I'm Back

ok, yes, i'm falling down on the job. i haven't blogged in about 5 days. that's bad. but here i am again! aren't you happy?!?

if you're keeping up with the violin saga, there's good news and bad news. the bad news is, the small strap (white electrical wire in this case, ahem) that attaches to the end button snapped. i guess with working on the bridge and what-not i managed to stretch it all out. that's actually really bad since there is now no pressure on the instrument (since obviously the strings have nothing to attach to). if the sound post falls over i am so going to cry. the good news is that dr dalmus is lending me a student violin that i can practice on while i get my instrument fixed. the other good news is that the bridge is finished! party! so once i get that other part fixed i'll be good to go. except for some other bad news i didn't mention. my good bow that i was getting rehaired apparently had a bunch of problems that were going to be so expensive to repair that it would be more than the value of the bow. so i'm going to have to get a new bow. *tear* but, after shelling out the dough, i will end up with a better sound, therefore it's not that bad. is that all?? well, i could use a better set of strings. like, orchestra grade instead of wimpy medium grade. we'll have to see about that.

had a singing test today. it went so-so. i'm not sure how it's going to be graded. i think on this one he may just make it a freebie. in other words, if you did ok on it, dr dean will give you an A and substitute it for your lowest grade. we all noticed that he was just putting check marks next to our names, not grades. i did study for it by going around singing and practicing my solfeg. ever and i stayed up last night in the study room (conveniently located directly across the hall from our rooms) and sang with the keyboard. not sure how much time was spent studying and how much was...mm...uh, anyway. we had a pretty fun time. goofing off. is that the word? have you ever tried to sing a scale while saying the solfeg syllables backward?? AHA! you should try it some time. just don't practice it too much right before a test.

so what else has happened since i last blogged? on friday we watched ladder 49. pretty good movie i thought. very sad. let's just say i'm not typically the type to cry in a movie, but i got pretty watery eyed. there were all these guys walking out who were like, "wh-what is this?? wha's dis in ma eye? dude! i think i had, like a tear er sumfin, i mean, WHOA...! what the...?" that was pretty funny.

i've already told you that i finished the bridge, but i did spend a portion of the weekend working on that. did some practicing and stuff. went to a party at the tousha's. that was pretty fun, but i had to leave early. micah told me i missed out big time. :.-( the reason i left was i had a concert to go to. andrea anderson came as a guest artist at dr parr's invitation. she brought a clavichord, harpsichord and forte piano. she played all of them, as well as our harpsichord and "modern" piano (steinway of course). i still insist that the modern piano is the one i like best (like most people) but i was highly fascinated by the clavichord. it had little tiny hammers with brass tips. the hammer action was such that the hammer stayed in contact with the string as long as you held down the key. but since it was brass, the tone kept ringing. so you could actually strike the key and then get some vibrato going by wiggling the key with your finger! awsome! vibrato on a keyboard is something new to me. unfortunately the instrument is so small and the strings so short that it could never be used as a concert instrument. too quiet. the harpsichord had an awsome painting on the inside done by the builder's wife. and the builder himself was there to talk about the instruments. pretty sweet.

man, i've gotta get some grub...

hum dum de dum...

what did i do today, besides goofing off with my camera and "hello" and drinking big red? good question. umm... i went to class, practiced, rehearsed with my singer (poor guy, did i mention his troubles? i think i did. now he thinks he's going to drop aural skills because he's afraid he might fail and he wants to redo a lower level version of the class) and he was still having trouble singing this one spot in the song. he better get it, because apparently he's singing for a master class by his teacher's teacher. yeah, the pressure is on buddy. don't embarrass mr lagraff by singing badly (and by misspelling his name) :-p and, oh my gosh, i'm going to be playing for his teacher's teacher too! since i'm his accompanist... duh. so who's the pressure on now. *gulp.* nah, i'm not worried about it. except for my singer's sake.

