Improvisation

Well, this is the last one. At least, before Village Burial. I'm still not sure if I want to post that one. Maybe I will. But we're going to have a high quality video up soon, so we'll see...

Anyway, there's not much I can really say about learning this piece, simply because I didn't learn it. I guess I learned how to do it, but that skill wasn't learned at Peabody. I began improvising when I was really young--I think 4th grade was probably about when I started improvising, which is funny because that's also when I started studying percussion. However, I had a basic piano book that my dad used when he tried (and failed) to teach me piano, and using the little I learned from that book, I "wrote" my first piece (which was about the kids at school making fun of me, but that's a longer blog entry). Once I started taking piano lessons, I would always mess around with improvising, but to me it was nothing special. I thought I was "writing" music, which I guess I was--they were short, simple pieces that existed only for as long as I played them. I had no idea what I was doing was the same process that was used in jazz.

I got my first vibraphone in 8th or 9th grade, I can't exactly remember when. It was an old, beat up JenCo that my dad and I split the cost of. I mostly used it so I could practice the little bit of marimba I was learning in my drum set lessons, and so I could prepare the mallet parts in regionals and all-state auditions. When my dad told me I should start playing jazz, that didn't really take me much further than learning the heads to pieces like A Night in Tunisia straight out of the Real Book. I remember going to the improv class that the high school kids taught when I was in middle school, and trying to play a vibraphone solo. It was really bad, and I felt overwhelmed. I figured jazz wasn't something I would ever be very good at--trying to play the right scale to every chord just confused me! To me, "making it up as I went along" was much easier than "improvising".

It wasn't until I was in high school, and I was playing aux percussion in the what we called "Jazz II", which was the entry level jazz band in the high school. Basically, I played drum set on one or two charts, and played bongos and congas and other auxiliary instruments behind the drummer. However, every once and a while I would get a vibe chart to read, so I would get to play that. Near the beginning of the year, we played a chart called "Cubasa", in which the solo section was basically in F minor the whole time. I decided that playing scales on one chord was way easier than lots of chords like the blues form accosted me with, so I went home and started messing around in F minor. Next time we played it in jazz band, I asked if I could try a vibraphone solo.

It was a pretty big shock to me, as a 13 year old kid, to see my director and the rest of the band shocked with my solo. Nobody had any idea I could improvise, including me. So when my director said "Doug, I didn't know you could improvise," my response was "neither did I."

Basically, from that point on I decided that I was going to be a jazz vibes player. I figured out how to play over more than one chord at a time, and even put together my own jazz combo. I called it the "Blue Streak Jazz Combo". We were pretty bad, but it was fun. As I got older, I climbed up the ranks in the jazz bands. By my senior year, I was playing drum set in the top jazz band.

So, why did I go to school for classical music?

I think, in the end, I just had way too big of an ego. I thought I could waltz into any more school, be the best (or only, as it was in high school) jazz vibes player there, and even do classical music on the side. Instead, I discovered that classical music was a highly demanding world of detail and precision, and making that my focus was way more challenging and beneficial to me as a musician than being the big fish in a small pond again. Despite all the bumps in the road on the way, I was right--studying music that I wasn't making up on the spot forced me to explore lots of other sounds, colors, ideas... and made my arms move really well in the process (after nearly breaking them). It was exactly what I needed, and I'm so glad I decided to do it.

I hoped, in this improvisation, to express the relief of being done with Peabody, and perhaps what it was like to be a student at Peabody. I don't know how successful I was, especially considering there were definitely "mistakes"--or rather, chords and sounds I wasn't expecting to hear. But regardless, I was really happy with the way this one came out. Getting to close my program with an improv was basically the biggest sigh of relief I could perform!

Omar I

Man, it's been a while since I last uploaded. Sorry about all the delay, things have gotten surprisingly busy here this summer. I did something I never thought I would do after college, and joined a band. We're called Medicine Lake, and we are two parts Peabody and one part Towson. I'm playing keyboards, vibes/marimba, and singing backup vocals with them. It's really, really fun.

