Repeating Insh'Allah

Stars…

29 November 2009 · Leave a Comment

For some reason, I can’t get last night out of my head.  As I walked home with Aryeh, we saw stars near Morningside park.  Yeah, you read that right.  STARS.  Stars.  (All of Orion, no less.)  Stars, stars, stars.  You know what those are, right?  You haven’t forgotten?  Stars, for the uninformed, are those gorgeous shiny things that I always wanted to study, that sit up in the sky and remind you just how small you are and just how big the universe is, and how that’s ok.

I can’t remember ever seeing stars in Manhattan, except once, so of course last night reminded me of that one time.  It was the second or third week of freshman year, the night of the student council election debates for the first-years.  I met a (now-dear) friend for the first time in person that night, after the requisite “OMFG-we’re-freshmen!!” conversations on Facebook, and we started talking, and then walking, and somehow we wound up on the roof of Mudd, and I saw stars then.  That was the first time I was homesick – one of two times, so of course it’ll be in my head forever.  I hadn’t seen stars since Illinois, since I’d driven out into the country alone, a few days before leaving, and laid on my back on top of my car and stared out into the distance at the incredible patchwork above my head.  There was nothing like that sensation.  It reminded me, too, in a lesser way, of all those times that I’d climbed out my window or the bathroom window and onto the roof of my parents’ house and stared up, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes so tired that I had nothing left in me, just exhaustion and an appreciation of the serenity above me.  The stars didn’t care about my papers and projects.  They didn’t care about how much I loved or hated school at that moment, about whether I was getting along with my friends or my family or my teachers, about whether I had any money in my pocket or not.  Senior year, those stars were a reminder of what I wanted to be and what I was aiming for and why I could do it and on and on and on, all these empty pseudo-philosophical thoughts that we all excel at when we’re sixteen (and I guess when we’re nineteen too).  Seeing those stars, freshman year, was a justification, a proof:  ha, I made it, I’m at Columbia, on a roof, with a really cool guy, talking about everything and anything and nothing and wondering how he’s going to play into my next four years…but they were also a reminder that I was no longer a sixteen-year-old senior, lying on the roof with my mother asleep twenty feet away, with a support system and a plan and all the other things that you have when you’re a kid and don’t have when you’re a college freshman two weeks into your first semester.

Time rolled on, at varying speeds.  I became a music major.  (Sometimes I still wonder what would have happened if I was an astronomy major instead.)  I went been back to the roof of Mudd once, with that same friend, later during freshman year, but it was cloudy that night, and I haven’t been back since.

I spent the summer after that first year of college in Illinois, but I was almost afraid to look at the stars that summer – I had nothing left but a relationship that was falling apart and a job that wasn’t a job and a lot of disappointment, as I realized that I was never going to be a boring suburban dweller (and was almost certainly never going to shop at Bath and Bodyworks again – working there can do that to you).  I was almost afraid that the stars would pass judgment on my miserable self, so I hid.  But the apartment I rented with my brother that summer was in a basement (you know that half-submerged style) and there were bushes in front of my window, so the point, I suppose, was moot.

I rarely saw that friend during the next year, other than brief passing encounters (we were both busy and stressed), and the doomed relationship died a long, slow, painful death and I fell back in love with music all over again and I started to figure my life out, all without seeing stars.

Last summer was Cairo.  I’ve talked about that plenty.  And I remember seeing the stars there.  That was refreshing.  But last summer, the night sky was more about the moon than the stars, and it was, most of all, about the lack of sun in the sky, which was the most refreshing part of all.

The friend had to leave Columbia this past summer, for various complicated personal reasons.

And now, there are stars again, in the city.  This time, the stars made me nothing but happy – happy to be where I am, who I am, what I am, and what I hope to become.  I’m with someone I love, studying something I love, living somewhere I love, and I am largely content and occasionally truly happy or truly sad.  I talk to that friend every now and then, and he’s doing better, thank goodness.  We’re a little awkward every now and then, but isn’t that half the fun?  So maybe now I can look the stars in the eye again, and be serene.  The stars always got to live happily ever after.  I was so jealous of that in high school.  But maybe now I don’t have to be jealous of that anymore – I can live happily ever after, too.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Adventures with the IB™ · Home · Music · Parents · Preparation · School · The City

To b*******, or not to b*******?

