Orchestra audition

I did quite well in my audition. For my scale, I was stopped halfway through going down the second octave, and Mrs. Hasbun said that Teacher Ellen got an A for teaching me, and that I got an A too for that. For my piece, Mrs. Hasbun stopped me at the part where it just repeats from the beginning, and told me that I played it so well I made her day. As I walked out, I heard a whisper of "Great!"

rockslide

So, as of this week, due to my extreme lack of ability to come up with good ideas for more than about two days a week, Mom is now having me do blag posts with subjects. Today's subject is: rockslide.

Rockslide
1: An avalanche of rock.

2: A slightly chunky cat that is afraid of everything.

Yes, Today I have been told to talk about my cat. He is, as I have stated a good number of times, afraid of everything. He is especially afraid of sudden loud noises, strangers, and people getting within two feet of him. He enjoys curling up next to me for ten to thirty minutes at a time and getting pet before running and coming back ten minutes later. He will sometimes roll over onto his back in order to have me give him belly rubs - he really likes belly rubs. He also enjoys annoying his older brother and keeping his queen happy.

Wow.

Look at that. I have survived the second week of school. Tomorrow is the weekend. I had fun at my first Japanese class, made a decent bowl at my clay class, and my lesson went nicely. We now know not only what piece I am doing, but also what scale. Now all I have to do is wait until Monday.

Wow.

Today is going to be a long day. First, I am going to go to a doctor for an appointment in San Mateo. Then, Mom is going to a foot doctor for her broken little toe. And then after that, I have a cello lesson - the last one before GGP auditions.

I am going to hopefully work out what few kinks remain in my audition piece during my lesson, and play a very good audition for the orchestra.

Japanese class.

Japanese was fun. The person sitting next to me was writing her notes in japanese (she outright stated that she was taking the class for the credits), and so she helped me with writing the hiragana and katakana properly. I learned a lot, I think. I now want to go to Hokkaido, a region in Japan where it is always snowing.

Hello.

God, I hate syncopation. Why? Imagine a metronome. Count the beats. Normally, in 4/4, you are accenting 1 and 3 with a slight accent on 2 and 4. Now, when you have eighth notes, it goes:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

With accents on 1, 2, 3, and 4 as the beat. Syncopation is where you accent the 'and's (the plus signs. The and of 1 is halfway between beats 1 and 2.) So you have:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

My current assignment from my teacher is to practice clapping syncopation, which essentially means clapping after the metronome beeps. Which is quite frustrating.

End of first weekend.

And so today is the beginning of the second week of school. Tomorrow, I have Japanese class, where I will (hopefully) make it in. I am number 2 on the waiting list, so I have hope. I'm also looking foreword to next Monday, when I finally have auditions for the orchestra. I'm hoping to do well, and be placed at the front of the Senior orchestra. I don't want to be in the Camarata: I would much prefer to have a year where I am not playing catch up with everyone else.

Hello again.

Mom wants me to now, every day, write posts about the length of yesterday's. So, today I have a cello lesson. It's been a while since my last lesson, about a month. That is mostly because Teacher Ellen goes out to do all sorts of music festivals for most of the summer, so today was the earliest time we could get one in. Considering that my auditions are at the end of the month, we will probably spend some time going over my audition piece, however I think that I will want to work mostly on the Shostacovich Quartet that my quartet is working on. It has a part that goes about a fifth higher than what I am comfortable playing. To make matters more annoying, Mitchell, one of our violinists, takes one look at it and says: "Oh, that's really easy. It's just in first position."

I swear, a violin is about an octave and a fifth higher than I cello. So what is in first position for him is in ouch-my-hand-does-not-stretch-that-far position for us cellists. In other words, it is in thumb position (Google it. Look at the pictures. It's not pretty.) Thankfully, I have a lesson today, and can learn about how to do it then.

Hello, everyone.

Been a while, huh? Well, it's been at least since before summer vacation since my last post. Oh well. Summer was long. Between the latter half of May and early June, it was a lot of stress. I went to DMA, and had a lot of fun and learned a lot (but didn't make any friends), and then a couple weeks of taking care of a Mom that could barely walk, went camping for a little bit, had a lot of fun and, once again, did not make any new friends (mostly because that time I knew the people I spent most of the day with).

What was most surprising to me was the feeling of almost excitement that I felt about school starting, and both the lack of panic and fun that I have been having doing my school work.

See you all later, I've got work to do.