"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
This has been a long-awaited moment friends. Before I had even started investigating Russian, a course was in the works over at the Duolingo Incubator to teach Russian to speakers of English. As I may have alluded to, Duolingo is a very important resource for me. Completing the French course was an important moment and really spurred me to go to a level in French I had never accomplished in any language before. The fact that it is a free resource and never plans to charge money for its courses is incredibly encouraging especially for students like me who don't have the pleasure of being able to go out and buy expensive language courses.
I've quickly decided on my least favorite part of the course, and unfortunately, it's something that isn't really fixable. I didn't expect how frustrating it would be to have to switch between the English and Cyrillic keyboards all the time! Depending on whether the sentence I am asked to translate is in English or in Russian, I have to change my keyboard settings to the appropriate language. I should be glad I'm not hauling around two 50-pound typewriters, I suppose. It really isn't that bad.
One of my favorite parts of Duolingo is that it forces you to learn a lot of the grammar points more slowly than you would otherwise. Why is that good, do you ask? Well, here's my problem. I open my "Essentials of Russian Grammar" book from the library, and I see pages and pages of noun declensions. I pore over them, and try to ingest them all at once. I want to just believe that if I stare at the table hard enough, I will gradually just learn all of the endings available to me. An impossible task. Duolingo introduces the different forms of the words much more sparingly, so for the first chunk of the course, instead of trying to differentiate between the singular and plural forms of the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and prepositional cases in their masculine, feminine, and neuter genders, I am given masculine nominative singular and masculine accusative singular, and those are the only two I get to play with for a while. Then, as I pass the various levels and skills, more forms are introduced. This staggered learning style is much more effective for synthetic languages like Russian, where the language is full of little endings you have to attach to the ends of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns to change the meaning.
The true test of this course's worth, however, will be to see how much it aids my conversation and comprehension skills. We'll see about that.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Cyrillic, or, learning to read in Russian.
привет ребята!
The Russian project continues everyone! It's not been a quick business, but as they say на русском: Тише едешь - дальше будешь. "He who goes slowly goes far."
One of my first goals in tackling a language such as this is learning the writing system. Especially as a person who has taking phonology and can read IPA, nothing makes me cringe quite like romanized Cyrillic. (Or romanized anything for that matter. Except pinyin. Pinyin is a glorious gift from above! But more on that later.)
So yes. Russian uses a different alphabet. Welcome to Cyrillic! A fairly old writing system derived from Greek, Cyrillic has 33 letters and is used for multiple languages in Europe and Eastern Asia, especially languages of Slavic origin. Though it varies slightly from language to language, these are the current letters used in the Russian alphabet:
А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я
Pretty awesome right? Yeah. It's pretty scary at first. But I had a pretty good system for learning the letters. The letters fall into three types. The first group are letters that look exactly like the Latin letters and also represent the same sounds! These include А, Т, М, and К for instance. Pronounced just like the English. I "learned" those first. Which basically just meant remembering that I already knew them! The second group are the ones that look nothing like letters in the Latin alphabet. Those took some more work. (Д, Ш, З, П, Ж, Ю, Г among others). There are a lot of those. The last group are the ones that look like you should be able to know them but they are really false friends. Out to trick you and make you embarrass yourself when you're trying to read Russian words. For instance, the sound В in Russian is equivalent to our letter V. What?! What's more, Н makes an "n" sound, Р makes a trilled "r" sound, and Я, which first looked to me like a backwards R, is actually a VOWEL and is pronounced "ya." WHAT.
Honestly though, this isn't too bad as far as learning new writing systems go. I don't have to go memorize 3000 non-phonetic, stroke-ordered characters like you do in Chinese. I don't have to learn to read backwards as you will have to in many Semitic languages.
At this point, I feel that I've gotten a really good feel for Cyrillic. I know the sounds really well! Point at a Cyrillic letter and I can tell you how to pronounce it. Except for Ш and Щ. Oh, and also Ь and Ъ. And I forgot Ы! Maybe I should specify: I can explain to you how the letter should be pronounced in the event that you are lucky enough to be able to make the sounds with your mouth.