talked to steve kinnaird today about my violin repair stuff. he has some handy-dandy little files and stuff that sound perfect for working on the bridge and making the string notches. i'm gettin greally excited about this whole thing. you know, if i didn't become a concert pianist (which, come to think of it, is a possibility) i would love to be an instrument maker. i think. i've been interested in it for some time, but never really had the opportunity to try my hand. this is some elementary experience you might say. some friends of mine actually got a guy in lufkin to help them build their own violins. i'm not sure how it worked, if they paid him like it was a class, or if they were like apprentices or what. i should try and do that some how. maybe steve would show me some stuff. i'm sure he would, but i just hate to impose upon him. *sigh.* i don't have any tools either, except my dad's, which aren't exactly designed for making instruments. maybe i'll just have to start out small and gradually buy my own tools and read up on it. sounds like a plan. i wonder if sfa has an instrument making class. oh! i did hear from my former physics teacher that in the musical acoustics class that i'm in we will be making some instruments. not quite the sort i had in mind, but it looks like some kind of wind chimes, and a flute made out of pvc with holes drilled in it, and some other stuff. pretty interesting.

practiced my concerto today. it's really coming along. i walked around a lot of the day with my earphones in listening to vladimir ashkenazy play it with the philharmonia orchestra to try and ingrain the orchestra part and my starting points in my mind. i even went so far as to wear my earphones while playing, and played along with the recording. now i can say that i actually played with the philharmonia orchestra. amazing.

does everyone know about the balancing fork and toothpick act? i know some of you do. thomas showed it to "us" at the kinnairds' house the other night. it's pretty sweet. so basically, every time i go to the cafeteria now i make one and leave it at the table for someone to come bumbling along and wonder what the heck it is. it's interesting to put it at a different table and watch the looks "it" gets as people walk by. people also tend to avoid sitting at the talbe it occupies. hmm. thank you thomas for such a great trick. i am forever indebted to you.

well, i've had my coffee and done some physics studying and made sure i don't have any undone assignments for tomorrow. except that when i was making sure about the assignments for tomorrow i discovered that i did have an undone one. so much for that. i guess i better do it. just a little memorizing, that's all.

oh, i think i commented this yesterday, after i posted, but i do now have a un-normal answering machine message again. it isn't a trick, and it's obviously (fairly obvious) a message and not me picking up the phone. but it's my lame attempt at sounding like a hick farmer,or something like that. please call for a few seconds of entertainment.

i must put my sleepy head to bed.

eternally table tennis

ahhhh!! 

drink more big red :-) 

Communications

today i finally broke down and changed my answering machine message. for those of you who don't know, it was pretty tricky. people tended to hang up a lot. like i would come in from class and there would be three messages, but no one would have left a message. or today someone was on there and they said, "hello? hello??..." and then they hung up. grrrrrrr. so that's that. you have forced me to put a boring message. ok, maybe i'll come up with something interesting that doesn't confuse the caller. have to invent something good later. anyway.

i was trying to get my application in for FAFSA today but couldn't remember my "number." not that i ever had it memorized or anything. so i fille out the pin number info and it said they would email it to me. well... waiting, waiting, waiting, wait.... i got back on the web site and it said they last sent me a copy of my number on 01/25/05. um, no they didn't. so i'm anxious to get that in order to finish the paper work and get the whole thing off my mind.

one thing i need to do is get a microphone. i downloaded teamspeak so i can chat with people over the internet while playing games and stuff, but i have nothing to speak into! so that's on my to-do list.

went to a concert tonight. awsome. it's kind of weird to me in a funny little way that i practically know all the people in these recitals now. i used to go to these things before becoming a student, and they were all just musicians. now i know them all personally, or i've worked with them, or accompanied for them or their students, or studied under them. it's pretty cool. and they did a great job tonight. this was a faculty recital featuring dr gavin on the horn. also dr petti and dr parr (my teacher piano instructors) on the piano, and dr dalmus (my violin teacher) on the violin. they're all so amazing.

that's enough for today. and such a happy note to leave things on.

