Day 16: Orchestra Concert + All States Results

Today was my local orchestra's concert. The concert consisted of thirteen chamber music groups, and one group performance at the end. My group was a quartet, with two violins, one viola, and one cello. We played Nocturne by Borodin, a quite well-known piece. I had just found out today by the conductor that this song was played in a Disney film. When I went home, I researched a bit and found out that it played in a short film by Disney and Pixar called "The Little Match Girl". You can watch it here.

The group performance at the end of the concert was a song composed by one of the orchestra members. He's 17 and has been composing music since 14. Yup, genius right there.

Anyways, today the high school all-states results came out too. I made it in, but only second violin. This year was really weird though. Another violin player who goes to my school was first violin second chair in regionals didn't even make it in. And the concert-master (first violin, first chair) of regionals only got second violin. Many people I know did much worse than expected. My family, teacher, and orchestra director speculate that there must have been some mistake in the scoring  So I guess considering the circumstances, I should call myself lucky.

Day 15: All-States Auditions... and my bro's bday!

This was the day that I had prepared for. Reluctantly waking up at 9:15, my family made the one and a half hour drive to a high school in southern New Jersey for the all-states auditions. After my brother and I made it in to the central Jersey regionals orchestras (my brother was in the middle school one while I was playing for the high school one), we continued to practice for the all-states, which includes participants from all three New Jersey regions.

The all-states system was weird. Ok, not weird, but different from regionals. In regionals, the warm up room is usually a huge room such as the cafeteria or auditorium. After you feel that you're ready, you enter a hallway. You have three rooms to go to, solo, sight-reading  and scales, which you can go in any order that you like. In all-states, they assign you to one of two warm up rooms, in which you stay inside as moderators call five audition numbers consecutively at a time; only when you hear your number can you go outside at wait in line. They did this so to prevent players from "cooling down" while waiting for hours in a long line and not being able to play.

Since I had to wait for about three hours and was bored out of my mind, I ended up practicing for about two hours in there. By the time they called my name, I felt pumped. My solo playing, as usual, wasn't my best, because of nerves. At the end, during a tremolo, my bow kind of went on my bridge, causing a loud scratchy sound. Oh well. That could have been worse. The scales and sight-reading was pretty good, because for some reason I never get nervous for those. I guess it's because I usually do really well in scales, and even though I suck at sight-reading, everyone complains about how they stink at it too, which makes me feel a tad bit better. Plus, I have a kind of "yolo" attitude when I do sight-reading.

Ah yes, and it was my brother's birthday. He's 12 now. I can't believe he'll be a teenager next year. Today my kungfu master lectured my brother on how it's the Chinese Year of the Snake, my brother's year, and so this year he must be calm and mature. According to my dad, it's a custom to do so, or an accident could occur later on in life.

Day 14: Busy Weekend Ahead...

Sorry for not posting anything yesterday. I was way too busy. And this weekend I will be busy as well. Tomorrow will be the high school all-states orchestra audition. My audition time is 11:45, and as many violinists will compete against me, the auditions could take a few hours as I wait in line just to play for thirty seconds. If the auditions don't take too long, I plan to possibly go over to Allison's house and work on a Latin project with her (if not, then we will split the work and do them separately). Then I will leave for dinner and kungfu class at 5:00 and come back at around 9:30.

Usually I have a violin lesson on Sunday morning, but because the audition , there will be no lesson this weekend. However, that morning I will have to go to Red Bank to work on TSA with my group. I'm part of digital video production, and we'll be filming that day. Afterwards, my local orchestra, will begin rehearsal at 4:45 for a concert that starts later that evening.

All of this wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the homework I received for Bio, English, World History, Math, and Latin. Hopefully I can squeeze in time to finish all of this without sacrificing too much of my sleep time. I'm actually being quite productive today; usually on Friday evenings I try to do the least work possible.

Day 13: Suffering through Pain

Yesterday I was super tired. I also had a raging headache and my arms and legs were super sore (not muscle sore. JOINT SORE. And it hurts much more.) At 9:00 I couldn't do any more homework, so I took a shower and all that jazz and fell asleep by 10. That was the first time in months that I slept before my little brother did.

Today wasn't any better. As soon as I woke up, my shoulders and arms were killing me. I had to cope through it the whole day; luckily, it began to die down by fourth period. During lunch I usually eat a whole sandwich without a problem, but today I struggled to take bites before I threw half of my sandwich away (I know, I feel guilty about wasting food. Don't judge me.)

When I got home, I wasn't hungry at all, even though I ate half of what I usually ate for lunch. I figured I should eat something, so I forced down an apple. This resulted in a stomachache for about thirty minutes. My mom called me to remind my brother and me that we were going to have a violin lesson and therefore would have to eat dinner super late (I ate dinner today at about 9), so I pretty much shoved a little more food down my throat. A few minutes later I got another stomachache.

The ride to my teacher's house was horrible. Since we were driving during the rush hour, there was heavy traffic in the highway. My stomachache was still there, so I felt sick every time my mom abruptly pressed the breaks.

Not only that, but my teacher was not happy with the way I practiced for the last couple of days. Yesterday I couldn't really practice much because of my fatigue, but that's not really an excuse. I only have THREE DAYS until the All-States auditions. Hopefully I will feel better and my playing will be much less sloppy by then. I really need to practice.

Wow, this is a long post.

Day 10: Middle School Regionals

It's only been a year since 8th grade, and all of a sudden the middle school musicians look so small and adorable. Today I listened to the middle school regionals orchestra, because my brother was one of the violin players. He was the first violin 15th chair and only in 6th grade; don't tell him I said this, but that's quite impressive considering how he practices at home. *Cough* I'm listening to you as I'm typing this, Michael *Cough* I also found it hysterical that he was a head shorter than everyone else in the orchestra when they all stood up for pictures.

Anyways, the music itself was phenomenal. Since recording is not allowed (you have to buy them from "professional recording") I never actually heard what the middle school orchestra usually sounds like. Trust me, sitting on stage gives a totally different experience than sitting in the audience. I saw many familiar faces, whether they be from my local orchestra, have the same violin teacher as me, or are just family friends. This has definitely been an amazing experience for me, and I look forward to hearing what the middle school all-states orchestra will sound like!

Day 5: Practice practice practice...

March 16th is a very special day to me. Not only is it my brother's birthday, but this year it is also the day of my state's All State Orchestra auditions. I was kind of mentally freaking out about it yesterday because I couldn't get a clean sound and a lot of my notes were out of tune. This audition song is so difficult D:

Today my sound was better. Before I began practicing I applied some rosin (kind of like a bow-polisher) onto my bow, which didn't affect the sound significantly, but it did help somewhat. Also, yesterday I went over the whole song really slowly, which probably contributed to the less sloppy sound I produced today. Since I was much more motivated to practice today, I actually finished practicing early than usual because I didn't waste so much time. 

I plan to further practice today after I finish my homework, because I have much less homework than usual :D I really need the practice; not only for the solo piece, but also for scales and sight-reading. Not to mention that I have a competition next month and I need to practice the two songs for that...

Day 1: Classical Music Night!

What a great way to start out my Slice of Life blog! Today happened to be Classical Music Night, an event held every year at my school. I'm a freshman, so this is my first year doing this; it was so much fun! I loved the performances and the food. I really hope I can play again for the future years of my high school career.

I play the violin, and today I performed Meditation from Thais by Massenet, a very beautiful and popular piece. Actually I just finished uploading it on Youtube; you can view it here. Everyone played very well. I can't believe I go to such a talented school! :D Really really excited to play next year.