Anyway, more on that later. The video I just posted tonight was probably the biggest musical challenge I had to face for this recital (or, at least tied with ...And Points North). Omar, by the late Franco Donatoni, is actually a collection of two pieces for solo vibraphone. I only learned the first of the two works--my classmate and colleague Candy Chiu (who is now studying up at Yale) played the second work on her recital last year, and it must have been equally hard (if not harder) than the one I played.

When I heard Candy's performance on the second work, I can't say I was that attracted to the piece. Nothing wrong with her performance, and I'm no person to critique the writing of Franco Donatoni--his music just isn't especially easy on the ears. When my teacher told me to start learning it, I had no idea what I would be getting myself into. Learning the notes to this piece was, much like ...And Points North, akin to learning another language. Where as most tonal (or rather, conventionally harmonized) music settles in my ear fairly quickly, I found myself on the same two measures of Omar after having had the music for a week. I had to really push myself hard, and force those notes into my brain. Even still, I was not able to commit the last two sections of the work to memory, and had to do the performance with the music in front of me.

As I spent time learning this music, the personality of the piece began to show. My teacher uses the word "schizophrenic" to describe this piece, and I wholeheartedly agree. In each section, it seemed like there were two different voices speaking at once--at times, almost as if they were arguing. This made me realize my role as the performer was even more challenging than simply trying to learn notes that didn't sit well in my head--I had to take this harsh, abrasive, and largely inaccessible music, and bring it to life by making the voices have their own characters, and personalities. I don't know if it made me like the music any more (it probably did, I'm an optimist), but it certainly gave me a whole new respect for the music.

In the end, yes, I wish I had it memorized. I've played the piece better than I performed it on my recital. But, given all of the circumstances involved, I'm pretty happy with how the performance went. Maybe someday soon, I'll be posting Omar II up here as well.

And Legions Will Rise

The first time I ever heard this piece was actually at a Yale Percussion Group concert--it was being performed by Eric Beach (who now plays in So Percussion), who was joined by Wayne Lin and Romie de Guise-Langlois (neither of whom I have had the pleasure of meeting). I really enjoyed the piece when I heard it, but at the time thought it was way too hard for me to ever play. Well, in the beginning of this past semester, I got a call from my teacher telling me that he would like me to pick up the project where Hye Jin Kim, a fellow percussionist who left to pursue work in Korea, had left off. Well, the violinist and clarinetist she worked with weren't into continuing the project as it turned out, so I went ahead and asked my friends Kathryn Kilian and Gleb Kanasevich if they wanted to join me. Kate and I were from the same town in Connecticut and have always had similar musical ideals, so playing with her has always been a pleasure. Gleb is one of the only new music buffs I know in the wind program at Peabody--but he's also a fantastic player and composer, so I was excited for an opportunity to work with them both.

I only really had a month--MAYBE a bit more--to put this piece together. Every piece on my program seemed to introduce a different challenge, and this one was "how well can you learn this under a close deadline". In fact, it was so close that I pretty much find this piece to blame for my relapse of tendinitis right before my recital. The marimba part, technically, is a beast. Well, the violin and clarinet parts certainly aren't any easier, but for me it really took a lot of muscle to play. It couldn't have been more than two weeks before showtime that we were playing through the whole piece for the first time.

That being said, I can't help but be just a little disappointed with this performance. I think I did the best I could, given the circumstances. I just wish those circumstances weren't there, and that I could've had, say, all year to prepare this, and not just a month. I also wish my hands were a little more marimba friendly--this piece has made me question the reality of my current marimba grip, and I'm still thinking of changing it from Stevens grip back to Burton grip, which is the grip I began on.

The piece is a really beautiful work, and I had a great experience working with Kate and Gleb and learning this piece. Kevin Puts, the composer, was actually sitting in the audience during my performance. Maybe I've set my standards too high when I was hoping my performance could be the best performance of his piece he's ever heard. I don't think I can shake that standard, though.

