Month: January 2012

IMHO…

Wow. I told you Opera was going to take over my life. Usually people tell college kids not to flirt with each other…but our director told us flirting is good on stage. Go farther with it, he asked us, we’ll tell you when you’ve taken it too far. I had to laugh. So now all of us lonely (or otherwise) musicians are flirting, or at least pretending to, with each other.

Then the old mad gypsy lady comes and sings her aria recounting probably for the hundred-millionth time the story of how her mother came to be burned at the stake. We are all bored out of our skulls, and since it is early morning anyway, it seems a good time for an impromptu nap. Her (idiotic) son, having heard the story at least as many times as the rest of us still finds it in his heart to ask her about the story. As if he didn’t already know every detail. The old woman has been babbling on about the story for centuries years now.

And then finally someone takes pity on all of the rest of us who are bored out of our skulls and interrupts the old lady. Heaven bless him!!! He says it’s time to go get breakfast. I think like him. He has his priorities right: Food comes first. He’s a good man.

It has begun.

Opera. It will now be taking over my life. I’m so excited!!!!!! I’m a factory worker Gypsy. So I go out on stage, have fun with my friends, sing a few lines, and walk off. Easy, right? Let’s hope so. Is it bad that I really, really want to be a drunk Gypsy?

Oh, and by way of an update, my novel is up to 15,000 words now. Hooray for me!!! It’s up to date on the page. The link is above.

My Love Affair with Music

I don’t ever remember a time when I didn’t like music. I was blessed to grow up in a musical family where my mom played Piano and a bit of Violin and my dad would go around the house humming (albeit, off-key) and inventing his own lyrics to songs. I started Piano lessons at age 6 after begging for them. My mom tells me my brother and I were always singing or humming, and I can remember at least one instance when annoyed family members would ask me to stop singing along with the CDs in the car. Gradually I fell out of love with the piano and wanted to stop taking lessons: I hated practicing. So finally my parents let me stop. But that was after I started taking lessons of a different kind: voice lessons. I think I can honestly say that voice lessons changed my life. I started studying voice when I was 11, which is, admittedly, a bit early to begin. But God had given me a voice that began to mature early, and my voice teacher wisely didn’t push me further and faster than was good for me. At first, it was just another lesson. I loved singing – I always had. But then I started to listen to classical singers – my first classical CDs were of Lesley Garrett, Inessa Galante, and Maria Callas. Once I had gained an ear for classical singing I couldn’t get enough of it and I began to dream of being a singer some day. I competed in state competitions, I sang in my church, I didn’t practice nearly enough. But I was in high school at the time. And then I graduated. And college was coming up and I had to choose a major. Well, of course, since my dream was to be a singer my major of choice was Voice Performance. But my dad, always the pragmatist, wanted me to do something more practical – like Music Ed, for example. After all, the Music world is hard to break into. But my mom convinced my dad to let me major in voice. And the rest, as they say, is history. Honestly, I can’t imagine being any other major. I absolutely love what I am doing and I hope to do it for the rest of my life.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

Well, I’ve been telling you all how very much I loved tatting, and I’ve been meaning to share some pictures of my tatting with you all for a while now, but getting pictures is not as easy as it may sound. Especially when your camera is so old you don’t even attempt to use it anymore. Anyway, here are some of my recent projects. Now if I can just get Photobucket to work right…

 

Ok, maybe I can do it without Photobucket’s help, since it’s decided to hate me tonight.

I made this bracelet out of embroidery floss and clear glass beads for my sister. Apparently, her favourite colour is pink.

This small snowflake was one of my learning pieces. I must have made at least 4! But it was fun and relatively fast.

The large snowflake presented me with new challenges. It’s my biggest project to date (although I made another on the flight over here). I was pretty happy over all with the way it turned out.

And here are all 3 projects pictured together. I think they look good together. 😉

I Love Choir!!

I had forgotten how much I loved choir. I had even almost dreaded rehearsal. I was already so tired, and making music can take a lot out of you. Ya, I was excited to see my friends…but I see most of them anyways outside of choir. But then we were given out music. Ok, you need some background here: my school employs a becoming-well-known and brilliant composer. He taught me theory last year, and it was the best semester of Theory I had ever had (and you already know how much I love Theory). Well, my choir is going to be premiering one of his new pieces. I always knew he wrote good stuff. He picks great poems to set and he does a great job with them. But I wasn’t prepared for what I heard. The music…made me move. It was like it entered my ears and took control of me. It was wonderful. That is why I love music.

In my music history class we are studying the Romantic era. Composers of that day revered instrumental music over vocal music because, they said, words limit. In wordless music the listener is free to interpret it as he will. But while I love the Romantic period with all my heart, I must disagree with the Romantics here: when the text and music fit each other the result is more powerful than either could achieve apart.

Just plain Weird.

I am a weird person. I’m a musician, for one. I wear clothes that are… to put it nicely, slightly on the “artsy” side. I listen to Opera for fun. I sing music that would make most people want to ban their heads against a wall. I do handcrafts – like tatting and cross-stitch. Who does those anymore?? And then I turn around and ride horses and wear cowboy boots. Talk about a walking paradox!! I’m a Christian. I’m a white and college-aged and I vote conservatively. I read for fun – and not all light reading: I read Tolkien and Austen and Bronte and Goethe.