Oh boy. It's a party. This is why learning languages is so fun. :)
Stay tuned for part 2: learning how to write in Cyrillic!
The Russian project continues everyone! It's not been a quick business, but as they say на русском: Тише едешь - дальше будешь. "He who goes slowly goes far."
One of my first goals in tackling a language such as this is learning the writing system. Especially as a person who has taking phonology and can read IPA, nothing makes me cringe quite like romanized Cyrillic. (Or romanized anything for that matter. Except pinyin. Pinyin is a glorious gift from above! But more on that later.)
So yes. Russian uses a different alphabet. Welcome to Cyrillic! A fairly old writing system derived from Greek, Cyrillic has 33 letters and is used for multiple languages in Europe and Eastern Asia, especially languages of Slavic origin. Though it varies slightly from language to language, these are the current letters used in the Russian alphabet:
А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я
Pretty awesome right? Yeah. It's pretty scary at first. But I had a pretty good system for learning the letters. The letters fall into three types. The first group are letters that look exactly like the Latin letters and also represent the same sounds! These include А, Т, М, and К for instance. Pronounced just like the English. I "learned" those first. Which basically just meant remembering that I already knew them! The second group are the ones that look nothing like letters in the Latin alphabet. Those took some more work. (Д, Ш, З, П, Ж, Ю, Г among others). There are a lot of those. The last group are the ones that look like you should be able to know them but they are really false friends. Out to trick you and make you embarrass yourself when you're trying to read Russian words. For instance, the sound В in Russian is equivalent to our letter V. What?! What's more, Н makes an "n" sound, Р makes a trilled "r" sound, and Я, which first looked to me like a backwards R, is actually a VOWEL and is pronounced "ya." WHAT.
Honestly though, this isn't too bad as far as learning new writing systems go. I don't have to go memorize 3000 non-phonetic, stroke-ordered characters like you do in Chinese. I don't have to learn to read backwards as you will have to in many Semitic languages.
At this point, I feel that I've gotten a really good feel for Cyrillic. I know the sounds really well! Point at a Cyrillic letter and I can tell you how to pronounce it. Except for Ш and Щ. Oh, and also Ь and Ъ. And I forgot Ы! Maybe I should specify: I can explain to you how the letter should be pronounced in the event that you are lucky enough to be able to make the sounds with your mouth.
Oh boy. It's a party. This is why learning languages is so fun. :)
Stay tuned for part 2: learning how to write in Cyrillic!
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Some "Spring Cleaning" remarks
Привет Друзья!
I can't believe how long it's been since I've updated! College definitely took a lot of my time and energy. As a result, I neglected things such as this blog. A fascinating question is whether my lack of time was because of my efficiency at completing tasks being too low or merely because of the external circumstances, regardless of my actions. But that's for another blog post.
Well, I'm done with my first year at Michigan State University. It's been a crazy ride. I didn't grow in ways I hoped and learned things I didn't expect. I'm okay with that; sometimes the best thing we can do is leave our prior expectations for ourselves unfulfilled when life takes us down another road. I certainly learned a lot about music, myself, and the world. I can solfège and part-write in my sleep, and I've learned how to practice. Yes, I didn't know how to practice before college. That was something I just learned this past year.
And the great fact is, all of these things I've learned are points on the journey to self-betterment. I've learned how much I still need to improve. I know that there are still vast continents, no worlds, no UNIVERSES of undiscovered knowledge for me just within the College of Music, let alone the world at large. And now I take back my take back my previous statement and say this: I still don't know how to practice as best I can, but I have been empowered with the knowledge of my insufficiency and given a will to improve. And though I claimed I can solfège and part-write in my sleep, I'm sure I've only seen the tip of the iceberg and will continue to have to learn and grow in new and vast ways.
