Okay, so I've been here for 12 weeks now which seems ridiculous! In 5 weeks time I will be on the plane with Joe watching children's films on the way back to Heathrow airport. Time is going incredibly fast but I struggle to remember what I've been up too (strange I know!)
I don't really have an awful lot of time to talk as I'm off out round Ty and Josefin's for Sunday dinner in about 15 minutes but hopefully I can cram in as much as possible. Music is crazy here at the moment and with juries (music exams) coming up very soon, things are getting tense! I have fallen in love with the Latin Jazz Lab Band and I will be trying out for it in January. I feel fairly confident (especially now that I have my flute going) but you can never really tell. It really is all about getting in their with the ensemble directors. There are so many of us here that you need to do something extra special in order to be more than just your student number to the faculty.
Concerts are going very well and I am progressing very nicely through symphonic band up to 1st clarinet parts on some pieces. Hopefully next semester 1st will be a more regular position but to be honest any clarinet part is extremely hard as we are essentially the violin part of an orchestra! My playing is still improving immensely and I've plucked up the courage to practice a bit more at the apartment. So far there haven't been any complaints from the neighbours, but we'll see once I start exploring even higher ranges haha. My wind trio have performed quite a few times too and we're getting better and better which is very promising. I'm not too bothered though as most people seem rather jealous of us due to the fact that we actually go out and have dinner together and socialize a fair amount, which most groups don't tend to do.
Hallowe'en, as I'm sure you can imagine, was an absolute blast! I dressed up as a pussycat and we dressed Joe up as some kind of dead person (I said Roosevelt but by the end of the night nobody really cared what anyone was haha!). We went to a house party at our apartment complex and ended up meeting a lot of great people. They had a keg of beer, which Joe tucked into very nicely. There is also a thing called a keg stand where you hold somebody up over the keg and pump beer into their mouth. As you can imagine, it gets extremely messy! I found myself very fond of the 'trash can punch'. Apparently it's usually made in a cleaned out trash can (rubbish bin for the brits among us) but to be honest I'm pretty glad that they decided to make it in a big cool box. Little did I know, 5 cups down the line, that it had a rather lethal concoction of alcohol in it, including a substance called Everclear which is 95% alcoholic! As you can imagine, the night was brilliant, involving bears on bicycles, slutty taxi drivers being turned upside down to drink beer and poor tea total Tim sitting in his Hawaiin outfit watching everyone else get progressively drunk! We also learnt a brand new game called Flip Cup. Basically you have some beer in the standard plastic red cups and there are 2 teams that stand in a line on opposite sides of the table. You have to go down the line in turn, drink yo
ur drink, put the cup half on the edge and then flip it so that it lands upside down on the table. The next person then goes. It is literally my favourite drinking game so far! haha
We've also finally been to Brunswick bowling alley (twice this week!). I'm hoping that I will get better with repetition. I can't seem to really get the hang of it but a large majority of the time I am drawing with Tim for the win by the last round (he ALWAYS beats me though because I lose my nerve haha!). We've had a lot of people round at the weekends which is nice but I kind of feel like I want to be doing more work and practice. I also seem to get really tired a lot so occasionally I end up bailing at 1am and going to bed. My new custom musicians ear plugs are incredible! I literally don't hear anything other than my own breathing.
I went to an absolutely fantastic concert last week by the UNT symphony orchestra which featured my clarinet teacher as a soloist. They played Schubert's 5th Symphony which, if I'm being honest, I enjoyed! It's not usually my kind of thing and I was definitely there purely for the second half but the string section were extremely good. The second half began with Debussy Prelude a l'apres midi d'un faun which was INCREDIBLE! The flautist had such a beautiful earthy sound and really captured the childlike essence of what the piece is. The second piece was a Concerto for 7 winds by Martin. It is a fairly new piece but very cool and requires a lot of concentration by all members of the orchestra. It featured the heads of faculty at UNT and I must admit that even though they are getting on a bit (the sort of thing where they are fantastic musicians, but better teachers now!) it was extremely good. I've also been page turning for a lot of concerts and I'm now starting to earn myself a bit of money doing it (apparently I'm quite good! haha). Page turning for all these recitals has made me think that maybe I will do a recital of my own next semester. The recital hall is beautiful and it would help me immensely in preparing for the 4th yr one in Leeds! Watch this space...
