Food for Thought

Benjamin Franklin said, "If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing."

I think blogging, or journaling, or any kind of record keeping persuades a person to live a better life (as this quote implies!). Love it!

This poem in no way reflects my life at the present moment

I love this poem, even though it is irrelevant to me.

The Tulips

by Ricky Ian Gordon

The tulips at that perfect place
crane their necks with liquid grace
like swans who circling, collide
within the lake this vase provides.

They stood like soldiers, stiff, before
as if they had been called to war.
In two days more, when petals fall,
I will entomb them in the hall

with trash; the morning's coffee grinds,
old newspapers, and lemon rinds.
It's bitter that such loveliness
should come to this,
could come to this.

But now their purpleness ignites
the room with incandescent lights.
Their stamens reach their yellow tongues
to lick the air into their lungs
through stems attached to whitish manes.
The pistil stains.

And even though there are no bees
about the room for them to please,
I take them in like honey dew-
and buzzing now,
I think of you...

I think of you who bought me these,
at least,
I wish you had,
as that might ease the ache
of passing hours.
A love is dying, like these flowers.

Where's Apollo When I Need Him?

Well friends, my jury is over. It was kind of a saga.

I tend to have some troubles with my nerves, so I was very careful to plan out my morning and have plenty of time to breathe and feel centered before I performed. I arrived at the music building at about 9:30am. I had an hour to practice, so I played through everything really slowly, being careful to warm up but not wear out. I took my yoga mat with me and did some sun salutations while listening to soothing music. Then I listened through my program while studying my scores. All this while I'm doing my ujay breathing, and imagining myself giving a wonderful performance, loving the music and having great success. I changed into my concert clothes and put on my coat and gloves (I'm always so cold right before I play), put my headphones on with Kathleen Battle's "Azulao" and "So Many Stars" which always give me such a feeling of abundance, and sat quietly in the hallway waiting for my turn to play.

When they called me in to play, I went down onto the stage and announced my pieces and sat on the bench and took a few more cleansing breaths and played my first two pieces ("Down a Country Lane" and "Midsummer Nocturne" by Copland) with finesse and grace. Then came the Chopin F Minor Ballade. I began it with astounding beauty! The opening is a bit tricky, with a crescendo in the right hand simultaneously with a diminuendo in the left hand. I handled it with perfect artistry. I played with unmatched technic and yet with tremendous love and sensitivity. And then, suddenly, I realized that I had skipped seven pages! Horrors! What to do? I could stop and ask permission to start over, when they were already running behind. That would never do. I decided I had just better finish stronger than ever and make the rest of it very convincing, which I did, thundering down the final run and finishing with a bang.

I took my hands off the keyboard and looked up at my teacher who was sitting in the auditorium. He looked at me with an ever so slight smile on his face. I couldn't look away. There I sat, pleading with my eyes for forgiveness, and yet using every ounce of control not to burst into tears or laughter. "Thank you," he said. I stood and walked the flight of 45 stairs out of the door of the auditorium with tremendous dignity. He followed me out into the hallway.

He said, "That was the most seamless cut I've ever heard! Only, you skipped your favorite part!" He had nice things to say about my playing. I'm not sure if the other teachers noticed or not. I guess I handled it the best way I could have. Well, it's over. I can't take it back. In a performance, you don't start over. You finish, which I did. I finished and kept my game face (more or less). If I were a composer or a writer or an artist, I could create a thing and there it would be for the rest of eternity. Music performance is different, because it only exists in time. It's quite a dilemma to become good at it, because it necessitates having an audience to listen to you time after time so you can get used to the nerves. It's been a lot of years since I was in the swing of performing from memory in public. All I can do is try again. But I do have to say, that I have come a long way this semester. I memorized about 500 measures worth of NEW music, and I'm performing from memory in public again. My hands feel good: my technic is coming along. And best of all, I've spent hundreds of hours practicing Chopin and Rachmaninoff. What could be better than that? Maybe next time Apollo will smile on me.

The Gods Have Smiled

I finally did it! I passed my Theory Predictive Exam. I'm sure my friends are all sick of listening to me worry and complain about it, but now I just got word today that I passed. I took it once early this fall, and didn't pass, so I had to take the Theory Review class that taught us everything we were supposed to learn in our entire undergraduate theory experience in just one semester. I knew a lot of it, but the most difficult things felt like I was hearing them for the first time, so it was really a challenge for me. If I didn't pass it, I would have had to go back and start again in Freshman Theory, which would be not fun and very embarrassing. Passing this test was a pre-requisite for registering for everything else, so I feel like the gods have smiled on me.

"Which Gods?" you ask. Apollo, of course! He was the Greek god of music and the arts. Boy, did I enjoy the time I spent in Greece. I'm hoping that he will continue to smile on me and help me to remember everything I learned, so I will not be in the same boat if I every decide to go to graduate school. Isn't this a wonderful image of him? Statues like this one are part of the reason the Greeks were chastised in the New Testament. Maybe I'll go to lunch at my favorite Greek restaurant next week to celebrate finishing my first semester of graduate school.