26 November 2009 · 4 Comments

Classes like Art Hum make me question the validity of academic training in subjective fields in the humanities.  In a class of thirty, two or three of us have any prior experience with art history, and perhaps five do the reading on a consistent basis.  Our teacher offers little guidance in any way, preferring that we look and state the obvious, then draw whatever conclusions we care to draw from those direct observations.  That means that approximately 83% of us are sitting there bullshitting our asses off, as our professor either laps it up or goes, “Uh, well, that’s not quite it…but not bad!  Other thoughts?”

And yet, we’re all doing fine.  No one is failing the class.  I don’t think there’s a single C in there, for that matter.  How is that possible?  How is it that despite making things up nine times out of ten, we’re all succeeding on a pretty spectacular scale?  This leads me to two possible hypotheses:

1.  We’re all disgustingly intelligent, practically to the point of prescience.  We understand everything that’s put in front of us instinctively, without needing time to contemplate, discuss, or research (perish the thought!).  It all just magically makes sense on its own.

But you know, even though this is Columbia, I don’t think that’s the case.  I’ve encountered too many idiots here (and I know the limits of my own brain far too well) to really believe that I happen to be in a completely idiot-free class – or that I myself am not an idiot.  Even if there’s only one idiot in the class who’s smart enough to keep his or her mouth shut the majority of the time, I simply can’t buy that explanation.  (And I certainly don’t keep my mouth shut, despite my idiocy – yet somehow, I continue to receive an A!)  This leads me to my second hypothesis –

2.  The interpretation of art, especially from a historical standpoint, is bullshit, if      you’ll pardon the term.  We’re all sitting there talking through our hats in class, and it’s fine, because for the past several hundred years, that’s all anyone has ever done when talking about art.  We’ve been applying our own layers of meaning to works, imagining symbols, inventing explanations, and generally having a good time with it, forgetting, of course, that what we think may in fact have nothing to do with anything because we aren’t the artist and art is such an unclear subject matter in general.  Our interpretations have shifted over time with the changing political, social, and economic situations, making it even harder for us to understand the artist’s original perspective and resulting thoughts and messages.

This seems far more likely to me.  Until artists start publishing essays with their works explaining exactly what they meant and how they feel that they accomplished that (which I believe some modern artists do!), we’re all going to be sitting there staring at these monumental works with confused looks on our faces bullshitting our asses off in the traditional manner of our forefathers.  Which I don’t object to – making up meanings for art is fun, and I love being pretentious and snotty about things I know nothing about – but  it makes me wonder how anyone can ever claim to know anything about art, aside from the artist who made the piece.  And even then, does anyone really know what they’re trying to say?  All you can do is try to figure out what you mean and then hope to spit it out in a reasonably coherent manner that the people around you can then try to understand.  It doesn’t work very well, but we’ve been doing it for generations and we’ll keep trying until someone perfects a telepathy device.

And that’s all fine and good.  But then, why are we spending so much time and energy on interpretation in art classes?  If we’re all sitting there bullshitting, and we’re coming up with the “right” bullshit without any kind of preparation or research, why are we putting in the effort?  Why am I wasting three credits on an art class when I would love to be taking that Mozart class instead?  Why does my professor have a doctorate?  And how do you get a doctorate in something that you can fake your way through?  I mean, nine times out of ten, I can predict every word that’s going to come out of her mouth.  How does that work?  Does that mean that I should have a doctorate in art history, or does it mean that she doesn’t deserve her doctorate and is faking it just as much as I am?  Regardless of the answer to that question, it seems like a waste – a waste of time, of resources spent, of huge amounts of energy.  I mean, how long did it take my professor to get her doctorate?  How unfair is it that I could stand in front of the class and fake my way through giving one of her lectures, as could almost any student in that class?

This strikes me even more in that class, because the paintings we’re seeing are so incredible.  The title of the course is “Masterpieces of Western Art,” after all.  We’re looking at these gorgeous works – especially now that we’re looking at the Impressionists, which may be my favorite of all! – and every time I look at a piece, whether it be in person or online or on a slide in class, I’m struck by the fact that I could try for years, literally years, and never produce a piece as gorgeous as the ones that we’re examining.  Talking about them is the easiest thing in the world, but actually making them, producing them, putting in the effort to create something on that scale and finding the courage to allow the world to examine it, is the most impossible task imaginable.  That suggests to me that maybe we shouldn’t be allowed to talk about art so lightly.  So much goes into it, but an idiot undergrad can produce the same opinions as a doctor of art with no thought whatsoever.  Shouldn’t there be some standard to force some thought before art critics open their mouths?