A few posts (or more than a few) could be devoted to my college experiences. I also took an introductory linguistics class this past semester that really impacted me and my view of the field. It was the only class I maintained perfect attendance in (even when quite sick). I was so enthralled with the material I felt such excitement walking into class each week wondering what I would learn. We covered basic phonetics, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and syntax.
Since I have always had a fascination with language and the acquisition of foreign language in particular, taking this class has upended my language studies to say the least. I've abandoned Hungarian for the time being, for a reason my former self would deem quite stupid. Since Hungarian is a non-Indo-European language (it is instead a Finno-Ugric language) it presents immense, immense linguistic interest to me and thus, though this may sound counterintuitive, I want to actually delay my study of Hungarian until I gained a more thorough and academically acceptable grasp of linguistic theory.
I have instead been maintaining my French skills by speaking with native speakers on Skype and Italki as well as watching movies and TV shows in French. I still stutter and feel very uncomfortable in conversation, and my accent is lacking the finesse I desire, but I rarely have to resort to English, and that alone is a goal reached for me.
In addition to French, this week I have began a 6-month Russian challenge with a group of people I met online. This is very exciting for me, and I have already witnessed how useful studying with a time-cap will be for me. My goal is to hold a 30-minute conversation in Russian in 6 months with a native speaker, along with posting monthly updates. Since I have a goal with a time scale it has really helped me analyze how to study in a way that will prove useful and profitable as well as search for methods that will reap the appropriate results for my goals. So far, I have already learned basic greetings and, perhaps more importantly, how to read Cyrillic. I would love to be able to translate my blog posts to Russian in 6 months as well. We'll see if that will happen. :) Lastly, this is a fairly loose commitment, as music is my #1 priority and if my music studies demand so much time that I can't study Russian, then so be it.
However, (this goes for nearly everyone) I have found that most people, mainly myself, who claim not to have time to do something such as learning a language do actually have the time, it's just a matter of arranging your schedule in a way that will accommodate what you wish to accomplish. That being said, we'll see what happens with this Russian challenge! :)
До свидания!
Friday, February 13, 2015
Life
Gets crazy.
Yeah.
Whatever...
Three things to cover today.
Snow. I truly am enjoying this winter. I don't know why. Common sense, or at least some semblance of sense masquerading as the common variety in my head, deems such a sentiment as truly unusual given my current circumstances. I still live in Michigan, except now I have to walk everywhere. Yep. So why?
Goodness, I don't know exactly. And knowing why is so often not what it's about. All this theory and stipulation about things. Why squirrels are cute or why guacamole tastes good... Forget it. Just enjoy them.
I do really like the snow and the winter. So many great philosophical fragments and anecdotes always seem to swim around in my head during the winter. Why? See, there I go again. I want to know why. :(
Maybe it is in part because winter pushes us to realize our mortality just a bit more. Every step we take outside is met with the instant embrace of the frigid air that could very well be our undoing if we didn't take the necessary precautions of warm clothing and time-caps on our mid-winter outdoor excursions.
Those thoughts don't come around that much in the summer do they? Ah, summer. When you step outside on a sunny summer day, the air and the elements seem to gleefully reassure you of your life, your vitality. Your will to live and to enjoy life. What a contrast to winter. See, winter is a contrast to us. To life. It's the sun, being shielded ever so slightly more from us. If that process were to continue... it would get colder. And colder. And we would be snuffed out. Summer complements our state of aliveness. Winter taunts it.
Ah, I love winter. Is that bad? To love a force that could ultimately destroy my aliveness? Or is it good? To revel in the truthfulness winter offers? The secrets the howling wind whispers in one's ear: "You are not truly so stable in your aliveness. I could take it from you."
Winter, he, or she, or it, is right. The cold does possess power to end our life. That's what winter is. A biting check every time you walk out the door, making sure you aren't too "in the moment," assuring you that life on this earth does indeed end, and one would do well not to forget that.
Second topic of the day:
Diminishing return.
