From my POV....

Show ashita

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:50:05 GMT

Friday at 7. Sold-out. My parents are going. I'm incredibly nervous. Not about the show, about them coming. They've never really approved of me doing this musical theatre band thing. I approve of me doing that and that's all that matters. I don't why I'm nervous. I shouldn't be nervous. I wasn't nervous last week.
-breathes-
I hope the Korg does not freak out and change patches on me. I think I should just do it manually.
I can do this.

fitful sleep....

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:11:12 GMT

I'm having Dracula-related dreams in which I keep screwing up...
No more mouthing words. promise.

I've found my muse again.

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:30:08 GMT

Day of rest spent practicing. Found the right sound for the Beethoven sonata. I just have to perfect it. I'm craving something Debussy though.

Btw, craigslist is mine.
http://newyork.craigslist.org/jsy/eve/655714235.html

Maybe this will be the only one I take credit for.

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:22:21 GMT

Tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week tech week

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:54:43 GMT

I went to the store after rehearsal today and just kind of strolled around, not really looking to buy anything. I saw a pair of scissors shrouded in thick plastic. I mean, these weren't your third-grade type of scissors. These were the ones that could cut through bone. What bothered me most about the scene was that if I bought these scissors, I would need another scissor just to get through the plastic. Does anyone find this ridiculous?

On the subject of bad packaging. I got a DVD today and spent quite a long time picking at the security seal thing. I know that it says PULL on one corner. And believe me, I pulled. I guess that there is a secret art to pull security stickers off DVD cases, because I cannot do it. I pulled and this miserable sliver of a piece came off. I stared at it and held back the curses that were threatening to spill over. For an hour, I picked and picked and picked before getting enough of it off so I could watch a damn movie. I think I might just download all my CDs and DVDs now just so I don't have to deal with this. Is there no sense of justice in the world anymore?

Free Tibet or the broccoli

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:03:59 GMT

It was multicultural day at school today. Just last night I learned the flute part and rehearsed right before the performance. The Japanese secretary, Ms. Stojek, is officially my hero. I honestly don't think anyone expected her to be that awesome with the drum. Anyway...
We were discussing the whole protesting Olympic torch thing and China and Tibet over breakfast this morning. And thought it would be too funny if I should run through the halls with a mock torch and have people tackle me and pelt me with water balloons. The final course of action was that I should be Japanese until the Olympics are over.
The subject was approached once more when I sat down to enjoy the other acts. All through out the other acts I kept screaming "FREE TIBET!!!" over the applause.

And I bring up the Free Tibet issue because I had a dream last night. The remaining broccoli from last night's meal were corralled into a small bowl and covered with plastic wrap. The broccoli, usually calm and quite, were extremely restless, screaming and shouting, making any rest impossible. Eventually they formed a giant broccoli ladder and tried to claw through the film with their fine-flowered heads. I woke up not knowing if they escaped or what made them so agitated in the first place.

Erlking

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:01:32 GMT

We listened to Schubert's Erlking today in class. And I believe it has surpassed Don Giovanni as Audio Tech's Anthem. I would gladly recommend to anyone who will listen.
By the way, Erlking is a sprite, elf-thing, in German and Scandinavian folklore.

http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/music/kamien/student/olc/57.htm <--The translation. Don't scroll down to the bottom before you get there.

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:15:21 GMT

I got to school early on Saturday with thirty minutes to spare. I made my mother drive to Target and picked up some seeds and a journal. I couldn't help it; it was pretty. The truth is I'm horrible with empty notebooks and journals and blank music paper. I just stare at it and all those thoughts, all those witty comments that have been festering for days and days will disappear. Maybe I just have an aversion to white paper?

Beethoven didn't need a resume.

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 02:18:26 GMT

So I'm preparing my music resume for scholarships, college. It actually doesn't matter what it's for because I'll need it eventually. And I'd rather get it done now. So I'm just jotting down things that I've done and I had a mini-breakdown because it looked so darn empty.
Then I realized it wasn't as empty as it seemed. In one of those classes they forced me to endure, we did go over resume writing. And somehow, the great genius that I am, I have confused myself. I tried doing in reverse chronological order, but that doesn't work for me. How far back should I go? And do I include miniscule, small-scale It just looks like I have a bunch of repeated entries because I go to the same competitions every year. So I tried to categorize them into like Ensemble Experience, Competitions, and whatever I can think of. Then I ran into the problem when I was doing the PTSA competition. See...there aren't rankings for this competition. You just win. If you win, you perform at Carnegie Hall. So what do I write then?
2006: Winner.
2004: Winner.
2003: Winner.
2002: Winner.
That's stupid. My dad who has written a resume even says that looks stupid.
I Googled music resume to find three hundred different formats. And they are all extremely different from each other. Now I wish I had paid attention in that class.