Dances of Earth and Fire

I don't remember exactly when the first time I heard this piece was... I believe it was my freshman year at Peabody. Either my freshman year or my sophomore year, but I would wager on it being my freshman year. Whatever. Regardless, the first person I ever heard perform this piece was actually the person I will be studying/working with next year, Ji Hye Jung. At this time, my understanding of music outside of the scope of classical tonality was pretty limited, and this was one of the pieces that left me mostly confused. Even then, though, I understood there was something profound about the piece. I just didn't know what.

My teacher put this piece on my recital program at the end of my fourth year at Peabody, and by then I understood the language of the piece much better. To put it as simply as I can, the piece is based on the octatonic scale--that is, a scale which is constructed of alternating whole steps and half steps. It's a mode of limited transposition, meaning that you only get three different transpositions of each scale. This being said, to call the piece "atonal" is simply inaccurate, which is what I did for years. It's not "atonal", it's just different than what I was used to.

The piece, as I presented it in my recital, was incomplete. I performed the first of two movements: "Dark and Heavy", or as my teacher calls it, the earth dance. The fire dance, also referred to as "Con Brio", is much more lively and technically demanding, while the first movement is much more emotionally demanding. I had prepared, and intended, to play both movements at my recital, but the program ended up being both longer and more physically draining than both my teacher and I had originally anticipated, and we decided to omit this movement from the performance. I would have loved to play it, but when it actually came time for me to perform this piece (the second to last piece on my program, not counting the "encore", Village Burial with Fire), I was exhausted--both emotionally and physically.

My exhaustion is very present to me in watching my performance now--I had a few memory slips I normally don't make, I played faster in general than I would've liked, my accuracy wasn't at it's best and I can tell my concentration was slipping. I'm still posting this for the sake of having my complete recital available to all those who couldn't make it, and it's been posted (way) out of order because I'm having some trouble extracting the earlier video. Even though it's definitely not the best performance I've given of this piece, it was the best I could do then. Hopefully, I'll have another opportunity to perform this piece someday, and hopefully that performance will exceed this one.

The grind

Well, Magfest came and went, and as usual it was a blast. I bought a bunch of video games (Final Fantasy Anthologies, Final Fantasy Chronicles, and Final Fantasy 7!), had a bunch of great jams with people, and even had an extended vacation when a handful of OCR folks stayed at my place for an additional three days. It was a lot of fun!

But now that the fun is over with, I've spent most of this month working the hardest I ever have. Lots has happened, but to summarize:

• My Yale audition is February 22nd
• My recital is either March 10th/11th, or April 15th
• I'm no longer enrolled as a student at Peabody, but am playing in orchestra in exchange for practice room usage.

Now that I have deadlines, I've basically spent every moment I have preparing for them in whatever ways I can. My hands have been the best they've been in a long time, and a 4 hour practice day is no longer a feat. I generally put in 3-5 hours of practice every day, depending on how much time I have. Sometimes my arms will give me some negative feedback, and I will have to rest--but for the most part they've done very well.

The only exception to this is my marimba playing, still. I'm having to practice with what my studio friend Adam Rosenblatt calls "Bastard Grip"--basically, Stevens grip in my left hand and Burton grip in my right. I want to be able to play with just Stevens grip, but right now my back two fingers and the muscles connected to them just can't provide the strength/support that I need to practice for a long time. So when I play marimba, about 75% of my practice is done with bastard grip--and the last 25% is done with matched Stevens.

The Yale deadline is fast approaching, and by February 22nd I need to play Donatoni's Omar, Klatzow's Dances of Earth and Fire, Delecluse's Etude No. 1 for snare drum, Carter's March for timpani, timpani excerpts from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Strauss' Burleske, Mozart's Symphony No. 39, Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis, snare drum excerpts from Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, xylophone excerpts from Messiaen's Exotic Birds, and glockenspiel excerpts from Debussy's La Mer--with the option of also playing my first movement of Smith's ...And Points North and Cirone's Etude No. 32 if I want. Much of this list is on my A list--a.k.a, pieces/excerpts I know well. This would include all of the excerpts, as well as Delecluse 1. The Carter would definitely be on my B list--I know the piece and almost have it memorized, but it needs a lot of polish.