*gasp* OH MY GOSH!!! i didn't play ping pong today. now there's some front page news for ya. this could really hurt my vibrato preparation. bummer.

love, maestro jordanian

Just Keep Studying, Just Keep....

i can now see that there will definitely be some studying involved in my classes this year. mhmmm. what an amazing thing. there's lots of reading associated with history and physics. go figure. so, while both of those things are calling my name, i decided to write in my blog (since it has been a couple of days).

did some piano and violin practice done. worked some more on my violin bridge. had my first violin lesson. i have to admit that dr. dalmus didn't seem as excited as me about my attempt at doing it myself. i'm sure she will be when she hears how beautiful it sounds when i'm done. as for actually playing my instrument...um, i've got some work to do. there's lots i've forgotten since i last played and lots that's coming back that i need to learn how to forget (like only using the top half of my bow). yeah, i see some knowing heads nodding out there. i was working on not gripping the bow too hard with my thumb, since it needs to be flexible and movable, not in a vice. i mentioned that it would probably need to be loose for me to do vibrato (sp*?) and dr. dalmus said, "oh, we won't start working on that for at least a couple of weeks." i was like hmmmm. THAT'S NOT VERY FAR AWAY!!! i know, it's an old hat skill for all you other string players, but i never did learn (shame on me).

also accompanied my singer in his studio class today. it went pretty well. fortunately he doesn't sing in that fine bulgarian way, except when he has a bad cold. though i must admit a
b-flat, g-#, to a, while i was playing an a, was eating his lunch. he just couldn't make himself sing the dissonant g-# while i was playing the a that he wanted to resolve to. poor guy. let me tell you, i could feel his pain.

had my first haircutting experience today. 'nuff said. oh, except that it wasn't my hair i was cutting. it was not big deal.

and guess what else i did today? i know you can't...huh? what?? yeah... ok you guessed. yes i played ping pong. i probably don't even need to mention that anymore do i? from now on i can just blog about it if i didn't play. that's when it will be a big deal. though i did actually lose a couple of games. so it was actually really fun!

well, i'm enjoying my christmas coffee pot from my dad. made myself a pot last night, and drank it all before i went to bed. pretty smart thinkin' huh? nothin' like little caffeine to help ya go to sleep. not to mention the added light and noise from a room mate. ok, he was only up because i went to bed early. he's a great room mate. he was actually considerate enough to turn off the over head light. but i still pulled my beany over my eyes and put my earphones on and quietly listened to some music. i bet he though i looked really weird. ummm... where was i? oh! coffee. so yeah, i think i'll go make some right now to eat while i study.

well, good night. more squeakings and creakings and tinkings on my instruments to do in the moanin'. isn't that a great word? so descriptive of a morning for me.

ping pong forever

First Week Over

how wonderful that the first week is now finished. man i need a break. i have almost all of my class times and stuff set, except for rehearsal time with my singer. getting close to having a reasonably concrete schedule. which is good, cuz i can get int-uh da grroooove!!

so, basically i'm the ping pong champion now. yeah. don't tell anyone, but i probably played a few hours (yes, like, three or four) of it today. only lost one game. so now i have big bloated ping pong champ head. riiiiight. there was no intramural sports desk out at the uc today, so i may have to call about the whole table tennis team thing. aaanyway... oh! don't worry, i don't spend that much time playing on the week days. (yeah, like anyone's going to believe that now).

i watched shark tale (tail?? hehe) tonight. it was ok. have to admit i wasn't hugely impressed.

since it's super late now (to some people, like me) i need to go to bed. practicing and bridge repair and all that coming up bright and late tomorrow morning.

does somebody have the html code to add a links link to my blog? so i can add everyone elses to mine. i know i found the code before, and put it on evan's blog, but now i can't find it again, and a few of the characters of the code just somehow slipped my mind. appreciate any help anyone can offer.