Particularly in practice. With my concerto... notes memorized. Check. I can play well with the piano, ensemble is good. Check. Shifts are reliable. Check. There is a dose of character and musicality. Check.
Are we done here?
Nope.
Sorry, another little reminder in life. Perfection is a thing. And it's a thing we can't reach. And the closer we feel we are, the harder it is to get there. But everyone knows that. What I'm trying to say is that when I practice, the basics come, and then with some more hard practice, the real meaty stuff, the music-making comes. And yet, I can never say I am done. I can never be over with it. As time goes on, (we all have experienced this) our endeavors seem to be giving less and less back to us. Diminishing return, of course. The closer you get think you are to the standard of perfection, the more you realize you just can't get there on your own power. I try, of course. Giving up is dumb, best attempts are always better. But we all know that's hard.
I don't know, I guess that was more of a venting/confession of what my practice life is like. But let's compare winter and diminishing return in practicing, shall we? Both highlight our insufficiencies. Aye. There's the rub. As Hamlet would say. :)
Lastly,
I am courting the prospect of learning some Hungarian. In a more serious and dedicated manner. Ladeez and gennlmen. Let me tell you. If you want to feel insufficient at something, try learning Hungarian.
That's basically all I'm going to say on that topic.
I enjoy all of these things. Winter, the finer points of practicing, and learning a language with 14 vowels, 18 cases, postpositional pronouns, no future tense, no translation of the verb "to have," and the word, "megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért." But why? Grrrrrrrrrr I'm asking again. I'll just say this. Maybe facing the truth of the human condition of utter insufficiency to have things perfect, or endless (what I've boiled all of these activities down to, in other words) is exciting to some, including me, because it, among other things, implies a Being from which these ideas of a perfect standard, eternity, etc. stem from.
I like that. that thought. Not fully developed, not fully or perfectly expressed. (I'm not a perfect writer, go figure.) It doesn't need to be. We all have the capacity to feel it.
It's Michigan, after all!
Take a step outside, and taste your finiteness. :)
Yeah.
Whatever...
Three things to cover today.
Snow. I truly am enjoying this winter. I don't know why. Common sense, or at least some semblance of sense masquerading as the common variety in my head, deems such a sentiment as truly unusual given my current circumstances. I still live in Michigan, except now I have to walk everywhere. Yep. So why?
Goodness, I don't know exactly. And knowing why is so often not what it's about. All this theory and stipulation about things. Why squirrels are cute or why guacamole tastes good... Forget it. Just enjoy them.
I do really like the snow and the winter. So many great philosophical fragments and anecdotes always seem to swim around in my head during the winter. Why? See, there I go again. I want to know why. :(
Maybe it is in part because winter pushes us to realize our mortality just a bit more. Every step we take outside is met with the instant embrace of the frigid air that could very well be our undoing if we didn't take the necessary precautions of warm clothing and time-caps on our mid-winter outdoor excursions.
Those thoughts don't come around that much in the summer do they? Ah, summer. When you step outside on a sunny summer day, the air and the elements seem to gleefully reassure you of your life, your vitality. Your will to live and to enjoy life. What a contrast to winter. See, winter is a contrast to us. To life. It's the sun, being shielded ever so slightly more from us. If that process were to continue... it would get colder. And colder. And we would be snuffed out. Summer complements our state of aliveness. Winter taunts it.
Ah, I love winter. Is that bad? To love a force that could ultimately destroy my aliveness? Or is it good? To revel in the truthfulness winter offers? The secrets the howling wind whispers in one's ear: "You are not truly so stable in your aliveness. I could take it from you."
Winter, he, or she, or it, is right. The cold does possess power to end our life. That's what winter is. A biting check every time you walk out the door, making sure you aren't too "in the moment," assuring you that life on this earth does indeed end, and one would do well not to forget that.
Second topic of the day:
Diminishing return.