The two big pieces, Omar and Dances, are on my C list--I'm still learning the notes. Most of my work has been on these pieces, and by forcing myself to learn a set amount of notes daily, I'm finding it becomes easier and easier. As of today, I have a page and a half of Dances left to learn, and a few lines less than a very large page of Omar. I do think by this time next week, if I can keep my pace up, I will be done learning the notes to both pieces. I will definitely be done with Dances, but as challenging as Omar is to learn, I think I can do it.

This audition will be the single most important moment of my life thus far. So, lets do it!

More Tendon crap

It's been 3 weeks since I hurt myself playing with So Percussion, and today I started to feel actual pain while playing. I know I whine about this a lot here, but it really concerns me. I don't really have time to take off from playing this year, so I need this to pass. I'm seeing my therapist again on Friday, so hopefully he can help me out.

Even though Thursdays are my busiest days, I'm going to try to start moving tomorrow. I have to teach jazz ear training in the morning, then go to orchestra until 5:30, but after I eat dinner maybe I can find some time to move stuff before I go to choir rehearsal at 7. I guess it's only an hour, but hey--it's a start. I'll start moving stuff for real on Friday.

I can't wait to get out of this apartment--even though I love it. The last month here has been a real struggle--the building's completely empty, the ceiling is falling apart and I have had no motivation to keep the place clean--simply because I'm leaving soon. But I'm really going to miss this place. I have a lot of fond memories about this apartment, even though it was basically my tendinitis jail cell. I wish I could go back to the beginning of my junior year of college. I was at school practicing all day (with no pain!), would get to hang out with all my friends there, and then come home to my roommate mixing rum and cokes and playing Wii sports. What a great time! Hanging out with him was awesome, practicing all day was awesome... I wish I hadn't spent so much of that time being sad about the break-up I went through over the summer. Of course, then the pain kicked in at the beginning of November... and the rest is history.

But even still: re-arranging furniture, getting plants, playing Chrono Cross with the windows open in the springtime, reading on my roof, jamming with Nick, and heck, getting drunk just because we could. I'll probably even miss doing dishes with a dishwasher (new place doesn't have one!) All of these things are memories now, but they are memories that I will hold close for the rest of my life. Even the little things. Especially the little things.

By the way, I'm an unbelievably nostalgic person.

Optimisim

Just got back from another basketball game... pulled something in my neck almost immediately (can't look to the left right now), but it was fun to run around and stuff. I might be going to Philly to see the orchestra play Berlioz' Symphoy Fantastique tomorrow or Saturday, not sure yet. I was going to run the Baltimore 5K on Saturday morning, but it sold out right before my boss called me to confirm that I had that morning off. Go figure.

I don't know how other people experience this sort of thing (or even if they do), but I've always been fairly keen on what one would call "gut feelings". For me, it's just something that lingers in the background of whatever your thinking of... but sometimes, if you notice it, it will be glaringly obvious how a situation will turn out. It could be as stupid as a game of rock-paper-scissors, bringing your hand down and thinking "oh, I'm going to win this one" (which you do), or as crazy as Kei Maeda (a fellow percussionist at Peabody who doesn't really play basketball) dribbling a basketball at half-court, saying "I'm going to make this one. I feel it." (He made that half-court shot--and only that one).

The fact of the matter is, at least for me, they're there. You can't look for it, you can't fabricate it--it's just there, and you have to get lucky enough to notice it. It was the feeling I had going into my senior year of school--I thought my hands were good enough to go back to playing, but something just didn't feel right. Turns out, I wasn't ready to go back into playing full time. Same thing happened this year, and I was in way better shape than last year. Something just didn't feel right, and lo and behold--I injured myself playing with So.