the champion has spoken

The latest, from SFA

today i had the honor of playing and singing (at the same time) a song for my accompanying class. yes, and not only that, i had the added pleasure of learning it in 45 minutes. thankfully none of you were there to hear it (at least i don't think so). anyway... they said "good job" and that was that. no more required singing for the rest of the semester. next fall i think i'll learn this lesson and prepare something before hand since i know he's (dr. petti, my accompanying teacher) going to demand it at the beginning of the semester. i ought to tape all us piano players singing for class when we do this assignment and put it on funniest home videos. yeah.

i believe i mentioned getting a bridge for my violin. well, i didn't have it put on by a "professional" because of the price. it would cost, like, ten times as much to have it put on as the price of the bridge itself. so i talked to dr rychev (my violin teacher's husband, not that any of you would care or necessarily know anything about either of them, but they are totally awsome) and he recommended that i have it done by a "professional." but when i whined about the cost and stuff and said i thought i might be able to do it myself, he kind of got this dreamy look in his eyes, and started talking about how he did it with his cello when he was my age. so he got all excited and started jabbering with his heavy accent and drawing diagrams to show me how to do it (pleeeease tell me dr. rychev is never going to read this blog.) :-p so i'm ready to try it. since i like doing this sort of thing, and since i'm so worried about doing it just right, i'm sure it will be fine. especially considering my level of playing and the other weird fixes i've already made to my violin (like the white electric cable tying the back of the strings to the end pin since the real stuff broke).

i found out that they have an intramurals table set up at the uc. and they do have intramural table tennis!! hurray! my wildest dreams come true!! so yeah. basically i have every intention of joining a team. which reminds me, i have a ping-pong-in-the-lobby appointment.

wow, everyone's doing great on the commenting. i feel guilty. i'll try to get around to comment on all y'alls blogs too.

Jordan the Great Has Spoken

p.s. maybe i'll show a picture of my violin with the new bridge whenever it's finished

so today i hardly had any classes, which was nice. i got a new bridge for my violin. did a little piano practice. the usual i guess. and i played some ping pong this evening. the first real game i've gotten to play since i got back to school. table tennis is absolutely the best. note to self to find out if there's a intramural table tennis team at sfa...hmmm. had a floor meeting today. i guess everyone knows how those are. we were told all kinds of stuff that matters ZILCH! but that's how it goes. i think i'm figuring out this music acoustics class. found a nifty powerpoint viewer download for FREEEE. SWEEEET. yes, free is always good. so with that viewer i can actually watch the professor's slide shows of lessons instead of sitting in the dark wondering what in the world all the stuff in the chapter i just read was talking about.

music theory homework (due at 8 in the moanin') is calling. why am i always so tired? why did i sign up for 8 o'clock classes?? blahblahblah.

how should i "sign out" from my posts? any suggestions? "love, jordan. bye. tata. see you later. that's all and please comment?" i dunno. ok, love, jordan sounds fine for now. bye!

love, jordan :-)

back to the grind stone

here i am, back at school. feeling mildy apprehensive about a couple of things, but in general ready to get this semester started. i now must get back in the habit of doing some mega practice time on the piano. the sfa chamber orchestra will be playing a mozart concerto and i will be their soloist. and since that is on, like, march 3! i better get moving. of course i've already learned it, but i didn't really even practice over christmas break and i'm a little rusty on it. other than that, the only thing i'm really very apprehensive about is this music accoustics physics class i'm taking. it's a "distance education" thingy (even though i'm on campus and the lab is on campus. how weird is that?) and i'm not entirely comfortable yet with how it's all going to be done... but i'm sure everything will work out. to any family and friends out there - yes, thank you for your congratulations - i'm finally in the blog world. if reading about these little tid bits of my life is the absolute most boring thing you've ever seen, feel free to let me know. i'm sure i can chant some sort of entaining nonsense to please you. but now, since it has already reached the unearthly hour of 8:30, i need to do some reading and get ready for bed. stay tuned, i WILL be back! maybe even with some more interesting news. till then, tata!