Fall 2009 Stats
Music 41A - Section 1396
My rate of retention has improved but the grade distribution remains the same, and, even, I am not as confident with my passing students this year as I was last year. Perhaps I am growing soft!
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Goodnight Moon
I think I must be unhappy because I’ve been buying a lot of stuff lately, although it could just be that I’ve simply crossed the threshold between non-contributory window-shopper to participant in consumerist society.
I’m finding plants to be a most satisfying thing to buy. They don’t cost much, yet inspire so much pleasantness. For instance, now, as I think on what in my life could possibly be making me unhappy (most likely candidate: hormones) I glance at my recently purchased hydrangeas and kalanchoe and find myself smiling in spite of myself.
I started writing these blogs because of a friend. I continued writing because of another friend. I write today for.. no particular reason at all.
I think a part of the reason why I had felt compelled to write was to prove something. To prove something about myself to the world. That I mattered, that I was smart, or some such silliness like that. Other times it was to collect/organize my thoughts. I’ve lately been preoccupied with a significant collection/organization project that can really only be thought of as my dissertation. If I could choose just one thing to be focused on right now, it would be that, but I have all these other obligations and distractions that manage to take precedence. It’s funny how the most important things to me always end up being put last.
Anyways, it’s fortuitously been a year since I’ve started this blog — I have not consciously kept track but, as I look back now, it has, indeed, been a year to the day — and I think perhaps I have finished saying all the bloggy things that I’ve felt compelled to say, and there may not be any more impetus or inspiration or desire to say anymore. I will close the blog with the completed dissertation but, until then, my chief characteristic, silence.
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Let it snow!
After I frittered the morning away, agonizing over what pictures to hang on my wall, and, ultimately, giving up and ending up not hanging anything at all, I decided to do something useful and work on a compilation of Renaissance clips for my Classical Die Hard project:
By the time I finished compiling the clips, it had long finished raining. I was really hoping for at least a day-long pour..
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All together now
Ever since the Station Fire, I’ve gotten it into my head to start keeping an inventory. I’m not neurotic enough to catalog every book, CD, and DVD (and now Blu-Ray!) that I have acquired in the past 26 years, but I will be keeping track of additions from now on. And not just those little things: There is the desk, the sofa, the bookcases, the instrument, and the electronic equipment. When I calculate the amount of money that I have invested in my little home studio, it is a total more than I would have thought, and makes me feel richer than I really am.
Nearing the holidays, I wonder if I should treat myself to yet something more. The question that I am constantly trying to come to terms with: At which point does it reach excess? I’ve been lusting for a smart phone for a few years now, and had decided some months ago to finally buy myself one this year, but, I wonder, is it too much? The only way I can justify the expense of a smart phone is by thinking of it as a second computer, but isn’t having one, primary computer enough? Yes, I would greatly appreciate having a Qwerty keyboard at my tips, and the luxury of a constant chronicling and tourist-ification of my life’s events, but are these things really necessary? We think we need them, but I have managed just fine without. I feel like I need a greater reason. I only got a cell phone because it was becoming increasingly difficult to deal in an on-the-fly world without one. Is it increasingly difficult to deal without a readily available Qwerty keyboard and image capture capabilities? I’m not so sure.
Conscience!: Shut off for a moment and allow me to enjoy this for once!
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The Gift of the Magi
In the arts one often invests in the potential of individuals (or groups of individuals) — for instance, people have invested in the potential of Gustavo Dudamel. Though this approach (or strategy) is not peculiar to the arts, it is, generally, an unusual way to regard people. Most people are more concerned with what people can do for them, and not so concerned with what they can do for people. This attitude also appears to plague the American education system. Everywhere people are being and have been trained for what? — for work that does not exist. The schools don’t really care about your future, they care about your money, or the money that you borrow from someone else. This is, strangely, also true of the arts schools.
As much as I would greatly appreciate having a studio of only the most serious students, I cannot fault my present dearth in such blessings. For most people piano will not be a profession, and, frankly, there are too many so-called “professional” pianists anyway, so I take a measure of pride in knowing that I am (perhaps only) enriching people’s lives in this small way. I chafe a little at the rules that others have put in place, as if there is only one correct and true way to teach and learn piano. The scales and the repertoire and the note reading. I ask, Why? Who sez that these are absolutes in playing piano? What’s wrong with learning, playing, and enjoying arrangements of things?
Admittedly, I had been growing weary of dealing with these children who lack personal focus and discipline, but, on thinking on it, I remember that I am the giver of a very precious gift. My students may not understand or appreciate it now — or ever for that matter — but I take satisfaction in the giving all the same.