Particularly in practice. With my concerto... notes memorized. Check. I can play well with the piano, ensemble is good. Check. Shifts are reliable. Check. There is a dose of character and musicality. Check.
Are we done here?
Nope.
Sorry, another little reminder in life. Perfection is a thing. And it's a thing we can't reach. And the closer we feel we are, the harder it is to get there. But everyone knows that. What I'm trying to say is that when I practice, the basics come, and then with some more hard practice, the real meaty stuff, the music-making comes. And yet, I can never say I am done. I can never be over with it. As time goes on, (we all have experienced this) our endeavors seem to be giving less and less back to us. Diminishing return, of course. The closer you get think you are to the standard of perfection, the more you realize you just can't get there on your own power. I try, of course. Giving up is dumb, best attempts are always better. But we all know that's hard.
I don't know, I guess that was more of a venting/confession of what my practice life is like. But let's compare winter and diminishing return in practicing, shall we? Both highlight our insufficiencies. Aye. There's the rub. As Hamlet would say. :)
Lastly,
I am courting the prospect of learning some Hungarian. In a more serious and dedicated manner. Ladeez and gennlmen. Let me tell you. If you want to feel insufficient at something, try learning Hungarian.
That's basically all I'm going to say on that topic.
I enjoy all of these things. Winter, the finer points of practicing, and learning a language with 14 vowels, 18 cases, postpositional pronouns, no future tense, no translation of the verb "to have," and the word, "megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért." But why? Grrrrrrrrrr I'm asking again. I'll just say this. Maybe facing the truth of the human condition of utter insufficiency to have things perfect, or endless (what I've boiled all of these activities down to, in other words) is exciting to some, including me, because it, among other things, implies a Being from which these ideas of a perfect standard, eternity, etc. stem from.
I like that. that thought. Not fully developed, not fully or perfectly expressed. (I'm not a perfect writer, go figure.) It doesn't need to be. We all have the capacity to feel it.
It's Michigan, after all!
Take a step outside, and taste your finiteness. :)
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
A Scholastic Adventure
Following post per request of my friend Alison.
For certain undisclosed reasons, I found myself in quite a pickle last Thursday night. Class was at 8:30 the next morning, and I still had a mountain of homework to do. Oh, and I was at a concert, so I couldn't actually do any of the school. Normally, I employ my masterfully developed skills at doing what needs done to get through class and leaving the rest for some other time. However, I don't like doing that. Since when has school become such a burden to me? Why does it seem so oppressive? It is such a privilege; one I have taken for granted much too often of late. If I really do enjoy learning, I figured I could hire my "enthusiasm" to do something big.
I realized I am graduating in two weeks, and yet, in my entire high school career, I had never pulled an all-nighter to do my homework. This is largely due to the fact that I have parents who are strict about such matters and have taught me to be disciplined. In other words, I've never really needed to pull an all-nighter. Nor did I especially need to in this circumstance, but I thought I should embark on this "rite of passage" the homework all-nighter represents to the typical American highschooler.
And thus, with silent acquiescence, I vowed to myself this all-nighter would happen.
Yet I am not an infallible human being. I knew I could not do this by myself. So, after a short text conversation, I had enlisted a partner in crime, my classmate Alison.
I'm not sure how to illustrate the massive mental firewalls and safeguards I constructed to protect against the call of sleep. Nor the extensive planning I did to ensure what I did at 4:30am was actually beneficial rather than harmful.
In short, I was determined. I got home from the concert at 9:47. I ate a piece of pie and drank a cup of coffee.
And so it began.
I had to take some logic tests. Those had to come first. I needed as much brain power as I could for those. Then other stuff.
12:43am. Four logic tests done. Alison's and my chat:
"4 done"
For certain undisclosed reasons, I found myself in quite a pickle last Thursday night. Class was at 8:30 the next morning, and I still had a mountain of homework to do. Oh, and I was at a concert, so I couldn't actually do any of the school. Normally, I employ my masterfully developed skills at doing what needs done to get through class and leaving the rest for some other time. However, I don't like doing that. Since when has school become such a burden to me? Why does it seem so oppressive? It is such a privilege; one I have taken for granted much too often of late. If I really do enjoy learning, I figured I could hire my "enthusiasm" to do something big.