Whoever came up with the idea of a resume should die a slow death. Then we can totally revive this person so they can suffer again.

I also Googled Beethoven's piano sonatas for my oral presentation. And clicked on twenty links. They all made him seem like this emo guy. Honestly.
"Beethoven's sonatas offered a vivid record of how his tortured genius transformed music."
That sentence makes me gag. It's textbook-y dramatic. It's so CHAPTER 221: The Birth of a New Nation. Or THE KILLER FLU: A PBS Documentary. I don't even know what's wrong with it. It's just disgusting. Oh wait till you hear the next sentence.
"Tears smear some of the original manuscript."
Are you sure it was tears, not blood? True or not, I'm sure there are better ways to get the idea that he was a passionate musician and composer across. I can't sit there and read that. I'll either throw up or laugh. And I'm pretty sure that's not the reaction I'm supposed to have.
Not all musicians are emo. I'm not emo. I know musicians that aren't emo. In fact, I know more non-emo musicians than emo musicians. Okay? Okay.

White Chicks is on. And I love that movie. I only love it because there wasn't anything else to watch in Taiwan. I'm so glad I'm not going back this year. Actually, I kinda wish I was. Then I get to try some kangaroo meat. I asked my dad about kangaroo meat and he told me that when he was still living in Taiwan, they actually marketed as Australian Beef. LOL.

The wonderful wizard of oz

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:37:45 GMT

So I'm finally reading Twilight. I'm 20 or 30 pages in and I don't see what the fuss is about yet. I sat through four paragraphs of pointless descriptions of people. But...I have the time so I'm going to stick this one out. That...or I might be killed if I don't finish reading it. Having a table full of squealing fangirls jump me is not on my list of things to do. However...some Beethoven research is. I'm off.

Smileys

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:52:22 GMT

It's kind of odd how smileys have replaced the complimentary closing of emails. Oh no, it's not "Love" or "See you soon" But rather :) or XP or whatever witty combinations of letter, numbers, and symbols you can create.

I love music.

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:32:25 GMT

Rehearsal till 8 PM. The night school teacher made a point to semi-introduce us. "These kids come to the high school in the morning....they stayed late to practice their music." I really enjoy this. Some of the enjoyment may come from the fact that I am not at home. But yeah. Definitely got two more songs down.

We should definitely do a band recording of the all the songs. We'll play the songs and sing them. Here's the catch: We don't know all the words. So we end up singing, "Turn around, every now and then duh dun dun nuh dun -mumble-" rather loudly and obnoxiously. It doesn't even need to be a good quality recording...and no one would buy it. Well actually, I would. And we were saying during the show, a wail of loud mumble will rise up....and of course Mike (Bearnus...Bearness...Bareness????) will kick through the chains with a bass solo.

I'm happily exhausted. Can't wait for saturday. lol

...I love MTh Band way too much.

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:23:15 GMT

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:18:04 GMT

So I've been experiencing some extreme shoulder and neck pains recently. And it happens only when I sit and practice for three hours straight. Until yesterday I thought it was due to some old badminton injury. It still may have something to do with that...but a very kind person who was watching me practice asked my why I tensed up my shoulder...and then it clicked.
Trying very very hard to get rid of the bad habit. It's kind of working. Just have to check myself every measure or so.

Went to Rite-Aid for some Tylenol. They were having the usual it's-after-a-holiday-and-we-have-to-get-rid-of-all-this-crap sale. (wow. that was long) And went to check out all that was left of their stuffed bunnies and ducks, and whatever Easter animal mascot they had. This fluffy duck just sort of sat there...kind of sad and disgruntled at being left there and sold at half its original price. I would've rescued it but I didn't have enough money. I apologized and I swear the duck gave me this evil look. Then I ran away.

Saturday was a good productive rehearsal for both groups. When Shep announced that the dancers were making considerably more progress than us and that they were working together and helping each other, there was shocked silence on our end. But that's a good thing and hope that it lasts.

hm...I have stuff to do.(yeah, right)
stuff like homework (heh...no.)
musical theatre band stuff....?(eh. maybe)
nothing? (sounds great)

The problem with writing essays

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:20:13 GMT

The problem with essays is that they kinda require you to stay on one topic. I start on the topic but after awhile it gets boring. How am I to answer a question on loyalty if I can't wander off and say that in this world, loyalty becomes loyalties. I just ramble on and on and maybe in there, there is a point or some kind of truth. Looking back at the pages I just typed, half the stuff doesn't have any relevance to the question. For someone who tells us that essays are logical journey....

I hate staying home. I need to get out.

