my lesson with uchimura today was excellent. just wonderful. i felt really really good as he lavished praise onto my hard work. i heard "excellent" and "outstanding" at least 10 times throughout it all, which is a rare thing apparently. he just feels out what is bad about my technique, we attack it, i work on it almost obsessively, and i fix it. it feels good to be aknowledged for my hard work. people just don't understand it. no one does. uch kindof does.

he was talking to me for a long time about people and where i am going to go, and for some reason he started talking about my dating someone someday. i was completely agog. i had no idea where it came from or why, but there he was, telling me that someday i am going to meet my "prince charming". i had to work so hard to keep from gagging, seriously. he said something like right now i am driven and focused, wanting to be the best and perform all over the world, but someday i am going to want to start a family and that i should always remember my first love, the cello.

he doesn't understand. i mean, he kindof does, but not really. if had to choose between a family and a proffessional career with my cello, i'd choose my cello. so i don't see myself meeting any "prince charming" ever. i'm not cut out for the whole relationship thing. i don't know anyone, ANYONE who could understand my need for perfection, or as close as i can get to it. a relationship would distract from that focus.that is just the way it is. people think i am sad about this fact, when in actuality i am no such thing. my mother would lecture me about how people are made for people, blah blah. i'm sure that is true, for most people. i just don't see it being true for me.

in this line, uchimura informed me that i am the recipiant of the Haas scholarship or the Hayes, i can't remember the name, except that it starts with an H, haha. uch made it sound like a big deal, and it means that i have to play a recital for this big reception thing...old prestigous people....money....yikes. this means that i have to be SO GOOD they won't believe it. if i catch their attention now, they'll remember that. never shut a door. never shun an oppertunity. never be caught unawares. i must be so prepared. uch doesn't think i will be able to pull off the haydn, but i will. no doubt in my mind. i have the first mvt. learned pretty well. just the 2nd and 3rd to go. i can do this! i need a recording of this...aight.peace out, my loves!

my hands suck part 603.2

actually, i am pretty pleased that i accomplished 2 1/2 hours of practice today despite being the owner of a lovely, blistered, throbbing thumb. yessss. my life is now complete. and some fricking IDIOT WHO SUCKS AT LIFE is trying to play drum set with some blasted comercially packaged noise and he lives two doors down from me. oh life, oh me! he has no rhythm, so why in the world would anyone consent to bestowing upon this musical travesty things to bang on. that is it. i'm going to blast the haydn trumpet concerto in his direction; maybe that will shut him up.


BITCHES!!!

seriously, i was TRYING to practice the haydn cello concerto in c, when my thumb starts BLEEDING!!! i was so mad, but i ran it under ice water for 5 minutes. did that help? no. stopped bleeding, but hurt like a bitch. only got a half hour after that.

man i really suck. i need it to be the weekend. this week is just getting the frick on my nerves. TOUCHEES.

badass touches

philosophy of religion is really rocking my socks right now. it was retarded for awhile, but then the proffesor got sick, and we had a week long hiatus from it. we come back refreshed and ready to delve into the depths of the truth.this paragraph will be scholarly of nature, so skip it if you don't feel like reading it.

we read the plato dialogue between socrates and euthyphro. the meat of this tome consists of an outlasting philosophical argument over religion; is god holy because he is loved, or is he loved because he is holy? similarly is something holy because god says it is or does god say it is holy because it is holy? this is a prime example of a dilemma. (di meaning two and lemma meaning subordinate postulate or hypothisis), where to an issue there are two options and neither are satisfactory or wanted. if something is holy because god says it is, this is to imply that holiness is arbitrary, or determined by chance, whim or impulse. but if god says it is holy because it is holy, then this is to deduce that holiness is ABOVE god. so then what do we need god for? either holiness is at fault and subordinate, or god is. but god cannot be god without being holy, so who is god if he is below holiness? a religious soul would conclude that god is holy, and holy is god, no ifs, ands or buts. but why? this contradicts the soul of intellect. after this we read an essay in response to this religious quandry, titled GOD AND MORAL AUTONOMY (auto meaning one or self and nomy from the root nomos meaning law, or rule). The standard view of religion states that god is all knowing and all powerful (omniscient and omnipotent). the dilemma is that that how can God be omniscient and omnipotent if we are an autonomous being. in order to worship (by definition to humble oneself as inferior and pay homage to the mightiness and awesomeness of a greater being) a religious man would have to be subserviant to god's will and forsake his own nature as an autonomous being. this is being that God knows your actions and reactions to everything, so how can you truely make a desicion if it is already known and monitored by a greater being? to paraphrase, to worship god, we must surrender our autonomy, but if he IS god, such a loving god would not make us give up our autonomy, our very right and instinct as humans.