Maybe artists should be the ones to talk about art, to teach art history, to be allowed to give opinions that matter.  I think you need to have some kind of experience with art – making it, displaying it, putting in the effort that you have to put it – to be allowed to talk about the art of others.  It’s the only way you can really understand a piece, I think.

But then, what do I know?  I’m just a dumb undergrad.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: Adventures Alone · School · Venting

Today’s edition of “Why I love Italian class”

23 November 2009 · Leave a Comment

While reading “Red Riding Hood” as an exercise in past tenses:

Student reading out loud:  “Ad un tratto la bambina ha incontrato il lupo.”
Jasper:  Wait, so she contracted lupus?
Akash (the instructor):  Yes!  That’s exactly it!
Emily (totally believing it):  Really?!?
Akash (making a face):  No, silly!  It’s Red Riding Hood!  What do you think happens?
very confused Emily:  She…sees the wolf?
Akash:  …good job.

Personally, I think the story would be much more interesting if Little Miss Red contracted lupus.  But that’s just me.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: School

Why yes, I am writing a post during band elections.

18 November 2009 · 2 Comments

Regarding the above:  bite me.

And if you don’t know which Band I’m referring to, this should clear a few things up.  But all of you know me better than that…right?

It’s weird to think about past elections.  (Yes, this is a nostalgia post.  It’s one am, I’m tired, and I don’t have any more patience for summer program research.  Again, bite me.)  But seriously, elections kind of stick out in bandies’ minds, simply because they’re long and kinda painful and oh, did I mention long?

Freshman year, it was all new and exciting (and kind of hazy because I was really sleepy).  As a reasonably new person with few-to-no friends outside of the Band, I was still very much in the “desperately clinging” stage of my college career.  I was very much in love with the Band (still am in a lot of ways, though maybe not as much as before), and I was positive that I wanted the Band to be the center of my life for my four years.

To be fair, I was still operating under the assumption that I was going to be an astronomy major and that the Band would be the only music in my life (other than voice lessons, which sucked massively at that point) for my four years.  Of course I clung.  So I sat through the whole painful four-and-a-half hour process, ran for everything that I was nominated for (including Drum Major – LOL!), and finally got myself elected (somewhere around 2 am – ouch) as Treasurer.

I loved being on Bored, freshman year, and I fully intended to keep running for everything – with the eventual goal of being Drum Major, of course.  Granted, the Bored that year had a very odd dymanic, no denying it, but I still loved it.  I also carefully arranged to live in the BandSuite™ the following year.  But then, I got a job as the choir director of my lovely, lovely church, and I wound up taking German at nine am three days a week (including Fridays) all last year – the result being that I couldn’t go to away games and had to back away from Band parties (class on Friday mornings, church on Sunday mornings).  (And yeah, I slept through band parties.  WIN.)  But elections last year happened when those things were still fairly new in my life.  I knew, at an intellectual level, that I couldn’t run for anything serious.  I couldn’t – still can’t – go to away games because of Vespers, and my various academic and extracurricular commitments were starting to pull me away socially.  I knew that I probably wasn’t going to be Drum Major, ever, and I wasn’t sure that I should be running at all.

But I did have to run for treasurer again.  There was really no getting around it.  We were in the middle of changing the way we dealt with the budget (read:  getting so much more hands-on about it), and I knew that it wasn’t fair for me to hand that off to someone else.  So I ran, I got the position again, while making it very clear to the band that I was going to be fairly “absent” from away games and other things.  And that hurt a lot – to watch my friends get voted into positions that I knew that I was never going to get and still be wishing that I could get them.  But I got my second year on Bored.

It was a fantastic year.  I loved this Bored (despite the impeachment complications – the Boreds were both wonderful).  I loved the emails.  I loved the involvement.  But as I got more and more serious about music in general, I started moving away from the Band for musical reasons – I was seriously annoyed by the lack of musicianship, the lack of commitment, the lack of improvement over time, and as I had less time for the social aspects of the Band, it was harder and harder for me to remember why I loved the Band so much.  And this fall, it finally broke.  I was so overcommitted and so tired and stressed that when I broke and realized that something had to go, Band was what had to go, no question.  I could maybe have dropped a choir…dropped a class…stepped down from being choir director…but I couldn’t bring myself to do any of those things, whereas I could bring myself to step away from my position on Bored.

