So it’s been like a month since I last blogged. Honestly, I just lost the desire to do it, but I felt like doing it today. I would say there’s nothing super major that has happened, which is probably a good thing. I’ve been doing the usual college thing- though I will say I am so incredibly ready to be done. The good news is that this semester is almost over, the bad side of that is…it’s almost over and I have A LOT to do. My mental health has been shaky, but it makes sense as this medication I’m on is a super low dose. Which I’ll be able to change next week at my appointment hopefully, but for now I’m just chugging along. Of course Piper is a huge helper in that, she definitely makes sure I get out of bed.
Yesterday, at my lesson with my professor we talked a bit about prioritizing energy levels (no I did not open up to her like I do in this blog even though she may happen to read this one day, sorry), but I did talk about how I’m pretty tired of my music and practicing. So I am going to try to do some of the things she suggested and allow myself more time to recharge, especially now that the marching band season is over and I have much more time to do so. Another thing from the lesson I would like to share is that of *practicing*. For a while I’ve been on the fence with my practicing habits, as I definitely do not practice as much as I used to, nor do I want to practice. I used to want to practice and would spend much longer doing so, but now I don’t. She was definitely the first person to basically say “well duh, that’s supposed to happen”. I’m at a different part in my life. A different flute player than I was, like she helped me realize, my practice is just more efficient. I put in hundreds if not thousands of hours into my playing, and now I don’t need to be practicing 30-40 hours a week or whatever I was doing. I can get the same amount of things done in half the time, and that’s okay. It’s not always about practicing for hours. So that was just really nice to hear because I feel like that’s not something that I’ve been told. I should be proud that I am more efficient in my practicing. Not worried I absolutely suck because I didn’t practice for 3 hours today. Another thing is that at this point in time, composing is what really motivates me. I can spend hours and lose track of time while composing, and that’s totally okay that it’s composing right now and not flute. That could change, or it could not. Either way, it’s okay. So I’m also going to be trying to change my mindset some to that of being okay that I don’t practice as much as I used to, or that I don’t really lose track of time getting lost in flute practice right now. That’s all normal and okay.
Now for some highlights of the month. In the beginning of the month I went and saw the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with some people, which was fun as always. I may or may not have made them go to a southern restaurant in Pittsburgh, but the food was actually incredible. I also took a somewhat big step in my career as a composer and officially made and registered a publishing company, ElectricBerry Music, which is now connected to this website. I know right now, I’ll probably have no one even interested in buying my music, but I hope one day someone will want to, and when that day comes, I’ll be prepared. But I also just think it’s super cool and exciting to officially have my own music publishing company. I also officially released another song, Supernova on SoundCloud! And I just performed it live for the first time last night, which was really awesome. I had Thanksgiving with my family which was nice. And lastly, I got to see my younger brother off before his church mission.
And that’s what I’ve been up to! I’m hopefully gonna be blogging a bit more often now 🙂
(you cannot tell me this pic of Piper is not the exact same vibes as the meme)
