The semester has finally begun! Kinda scary, but here we are. There’s really only two things that have happened since I last blogged, that being my audition, a vet visit, and of course, my first day of classes today. Other than that it’s been regular-ish practice or seeing friends. First off, the vet visit. It was a regular visit for my dog to get her updated vaccines, but vet visits have always been terrifying for me, as my dog can be aggressive. I don’t know what it is about the vet here, but both times I’ve gone my dog has been like an angel compared to normal. She was still nervous, but the vet was able to give her the shots and everything else easily (even looking at her teeth!!). My dog does have some health issues, that mostly being her bladder and urinary tract that have been an ongoing issue, basically just because of the way she came out of the womb. Hopefully the things that I’m doing now to help will work and I won’t need to look at surgery for Piper. Either way, right now she is nice and healthy, which is fantastic! On the note of Piper, I am sharing this second picture because she never cuddles with me, but she would not get off my lap the other day and slept there for a while while I watched some TV.
Next up I had my audition, which I thought went well and as expected. I’m in the wind symphony here and I guess we’ll see how that all goes. It is currently the only class I have on M/W/F, so we had our first rehearsal today, which was just sight reading. It was a bit weird being in an ensemble again. Today’s practice session wasn’t my best. I was feeling, and have been feeling pretty frustrated with playing flute. Today was one of those sessions where it felt like everything I did just sucked. It’s something that I’m sure happens to literally every musician. It’s frustrating and in the past, it has led to a ton of negative thoughts about myself and my playing. I’m trying really hard to redirect my thoughts though. It’s really hard. So, instead of bringing myself down, I pushed through the session, trying to not think too harshly. It’s just a practice room, I don’t, and you don’t, have to always sound and play perfectly in them. Another thing that happened today in the practice session was a percussionist practicing next door. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I kinda hate when this happens because I get really distracted because of the volume. Like, I know they need to practice, but it’s still really frustrating to me. So, instead of being mad the beat they’re playing is throwing me off, I improvised to it LOL. But yeah…thanks to that percussionist for giving me a free beat to improv to 😀
There’s been another thing I’ve been wanting to write about for a bit, but I’m honestly kind of scared to (especially because people I know actually read this apparently), but I also feel like there’s no way no one else feels this way. A lot of times I feel extremely insecure, in both my playing and in myself as a person. Here I am, getting a masters in flute performance, but I feel like I know nothing and am far behind and different than everyone. I don’t listen to flute or classical music outside of school or practice. I don’t know a lot of big flute players. I don’t know many pieces for flute. I get really bored when I practice. I struggle to practice. People talk about how when they were my age they wanted to practice for hours and loved every minute of it…I don’t. I practice for an hour or so and get bored and stop then struggle to get myself to practice more. I don’t keep up with a lot of flute players or projects they’re doing. I don’t even really know how to explain how to play the flute or what I’m doing. And worst of all, I sometimes truly do not know if I enjoy what I’m doing. I can’t picture myself doing something else, but at the same time, do I really enjoy this? If I did, I’d practice more and do more competitions, performances, etc, right? I’d be more excited to practice and work hard and perform. But I’m not really. I want to practice and get better and perform, but at the same time I can’t get myself to do just that. It’s extremely frustrating, especially when I assume that part of the reason I feel this way is because of my mental health. The sign everyone knows about with depression: losing interest in things you love. It sucks. I want so badly to be able to practice like how other people are, be that motivated and improve. But I go to practice and it just feels like I’m waiting to be done and everything is good enough because it doesn’t really matter. I still like playing flute, but it’s different. It’s kind of hard to put all of this into words, which is also very frustrating to me. Maybe this is burnout, maybe it’s depression, or anxiety, or something else. Whatever it is, I wish it would get out of my life lol. But the fact of the matter is that it’s probably not going anywhere soon and I need to figure out what to do. I’m sure I will, but I guess for now I just have to keep pushing myself through it.
Well…..let’s pretend I never wrote any of that tee-hee. Makes me sound way more depressed than I am. Just a little struggle with flute 🙂 . I promise I’m really fine. On a lighter note, I may actually blog tomorrow, we’ll see. I have a new class I’m excited for and then studio class where I’m playing with my pianist since I have an upcoming competition thing on Saturday, so that should be fun! Byee
by juniparker
