Babblings of the day......

October 27, 2005 at 3:27 AM

It feels good to be back at school. It's only the second day back but it feels good. Thankfully the 2 week strike won't have made things too impossible to catch up on due to my courses and how they are laid out so that's a relief. In one of my English classes to day we did a Robbie Burns poem and had to analyze it. First the teacher read it out to the class (complete with phony Scottish accent) and then we had to analyze it and how it is signifigant to the novella we had read right before the strike, John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. I really liked Steinbeck's writing in Of Mice and Men. It's very effective and it nearly brought me to tears at the end. Very well written.

I was at the music school I work at today, practicing in the morning after school and before I started teaching and my teacher was practicing down the hall. She was practicing Firebird which is an orchestral work I dearly love and have wanted to play for years. I was supposed to play it last year with the Okanagan Symphony but the typical last minute program change and cancelling of concerts proved to not be in my favour. This year, the year I've decided to have a "me" year where I focus on my solo stuff, teaching and school is sure enough the year where the opening concerts of the season include Firebird in the program. So I will have to attend the concert when it comes to the city nearest me and sit in the audience and feel gipped about not playing but at the same time enjoy the experience of hearing it performed live. A pianist I played with a couple years ago in the symphony is coming back from Switzerland to play a Chopin concerto as well so that will be fun to watch from the front and not the back.

The past week or so has been partially consumed with some stress over an instrument purchase. I've never actually bought my own violin since I was 11 or 12 and that violin I haven't played since I was 14. I by chance came across a Vuillaume in basicly perfect condition for an extremely reasonable price (in sound anyways....I haven't yet played the instrument). In the e-mail in response to my questions the instrument has no cracks and has had no major repair work done above the usual matinence, and the sound is described as being big, open, clear and even across all ranges. Buying an instrument is so stressful. I can't really afford to get an instrument but within the next year to 18 months I need an instrument that is mine, that I own and isn't loaned to me. If I do decide to purchase an instrument in the next few months all my money saved for school is basicly gone and I'd need to get a loan so I'm doing some major thinking and re-thinking and thinking over again running all the possible scenerios and options in my mind as to how I could make it possible to try some instruments out and be able to make a managable purchase and decision I'm happy with. This is the instrument that will spend the rest of it's life with me so I want to be absolutely sure I'm making the right decision.

Among other things, I managed to get in 3 hours or so of practicing today between school and teaching. I was very satisfied with what I accomplished. I'm performing a very new work for me on Sunday, the Eckhardt-Gramatte Caprice No.10 and it has a really nast stretch in it that is starting to become more natural. I also got some nice work done on a Rode Caprice and the last mvt of the Barber concerto, my Bach Fugue and a nice chunk of technique, so it was a satisfying day in the world of practicing!

Now I need to go and veg and enjoy my evening with no studying pressures.....I'm thinking a nice hot bubble bath might be in order.....

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Babblings of the day......

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