But today, while playing snare drum, I caught myself thinking about how happy I was to be playing back in the studio, with Vikki (another percussionist, obviously) also playing in the room next to me. We both would always be practicing at the same time before we got injured, and it was nice to be doing it again. Then all the sudden, the thought crossed my mind:

"I'll really look forward to it next semester, when I'm completely healed."

That's when I realized...that gut anxiety I've had is gone. Even though I'm injured right now, it's gone. Suddenly it was just granted that everything would be back to normal. That normally doesn't happen that way, at least for me.

I dunno. I think a sign is a sign. I'm going to heed that sign...I like what it's saying. Of course, I'll still be careful--that's part of the deal. But I'll keep my head up, shoulders back, and just keep moving forward.

Just as soon as I get my neck looked at. Ow.

Music and exercise

I just got back from a soccer game over at Hopkins. It was like, twelve of us from Peabody against a simple six man team from Hopkins. They creamed us, 8-0. But it was so much fun!

I'm realizing how important it is, as a musician, to get exercise. From the mental perspective, being shut into Peabody for so long really does a number on you, and sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to get out and run around. I've been in a slump lately, and this helped so much.

The physical side is super important as well though, and for me probably the most important. My right arm, for the moment, feels great. All that blood flow really does the body good. A warm muscle is a happy muscle, and my muscles really need that blood to keep them warm and help them heal. We'll see how it feels tomorrow, but for the time being I am happy.

I wish I could say the same for my right leg, though. My IT band is giving me the same pain that I have to deal with every once and a while. I'm pretty sure at this point I have some sort of predisposition to overuse injury, and I'd love to find out what it is.

Clever commercials

So I was watching Heroes today, and a commercial for some toy train set by Playskool came on. At least I think it was Playskool. Whatever. Anyway, the jingle for the commercial went "Play, Laugh, Grow", and the notes were something like "D, A, C". But being the nerd I am, I instinctively began singing it in solfege syllables. "Re, La, Do!"

Do you see the connection?!

Anyway, I played for the first time since So was here today. Wasn't too bad, but my arm still doesn't feel great. I hope it gets better soon. I think it will--it's not hurting anymore, so I know that's better. But it still feels pretty weak.

I'm trying to get my life as a whole super organized, now that I have some time to do that. To start, I've changed my active email address from @comcast.net to @gmail.com. Honestly, the biggest reason I wanted to switch to Gmail is because I liked the idea of being able to delete Thunderbird off my computer. Don't get me wrong, I think Thunderbird is a great program. But if I'm using Internet Explorer, I want to use Outlook Express for email. If I'm using Firefox for browsing, I want Thunderbird as my email. But I use Google Chrome as a browser now, and Google doesn't have a client-side email application. Honestly, I freakin' love Google. I use Google Chrome, Google Pages, Google Calendar... heck, YouTube and Blogger are also owned by Google. If Google takes over the world and suddenly I find myself under a worldwide dictatorship, so be it. At least I'll be able to find my shit.

My laptop is on it's way out, unfortunately. The power jack is failing more and more, the longer it's on... I have a feeling by the end of this week it will become completely unresponsive. I need to purchase a new power jack and have someone replace it for me (unless I want to try to replace it myself, but that's risky). Once I do that, I need to replace the battery. After that, I need to fix my iPod. After that, I need to repossess my desktop and fill it with memory/ram. If I can do all of that, I will reorganize my software and keep my laptop for personal stuff (homework, email, browsing, and of course chatting), and use my desktop strictly for music and perhaps some gaming (like I have time to do that anymore anyway). Apparently desktops are way more stable than laptops in general when it comes to music stuff, and if I can get the right upgrades my desktop should do me a lot of good.