I realized I am graduating in two weeks, and yet, in my entire high school career, I had never pulled an all-nighter to do my homework. This is largely due to the fact that I have parents who are strict about such matters and have taught me to be disciplined. In other words, I've never really needed to pull an all-nighter. Nor did I especially need to in this circumstance, but I thought I should embark on this "rite of passage" the homework all-nighter represents to the typical American highschooler.
And thus, with silent acquiescence, I vowed to myself this all-nighter would happen.
Yet I am not an infallible human being. I knew I could not do this by myself. So, after a short text conversation, I had enlisted a partner in crime, my classmate Alison.
I'm not sure how to illustrate the massive mental firewalls and safeguards I constructed to protect against the call of sleep. Nor the extensive planning I did to ensure what I did at 4:30am was actually beneficial rather than harmful.
In short, I was determined. I got home from the concert at 9:47. I ate a piece of pie and drank a cup of coffee.
And so it began.
I had to take some logic tests. Those had to come first. I needed as much brain power as I could for those. Then other stuff.
12:43am. Four logic tests done. Alison's and my chat:
"4 done"
"Yay!"
"Working on 6 now."
"Two more pages of dates! :D"
"I love Peter's art."
"Me too lol. But stay focused."
"I am focused... not really. Done with test 6!"
"I know. My brain shuts off right about now... Yay!! Good job! Only 5 left"
"Yay! And keep on keeping on! Imagine the bragging rights, the memories!"
"Yes. Those bragging rights are looking pretty good."
"Gtg, check in at 2, k?"
Come 2 o'clock...
"It's 2! Only 4.5 hours until we have to 'wake up.'"
"We can do this."
"I want to stab conjunctive syllogisms in the face."
"Hahahahahahahaha wait until oblique syllogisms."
"Excuse me while I go get coffee" (It was actually only my third cup!)
And so it went. We motivated by bragging rights and the occasional excursion to view Peter's artwork. However, things went downhill starting at 3am. Observe.
"I want to go to bed sooooooooooooooobad"
"Haha you're telling me."
"But we need to do this. We just have to. We've made it this far already."
"Ugh. Just don't think about it. Thinking makes it worse."
4 o'clock was definitely the hardest point of the whole night. I had finished all my logic and a good deal of Latin homework. The circumstances were pushing me to the limits of consciousness.
"Hey... so nothing goes into my head. It just bounces right back out. I'm starting to question whether there's a point to staying up."
"Are you trying to memorize Shakespeare?"
"Read World History. No! I can do this! fiiiiiigggggggghhhhhht"
"Ah. I'd say, yeah lets go to sleep but... THE GLORY!!! THE FAME!!! FREAKING OUR TEACHER OUT!!!"
"YES. I'm going to go search for my history timeline right now."
And thus it went. There was one more particularly funny episode of conversation at 5, but I will spare you from hearing any more of our early-morning rants.
So you get the gist of things! This was my first ever homework all-nighter! I completed World History, wrote a paper about Macbeth, completed homework for eleven logic lessons, and studied (successfully) for the Latin final.
Not all was finished, however. I still had to make it through class and discover whether my work I did was worth anything. For all I knew, I just signed my death warrant by compiling a large amount of bad grades. Class came. I made it through. I held it together. I only had two cups of coffee. I ate Chinese for lunch. I did not giggle incessantly.
I got A's on everything.
WIN.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Recital Preparation
Music is an art. More specifically, however, it is a performing art. You can't make it in a secluded room and then display it for all to see once you're happy. At least, not all the time. All musicians should be good performers. Regardless of how good one sounds in the practice room, music is communication and communication works best from person to person when both are physically present. If you want any amount of rapport or renown as a musician, you absolutely must be ready to perform in public.
