The Life Of A Mentally Ill Musician- Day 9
My day started with my presentation in my research and bibliography class, which I think went pretty well. After getting up and teaching biology four times a week for the past few months, I wasn’t really nervous to present something I researched and enjoyed a bit more than biology….maybe. Either way, I think it went well. Afterwards I once again made my way to the biology building where I saw my Tuesday class for the last time, mostly. So many of them took the offer of coming in before class even started, so I was able to get papers back and give them their free three points for showing up, as well as a cookie. I had a few more show up when class would normally begin as well. While I was waiting for them to show, I worked on my final projects for my classes, which are now mostly complete. I have just a few more things until I’m free. I switched it up a bit for my office hours today since we had a shorted bio class and headed over to panda express for some food. I used to have a bad obsession with panda express in my undergrad, as it was like the only decent place on campus. But I was craving it, so I caved and walked up the mountain for it. Then I made my way to the music building to have my “office hours” where I ate and practiced. I was soooo happy a room was open so I didn’t have to go down to the dungeon rooms. (Like look this is so much nicer and less depressing to practice in)
It’s also nice to be in a bigger space because everything sounds better. I do sometimes get really frustrated in a practice room because I just sound terrible no matter what, but then I’ll play the exact same in a larger room and it sounds great. Definitely helps with the practice motivation. I worked a lot on the same things I’ve been working on, especially memory.
After practice and a break, I had my studio class where we basically ran through our juries if we wanted. And as you probably guessed, my jury piece is the Chaminade Concertino. I actually felt really good about my performance today! The memory work has really been paying off, especially the solfege. There was one memory slip at the end, and it’s because I was stupid and started thinking too much. I really was thinking “wow this is going so good. Am I actually going to make it to the end with no memory slips?!” and there went my memory for a measure. Don’t do that when you’re performing *sigh*. But it still wasn’t that bad. I did notice that I was particularly nervous to play though, which surprisingly is unusual for me. I was really shaky and nervous. I think part of it was probably really wanting to hear and show improvement from the last time I performed the piece at our studio recital and also just worried about my memory. Taking deep breaths helped a little, but I could still feel myself shaking a bit, though I’m not sure it’s really noticeable on camera. I haven’t been that nervous to play something in a hot minute, but I think it’s good that it happened during a class, not for a grade, instead of me suddenly feeling shaky during my jury. I used to get this way with auditions in high school, but it went away in my undergrad…though I suppose it’s starting to creep back. Even though I was shaky, I didn’t let it phase me though and ended up with a performance I was happy with.
Since I was feeling frustrated yesterday, I decided to go back and listen to the first performance of the Chaminade I did from memory in studio class, and WOW. There is a huge difference and I can tell. It just helped show me that I am progressing, a lot. I sound and look like a different person and there was only three-ish months in-between recordings. It’s a really helpful reminder and also just something that cheered me up. It can be really hard to feel like you’re getting better with pieces, especially if you’re playing them on a daily basis. I never really understood how much I could actually use recordings of myself playing, but here I am. If I didn’t have that video of my first time playing it from memory, I would still probably be frustrated with my “lack of progress” on the piece. But since I have it, I can hear and see a difference and a pretty big one at that. So I’m really thankful for that today for opening my eyes and ears to my progress. It’s a nice little reminder that I’m making lots of progress, even if I can’t hear the progress from day to day 🙂
by juniparker