I actually really miss playing video games. It's weird... during the school year, I'm pretty much scared of playing them because I assume there's something more important I need to do. However, it's one of those things that really helps me blow off steam from the stresses of school. I guess everyone needs a hobby, and gaming for me isn't like how it is for most basement-dwelling 20-30 year olds who got their degree in computer science so that they could use irc in all of their classes. Every game I play, I'm playing it like it's a form of art--listening to the music, seeing how it interacts with the artwork, the gameplay, how the art interacts with the gameplay and the script, how the script interacts with the music, etc. The game to best achieve this balance for me is by far Cave Story (or Dokutsu Monogatari, if you are Japaneasily inclined). Closest thing to a perfect game you'll ever play.

Of course, writing blog posts like this aren't really much of a better use of my time. I guess at least I'm writing, which is something you're supposed to be good at.

Busy weekends!

It's funny, seems like the weekend is the busiest time of the week for me! I guess if I had to choose between a two day work week versus a five day work week, my decision would be pretty obvious.

Haven't really played since the So Percussion incident, with the exception of a few triangle notes in PSO (for our concert tonight!) Worked until about 4 or so, went to the library to check out some scores, and started going through Strauss' Burleske in D minor with the recording and my part. I figure if I can't play right now, I better be able to understand this music inside and out.

I'm pretty worried about how I'm going to keep up this year. I'm probably playing Village Burial in December, I have a recital in February (well, technically in November but I highly doubt it's going to be ready by then... I'm probably going to take an incomplete), an audition for Yale in March or April, and between then and now I just want to get really good. However, I feel like I can't keep up with everything. I definitely couldn't afford to take this break, I'm barely keeping up with my VB part (thank god for the chanting sections), I haven't found half of my setup for ...And Points North (theater piece by Stuart Saunders Smith), I haven't played marimba in like a week, and I've only finished one page of Omar (vibraphone piece by Franco Donatoni) when I'm supposed to have the notes to the first movement learned by the time Bob gets back. On top of that, I've got a whole slew of snare drum stuff that I need to learn for David Skidmore (Bob's teaching assistant), and four major orchestral works on timpani. Personally, snare drum is the most important to me right now, because it's my weakest discipline. However, academically, everything else is more important! Argh.

My right arm is feeling a lot better since Thursday. I went to therapy Friday morning (which helped a lot) and have been resting it since then, so hopefully I can start using it again soon. It still feels weak (which is strange, I'm not used to my left arm feeling stronger than my right), but I think I'll be back into playing soon. Just gotta stay smart!

Who knows.

Funny how things work out. Yesterday, my left arm was super tired. But today, it feels fine. However, after another full day of playing Drumming, my right arm is feeling pretty bad. I'm gonna have to take the weekend off from playing, unfortunately. Hopefully, by then, it'll be all healed up and ready to go. Who knows.

Teaching jazz ear training was fine this morning, even though I had to miss pretty much all of the morning So Percussion class. Only one person showed up on time, however--everyone else was anywhere from five minutes to twenty minutes late. I guess that's just a jazz thing. Who knows.

Orchestra (both concert and symphony) seems particularly nasty this year. The common opinion among the Peabody student body is "oh man, Teri (our conductor) sucks, I hate orchestra so I don't care about it." To be completely honest, I'm not particularly fond of the way Teri conducts, how he runs rehearsal, or how he interacts with students. It's not a personal thing--I'm just not a fan. However, it frustrates me to no end that the people who complain about orchestra the most are the ones who consistently come in unprepared and don't try at all to make the music sound good--especially because Teri actually does a really good job doing his homework as our conductor and coming to rehearsal prepared. I really felt for Gleb (sophomore clarinetist, playing principal in the Barber Second Essay) today--he has a lot of really hard stuff to play (both solos as well as just tough ensemble material), and he showed up to the first rehearsal with that shit nailed to the wall. We just had our third rehearsal, and he still sounds fantastic. However, Teri tore into him a couple of times today about rhythmic stuff, how he needs to count, the usual. The thing I found really impressing was how he took all of the comments from the conductor, immediately adjusted to his demands, and was able to maintain the same musical integrity he had before. I wished two things:

