because he was young and unless it was at a really low dose, it would have complications later on. Well, we still tried different things, and we tried to use as low a dose as possible, but after like 7 or 10 years we now have a dog that is balding, with no muscles in his torso, and who is on the constant steroid driven prowl for food.
My parents were able to come to this conclusion, because his mobility has been steadily declining, making a few stairs difficult, a whole flight impossible. He has also taken to destructive behaviour like scratching the door frame. It is not that we are not willing to tolerate it, we had taken out the carpet in a room because his steroid related growth/boil burst and he bled on it... We don't blame him for the behaviour, rather it has just become more obvious that he is not comfortable, or enjoying his existence if he is doing things like that.
I have been feeding Rex excessive amounts of dog treats tonight, only partially because we have no need for them without him, but mostly because I love my doggy and want him to be happy. I hope that tomorrow will somehow end his hunger that has had him hunting for fallen food, scraps, leftovers, and pity food.
Near the end of the summer, when my Grandma's health was failing, my family would half joke, half wonder who would win... Rex or Grandma..... as only the morbid humoured Park family would. Well, Grandma made it to the finish line first, but Rex, you get the other gold ribbon for sticking around later!
Im glad my parents know me well enough that despite all the talk and insistence over the last year or so of having Rex put down, that they know I do care, and they didn't rub the decision in.
Anyway, Im gonna go spend some time with my puppy on his last night.

Oi vay!

Today was a bit of a trying day. I've gone batty.
I woke up and was convinced that I had slept in and had not enough time to get to my 8:30 class. I debated staying at home because I felt extremely nauseous. I convinced my mother to give me a ride to school so I could attend class on time, so I got ready and all was not terrible. Throughout the ride to school, I was experimenting and trying to find out whether the nausea and heartburn were lessened or aggravated by drinking water, I still don't know.
ANyway, I got to the school and saw Deena in the hall on my way to class, but she had a confused look as I asked her if she was heading to class, to which she informed me that Advanced Analysis was at 9:30 as it had been all along. Confused, distraught and frightened, i leaned against the wall and fell to the ground and lay there for a moment or a few. Deena went in for her coaching and I gathered the broken shell of a man up and laid down on a couch for the next 50 minutes. The actuall class was ok, I hadn't done the reading or the pre-class work, but I was fine.
Before my next class, I went with Andrea and Karen to Timmy Ho's, but on the way through the forest, there was an extremely lound noise sounding like a gunshot or balloon popping... I shrieked and then clung on to a tree that was just to my left. Why am I such a pathetic sack of dithering shit today? On the way back, I stopped at the Fine Arts library to search for a plate of a painting... Why is is so difficult to find things places... The lady was very helpful though, but after looking through 8 books that had info on Viennese artists or the one I was looking for specifically, i still didnt have the painting.
Later that day I found it, in a book written entirely in German at the big library at the centre of campus.
Perhaps this is the reason I was having issues finding the painting called "The Return"... cause it's German!
Anyway, I finally found the painting and am reasonably sure that it is the one called "Die Heimkehr" literally translated as 'home going back'.
The reson I needed to find this painting is one of inspiration. I am playing a piece by Rachmaninoff that was inspired by this painting. I need to now find themeaning that Rachy saw in the painting and translate that into my playing.
I would appreciate if anyone could give some commentary or insight. The piece is Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B minor Op. 32, No. 10. Listen to it, its powerful and beautiful and poignant(not to be confused with Swan Lake). Also take a look at the painting itself and think about the meaning..
The music is dark and thoughtful, and I've already read speculations that the painting is of the man coming home to die... which fits the music, but at first look, Im not convinced that its the paintings intentions. Rachmaninoff was in his 40's and nowhere near death at the time, so I have to look into that and find a way to reconcile the painting with the music.
In the end, I am quite taken with both the piece and the painting, and I am really excited about this project! Any suggestions/insights would be greatly appreciated... that is if anyone still reads this bloody blog.

our friend hoppy

Well, it's been a whole month since we've heard anything from Hoppy Hopster, so I decided to look in on him to see how things were going.