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My dissertation
I’ve starting thinking of my Classical Die Hard pamphlet as “my dissertation.” It was originally going to be a traditional paper, but has morphed into a media rich text collage. I probably don’t have enough sources to be “church” — as Rhona Bennett would say — but I’ve organized what notes I do have and am going to start the collage part next week.
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Your face will freeze like that
I love the expression on this kid's face.
Me trying to do that expression..
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Mozart – Klavier-Quartet K. 478. Kinda.
Quartetto Corn-Syrup-O:
Andrew Hsu, violin
Sarah Weber, viola
Jessica Veldman, cello
Josephine Chang, piano
also Featuring//Very Special Guest: Baby
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I seem to remember the baby crying, as if on cue, after every series of chords we played. Only one of those cries seems to have made it to the recording.
[The Rachmaninoff, on the otherhand, had a greater feature of Baby, but, strangely, I don't remember those cries at all.]
Ah, our humble little quartet had quite a charming sound. We certainly tried. Can’t say that we tried to play in tune, or tried to play well for that matter. But I do remember having loads of fun.
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More unboxing..
I seem to have reacted opposite to the average American consumer: Pre-Recession I was a stingy bastard. During Recession, I decided that it was time to buy shit.
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I’m still irate
I get pretty cross when things don’t work. Like, two instances today. Learning that:
(1) The sprinklers have been ruining my car.
(2) Osh (AND freakin’ Lowes) has pathetic staple gun and staple gun accessories selection.
So I went and complained to the nearest and most unlucky soul. Stupid sprinklers that just don’t work. Stupid Osh (AND Lowes) that just don’t work. Danged it all.
(Sorry unlucky soul.)
* * *
Also, I’m a bit annoyed that tomorrow’s Tuesday is going to be particularly taxing:
-9:00 am Drive to
-9:30 am-10:30 am Board Meeting (San Gabriel) Then drive to
-10:30 am-12:00 pm Grub & Library ??? (Pasadena)
-12:00 pm-3:00 pm Teach/Tutor (Pasadena)
-3:00 pm-4:00 pm Refuel !!! Then drive to
-4:00 pm-6:45 pm Teach (La Canada) Then drive to
-6:45 pm-7:45 pm Teach (La Crescenta)
-8:00 pm HOME. FINALLY.
That ^ generally makes me irate. Why so much driving. And the annoying down-time between the meeting and the class. Compounded by the fact that I am only actually being paid for 4.5 of those 11 hours.
I have it better than some, or most, but I’m still irate.
Perhaps the latest issue of Fortune magazine contains the maxim that will dispense this silly anger: What would Steve Jobs do..?
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Has it reached the “too many days in a row” threshold? Is it time for me to change something?
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It’s not even Thanksgiving yet
Unboxing some “non-serious” sheet music. Blasphemy!, you say? Hey, my last one was Ligeti’s Continuum and I don’t even own a harpsichord!
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Teasers
Keys up close: Cleaned towards the right. Still dirty towards the left.
Entry-corner. Featuring: USB cable, wool dress skirt, gym bag, and high school stamp project.
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AD: The Dashed Dreams edition
I’m finding it rather difficult to take interesting photographs of furniture. I think the problem is that, strangely, I actually have too much stuff.
I took upwards of 25 photographs of my newly redone office/studio/bedroom but only one of the 25 turned out passably and I think it’s because that one photograph is the most minimal of the lot. The other photographs unavoidably include my collection of mismatched books, unattractive electronic equipment, stacks of paperwork, various paraphernalia from craft and home improvement projects, and some stuff that I’m trying to get rid of. By most standards — or according to every friend I’ve ever had — I live quite Spartan, but, apparently, not Spartan enough for an Architectural Digest photo shoot. You can’t have stuff, or, if you insist on having it out of storage, it’s all gotta match. Why books can’t dictatorially all be printed with the same or similarly colored covers is a bane to the decorator’s eye. Perhaps I should adopt another form of insanity and make matching covers for everything. Boo.
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So..
..I turned in my final “mix” last Friday, and I was really nervous. Donny said you could totally hear the EQing, and the mono combined with the crappy mic didn’t help either. Then he suggested that I add some compression, which I was obviously very wary of, but after comparing the results, I was completely won over. Compression is a scary word, but when used correctly, I am surprised to say, it yields spectacular results ! I just have to learn to know when to use it.
Anyways, I passed and now I have another audio engineering -related certificate. Woot.
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Exhaustification
The only thing that irks me about the recent development in my Tuesday schedule is all the commuting that I have to do. Drive to College. Drive to Skaggs’s. Drive to Park’s. Drive home. And I don’t enjoy driving at all. But the busy-ness suits me. It’s nice having work.
Because I wore contacts for many years, when I switched back to glasses, I thought they made me look weird. But now, when I see myself without glasses, I can’t understand why I didn’t think I simply look weird to begin with.
Weird, and Tired.
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