But the thing that might just top the list (at least for today’s conversation), the thing that many people will find one of the weirdest about me – is that I really really enjoy and love theory. Every semester that I’ve taken theory it has been one of my favourite classes. I look forward to theory class. And where a lot of people tend to fall asleep in class, theory wakes me up. I know, I’m strange. But I think I’m used to it by now.

What is this thing you call…Sleep?

You know, I always knew sleep was important. I always tried to get a decent number of hours of sleep at night. Even those times when I stayed up insanely late reading or crafting to my heart’s content, I always made it up by sleeping later in the mornings.

And then college hit. I figured I’d be ok. I get to make my own schedule, and I can avoid those pesky 8:00’s right? Well apparently I wasn’t so smart this time around. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in my life!! I suppose forcing my brain to think – and think in German no less – in the early morning hours is good for me…maybe? I guess if worse comes to worse, I’ll just be assured that my German is good. If I can think in German at 8 AM, then I can think in it at any time. 😛

Wait, Me???

Wow! You know those things you’ve heard about and even thought about, but never ever thought would happen to you? Well it did. And it was a good thing! I was awarded the Versatile Blogger Award!! Basically, this award was created to give credit to the normal little blogging peeps (and, yes, I did just use that word) like you and me who normally get overlooked. I think it’s a fabulous idea! Once you’ve been given the award you pass it on to other bloggers (up to 15), so, theoretically, given enough time, every blogger in the world could be awarded! Now, if you’re like me, you realize that if everybody gets the award that no longer makes any one person who receives it any more special or important than anyone else. But what the award does do is show you that at least 1 person reads what you write and enjoys it. And to a blogger with any size readership, the knowledge that what you write is appreciated is priceless.

So first of all, I’d like to thank the Risible Rambler for giving me this award (http://therisiblerambler.wordpress.com/).

Second, here are several blogs I enjoy that I hope you will too:

http://jeynagrace.wordpress.com/

http://totusmel.blogspot.com/

http://thetwentiesproject.com/

http://krystledawnetats.blogspot.com/

http://feodoraslane.wordpress.com/

http://blog.ivman.com/

 

And the third instruction given along with the award is to share 7 facts about yourself. So here we go:

  1. My favourite books are The Lord of the Rings, The Children of Hurin (both by J.R.R. Tolkien), and Jane Eyre (by Charlotte Brontë).
  2. While my favourite genres of music are Opera and its closely related fellow, art song, I enjoy Broadway way too much for my own good. 😉
  3. Some of my favourite movies of all time are The Scarlet Pimpernel with Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, and Ian McKellen, and The Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, and Russell Means.
  4. I’ve already shared with you my passion for tatting, but really, I’m just an artsy type of person that enjoys a zillion-and-one crafts including painting, macramé, and beading.
  5. My favourite era of musical composition is early Romantic – with Franz Schubert and Gaetano Donizetti at the top of the list.
  6. My favourite Soprano of all time is Maria Callas. She lived in the mid-1900s and almost single-handedly transformed the world of opera as we knew it by realizing the importance of acting as well as singing. My favourite living Sopranos are Renee Fleming and Inessa Galante.
  7. I adore music theory – strange, I know, but true. Modern music especially has a fond place in my heart.

Once Upon a Time…

As you may have already guessed, one of the things I enjoy doing is writing. Whether it’s a simple blog post or a short story or attempting a novel, I delight in the written word. So I had an epiphany the other day while reading another blog: why not share my short stories with you too?? So here is the first of several of my stories. I don’t know about you, but a little humor always seems to brighten up my day.

 

20 Minutes

 

20 minutes. I had 20 minutes to be at work! I had woken up just a few short moments ago.  I rolled over in bed. It was a lovely day outside – the sun was shining, the birds were singing, everything was perfect. Until I looked at my alarm clock.

7:40 blinked the red fluorescent numbers.

“7:40!” I cried. “No, it can’t be 7:40!” What had happened? I knew I had set my alarm the night before for 7:00 – time enough for a leisurely breakfast. What could’ve gone wrong? Why didn’t the alarm go off?

All of these thoughts and more raced through my head as I threw myself out of bed, showered, and dressed in 10 minutes flat. I flung myself down the stairs and into the small kitchen. I grabbed a granola bar in my haste (after all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day), slipped my shoes on, and got in my car. That’s when I realized that I hadn’t thought to grab my car keys.

Grumbling to myself about stupid alarm clock manufacturers I rushed back inside to get the keys. Of course, the car took forever to start, and traffic was bad.  “What else could go wrong?” I wondered aloud.

Finally I was in sight of my workplace. Just in time, too. It was 7:59. I parked my car in the only available parking spot – which was, of course, inconveniently located at the farthest end of the parking lot – and sprinted up to the door.

My boss was going to kill me for being late again! I straightened my clothes and opened the door.

“Sorry I’m late,” I started.

My boss gave me a strange look.

And that was when I realized that today was my day off.