It seems he and his friend Jade are having just as much fun as ever. This photo was taken over the weekend at the National "Thanks for Giving and Receiving" conference.

Hoppy is looking forward very much to the upcoming Halloween season and hopes to meet many new people at Kyle's soirée!

I tracked her down

To start go here
The Adventures of Batman and Robin
It's totally super bad, it just makes all the standard jokes, but presented in a blunt, stupid and terribly amusing manner. It made me a little happy, I hope the same for you.
Yesterday I did manage to track down my choreographer. Before I found her though, I had heard that she had talked to the woman organizing things and told her she didnt want to work with me anymore. I was angry. Finding that there were no other people available to work with, I realize that I am screwed if she actually bails on me. I ended up talking to her, and I really made very little if any attempt to censor myself. She took personal offence to some things, like my implications that her piece would have no motivation, no inspiration unless she decided on it at the outset. I couldn't really be angry at her too much, because she kept on justly pointing out that she is new to this, and has no experience. But at the same time that comment reminded me that I had wanted to work with someone with experience choreographing, so as to avoid PRECISELY the situation I'm in right now.
I think we have things worked out as follows:
-She is going to decide on a basic framework of the piece, deciding how she wants the dance to progress... how many sections and the emotion/mood therein.
-Provided with that information, I am going to start composing short motives, or soundscapes that she can use to start having inspirations of choreography. She seems to think that she can not come up with anything unless she has some sound going on in the background.
-Using these soundscapes, she will start to choreograph.
-Once she is done choreographing each section, I will fit the style of music of the soundscape and mould it into the perfect fitting musical depiction of the movements she has chosen.
She has assured me that she can make this method work. It Better. If not, I will be angry.
But for now I'm letting any bitterness and anger I have reinforce my developping artistic temperment, which tells me that this is going to be a fully inspired and passionate project. Sure, we'll go with that for the moment.
Oh ya, the reason I couldn't get ahold of her is because she moved right after she gave me her number, and then theres a new phone number, which she didnt think to give me, and she also didn't think to call me in light of me not having her number, even though she was supposed to call me in the first place.

What the Heck?!?

So, In theory, there's four seasons in a year therefore, 3 months of each season. That works out to approximately 90 days of each season. I believe that Autumn starts about the 22nd of September... so that means that its only been Autumn for not even two weeks!! I've been totally jipped on my favorite time of year.
While Im not a fan of the coldness and the cold wind and the sleet and snow and freezing rain and whatever else was making me tear up on the way home walking into the wind... there is something very special about the first snow of the year, such as:
-The opportunity to wear some of the hand-knit winter wear I've been working on all summer, and believe me theres lots of hats and stuff!
-The irrisistible urge to frolick and catch falling snowflakes in your mouth... which werent really that flakey today.
-That flightiness of spirit that immitates the snow, which never stays upon first snow.
-The Winnipeg drivers who somehow manage to forget how to drive safely over the summer, and the many fender benders.
-That sense of pride and agility that you feel when you narrowly avoid falling down on the slippery sidewalks.
-The wet spots on the bums of those who didn't quite avoid slipping on the slippery sidewalks.
-The right to bitching about cold weather because We're Winnipeggers Damnit, and thats what we do!

