riot @ concert

uff da! last night ben & i went to an orchestra concert. it was the competition winners concert and it featured NINE musicians in two categories: amateur and emerging professional. it was mainly vocalists, but it also featured a cellist, trombonist, and two pianists. NO wind players. ???

we sat in the back row of a little church. concert starts with a soprano aria. baby in lobby is making weird bird sounds. next movement of aria begins--slow, and beautiful. baby continues bird sounds. more like amazon bird sounds. the entire audience is trying not to be mad at a baby, but is visibly getting tense and glancing at the door. third and fourth movements come and go. baby thinks aria needs even more jungle noises and gets louder and louder. (omg--what was the mother thinking!!!!) people in audience are shaking their heads. then cellist comes out to perform dvorak. baby doesn't stop. cellist actually LOOKS UP. last straw! after he was done i ran out into the lobby, grabbed the usher, and as i opened my mouth to speak, he says "can you hear the baby?" i say, "is that a joke?" ugh! so he runs after the mother and amazon baby, i take my seat, people turn to thank me (haha!) and then we hear YELLING! as in the mother yelling at the usher!!!! i started to get the fight or flight response. as did the piano teacher sitting next to me, (the two pianists featured were her students.) man. i think i will enter the competition, but first i will write to the symphony and ask them to draft a new crying baby policy.

in other news, it is duet sunday! b0b & i are digging into the covegno piece. it has some tricksy parts, but man does it feel good to work on something again! i think both of us have accepted the fact that we are expecting ourselves to practice during the week! haha! SO, i have my little list of pages i promised to focus on. and THAT totally brings me back to the good old days of lessons--except then it wasn't a *little* list. and not preparing everything perfectly wasn't an option.

the past couple days i have noticed more crappy things about my playing than nice things. aaaaand i'm going to attribute that to my ears and mind getting more tuned in again. i was probably crappy that first real practice back, but i was concentrating at that time on the fact that i was actually playing. how embarassing! anyhoo...i have emailed my old old teacher about new reeds and maybe even mouthpieces. this might not be the best time for mouthpieces, since i'm just getting my embouchure back, but reeds couldn't hurt in the meantime.

hey--remember that feeling you'd get walking out of a lesson? usually a small sense of accomplishment and improvement? felt that old familiar feeling after duet sunday today. i have sooo missed that feeling. know what i mean?

moving forward.

xo