I offered to resign; they turned me down because elections were so close.  I made it clear that I was going to miss a shitton of stuff.  My wonderful fellow Bored-ies made it clear that that was ok, as long as I didn’t disappear as a Band member, and that they were just worried about me – as long as I was ok, they were ok.  (This is why I LOVE my Boredmates.  Or my former Boredmates, since the turnover is happening literally as I write this.)  And now, here I am, risking oversleeping tomorrow morning so that I can talk about why people should be Treasurer or not.

I guess part of me is still clinging desperately to the Band.  I do still love them.  I want them to win.  I just won’t always be there when they do.

But congrats to the new Bored.  I’ll be happy to be off the Bored, I’ll be happy to have fewer responsibilities, I’ll be happy to not be feeling guilty about missing shit so much.  But I’ll be sad to be out, to be so disconnected from the Band, and to step back from the group of people that I love so much.  (I’ll also be so sad to be off the email list.  Those emails got me through sooooooo many long TIC shifts.  LOL.)

There’s a time for everything, right?  This is time for this.  Here goes nothing…

→ 2 CommentsCategories: Music · The Band

The nature of procrastination…

15 November 2009 · 10 Comments

It’s a conundrum, to be sure.  But it’s unavoidable:  no matter how much work you have, no matter how desperately you need to complete the work in question, no matter how close the deadlines are, no matter how much coffee you’ve had, your immediate impulse, upon plopping into your computer chair, is to log into GMail and check your email for the third time that hour – or scan through Facebook again – or tweet about how you have sooooo much work, omg.  I’m not a YouTuber, but I’m told that’s a popular option.  (I prefer obsessively checking the number of hits my blog has gotten recently.)  The New York Times and Montreal Gazette always beckon, reminding me of my general inability to keep up with current events (hey, that’s why I have the marching band…and ‘Wait, wait, don’t tell me….’).  And, if all else fails, there’s always those old standbys, solitaire and fanfiction.  One of these days, i’m going to find an internet Minesweeper game, too, and then I’ll really be screwed.  Add in the twin specters of Netflix Instant Viewing and thesixtyone, and it’s astonishing that I ever accomplish anything anymore.  But why should I want to work, where there are so many far more amusing distractions available at my fingertips?

One friend mentioned that last year, she forget to bring her ethernet cable back to school with her; as a result, whenever she wanted to do anything online, she had to go to the student lounge in her building to get wireless.  She was happy about it – because she wasn’t wasting time on Facebook, or Twitter, or anything else.  Well, that’s all fine and good.  If I unplugged my ethernet, most of my distractions would be gone, it’s true (though iTunes and the gigantic bookcase next to my desk would still remain), but most of my work would be gone, too!  My teachers love assigning podcasts, nytimes.com articles, even YouTube videos (oh, Indian Music, the love-hate relationship continues on).  Losing the internet would just become a great excuse for me to shrug and start re-reading “Les Miserables” for the nth time.  So…not such an effective technique.

And even singing, my absolute favorite thing in the whole entire world, is so easy to procrastinate on.  The weather is gross – I’m not wearing shoes – Shapiro (the nearest building with practice rooms) is so far away – obviously I can put it off for another fifteen minutes (which becomes half an hour, then an hour, then an afternoon, and it spirals downward).  The one upside to this, however, is that it’s a lot easier to get a practice room at two am than at eight-thirty pm.  (Even procrastination occasionally has advantages!  Gee, whiz.)

What I want to know, though, is why do we all procrastinate so consistently?  Nothing that I have to do is terribly unpleasant.  I’m not wading through Kant or organic chemistry.  Nothing is terribly difficult, either – as seriously as my Art Hum professor takes it, reading about Rembrandt is not what you could call strenuous in any way.  (Sorry, Dr. Guerin.)  I’m not delaying a toilet-cleaning session – doing laundry involves almost no work, thanks to the modern miracles that are the washing and drying machines.  My life is easy.  No procrastination should be required.

Or should it?  I’ve noticed that if I start my homework as soon as I get home, I finish just in time for bed, with maybe a chapter or two of Orson Scott Card before I start emitting metaphorical ZZZs.  But if I delay for an hour or two with that episode of Glee that I missed last week, I still finish everything that night (because I have to) and I usually get enough sleep anyway.  The theory being, of course, that the renewed sense of urgency, spurred by my desperate need for sleep and the understanding that this work must get done tonight allows me to accomplish everything in a shorter period of time.  Singing aside (which you can’t rush and don’t want to rush anyway), everything happens more quickly.  It’s magical.