Varying degrees of Ghetto

So, last night, I went to the movies with Deena. There was a special deal on at a theatre that was around for many a year, then closed down, and recently reopened after a long time being closed and nearly forgotten. This special deal was Three movies for only $4.99... andbeing that Ed Wood was included.... a wonderful movie well worth 5 bucks alone... it was a no brainer.
The theatre seemed nice enough. They remodelled it after the era it was popular in... 50's ish. It had original style movie seats, with nodrink holders... no frills really, just a chair. The great part of it was that the rows were spaced SUPER far from each other, so you could fully extend your legs infront of you, and not even reach the seats in front. Some people sitting in front of us said that we could have a dance party... unfortunately they didn't follow through...
Upon the following things, I based my comment to Deena, that I was enjoying the mild-to-moderate Ghettoness of the theatre:
-The movie was at least 30-40 minutes late in starting, and the staff and clientelle, really didnt seem to mind.
-When they were ready to start the film, there was only one person checking tickets, not before entering the theatre, but after everyone was sitting.... it took her about 10 minutes to go around and check everyone's ticket and stamp it and them.
-Before the movie, they just had the blank no dvd in player screen on, no curtain. Eventually they started playing music off of some cable or satellite music station, i think it was the 80's.... you could see them picking the chanel and going through the menu....
-The bathroom was poorly designed. The door opened towards the wall, and then there was a sink in the way, only a little awkward to enter, but thats alright. There was no divider wall between urinals.... now by no means was it a Stadium trough, but I think in this the 21'st century, most civilized places have adopted the urinal divider wall for the comfort of their pissers.
Now these things were all ok, nothing to bad, thats why it was only mild to moderate levels of ghetto. The movie eventually started right in with no previews, which I thought was odd, but noone minded of course. I LOVE the movie Ed Wood. I lLOVE Ed Wood. I was happy.
Between the first two movies, there was some time, so we went and bought steamers at the little cafe there. No Complaints. We ran into the obnoxious on of my Korean compatriots at school. His presence should have immediately upped the ghetto, but I was extra civil and it was all good. [Those of you who know which Korean tenor Im tlaking about, would have been damn impressed at how I didnt tell him off, or beat him or anything]
When we went in to see the second movie, the Ghetto factor increased to HARDCORE GHETTO. I was able to quasi look beyond the fact that these movies were being illegally played off of a dvd player for the first movie because it was done fairly seamlessly. For the second movie however, they started it right at the beginning menu.... and who knows what comes next... thats right, "FEDERAL COPYRIGHT WARNING" and you could even see the little stop hand coming up when they tried to skip over it, but the players won't let you.... Get off it you cheap ass cunts. WHat the hell kind of movie theatre is this?!? If you are going to be breaking the law, at least be discrete about it..... turn the projector off, until just the moment when the actualy movie starts or anything....GOLLY!
Once again, during chapter 16 of Edward Scissorhands, the Ghetto level changed once again.... How do I know which chapter it was..... oh well because thats the point at which the dvd started to skip and freeze. They tried everything, fastforwarding, going to the next chapter.... Nope... it took 7 minutes ish for them to figure it out...there was booing from the audience... and so much laughing from all the people who realised just how ghetto the situation was....
we had reached the state of SUPER GHETTO. To resolve the problem, they had to skip ahead two chapters to get it running again...
WOW. We left after the second movie, cause it was already after midnight, and the third movie was supposed to have finished by that point... and we were tired; both physically and figuratively.
It's not that this was the worst experience of my life, in fact I might go back at some point. But really, the place should have been closed down last night for blatant violation of copyrights. I mean it's one thing if you're showing a movie to lots of people on a bus or plane, i think planes actually have to go through a procedure to show in flight movies... but its completely different when you are CHARGING PEOPLE MONEY for your profit, but not making an investment.... Whatever, I'm not here to be a moral bitcher.... but thats what I do...
Im not sure if this is just an oversight, but really, how do you open a movie theatre and not look into the whole practice of obtaining the rights to present movies....
They have brought shame to my family name, and I am glad that it is no longer my family that is running that theatre.

Craving fulfilled!

