Saturday, September 24, 2011

Inactivity! Yaaay!

Well, my fellow internetters. It's been a while. Have you gained weight? (Don't take that personally, it's a general human trend that the longer you don't see someone, the larger they become, unless they're actively trying to counteract that) So... I've been kinda not around a lot recently... and I think it's time for a good old-fashioned rant.  Before writing this, I give no guarantee as to the eventual whine factor in this post.  I'll try and keep it to a minimum up at the top, but we'll see what happens.

So, life.  It's kinda... slow right now.  Here's the buzz: it's application time, applying for grad school, applying for funding, applying for loans.  My life right now revolves around three things: work (to make money to go to school), practice (to be good enough to get into a school), and applications (to actually get the school).  So basically, everything I do is supposed to benefit me... later.  Right now, however, I'm not really doing much.  I have a possible lead on a teaching gig, that would be GREAT, to learn to help out some younger trumpet players as they aspire to be what I aspire to be.  But as for the rest of my life, especially socially, I feel like I'm at a bit of a standstill.  I'm not even around campus that much because I've cut back on the ensembles this year (not being a full-time student, and frankly not wanting to sit in five different groups when I could just pick the two or three that I like the most).  I guess I'm just feeling kinda... like everything's repetitive, and I need to get my ass in gear to take all of this to the next step.  I'm always slow at doing applications and things like this because I'm stupidly afraid to move on in case I screw something up and ruin it, but I know that if I don't do it, I'll be stuck in this rut for even longer, and that just won't do.

I know that I WILL get what I need to get done, done.  I'm making myself move forward in this, and I have an excellent opportunity to do a lot of writing over the next week, so that'll help put a HUGE dent in my situation.  If there's a time to act, it'll be right now, and then once February passes me by, I can relax a little bit (but not much, as then I'll have to start looking at renting a place and finding work).

I'll probably put up a post in the next day or two in regards to having started school again.  There's a few things I'd like to say, just about the place in general, what I'm excited for, and some of the weirder things going on.

As some of you already know, I'm a bit of a nerd (or, VERY MUCH SO a nerd), and will probably put up, every couple posts, something that either doesn't relate to trumpet and is just nerdy, or tag a little thing on the bottom of my music post.  So, when I was nine, I was super into Pokémon, just like any self-respecting nine-year-old would have been when the TV series hit English airwaves in '98.  Later in life, after that phase had passed off, I heard a remake of Pokémon Gold/Silver was being released, those being one of my favourite games as a child (the two versions are essentially the same game).  Curious to see what had become of the franchise, I picked up a copy of Platinum, which was the most recently released, and found myself quite pleased with it.  Now, though I don't follow the TV series (and I should HOPE not!) or anything, I am a competitive battler on the side, usually with online simulators, as music takes up too much of my life to bother raising a team on a real cartridge.  So, if you ever find yourself facing of against a Mettack (or occasionally, TheRealMettack) on the Smogon or PO server, that's me. :P

Anyways, the whole point of that rant was to say, there was a particular song in the TV series that I had been on and off searching for, and I finally found it!


OK, that's enough nerding out for one day, back to work.  Time to get on these applications like a ScarfTran on a Scizor.  Let's go!

Thursday, September 01, 2011

FIN-F*CKING-LANDIA

Wow.  Just... wow.  We played two concerts with the youth orchestra, one away in a small university town, and one at home, which is essentially a big university town.  And wow.  The concerts were amazing.  The size of the orchestra has been buffed to around 70ish from the 50 of last year, if I'm not mistaken.  And it makes a noticeable difference.  I feel like I can play more or less as loud as I want for any given passage (assuming, you know, I want to play the soft passages still soft, just comfortably soft, instead of the effortful soft this still-improving trumpet player usually pulls off).  This especially became noticeable at the end of Finlandia.


This... this... THIS.  Especially noticeable on the Tuesday show, this piece of music is absolutely amazing.  I happened to notice a percussionist in our local pro symphony while I was playing.  Even from the back of the church, I could tell how incredibly moved he was by the piece, and it was an amazing experience playing it.  The ending (7:22 on in this recording) was the loudest I've ever played on a stage in my life.  It felt incredible.  Such a great way to end off my stint as principal.

Yeah, that's it.  I'm going to be sitting second or third for the rest of the year, it looks like.  I was a little upset at first, but I'm more rational and agree with the decision now that I've let my emotions slide away.  I mean, the listed principal is a good player, for sure.  We're about tied in terms of skill, with just a different set of strengths and weaknesses.  And I'd trust him the most of out anyone, even myself at times, to lead the section.  Also, I'm only registered as a part-time student, so I'm incredibly grateful of the management, conductor, and board that I'm in the orchestra at all.

Both of the other pieces, Mozart and Berlioz, deserve their own post, so I think I'm gonna start dedicating certain posts to composers, probably about once a month.  Expect the next one to be about everyone's favourite insane Frenchman, who dresses in drag, has people play with their bows upside down, and only wrote one piece, just in multiple incarnations!  That's right, it's Hipster Berlioz!