But then…there’s GChat.  I have to consciously remind myself (read:  force myself) to click my status over to “invisible.”  Otherwise, I’ll chat with Sarah…and Elizabeth…and the other Elizabeth…and Isabelle…while singing along with whatever’s playing on iTunes…while texting the IB…and occasionally snacking.

Huh.

Obviously, the key to increased productivity must be the ability to limit your focus.  But that’s close to impossible for most people these days – especially people my age, who threw parties when Firefox introduced tabbed browsing and who have five email addresses (serving five separate purposes – school, work, other work, internship, personal) linked to a master GMail account that they set up back in the day when you still needed an invitation to get an account.  Either we’re obsessively checking half-a-dozen webpages in rotation, or we’re obsessing over why we aren’t checking said pages.  These days, the only times I’m truly disconnected are when I’m asleep and when I’m singing (I force myself to leave my phone in my room, for obvious reasons – so maybe ten hours a day, seven of which are spent unconscious.  I suppose it could be worse (I could be one of those people who wakes up when GChat dings), but not by much.

So that being said, can anyone suggest alternatives?  How do I close out the world without closing myself into a practice room?  How do you do it – or do you do it?  Please, share.  I can’t wait to hear it.  I know that I am for one am stuck, and I don’t fancy the thought of procrastinating forever.  Anyone got any willpower exercises to suggest?  Please, BRING IT ON!

→ 10 CommentsCategories: Uncategorized

Sunday came late this week!

2 November 2009 · Leave a Comment

It’s part of the end of Daylight Savings Time.  Duh.

I’m kinda glad, though, because it means I can talk about my awesome Sunday as part of my awesome week!  The week proper was kinda “eh,” to be honest – everyone was basically marking time until break, classes were the usual, and the only piece of excitement was the start of an attempt to drop Indian Music.  I’m definitely going to make it pass-fail (actually, I need to go turn that paperwork in later today), and then I think I’m going to try to drop it.

The problem is that my dean pointed out that saying that I’m overloaded is not an acceptable excuse in the eyes of the committee that makes decisions about dropping post-deadline.  I think that’s bullshit, if you’ll pardon my language – the deadline is way before midterms start, and most classes have no work (and therefore no way to measure your comprehension and progress) before midterms get going – or if you turn in work, you won’t get it back ’til around then.  I know a lot of the math-y classes (with multiple midterms) specifically schedule their first midterm a week before the drop date, to make up for that, but if it’s a one-test class, you can’t do that.  Also, if it’s a one-test class, that test is a significant part of your grade, and if you really bomb it, it can be impossible to pull yourself back up to a decent grade.  In principle, you shouldn’t be dropping a class because you’re doing badly, but if it’s a class that’s important to you and you want/need to do well in it, you should have the option of starting fresh if you honestly feel like that’s your best option.  And yes, you can pass/fail it (which is what I’m going to do with this class, pending the committee’s decision), but if it’s a major requirement or a Core requirement, you don’t get credit for it, and certain classes don’t actually let you pass/fail (like languages, for instance).  In short, the system is flawed, and in my meeting, I said as much.  My dean’s answer:  “Yeah, well, welcome to Columbia.”  (Though not in so many words.)  Go figure, eh?

But the weekend has definitely been making up for that irritation.  I overslept on Saturday, but still had brunch with Isabelle, bought a copy of the score of Così fan Tutte (no more scrolling desperately through the online version), hung out in a bookstore for a while, and had dinner with Aryeh.  It was a lovely day.  And yesterday was just as lovely:  church, soup-making with Isabelle at the boys’ place, Chorale rehearsal, a screening of Così (filmed at the Salzburg Festival this past year) at Symphony Space, then dinner and Sleeping Beauty with the Sitcom-ers minus Liz and Pete (who are in the Dominican Republic right now).

