Herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmineh

Moses supposes his toes are roses/But Moses supposes erroneously/Moses he knowes his toeses aren't roses/As Moses supposes his toeses to be.

~Singin' in the Rain

I can't roll my r's. I have tried and tried but I just can't do it. 'Tis quite frustrating. One of our jazz combo tunes is called "Hermine" but nobody's sure how to pronounce it so our drummer always calls it Herrrrrrmineh, but I can't do it.

Today was pretty crazy. I was up really late last night finishing my math homework when I realized I forgot to turn in my last Music Theory assignment of the year! I even had it finished, I just forgot to turn the dumb thing in to the music office at 5:00 (because I was taking a nap, because I'd been up really late the night before.) So I will get a zero. I hope I don't lose my 'A.' I was really excited about getting an 'A' in a class that's worth more than 1 credit. Hopefully if I get an 'A' on the next exam and final I will be okay.

Today was such a nice day. The weather was gorgeous. Spring is truly here. I didn't do as well on my Ear Training chord progression quiz as I would have liked but I did do well in sight singing and I think my rhythm transcriptions went well. After Ear Training I walked back to the HUB with Amy and Christina and Amy had "Moses Supposes" stuck in her head, so I said we should sing it. So we did! Really loud! People stared and it was a lot of fun.

Pretty much all of today I was mentally preparing for my jazz combo recital. It may sound silly seeing as all of about 10 people came to listen (which is fine with me) but its the symbolism of the thing that's important. I came here at the beginning of the year feeling like I was crazy to try and study jazz. I've been studying classical piano for 10 years so I felt that I might be able to at least keep my head above water but jazz is something strange and new to me and I feel like I should have more training before I take up the time of the very fine jazz musicians in the music department. However, my family was very supportive and after talking with the music department chair briefly I decided to audition for a combo.

I felt like a complete idiot. The audition materials were so difficult and I practiced a ton but I didn't feel ready. I remember waiting for my audition time and then walking into this small room with a bunch of strange men staring at me (a couple of whom I recognized from SJO concerts, talk about intimidating!) I handed them my audition form and then Dan (department chair and head of the SJO) said something like "so you understand what the group is about right?" I would have thought that was self-evident so I was kind of confused. Then he said something about singing and made me thoroughly confused. Finally it was clarified that he thought I was trying out for the vocal jazz group when I was really auditioning on piano. "Oh, we need to move to a room with a piano then!" was his response. So, me and these 3 or 4 guys form this absurd little procession and march past the people waiting to audition and I am already completely mortified. Worst of all, Brent Edstrom, one of the absolutely best pianists in the area, is one of the adjudicators! I was pretty much terrified.

I don't remember much from my audition. I think I pretty much crashed and burned and my solo was horrendous. I thanked them multiple times for listening to me and they were very positive about it. Still, I was quite surprised when I made a jazz combo and what's more, my parents were going to let me take jazz lessons from Brent!

Needless to say I've become quite a bit more comfortable with the music department by now, although I still feel extremely out of place a lot of the time. I wasn't nearly as nervous this time around for the recital but think about it. These people have been so supportive of me, even though I haven't always been the best student I could have been. I wanted so badly to show I'd improved and that their good faith wasn't waisted. I'm not sure if I accomplished that in the performance tonight. Things went fairly well but I feel like I could have done a lot better. Since I've decided to continue to pursue jazz, it's something I really want to succeed at so hopefully if I work really hard this summer I'll be able to make much more progress next year. Dan and Brent seemed pleased with the performance and told me I'd improved, but I don't know, I feel like I could have accomplished more.

My dad and my uncle and aunt came to the recital, which was nice. They're so supportive. I'm so blessed to have such a great family. Okay, this post is getting entirely to sentimental and sappy and so forth. Bottom line, jazz is just about the awesomest thing ever. It just is. I would very much like to be able to play it better, but in order to do that I need to work harder. So that's what I'm going to do. I still have 3 years of college to hone my skills and after that, who knows? Learning doesn't stop there.