PBS aired Madam Butterfly live last night. I bawled through the third act. But it was phenomenal and I loved it. The little boy is adorable.

Why does the frustrated cat look the same as the annoyed cat, which looks the same as the aggravated cat, which looks the same as the angry cat?

The jelly has left the doughnut.

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:19:06 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/arts/music/20oper.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin <-- Many Nights at the Opera Involve Emergency Room

The Tristan und Isolde incident is in there. Long story short, the lead soprano ran off stage in the second act and was replaced by an understudy. The understudy who probably had never rehearsed with the orchestra....practiced the blocking.

LIstening to the radio today, I was very disturbed by the way the one song faded away to another. See, it wasn't even a fade away. A new song played on top of the old one and the old one just disappeared. But what was most disturbing was that they were in two different keys. Dissonant ones. The new one was a half-step higher. And ah...all those flatted/diminished seconds. I almost threw up.

Note to self: Look up when to use flatted, diminished, augmented, sharped.

So I went to Hoboken last Friday to see The Wiz. Lauren, Catherine, and I get off on Willow and 6th Street. And the school is on the corner of 6th and Park. But we have no idea where it is. So we pick a direction and start walking. We walk about two or three blocks when we see a dry cleaners. I go in and find out that we've been walking in the wrong direction. We turn around and walk and walk and walk. We see the school and decide to head up to the main street and grab a slice of pizza before the show. There was maybe an hour before the show. We sit down and order drinks and as we're about to order the slices...I get a call from the scarecrow shouting, "Cindy! Where are you guys? They just opened house and people are piling in. Get down here now! I gotta go." So we run out of there with a giant pizza box, a diet Coke, a Snapple, and a ginger ale bottled like beer. We run down to the school and find out that house has not opened. There was barely any one there. But I paid for the tickets and sat outside...in the cold...eating gigantic slices of pizza, drizzling oil over the white cement. Catherine stopped chewing long enough to say, "I hope anyone we know doesn't walk by and see us here like bums." It doesn't help that I have this ginger ale beer bottle in my hand, does it? And well, five minutes later, someone we know walks on by. Catherine, now mortified, has hidden herself behind her pizza.
Across the street there's a lady who's staring at us, actually at me, and gave me the smallest shake of her head. I think she might've thought I was drunk. I wasn't....but it's Hoboken. And it's Friday. There's always someone drunk. So the real dilemma is where to throw the box? The nearest garbage can is up there by the pizzeria. So Lauren and I leave Catherine to trek up and throw the box out. Catherine calls me on the way up. "Cindy...I'm scared. There are people." Lauren's struggling with the box. "It's not fitting. Quick. Is anyone looking?" Before I can say anything, she knees the box, bends it in half, and efficiently stuffs it in the garbage can.

The show itself was great. I really enjoyed it. I also figured out how the witch "disappeared." It came as a random burst during chorus. "You stripped, had clothes under, and blended in with the rest of the group."
Yep yep.

Now...Madam Butterfly, April 4th. Btw, it's an actual Asian. Lol. That should prove that Asians can make it out there. And my parents say to that, "But those stage and tv people are special." Oh whatever. She still has to work hard.

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:14:57 GMT

Shep forwarded an email from Gaby. Needless to say. I'm going to drown myself in oranges from now on until Dracula is over and done with.

Another email, this one from Alex. We have four weeks left and half the show to learn. Then I checked my calendar and realized something. It's four weeks to the show. We can't still be learning and rehearsing tech week. So we have three weeks to learn half the show. I really need to figure out Caught A Lite Sneeze.

Explain this to me...

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:41:03 GMT

My parents have spent roughly $40,000 on me for piano lessons and other piano-related things. And when I want to do this, when I can show them that this $40,000 investment is not a stupid one, they object. In short, they are asking me to drop music from my life. But every other day, my mother is allowed to tell me, "You don't practice enough, you father pays a lot for these lessons." For what, huh? So that I can pretend it never happened. I understand SATs and math and science are important things, but music is important too. It's not a luxury. Maybe you need get it through your mind that people can hold a job doing something they actually enjoy. Just because you failed, does not necessarily mean I will fail.

WHat is this bullshit?

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:42:30 GMT

I'm mad at my mother. Lol. This sounds like something Rianahhhh would write. But seriously I'm mad at her and at my dad. Because they're being stupid. They're mad at each other and they don't even know why they're angry. Whatever. ANd she wonders why I don't grow up.

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:34:20 GMT

You know how you say you're going to do something, but that just talk...until you take a step forward and actually try to do it. (Whoa, that sentence confused me.) But yeah, so now I'm starting to work on college audition stuff and I'm scared. What if I pick the wrong piece and it's too late to change it??? What if...ahh, I need to stop what if-ing?