I need to take a moment and encourage all of you to see this film of Così – it’s showing again at 7 pm on 15 November, and it’s excellent.  Weirdly, the production itself isn’t all that hot – they modernized the setting, which really doesn’t work with Così.  But the singers are so freaking fantastic that you don’t actually notice how weird the modern setting is, because you’re too busy being wowed by the music.  The woman who played Fiordiligi, especially, was absolutely brilliant.  That part is famous for arias with insane leaps – high G to middle C, for instance – and she makes them sound like absolutely nothing.  They just happen.  And they sound so easy, so you sit there and think that you could do it…and then you think about it again and go, oh, hell, no, that’s impossible.  But she made it sound beautiful.  Dorabella’s acting was fantastic, too – she completely stole the show – and the interpretation of Despina as a vaguely punklike maid (motorcycle jacket and helmet included) was hysterical, if odd.  Go see it if you can.  If you buy the tickets online, you can use the discount code “COLUMBIA” and get the ticket for less…it’s so worth doing…go go go!

In store for the rest of break:  singing, singing, and more singing, along with reading, reading, and more reading.  I’ve been slacking for the past two days, and now it’s time to catch up and get some work done (and some laundry, too…le sigh).  I’ll see you next week!  Enjoy your break, if you are breaking, and don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Adventures Alone · Church · Music · School · Sitcom Friends · The City · Venting

What I learned on Sunday (which I mostly already knew but had forgotten)

28 October 2009 · 1 Comment

If you’re going to sing a recital, get more than four hours of sleep the night before.  Don’t work until 12.30 pm.  Don’t go to a Halloween party after that.  Don’t get up early to run a rehearsal at church before the service.

Never ever ever ever ever read the bios of your fellow performers until after you perform.  Otherwise, you freak, then you psych yourself out, then you choke, and then you don’t breathe right (and then you don’t sound as good).

Don’t let the theater’s acoustics freak out you.  Miller is weird.  You won’t sound resonant.  Get over it.

Don’t hang out backstage right beforehand.  You can still wish the first performer good luck beforehand and congratulate them after, and you can still hear them through the monitors.  Chill in the green room, so that you can sound stupid by doing breathing exercises while you wait but then sound great onstage.

Ignore the guy with the loud camera.

Be really clear about your tempo.  Don’t let the accompanist nudge you faster (unless you’re slowing down as you go).

Take a long time to warm up.

Don’t sing a church service and then a rehearsal right beforehand.

Smile more.  Be happy.

Bring flowers for your accompanist.  She earned them.

→ 1 CommentCategories: Music

Sunday came early this week!

24 October 2009 · Leave a Comment

Or rather, I know that I won’t have time to update tomorrow, so you get an update now instead.

Crazy week…as ever…  I got the last of the midterms out of the way (HALLELUJAH!) and got most of the grades back – nothing lower than a B+ (in Indian Music, which I was basically expecting to fail).  Win!  Of course, I got no homework done, but hey, do I ever?  The last “official” midterm is on Tuesday, in Italian, but since it’s the length of a regular quiz (50 minutes), I’m not hugely worried.  Of course, having said that, I’ll probably fail.  The world will spin onward.

BIG FAT HAIRY PLUG:  if you’re reading this before 7 pm on 25 October 2009, please come to the CCP recital!  7 pm, Miller Theatre.  116th and Broadway.  Casual dress.  Free admission.  Possible free food after.  You know you’re interested.  If nothing else, it’s a great procrastination strategy…

Dramatic moment of the week:  a hard discussion with the Bored of the Marching Band.  I’m the treasurer (and it’s my second year), and I love my job – and love being on the Bored.  They’re a great group of people, and I’m proud to be part of that group.  But in case you didn’t notice, this has been an insane semester for me, and the stress is really starting to get to me.  (There’s a reason why the Sad Trombone is my theme song!)  22 credits, 3-4 hours in practice rooms every day, lots of extracurriculars, two jobs…it’s piling up, and I’m exhausted and stressed, and something had to give.  And something did give – I ended up leaving the Homecoming game early last Saturday to go home and have a mini nervous breakdown.  I promise I’m fine now, but I did a lot of hard thinking and realized that the only thing that I could legitimately ease up on at this point (especially now that we’re past the drop date for classes) is marching band.  So we talked as a Bored on Thursday, and while I’m still officially the treasurer, they’re releasing me from the absolute attendance requirement.  Thank God.  So I’ll come when I can – to Bored meetings for sure, to rehearsals as often as I can, and maybe a game or two – and when I can’t, I’ll let them know and it’ll be ok.  I’m so lucky – they were all completely kind and understanding, and I feel good about the agreement and the conversation.  It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  Still hard – it wasn’t something I wanted to do – but easier than it should have been, and I’m very grateful for that.