Ok this story sorta starts last week. I worked at the ballet, the morning was good. Really craved Indian food, but wouldn't go alone... wandered around downtown, many good places were closed cause its Saturday and its winnipegs pathetic attempt at a business sector... Ate at crummy hotel restaurant, it was ok, but reminded me of how I dislike bland continental cuisine, unless its done well, which is rarely. That was the beginning of the bad... the bad was multiplied by the little bastard children with no self control, and a teacher with even less control trying to squack out a semblance of music which was sheathed by the veil of musical theatre.
Fastforward throughout the week, and stop at any point, and its a sure thing that Im craving Indian Food...
Today was quite similar to last week, the morning was rather good, and the afternoon was rather bad with the bloody musical crapatre. The huge difference with today is what happened on my 2 hour lunch break!!
I WENT FOR INDIAN FOOD!!! It was so yummy. Deena, after putting up with me writing "Indian food, mmm....." on her lecture notes and whispering sweet nothings of "Let's go for Indian Food" in her ear during classes and recitals, for a whole week... agreed that we would go on saturday (TODAY) to the "Charisma of India". Apparently its been open for a while, but they recently started advertising, and they claim they have the best indian food in the city... which I might agree with.... yummy. I had Panak Paneer, which is a spinach and cheese sauce mix type dish, served with basmati rice. also had samosas with tamarind sauce... SO GOOD. I love tamarind anything, it makes things delicious... Ive discovered that the veggie burger from the Twist Cafe that I rave about is so good, basically because of this tamarind sauce... they didnt have the sauce one week, and it really wasnt as good as usual...
Anyway, I was so happy to finally have Indian Food, it makes me SO happy. They also have belly dancing and live entertainment on friday and saturday nights, and t hey have a buffet, so we will have to go there for super happy times yay!
Anyway, it was good that there was happy today, cause there was a bit of sad too. Abby is the girl that works in the office at the ballet. We became friends last year. For the first month, I had no real break so i did classes straight through, and so I never really socialized with anyone at the ballet, cause there was no real time. After the first month, they cancelled a class and so I had an hour and a half break, with no open studios, therefore nothing to do.... This was also dead time in the office, so Abby and I spent the whole time talking. I think we helped to maintain each others sanity either from the boredom or the craziness that ensue at random times in that little office. Last week, Abby told me that it was her last day the upcoming week (today) cause she didnt really have time with school and whatnot. Anyway, I wish Abby all the best, and hope that everything goes super well for her. I will miss her on Saturdays, especially now that I have that 2 hours of nothing.... there new person they hire better be super kick ass awesome. Knowing my luck, it'll be some prude... At the same time, the job posting was still up today, so if anyone is looking for some real part time office work Saturday and tuesday evening... apply, I'll be a reference... if I like you...
My hair is making me really angry lately... Im not sure why..... Everyone else tells me they like it long and that I should continue to grow it. I know theres usually a length that people dont like it at and you just have to grow it through or it'll never get long, but i really want to just chop it off. It's also perhaps that I spent too much time looking in the ballet mirror today. Generally, I never look in the mirror, only when I brush my teeth or shave, it's easy enough to ignore your dissatisfaction with your body image when you dont focus on it... but the piano bench in one of the studios i play in for 2.5 hours today is right beside the huge ass mirror and it just stares at you... I've realized that the extension of my belly/gut/roll is of pregnancy magnitude. In all honesty... if I was a woman, and I didnt really know me... I would ask me if I was pregnant, and you know I would.... social barriers have no baring on me.
I really thought I would lose more weight this summer. Especially working in a factory where it was hard work and just damn hot.... butnothing. I lost no weight, possibly may have gained some weight. I've started doing sit ups before bed. Im thinking that maybe if I write a note to myself that I can read every morning that says "Dear Michael, you are fat" then maybe it'll be some sort of inspiration... whaddya think?
Don't get me wrong, Im not one of those people thats obsessing over my weight because i think it makes me ugly or whatever reasons people have. I just find it disgusting as a reflection of my physical well being. I have so much extra mass on me that is not going to use, and it stands as a testament to my laziness, so im going to try to do something about it.
Alas, thats enough rambling for me, these blogs often turn into epics.... good night friends.