What is so interesting to me is the amount of people I run into who claim to be musicians and yet unabashedly cite performing as the bane of their musical career. They love playing music, but not in front of people. What? That's weird. The point of music is to enrich the lives of others. Saying you like being a musician, but aren't comfortable performing is akin to a surgeon saying they love saving people's lives but don't feel competent with a scalpel under pressure. Surgeons get over the fear and the pressure because that's precisely what you need to do to be a successful surgeon. I would say the same goes for musicians. You have to embrace the fact that you must perform and you must learn how to do it as well as possible (which means performing as much as possible to learn) so you can be comfortable in your own skin and your own accomplishments up on the stage.
For music to be truly meaningful, not just impressive, or entertaining, you have to give a convincing performance. This doesn't mean you have to be flawless. Good performances happen even with the unfortunate distractions mistakes can bring. Nevertheless, being a convincing performer means really believing what you are playing. If music does have meaning, then be 100% focused on the meaning of the music and make it your goal to convince your audience of the musical meaning that is convicting you.
Mistakes happen, and we work to ensure their demise because mistakes will distract and interrupt any connection the performer builds up with the audience. Getting past distractions is key, because whether they be mistakes, a sick audience member, or an alien invasion, they will happen, and you have to work around them. Work at eliminating the distractions in your own playing, but don't put your confidence in that. If you put your confidence in performing without mistakes, watch out! The one time you're ready to pull off a flawless performance, chances are a turkey will fly in through an adjacent window and ruin everything. Not to mention being absorbed in technicalities can often restrict the amount of musicality going on.
All that being said, this is very difficult, and very little of this is completely true all the time. Different circumstances will arise, and unexpected mishaps will occur. Keep trying, keep learning, and be committed to making your performances as convincing as possible.
So, in lieu of my mini-treatise on performance, I am preparing for my senior recital. I will be playing works of Brahms, Enesco, and Bach. In preparation for this, I have been doing a few different things. One, I will probably be changing my diet up a bit. Less caffeine, and lots of bananas the day of. Whether these acts make a biological difference is actually superfluous. It is the mental impression you get from rigorous preparation techniques that make things work. Placebo effect.
More exercise. Everything works better when one is fit. Always. Just a general principle of life. Plus I want to be conditioned for ultimate frisbee this summer.
More techniques for preparation are in the works. Watch for more on this topic in the coming weeks as my senior recital draws nearer and nearer!
What is so interesting to me is the amount of people I run into who claim to be musicians and yet unabashedly cite performing as the bane of their musical career. They love playing music, but not in front of people. What? That's weird. The point of music is to enrich the lives of others. Saying you like being a musician, but aren't comfortable performing is akin to a surgeon saying they love saving people's lives but don't feel competent with a scalpel under pressure. Surgeons get over the fear and the pressure because that's precisely what you need to do to be a successful surgeon. I would say the same goes for musicians. You have to embrace the fact that you must perform and you must learn how to do it as well as possible (which means performing as much as possible to learn) so you can be comfortable in your own skin and your own accomplishments up on the stage.
For music to be truly meaningful, not just impressive, or entertaining, you have to give a convincing performance. This doesn't mean you have to be flawless. Good performances happen even with the unfortunate distractions mistakes can bring. Nevertheless, being a convincing performer means really believing what you are playing. If music does have meaning, then be 100% focused on the meaning of the music and make it your goal to convince your audience of the musical meaning that is convicting you.
Mistakes happen, and we work to ensure their demise because mistakes will distract and interrupt any connection the performer builds up with the audience. Getting past distractions is key, because whether they be mistakes, a sick audience member, or an alien invasion, they will happen, and you have to work around them. Work at eliminating the distractions in your own playing, but don't put your confidence in that. If you put your confidence in performing without mistakes, watch out! The one time you're ready to pull off a flawless performance, chances are a turkey will fly in through an adjacent window and ruin everything. Not to mention being absorbed in technicalities can often restrict the amount of musicality going on.