Lest I end this post on a sad or serious note, allow me to offer you a few moments of entertainment from a fellow blogosphere resident (albeit a considerably more prominent one).  Ladies and gentlemen, Rules For My Unborn Son.  Enjoy.  I wish I could offer a favorite, but I have at least twenty, so you’ll have to find your own.  I don’t think it’ll be too hard.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: General · Music · School

If the devil’s in the details, then God is in the music.

21 October 2009 · 3 Comments

I’ve had an interesting few days, musically speaking.  My dad sent me a lovely, lovely email a few days ago, in which he reminded me (among other things, of course) that one makes music for a living because and only because one can do nothing else and be happy.  He also pointed out that music, in every form, in every way, is completely and utterly for God.  As he said, “It gives you a direct line.”  Jokingly put, perhaps, but the point is good.

This is interesting to me because we also just started looking at courtly Indian music in Music of India and West Asia (courtly Indian music = ragas, if you weren’t sure and didn’t want to ask), and one of the points that is constantly being emphasized there is that the music is done for the sake of God.  It’s a devotional exercise:  the musician performs as a way to express their devotion to and love of God, and they give their entire lives to the practice, in hope that they will eventually be good enough to please God.

I guess it’s a common thread throughout human society, and it almost leads to a chicken-and-egg conundrum:  did musicians invent a God for themselves to give their music a higher purpose, or was music invented as the ultimate way to glorify the God that was always there?  As a Christian, I think I’m kind of obligated to argue for the latter, but if you asked an atheistic ethnomusicologist, I’m sure the answer would be very different – and very interesting.

Dad’s right, you know.  Music is a direct line to God.  They say that prayer is a direct line, but you know, it’s not, quite.  Prayer is a one-sided conversation (unless you’re really, really special), and like any conversation, it ebbs and flows and is full of primary and secondary motivations, manipulations, strategic use of syntax and connotation – even though you can’t play off the other person’s reactions, all those things are still there, because for most of us, they’re honestly instinctive.  When you say “Help, God, I’m feeling overwhelmed,” you’re saying that because you have too many midterms, not because you have too many friends to hang out with, and you want Him to respond by making your teacher cancel a test, not by giving all your friends the flu so that you have time to study.  God responds (in His mysterious, odd, generally incomprehensible ways) without any of those devices, and I’m sure He sees right through them when we use them, but we’re human, so we employ them instinctively.

But when you’re singing, you can’t do any of that, because there isn’t any room.  You’re too busy thinking about breathing and phrasing and tuning and dynamics and diction and all the other little subtleties that go into making music sound really, really good to push in anything that doesn’t belong there.  You don’t have time to manipulate.  You don’t have time for any motive more complicated than “Please, hear my song and like it!”  You don’t need anything more complicated than that.  You don’t want anything bigger than that!  Why would you?  You have everything you need in that song.  The fact that you are taking the time to sing well, to concentrate and to put in the required effort, is an act of devotion and therefore prayer in and of itself – nothing more is required in that moment.

Maybe that’s why I love singing so much.  People think I’m insane when I tell them that I spend three hours a day singing in practice rooms, working on tiny little seemingly insignificant details.  But see, when I’m doing that, I’m giving my life over to something that’s so, so, so much bigger than me.  I’m setting aside all the stupid, petty stuff in my life (even when the stupid petty stuff is related to music!) and putting absolutely everything I have into making the sound that’s coming out of my mouth right then sound as glorious as I can make it.  And I do it again and again, over and over, so that the “as glorious as I can make it” gets more and more glorious, until maybe someday it’ll be good enough.  I don’t have to think about anything else.  I can just focus on that.  It’s the best escape in the world.  (I think the best way to rehabilitate drug addicts is to teach them to sing opera, by the way.)  There is no sensation in the world that can compare to that momentary loss of self.  For that moment, you are the music, and you are absolutely everything that you have ever wanted or needed to be.  And in that moment, you are as God intended you to be, and you are with Him.  That is a direct line, and that moment is what I live for.

→ 3 CommentsCategories: Adventures Alone · Music

I’m not so big on McDonald’s -

20 October 2009 · Leave a Comment

- but if the catchphrase fits, use it!

In short, I’m lovin’ it.  (It, of course, being this.)

Isn’t your day just a little bit better now?  I know mine is.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Music