OSU and Nostalgia

I feel guilty about not blogging too often. You would think that with writing journals everyday, this would be super easy, but I have to think about what I want freely displayed on the internet. There are stories about people at ProMusica (not necessarily bad stories but still I don’t want to invade people’s privacy or anything) that are better off left at ProMusica, and there are thoughts too raw to publish for the world just yet. By that I mean, at this point I have rediscovered the true art of journal writing which I haven’t really made use of since middle school. In all academic writing the purpose is to make a point. But the purpose of writing a journal is to find one. If you were to read the journals that I used to keep semi-regularly when I was younger, which you won’t, you would see that my thoughts jump around but then combine together in the process of writing. In an academic paper, you’re supposed to have finished making these connections and what have you by the time you start writing. You begin with a goal in mind. With walkabout journals, the goal is to just write until the page fills up. This can yield interesting results, and my inner perfectionist isn’t ready to just copy+paste them into a blog. What do you mean I do the same thing when I write a blog? Lies!

So I may as well start with Thursday. I didn’t write a journal on Thursday because I didn’t go to Walkabout; I played with the band at OSU and went home. Well, that was the plan. I actually played with the band at OSU, went to choir (well, hung out with Jesse in a practice room) and went to Prospice and then went home. It’s a good thing the OSU concert was informal, because we weren’t really ready for a real performance. I think overall we played decently though. What’s more, I really enjoyed the experience. I realized that if I could just go to band everyday and that were it, I would be perfectly happy. I guess that makes my intended major in performance sound like a good choice. One would expect that to lift my spirits more than it does. I guess I wish I would suddenly come to some other conclusion, something that I could be more confident about. I need to find more confidence somewhere if I’m to go through with this performance thing. Things can still change though: either my goals or my disposition to them, or both.

I was disappointed that the choir didn’t actually do any work. Mr. Griffin hadn’t managed to sleep much the night before and realized early in the day that he was in no disposition to teach. I still got to say hello and everything. Plus, I was happy to spend time with Jesse. I did some thinking when we were in the practice room. Jesse was playing songs she had written on the piano. I’ve barely done any “composing” (hahaha, I’ve done no composing—I’ve done musical doodling) ever, but through formal piano training I was able to show off my awesome arsenal of piano repertoire. Jesse has taken a few piano lessons here and there, but she’s done a lot more musical doodling. The songs mostly aren’t overly complicated, although she’s tried using more interesting progressions lately. The problem is, she hasn’t finished these songs. But even though I can say “oh! Tritone substitution!” Even though I can recognize patterns, I really don’t feel confident trying to make stuff up myself. I think that’s kind of too bad. I’d like to mess around with that some when “free time” happens.