So the competition was eh...successful...ish. I wooed them with my scale, because they could overlook my skipped lines and measures, and yet they awarded me with third place. I could go on and on about how I don't deserve it but hey...whatever happens happens for a reason. The dynamic duo was once again a disappointing d...second. I couldn't come up with a d word for that.

So...I'm kind of annoyed and upset with this one person because this one person is being very self-indulgent in it's bad mood. And it really brings everyone down.

hehe. Dies Irae

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:25:09 GMT

If you had asked me how I did today, I would've asked you in return, "Is the glass half-empty or half-full?" Arensky piece was....I was a measure behind in the beginning and I don't know how that happened, but the rest of it was top-notch. So basically it comes down to this: two groups, one group plays it really slowly, not very waltz-like, more like elephants on trampolines the other is not doesn't have as tight of a technique but has the waltz down pat. Which would you choose?

The Chopin piece was not good but not terrible. It was below average standard. The judges allowed me to play a scale and I did. Towards the end, he laughed, and said, "I like it. You have style." When I proceeded serve the main course...I think the scale may have been the only thing he liked. For dessert, a couple of skipped measures and wrong notes.

We'll see. Whatever happens happens for a reason. On the bright side, I can definitely work on Dracula and college auditions now.

I love NYPhil

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 03:58:36 GMT

Let me tell you firsthand....they are amazing. The acoustics, however, were not. It was only the familiarity of the Haydn that kept me going other than that it sounded weak and empty. I want to hear the broadcast on the radio. There has to be a difference between twenty seven rows back and a mic. up in the horn. (They don't really stick it up the horn......) But still either way I love NYPHil. And they are amazing enough that we're planning a summer trip. There's a Mostly Mozart Festival thing
Berio has now become my favorite composer. And Dawn Upshaw. She's so amazing I can only dot-dot-dot my way through this post. Awesomely strange percussion instruments. The lyrics were funny. Check them out. http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/b/berio.html Scroll down to Folk Songs.

One thing that bothered me was the amount of people getting up and going the moment they finished playing. Rude rude rude. At least sit there and show your appreciation even if for a minute. No one forces you to be there okay? Geez.

The benchmark for Americanness.

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:48:59 GMT

I just might have found my favorite lines.

"Our benchmark for Americanness is apple pie. But ask yourself: How often do you eat apple pie? How often do you eat Chinese food?"
-The Fortune Cookie Chronicles

Yeah. So that's must-read for me. If it's not already out, then it's coming out soon.

...I've been tagged (you're it)....

Here's how you play. The idea is to note ten things you've done or facts about you that you think are pretty unique -- although, given what's happened in other blogs and journals where this game is being played, you'll be surprised at how many people end up saying "Hey, me too!" Put them up in your own journal and let the fun begin (you can also add your list in comments, or put a link back to any entry you write).

1. I talk to furniture. Then I come up with voices for them so that they talk back. My alarm clock sounds like Sean Connery: old but reliable.

2. Because fortune cookies are cool, I buy Chinese food for the fortune cookies. Often, the fortune cookies taste better than the actual food.

3. I buy Ssips just so I can read the quotes on the side. Juice and quotations, I couldn't be happier

4. I spent over 200 dollars on chocolate last Christmas and shared it with my family.

5. I harmonize with the school bell. Major third above.

6. I've used a paper shredder to make pasta before. It was messy but fun. And don't worry, it was a new shredder, not the one used to shred paper.

7. I wanted to an enigmatologist. Enigmatology- the study of puzzles.
What? I liked crossword puzzles. Still do.

8. The music for Wicked isn't that great. It bothers me. A lot.

9. Coffee-flavored ice cream is actually really good. I don't get why so many people don't like it.

10. Picture prompts don't prompt any sort of response from me. Just boredom.

Yay.

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:02:49 GMT

I'm about to drop the Chopin pieve, simply because I'm not feeling it. Somewhere in my soul there's a blockage. And for the first time I can't lose myself. I'm painfully aware of the two trucks that have passed by, painfully aware of the roar of the heater, painfully aware of the eyes that bore into my back. For the first time, the music doesn't sing. I don't know what to do.

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:51:43 GMT

Life lessons learned:
1. If you're a crack addict, you can win a Grammy.
2. If you throw blood at a camera, you can call it a movie, and win an Oscar.
3. If you lie, and you lie well, you can do rather well on them standardized tests.
I'm becoming cynical? I haven't noticed.

Okay. Today's performance was cool. Me + Jayson = simple song evolving into something else entirely.
Long story short: Last minute, Nick is the designated flag waver. We found a pole, a red cape, and taped it together. Ghetto? I know. Nelson is handing out masks. Every other performer is out there as a ghost. Ok.