An Exciting Week

I feel a little more energized this week. Maybe "energized" isn't the right word. Enthusiastic? Maybe. Well anyway, I'm excited about working on my music and learning Logic, among other things.

Wednesday the cast listing for Reading High's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will be posted after school. I have no idea what will happen. I would be happy with any of the three Josephs that sang for the part, in fact I didn't mind anybody who auditioned particularly, so I'm pretty excited about it. I'll be sure to let you all know.

I am indeed going to be representing my English class at the school-wide Poetry Out Loud competition which takes place on Thursday. I don't think I have any real competition, honestly. But I haven't seen any of the underclassmen perform, and it's quite possible one of them will completely blow me away. I don't think so though, I'm pretty confident. Confidence is key.

Then Saturday is my audition for Temple University. I'm not quite sure why I'm auditioning, I got accepted to my top choice and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to afford it, and I don't think I'm going to be accepted to Temple. But I'll go anyway, since the only things I have to do for it is get another portfolio together (this time with three songs instead of seven), show up, and interview.

We haven't mailed in the thing for UArts yet. To enroll they require a pretty hefty deposit for both tuition and for on-campus housing. We don't have to send them both in at once, though I would like to as soon as possible so I know I'll get into the dorm I want. I'm just so nervous this will still find a way to all fall apart, my mind will be much more at ease when it's all said and done and I'm enrolled and I know how I'll be paying for it.

Last weekend was County chorus. The performance wasn't that great, it was under-rehearsed and intonation was bad bad bad. It's over with, that's the most important thing. Now nothing is left in that area except for Regionals, which I'm mucho excited about. Gotta start learning that music!

Anywayz, that's about it for now. Chorus (the high school one) is really bad this semester, I think. Oh well, it's my last year.

_Dr. M

Districts, Rachel's birthday, Napenthi

Been a while since the last update! Right now it is snowing outside and it's very pretty. It's been a very cold weekend, which I like. I like how there's never anybody outside, all you have to do is step out your front door to be in complete and utter solitude.

So here's the story of the last five days. On Thursday morning me, my chorus teacher, and the tenor who made District choir drove up to Southern Lehigh where rehearsals were taking place. I liked the guest director who led the group a lot, with these festivals it can be a little hit or miss, but this guy I really liked. He was an excellent conductor, had a good personality, and really made you care about the music, which is the most important thing. People had prepared the music pretty well for the festival so in general we had two very good concerts Friday and Saturday. We got to have them in this nice big church with a real pipe organ for us to sing along with. I'll be getting a CD with Saturday's concert, and I'll probably post some of the tracks for you to hear.

As for the re-audition for regionals (which is the next level up), I lucked out and they picked a piece for the audition which I had already performed at another festival, so I had a pretty good audition and I made regionals easy. Now I have music for that to prepare in three weeks, so that will be fun.

Thinking about it almost made me want to be a choir director again, at a high school or college. Luckily that feeling didn't last long.

Saturday evening and Sunday I got to be with Rachel again, which of course was very nice. She came back for the weekend for her birthday. She didn't have a very good birthday, in fact it was really quite lame. Sunday for a party we went to her brother's house, where her brother and father watched a football game, her mother sort of lurked (she's that kind of person), and her brother and sister tried not to be bored to death. The two of us walked the dog, played with some blocks, and argued about the gift I gave her. Wednesday last week I went to the book store with my father to get her a book. I couldn't find what I was really looking for so I bought her an art book about optical illusions and visual deception. It's a very good book, but she claimed I was thinking more of myself when I bought it (because apparently I like that kind of thing more than she does). What's funny is I thought I was just buying her a good book.

No presents at all (except what I gave her) to unwrap, a tiny ice cream cake without any candles, we didn't even sing to her or anything. I don't even know if anybody else besides me and her had any cake.
Well anyway, her family is in general pretty insensitive and tend to regard each other with tepid indifference at all times. I'm always trying to tell her that, that her family is fucking weird, but she refuses to see it until something like this happens.