"I can live two months on a good compliment." - Mark Twain

I received the nicest compliment tonight! I was at my stake choir rehearsal, for which I am the accompanist. I was dreading going, somewhat, because I have SOOO much homework to do, including applying for a scholarship which deadline is fast approaching. One of the ladies said to me, "My dream is to play the piano as well as you. I have not played in 15 years, but because of you I got out my hymnbook and I'm playing again."

WOW!! Isn't that nice? I hope I can always play my best, because you never know who you're going to effect. I just LOVE that she told me this! She could have just admired me from afar, but it REALLY boosts my self-esteem and the knowledge that I'm doing the right thing when someone comes forth and speaks up.

I also played in Sacrament Meeting today. I played a Crawford Gates arrangement of "We Gather Together." I was SOOO nervous, and was really fighting the nerves as my hands were shaking, but I got a lot of nice compliments on that performance, too. When I finished, Brother Browne who was speaking after me, looked right at me and said with a big smile and all sincerity, "Sister Love! I wish you could have seen the peaceful looks on the faces of the people as they listened to your beautiful music." To see the look on his face was like eating cake. He had enjoyed my playing so much, and it means the world to me when people have an emotional response to my music.

Choosing Repertoire

Well, friends, I haven't kept track of my practice hours, and sadly, they have dwindled as I have finished memorizing my jury pieces. But now it's time to start working toward getting ready for the next semester, so I'll be prepared for lessons come January. I'm trying to decide what I should learn next.

I need to learn a sonata, and I've been stewing about which one to learn. A sonata is a major multi-movement work, usually 10-20 minutes long. It's a big commitment to learn one, because it takes a long time to learn one and you'd better like it because you are going to spend 6-18 months getting it ready.

My graduate recital is supposed to be one hour long and include works from three historical periods (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic, Contemporary).

Here are my concerns:

1. I want to like the music.
2. I want the average Joe in the audience to be able to "get" the music.
3. I want the music to be of such a level of difficulty that it is appropriate for competitions/doctoral auditions (for instance, I don't think I could in good conscience put "Claire de Lune" on my program, as beautiful as it is).

In spite of all of this, there are some wonderful pieces of music that I really want to learn that I'm not sure whether they satisfy concern #3. I hope someday I can earn a doctoral degree. However, what if I don't? What if my hand gets caught in a meat grinder and I never play again? What if I get hit by a bus and am paralyzed from the neck down? What if my hands get blown off in a hunting accident? I want this program to be music that I've ALWAYS wanted to learn, and may never have another chance at. This puts me in a position where I may have to compromise on #3. I feel like I'm slightly at odds with my teacher over this.

Here's what I have so far:

Chopin Ballade #4 in f minor (11:30) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_PBTGfhWD8 followed by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLyumz2jMZY
Copland Down a Country Lane (2:06) and Midsummer Nocturne (2:00)(not on my list of favorites, but learned out of necessity to satisfy jury requirements), and
Barber's Excursion #3 to complete the little American set(3:23): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-6LdUTX8xg
Granados El Pelele (4:13): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghQxWLvRz7s (probably my next project to learn)

Here's what I WANT to learn:

Beethoven Sonata Op. 2 No. 3
Allegro (10:31) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf0olqfc9V0 (I love this recording!)
Adagio (8:39) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euDNSrT2Z8M&feature=related
Scherzo (2:54) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWGqND-nZTw&feature=related
Allegro (5:18) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qb5f1fTKdw&feature=related (inhuman clarity on this recording!)

That leaves 10 more minutes, so I'll learn more Spanish music to finish it. My teacher has extensive experience with the piano music of Spain, having worked with the legendary Alecia de Larrocha. It only makes sense to capitalize on this experience and learn from his area of expertise.

The only trouble is, after I've learned all of this, it's really terrible programming. You can't really begin a program with a 30 minute sonata, and the Ballade really should be last. SO I guess I'll chalk it up to practicality and do it anyway.

What are YOUR favorite sonatas?

It's been a good practice day!

How many hours have I practice today? I'm not sure. It's really hard to keep track when you do it all piecemeal. But tonight I sat down after dinner to play through everything one last time. I'm about halfway memorized on Chopin's 4th Ballade, and about 3/4 memorized on Rachmaninoff's 4th piano concerto. For the third piece for my jury, I'm preparing "Midsummer's Nocturne" by Copland. I was thrilled when I finished practicing and my husband chimed, "You sound great!" He almost never compliments my playing, so I felt that was a real compliment. And I will say, I'm sounding great.

I have a new practice strategy that some of you might want to try. Because of the studies that I've read stating the value of mental practice, and that mental practice is almost more helpful than actual physical practice, I've decided to include it in my practice strategy in a more deliberate way. Some of you know that I practice my music in small sections (1/2 a measure to 4 measures, depending on the difficulty of the music). Usually I try to play each section 10 times perfectly before I move on to the next section. With memorization, this is very helpful for me. So I decided to take lucky 3 and lucky 7 and do mental practice on the 3rd and 7th time through a section. I don't always remember to, but when I do, I think it's helpful. It gives my hands a chance to rest, and gives me more focus for all the other times. Give it a try and tell me what you think.