die live

last night was the d.i.e. concert. it went quite well, in my opinion. no performance is perfect but at least i felt that i played well. i wanted to make the performance special, since it was my last d.i.e. concert on campus. i thought it was very special, indeed.

not very many people showed up to the concert, which was unusual. normally students are trying to get in last minute extra credit points and so we normally have a decent crowd. tonight was one of our smaller crowds, i guess. they were a bit subdued, as well, it seemed. what was funny to me was that throughout the performance it was difficult to see the audience and so you couldn't really tell how big the audience was until they brought up the lights. so for me, in a way, i almost forgot the audience was there. i'm not sure if that is good or bad or if it just means i was really focused on creating good music.


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tonight is the wind ensemble concert and i hope no one shows up to that. we'll be playing in meng concert hall and if you are interested in what we are playing, here is an example....Show tunes from Porgy and Bess. if you like that kind of thing, then come on down!


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in a world with so few good teachers, we are lucky to find one that inspires us, and well, to steal a line from a great teacher who does just that, one that sets us free. i don't know if i've found that yet in my musicological studies. i don't think i'm set free yet but i do think i am going down a good path. i think the real test will be when i go off to london and study out there. we'll see!


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as the semester comes to a close, what i have left on my plate in terms of music are a music history paper, a jury, and then outside of that are finals. i am almost done with cal state fullerton. can't believe it.

disturbing realizations

Recently I was walking through the music building when I realized that I was a music student. Not only that, but that I was about to graduate with a degree in MUSIC. I don't understand how this happened. I am not saying that I have made a serious mistake. But it seemed that I was walking around with an oboe case swung across my body and I did not feel at all like a musician. I felt like a fraud, just then.

What is a musician and if I am truly a musician, then why do I feel like I don't fit in as a musician? Well, I do fit in. But not in the large pool of musicians that play in the orchestras or wind ensembles across the country. I fit in with a group of musicians that I think of as reject musicians. We are not bad musicians, but we are not model musicians.

Right now I am feeling really disconnected as a musician. I think the only time I don't feel this way is when I am playing in scratch (aka diverse instrument ensemble). I don't know what I will do after tonight when I'll play my last concert with the group. It is really depressing. I found a home and a reason to continue playing when I joined the group.

I am going to miss making music with my friends in scratch. The people I spent the past four years with, making fun of other musicians, complaining about the institution, plotting the overthrow of the institution, being disruptive in class with, terrorizing the department, and spending late nights at the bar having discussions about music, anarchy, and just sharing great laughs. I don't know if I'll find people like that when I am in London. Do we exist anywhere else outside of scratch's influence and ultimately, lloyd's influence? I guess we do if we continue to believe what we believe.

I think if there is one thing I have learned from Lloyd and scratch, it is that it is ok to be a romantic. We are all romantics in that group. We believe in a world that does not exist and could never exist under the current structure of the academic institution. We are revolutionary sypathizers and whether we will ever be listened to and understood by the masses is obvious. We won't be. However, we keep playing in our ensemble and we keep talking about what makes us angry and we keep doing little things that we hope will tell others to kiss off and we hope that we'll make them angry. I hope I make people angry in the future. I hope I write papers that make people angry and I hope I write music that makes people angry. I don't know if they'll be angry at what I am angry at, but at least they'll be angry at me.

Long live musical truth.