Back to the book. Me and Rachel have a long history of her not liking anything I buy her. She claims I don't listen to her, that even her room mate at college knows what she'd like better than I do. Last Christmas, I got her jam, a Bible with anime illustrations, and a wind chime. She didn't like any of it. But I had reasons! I got her jam because I knew how much she liked toast, she was always telling me how much she liked toast, so what goes better with toast than jam. And it was even special fancy jam. I knew she liked anime, and she didn't have a Bible, and it was a little corny but I thought maybe she'd like a combination of the two. And I thought the wind chime matched the decorations in her bedroom. I remember her telling me she disliked wind chimes, but a single tiny bell at the end hardly qualifies is as a "chime", it's more like a mobile than anything (especially if its indoors, hence no wind).

But the gift flopped hard anyway. I think she should feel lucky to get anything, I mean, it's pretty rude to complain about something somebody buys you no matter how close you are. Especially a nice big full-color book that obviously wasn't from the bargain bin. It sure is a lot nicer than what, say, her brother bought her, which was nothing. Oh well, I guess from now on I should just go with more obvious things, things I know she'll like. But it's so boring! I hate boring things.

But of course later in the evening we kissed and made up (and out) (ha ha j/k). She said at least the book will be a good distraction for me when she's busy with something and can't lavish me with the attention I so readily deserve.

She left this morning, and I look forward to seeing her again, hopefully around Valentine's Day.

If you're wondering what Napenthi is, it's the name of my new band. Well, sort of. I met with Khai the guitarist today to try and get something a little bit organized. We ironed out what songs we are going to prepare for a possible live performance on the first in two weeks (death doom destruction). He talks like he's really serious about this and knows how to play. I have my hopes, and my doubts, but there's no reason to give up before you start. Today I'm going to prepare practice tracks for him, just bass drums and chords, so when we meet this weekend he'll have his parts down slightly so we can see if we actually have something or not. I'm not going to make any judgments on the potential of this project until we've both had time to practice. Napenthi is a botched spelling of the word Nepenthe, which is a mythological drug of forgetfulness. I may need some Nepenthe after this week.

This week being school show auditions and all. I've been trying to let my voice rest yesterday and today, since it was pretty well tired after singing all day Thursday and Friday. Tomorrow is a half day, we get out at like noon (for the end of the semester), and then we'll have to come back for auditions at three. During that time I'm going to practice the song and make sure I can still sing it. It is very high, mind you. I'm a little anxious to have it over with. With any luck I won't get a good part and I won't have to do the show, or I'll get the lead. One or the other would be ideal. I kind of hope the directors don't read this blog.

That's all for now. I think I'm going to go watch the snow.

_Dr. M

Scrapbooks and Choirs

Yesterday I finished my project for the English class gift exchange that took place today. I decorated the cover of a scrap book.



I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, though it was very rushed. I enjoy making these kinds of collages, it is the one area of visual art I'm interested in seriously exploring, so expect more of this sometime.

The girl I gave it to seemed to like it. From the exchange I recieved two t-shirts, one that says "Tim Da Man" and another that says "Jus Be Cool" [sic] with my last name on the back. Possibly the most random, most awesome gifts I've ever received, I plan on wearing them often. I have no idea what the girl who gave them to me's original intentions were, maybe she was slightly inebriated at the time, but regardless they were the best things she could have given me. She asked my girlfriend when she was visiting about my favorite color, to which Rachel replied "earthy colors" (which is true), and somehow this girl took that to mean an awkward, faded lime-green color which couldn't possibly match anything in anybody's wardrobe. Only adding to the awesomeness.

Actually, on second thought, her card said she wanted to give me a gift "as cool and unique" as I am. These gifts sure are unique, but... seriously... "Tim Da Man"? I'm not sure what she's trying to say.

Anyway, today we had our last chamber choir performance in conjunction with these gals:



Sweet Adelines, Reading Pagoda chapter. I love these girls. They perform barbershop-style a capella numbers, looking just as perky and happy to still be alive as you could possibly want. Swaying, smiling, choreographed poses, the whole bit. Their singing is well-rehearsed, if not, well, hey they're old. They asked us to perform with them tonight in a barn. A semi-heated barn with a flame thrower. Well, it wasn't a flame thrower, but it kind of looked like one, it was this awesome old-fashioned space heater that spewed tiny licks of flames. And god bless it, as this was the most ungodly freezing, bitter night there ever was ever.

I had a pretty good time. Tomorrow is the last day of school before break, and guess how many total classes I plan on attending. I wouldn't even go if my mother wasn't making me. Oh well.