I am currently preparing for my juries, which are the equivalent of the performance exams at Leeds. You have 2 exams that you sign up for. One is on technique and they ask you whatever you have been working on in the semester. For me it will be extended major scales and arps with new resonance fingerings as well as chromatics in certain patterns. Then you sign up for a solo exam where you play a piece of music. For me, I'm doing the Bernstein clarinet sonata which isn't too tricky other than the 5/8 in the 2nd movement. The most annoying thing out here is that you have to pay for accompanists. All the teachers expect you to rehearse before your lesson and then bring the accompanist to the lesson. As you can imagine the costs mount up fairly quickly. My accompanist is called Anatolia Ioanides and she is fantastic! She's from Greece but studied at the Mozart Conservatoire in Austria. We have lots of chats about Europe and UNT which I think helps with the rapport that we have.
Finally, Joe and I have been making an effort to spruce up the place. Primarily this has just involved making silly drawings and sticking them on the wall. Yesterday we stopped off at the Home Depot store and bought some plants and a 'grow your own herb' pack. It's safe to say that we are extremely excited (I just hope they grow and that we don't kill them!). I will be sure to report on their progress haha.
I'm also starting to think about birthday things. I hope folks are still up for London town! Let me know ideas...
Diane xXx
I went to an absolutely fantastic concert last week by the UNT symphony orchestra which featured my clarinet teacher as a soloist. They played Schubert's 5th Symphony which, if I'm being honest, I enjoyed! It's not usually my kind of thing and I was definitely there purely for the second half but the string section were extremely good. The second half began with Debussy Prelude a l'apres midi d'un faun which was INCREDIBLE! The flautist had such a beautiful earthy sound and really captured the childlike essence of what the piece is. The second piece was a Concerto for 7 winds by Martin. It is a fairly new piece but very cool and requires a lot of concentration by all members of the orchestra. It featured the heads of faculty at UNT and I must admit that even though they are getting on a bit (the sort of thing where they are fantastic musicians, but better teachers now!) it was extremely good. I've also been page turning for a lot of concerts and I'm now starting to earn myself a bit of money doing it (apparently I'm quite good! haha). Page turning for all these recitals has made me think that maybe I will do a recital of my own next semester. The recital hall is beautiful and it would help me immensely in preparing for the 4th yr one in Leeds! Watch this space...
I am currently preparing for my juries, which are the equivalent of the performance exams at Leeds. You have 2 exams that you sign up for. One is on technique and they ask you whatever you have been working on in the semester. For me it will be extended major scales and arps with new resonance fingerings as well as chromatics in certain patterns. Then you sign up for a solo exam where you play a piece of music. For me, I'm doing the Bernstein clarinet sonata which isn't too tricky other than the 5/8 in the 2nd movement. The most annoying thing out here is that you have to pay for accompanists. All the teachers expect you to rehearse before your lesson and then bring the accompanist to the lesson. As you can imagine the costs mount up fairly quickly. My accompanist is called Anatolia Ioanides and she is fantastic! She's from Greece but studied at the Mozart Conservatoire in Austria. We have lots of chats about Europe and UNT which I think helps with the rapport that we have.
Finally, Joe and I have been making an effort to spruce up the place. Primarily this has just involved making silly drawings and sticking them on the wall. Yesterday we stopped off at the Home Depot store and bought some plants and a 'grow your own herb' pack. It's safe to say that we are extremely excited (I just hope they grow and that we don't kill them!). I will be sure to report on their progress haha.
I'm also starting to think about birthday things. I hope folks are still up for London town! Let me know ideas...
Diane xXx
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