this was an attempt at a summary from my messy, jarbled notes. i'm extremely supprised i even got anything from it.on the downside, i only practiced an hour and a half today. gotta make up for that one tomorow.

i'm exhausted after that schpiel. but MAN is it fun to toss those subjects around a room for an hour and 15 mintues. i thought the class trite and redundant at first, but now, we are really getting into the meat of this machine.

insomniac with dave attell

i love dave attell. i don't even think that is his name but whatever. i can't sleep. heather and i are goofing off doing nothing because we are so hyper. i'm going to be seriously dragging ass tomorrow. and i wanted to wake up early so i could get to the music school by 8. well, i'm going to anyways. just going to be really really tired.maybe i should convince uch to not make me do etudes too. nah, i don't think that would work. but i hate practicing them. BUT I CAN'T GET THEM TO SOUND RIGHT!!!gotta pay your dues, or you will be nothing.i went to a recital today, this really sweet pianist. she played these rachmaninoff preludes and a chopin sonata that was beautiful beyond worldy description. she was pregnant. i started thinking about how if i ever get pregnant, like 10 years from now, at least, how i would make sure to play as much music as possible so it wouldn't be so boring for the baby. i think my mom did the same with me. it has to be really really boring, being a fetus. and uch was there, and he was like, it would be hard for a cellist to play when you are that pregnant, and i freaked a little, because it was almost like he was reading my mind. then he made a joke or something about how the world population would be signifiantly slimmer if men had to have babies. then his family came, and i was left with my thoughts. i started thinking if i ever do have a baby, how much would of it would be like me, how much of it (he? she?) would love music, dislike loud cramped settings, write when things got interesting? how much would be like the father? who decides all of this stuff? is it really all up to chance? one big game of dice?then i stop worrying about it, because i'm not going to be having kids for awhile, or engaging in activities that would produce children. i just worry about my cello. and school.wow, that was one weird tangent. just as well, i'm tired now

that one tune that does it to me

you know the one. it gives you shivers and sends tingles down your spine. for me, it tends to change from day to week to year, but right this instant, it is the 2nd movement of the rachmaninoff piano concerto no. 2. i love it.

when i hear it, i wish i could dance. like, really dance. i wish my body could somehow reflect the emotional palatte that exists within. playing cello, your body only does so much. you focus your being into the sound that you produce, not what you look like. you feel like swaying and dancing, but you can only do so much. maybe i'll get the chance someday. to understand. while i would never trade the joy and expression my cello gives me, i somehow wish that my body could be the cariage to such expression.

HOLY CRAP<>i'm too pissed to be understanding.

what i wish

today in convo there was this sweet jazz trio. for the first time in a long time, i foumd myself wishing i was playing my trumept with them. i remember the way it felt to be riding out a serious improv behind a jammin rhythm section, and my heart missed it. i ached. i watched, i felt those musicians, tied by the golden web of the music they spun. and i wished so badly i still could do that.

so i came back here in my dorm room (after math, of course) and practiced trumpet a little. i could only play for about a half hour. but part of me felt good doing it. i could on play a high E above C, whereas last year i could play G's and A's. but at least i could mostly play stuff. i could still play carnival of venice and all of my solo concerto types. at least my technique hasn't died much. just my endurance. my tone still sounded great too, which supprised me. hm.

when i was little i had this life dream, during which i became a world famous cellist, known and loved by all, but when night came i would switch identities and play jazz in the dark smokey bars of the world, and no one would recognize me.but if i am going to become a world famous cellist, or even the best possible cellist that i can truely be, i can't mess around with doing every thing. i need to stay focused. because i don't love trumpet wholey like i love cello. i can't sit and practice for hours like i can with cello. just not it.

my desicion to be a cellist wasn't really a desicion. it was what i found of and in myself. just the way it is. last year, a lot of people didn't really understand that, especially when they found out that the trumpet soloist was quitting marching band for cello. i had people call my house nonstop for weeks, belittling me to reconsider. some of them didn't even beat around the bush, said they wouldn't be talking to me otherwise. i didn't change my mind, so they ostrasized me. i didn't care. i practiced. for that hour i had to take fall concert band, but mr. schaub let me take a cello and sit in the practice rooms and go at it. and i would. so i don't feel too badly that i can't play trumpet. it just isn't a part of me. it is just something i happened to be pretty good at