And now a special bonus:
Here's a list of everything I'm excited about right at this moment.
-Getting into (and getting a scholarship to) UArts
-Getting my new computer
-Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation contest our English department is starting to prepare for (more on that later)
-Getting started on an electronic composition I'm making for an electronic composition competition (yah yah yah), which I just started writing the kick-ass main melody for today

That's about it. I'm definitely not excited about having to work over break, though I am very excited about spending more time with Rachel.

So long for now.

-Dr. M

RHS Concert Choir

I look next to me and I see the program from yesterday's school concert sitting in the trash (or rather the recycling), where I suppose it belongs, both figuratively and literally. This was the annual holiday concert, which included performances by the chamber choir (a small group of selected students), the string orchestra and symphonic orchestra, and the full 120+ member concert choir.

This has been my primary activity since entering high school, the thing I care the most about, basically. I'm a choir nerd, through and through (and hope to be one in college as well). I'm passionate about vocal music, I simply love how much it can convey both through music and words and how it can span cultures and generations. It's a shame that for the most part, you will only ever find it in an educational context, nobody pays to see professional choir concerts.

Anyway, suffice to say this last concert yesterday wasn't really worth anything beyond whatever seems to compel us to have one every year, no matter how unprepared we are. I guess there's no point in having a choir if it doesn't perform, but still. Murdering a mundane setting of some Spanish Christmas carol or the music of the Nutcracker set to the words of Jingle Bells is one thing, murdering Mendelssohn's He Watching Over Israel is quite another, and I can't see why such an unfortunate circumstance should feel so obligated to manifest itself year after bloody year.

Not that it's the students' fault. Well, I guess that's a little hard to believe when you picture our typical morning rehearsal, various altos and sopranos standing there, their arms crossed, hips cocked to one side, lips just barely moving along to the music, as if somebody forced them here with a gun to their back. But we have enough students who at least look like they want to be in choir that I feel safe saying we have the potential to be a quality ensemble. Overall it's the level of directing that's been lacking this semester.

Not that it's entirely our director's fault, either. Our entire music program has been completely upended this year. The new choir director, Mr. Smith, filled in two years ago last-minute for our old choir director, Mr. Kazmierczak, when he went on a year-long sabbatical. Mr. K returned for last year, but then permanently retired (to Florida, where else) and now Mr. Smith is back in the saddle. He is a genuinely nice person, a real musician (a pianist, DEFINITELY not a vocalist) with good taste and decent classroom skills. The problem is he either doesn’t have the experience or the talent to really teach music to a bunch of high school students. Notes and rhythms, notes and rhythms, I swear we did nothing this semester but notes and rhythms. Even a computerized midi player knows there’s more to music than notes and rhythms.

This change in the choir staff just so happened to coincide with the firing of the assistant band director for being a slut and enjoying her students’ cocks a little too much and the primary band director leaving us for one of the middle schools. The only music staff member from my freshman year who remains of the four is the orchestra director, unfortunately (what a dick). He’s also I believe twenty-nine, making him the oldest member of the music staff as well.

So in short, our choir stinks and it’s nobody’s fault. This is the program that largely inspired me to become a composer, and taught me most of what I know about voice leading and harmonization. It’s a shame to see it slide so far down in quality. Hopefully, with a few more years Mr. Smith will either leave or become more adapt at getting a better sound from his students. This is hard when the first time half of them sing is at the holiday concert itself, but getting students to cooperate is part of the job description for being a teacher, last I checked.

But I can only be so hard on Mr. Smith. Like I said, he’s a great guy, I have a lot of respect for him. He got his teaching certification in band directing when he attended Penn State as a percussionist. About how farther away from choral directing can you get? Then he attended Berkley school of music in Boston to learn how to be a songwriter, before living for a year or two as a traveling musician with various theater productions. I imagine leading a bunch of paid professionals is quite different than leading a bunch of high school students. This training has however made him an excellent resource for me personally, both for getting into college and receiving feedback on just how one goes about making a living as a musician.

Anyways, sad about the choir, happy for me since I’M A SENIOR, BITCH!!! SO LONG SUCKAZZZ!!!!!!!!!

Mr. Smith recorded the concert and perhaps I will share selections from it with you all once I have a copy of it. I'd like to start including some media into this blog, pictures, audio, video, to keep it interesting.

Tomorrow I’m going on an art field trip with my art class and my sexy as hell art teacher, which I will undoubtedly blog about tomorrow.

-Dr. M