All that being said, this is very difficult, and very little of this is completely true all the time. Different circumstances will arise, and unexpected mishaps will occur. Keep trying, keep learning, and be committed to making your performances as convincing as possible.
So, in lieu of my mini-treatise on performance, I am preparing for my senior recital. I will be playing works of Brahms, Enesco, and Bach. In preparation for this, I have been doing a few different things. One, I will probably be changing my diet up a bit. Less caffeine, and lots of bananas the day of. Whether these acts make a biological difference is actually superfluous. It is the mental impression you get from rigorous preparation techniques that make things work. Placebo effect.
More exercise. Everything works better when one is fit. Always. Just a general principle of life. Plus I want to be conditioned for ultimate frisbee this summer.
More techniques for preparation are in the works. Watch for more on this topic in the coming weeks as my senior recital draws nearer and nearer!
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
I'm a morning/Michigan person.
Hello everyone.
Last night, I performed on three different instruments, in four different ensembles. Afterwards, I was a bit run down, hence I did not believe there was in myself the energy for a blog post. But today... now that is different.
I am often shocked with how much of a morning person I am. Despite the fact that I often stay up late and wake up late, everything always goes better if I make my days more morning oriented and work to make my mornings good.
Let me enlighten you with an example. After aforementioned concert, I went to a friend's house and gained six hours of sleep. Not enough in normal conditions, but when you make sure to fill your morning with bright and cheery people, good food, scripture, prayer, and tea made by a seasoned tea connoisseur, (no pun intended) life feels pretty good. For the whole day, in fact. (Relatively speaking)
Note: Not every day caters to laid-back aesthetically pleasing mornings. Anticipating this particular human plight, God created coffee.
The beautiful weather has been quite nice too. This year, I have had some good friends living in far away places and experiencing different climates. It makes me all the more thankful to live in Michigan. Good, cold winters, with lots of snow and iconic winter experiences, giving way to beautiful springs where we can watch trees bud, orchards blossom and flowering bulbs poke their heads out in a colorful proclamation of new life. (Among rivers of mud... yeah that part's not the best.) Summers are warm but not hot, with just a few hot weeks to make beaches and swimming fun. All winds down to a quiet, introspective fall, where the trees become silent fireworks and the fields give up their last bursts of produce. Notice the picture in the upper right; the backyard of yours truly.
And we have freshwater oceans on our doorstep. Definitely a plus.
Last night, I performed on three different instruments, in four different ensembles. Afterwards, I was a bit run down, hence I did not believe there was in myself the energy for a blog post. But today... now that is different.
I am often shocked with how much of a morning person I am. Despite the fact that I often stay up late and wake up late, everything always goes better if I make my days more morning oriented and work to make my mornings good.
Let me enlighten you with an example. After aforementioned concert, I went to a friend's house and gained six hours of sleep. Not enough in normal conditions, but when you make sure to fill your morning with bright and cheery people, good food, scripture, prayer, and tea made by a seasoned tea connoisseur, (no pun intended) life feels pretty good. For the whole day, in fact. (Relatively speaking)
Note: Not every day caters to laid-back aesthetically pleasing mornings. Anticipating this particular human plight, God created coffee.
The beautiful weather has been quite nice too. This year, I have had some good friends living in far away places and experiencing different climates. It makes me all the more thankful to live in Michigan. Good, cold winters, with lots of snow and iconic winter experiences, giving way to beautiful springs where we can watch trees bud, orchards blossom and flowering bulbs poke their heads out in a colorful proclamation of new life. (Among rivers of mud... yeah that part's not the best.) Summers are warm but not hot, with just a few hot weeks to make beaches and swimming fun. All winds down to a quiet, introspective fall, where the trees become silent fireworks and the fields give up their last bursts of produce. Notice the picture in the upper right; the backyard of yours truly.
And we have freshwater oceans on our doorstep. Definitely a plus.
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