1. For Teri to acknowledge to him and the orchestra how well he was doing,

2. For everybody else to know their parts like he did (myself included).

Teri really isn't looking for much music right now, and I'm not sure if that's his fault or ours. Teri's been really fixated on counting lately, saying things like "orchestra, you can't feel this music, you have to count it" way more than he normally does. I don't think that's necessarily true--people aren't trying to "feel" the music... they just don't know it. People need to learn their parts, listen to the piece, get familiar enough with the music so that by the first rehearsal, people aren't sight reading and we can actually focus on things like musicality. Once everyone in the group has their part nailed to the wall, then we can complain about Teri. But right now, he knows this music better than we do--so we can't really complain.

Honestly, it puts me in a strange situation. I think part of the reason the orchestra is so unprepared (for this example, especially PCO) is because we have a lot of young, wide-eyed string players, many of which who have never been in an institution of this caliber and are looking for inspiration and eager to fall in love with orchestral repertoire. We absolutely do not get this under Teri's baton, and I don't think that many would disagree with me there. But at the same time, that's just because Teri is not that type of conductor--and it would be a little silly for him to try to fake something like that. Teri is the type of conductor who comes to rehearsal knowing the music inside-out, and expects everyone else to know it like that too. He's not looking to be your friend, he's not looking to have fun with you, and he's not going to put up with anything he considers bullshit. What he wants, and I have to respect this, is to be able to work with musicians who are as prepared and serious as he is. Personally, I'd love to have a conductor who is both. So what do I do? Do I don the attitude of "man orchestra sucks I don't like Teri so I'm not gonna care about it", and resolve to the fact that we're going to suck and I didn't try to do anything about it? Or do I have to start tapping violinists on the shoulder and say "dude, how about you do us all a favor and go learn that rhythm", and perhaps even burn a few bridges along the way? Maybe, as I often do, I can find a compromise. Who knows.

In more positive news, even though working with So might have cost me an arm (but not a leg, as the saying would continue), it made me realize that I would really love working with a group like that for the rest of my life. There are even a few people in school with me right now I could see my self playing with for the rest of my life. Who knows!

Hello, bandwagon!

After reading through the blog of my good friend and extraordinary artist Doug B. Horak, I decided it was time for me to jump on the blogging bandwagon. Who knows, maybe having a real, true to life "Blog" will encourage me to actually write intelligently about intelligent things, as opposed to the constant stream of non-sequitur blurbs that Livejournal, Twitter and Facebook have encouraged me to spew over the past couple of years. Those jerks.

I guess you can expect to hear all sorts of stuff about my life as a classical percussionist, jazz percussionist, video game remixer/composer/enthusiast, college student, runner, cook, nerd, and general human being. For example, I just got done with a long day of working with the percussion chamber group So Percussion, who came to Peabody today to work with us on a lot of stuff. I played Village Burial with Fire by James Wood for them today with the rest of my group. We had been needing a coaching with somebody for a while, and So had a lot of great things to say. The piece opens up with a lot of chanting and screaming, as we're trying to portray somebody pretty much being burned alive. It was at points more of a voice lesson than a percussion lesson, as they talked to us about how we should be placing the notes in our respective ranges. They also gave us some ideas about the unison instrumental section we played for them (I'm playing the xylophone part... which is really hard!), but for the most part it seemed we really had our stuff together and they were pretty please with what we had so far! Guess I don't need to be so worried about it. Now to just learn the xylophone solo.

After that, we learned all about the Steve Reich piece "Drumming", which I have decidedly named this blog after. Learning that was pretty much centered around playing the core motif over and over and over again. I got to play both some marimba stuff and some bongo stuff with them. My left arm is super tired. I hope I didn't overdo it... but on a positive note, my right arm feels great! What a trooper.

Tomorrow I have to teach the jazz ear training class (the first of five weeks), as well as play in orchestra and do more stuff with So. I'm a bit worried about this year... I have a lot of music to learn, and I'm still not sure how to balance it all out without blowing my arms out again. I think I'll be okay... but I can't have too many days like this one.