The Soloist

A couple summers ago I saw previews on TV for the movie The Soloist. I thought it looked interesting, but never actively made an effort to watch the movie once it came out. This fall, while looking through old documents on my computer, I found a random list of movies I wanted to watch someday. The Soloist was on the list. When Jonathan said he was sending a package to me, I asked him to add a few movies, including The Soloist. I got my package more than two months after he sent it, while he was visiting, actually. Tonight the power was off, but our generator was running. There was nothing much to do, but I wasn't ready to go to bed yet. So I got out my external hard drive, plugged it in and scrolled through my movies. The Soloist caught my eye. I didn't know what it was about, other than the few short clips I'd seen a year and a half earlier. I knew one of the characters played cello and I had got an impression that there was a reporter involved. I decided to watch it. It was haunting.

(Warning: Parents, grandparents, anyone else who wishes I was more committed to music, maybe now is a good time to stop reading this post.)

To be perfectly honest, I think one of my better decisions about this year was my choice to not bring my violin along with me to Tanzania. This past summer when people asked me if I was going to, I'd say a definite no. My parents asked me quite a few times during the months leading up to my departure. I said no. When Bryn left for Egypt in June she walked through security at the Kelowna airport with her computer case slung over one shoulder and her violin case dangling from the other. I thought about that while I packed to leave. Jonathan was helping me decide what to bring. I asked him if I should reconsider, if my violin should come along. He said it was up to me. I stuck with my earlier conviction. When the car rolled away from my house last August, my violin was safely lying in its case tucked away in a corner of our music room. I thoroughly enjoyed traveling through airports without the bulky case banging against my legs. And from the first week of being in Tanzania on, I've never regretted my decision to leave my violin at home. I know Bryn used her violin a lot in Egypt, at church, at campmeeting, even at a wedding. But (a) she has a degree in music while I struggled to stay excited about being in orchestra during the whole three years at SAU, and (b) TZ is different. Here people don't really play instruments, they sing. And I've really enjoyed experiencing that part of the culture without bringing in my western instrument and disturbing the African heritage.

I've fought my relationship with the violin ever since my mother tricked me into choosing it when I was four. There were days I hated going to lessons instead of being able to go over to my friends houses to play. Days I told my mum I wanted to retire (of course, she recorded these humourous-to-her/serious-to-me instances on the inside cover of my Suzuki music books). Days of standing alone in the music room tears rolling down my cheeks and onto the dark wood of the chin rest as I finished my practicing late at night after neglecting it all day. There were weeks of music institutes during summer. Of learning to sing entire pieces in solfege (not true solfege, the kind where C is always do, D is always re and so on). Of memorizing pages of music. Of preparing for spring music festivals. There were months of scales, arpeggios, double stop thirds, sixths and octaves. Picking studies, orchestral excerpts and unaccompanieds. Choosing List A, B and C pieces (concerto, sonata, show piece). Endless lessons with teachers and appointments with accompanists. Never-ending listening to tapes of ear tests, identifying intervals, clap-backs, play-backs. Whole years of music preparation just to take the Royal Conservatory of Music exams to pass into the next music grade. There were other obligations. Piano lessons, required theory classes, group practices, chamber orchestras, master classes and weekend music workshops. There were struggles to attempt to sight-read, arguments about whether I could or not. There were disappointing festival marks and unsatisfactory RCM exam grades. There were choices to be made: improve my skill, get more musical experience or keep the Sabbath? The latter always won out.

But there were also good memories. Completing a piece satisfactorily and moving on to a new one. Winning first place at festivals. Inventing new versions of hymns to play for church special music. Finding an amazing teacher who I looked up to and respected. Making friends with her other students. Driving with my mum and younger siblings to a town 40-minutes away two or three times a week for lessons and talking about everything under the sun on the trips there and back. Treats after lessons if we'd done well. Eating suppers in the car on the drive home. The annual Vernon Community Music School country fair with face painting, a petting zoo, pie auctions, a cake walk and mini-concerts from all the VCMS student groups. Getting out of school for several days to travel to music festivals in cities several hours ago, Penticton, Kamloops. Everyone staying together at motels, music floating down the halls in the evenings before and after racing to the pool and water slide for a quick reprieve in our rigorous schedules. Sprawled out on the floor or on pews with the other music students in the church balcony, listening to peers performing while working on homework from the days of school we missed. Running our fingers down the list of participants in the program, realizing our turn was coming soon, rushing to the bathroom to change into dress clothes, brush hair and do last-minute warm-ups before it was our turn to perform while others listened from the balcony. Feelings of friendship and support from the other students, even if we competed against each other. Cheering for those who went on to Provincials.

I watched The Soloist expecting to be intrigued by the journalism portrayed in the film. I was, but mostly because I noticed things the reporter did that we were taught in school not to do. (Don't take gifts from your sources {reporter accepted a soda}. Don't give gifts to your sources {source was given a cello, an apartment and private lessons with the first cellist of the LA philharmonic}. But, to be fair, he was a columnist, maybe those rules don't apply to them... Also, some of the gifts were given from column-readers, so I guess that doesn't break the rules.) But it was the music in the story that really drew me in. Nathaniel Anthony Ayers loved music more than anything else in the world. Lived for it. Breathed for it.

I almost understand Mr. Ayers. While I can't honestly say that I ever lived or breathed for music during the 22 years I've played violin, while I'm thoroughly enjoying this year of not being 'Alison, the oldest member of the Quiring trio,' I realized I do miss a part of it. I miss the disobedient thrill of holing up in my room with a classical CD of my piece playing, pretending to practice while really lounging on my bed reading a book behind my music. Although many times it was a pain, I miss unpacking my violin alongside my siblings and trying to come up with a suitable piece for special music the next morning at church, arguing with each other about bowings and who got to play the harmony part. I miss the nervous excitement of sitting in a half-empty church in the middle of a school day waiting for the current performer to finish, the adjudicator to scrawl out notes and advice for improvements and the secretary to call out my name so I could walk to the stage, announce my piece, place my violin under my chin, and draw the bow across the strings so the notes could escape the instrument, escape my brain.

Last year, in my last semester of university, I was absolutely sick of orchestra. I didn't like the pieces. I wasn't impressed that we only went on one short day tour the whole year. I had nothing to say to my stand partner. I wanted out. Now I'm out and I'm enjoy it. But, if I'm completely honest, I also miss it. The camaraderie in rehearsals, the frantic flipping of a page in the middle of an important passage, the hustle of dressing in black and rushing to the church in time for pre-performance last-minute run-throughs. The grinning after the last note, the applause from the audience after seconds of post-completion silence, the simultaneous rise to our feet at a motion from our conductor who whirled around to thank those listening with a series of bows. Moving your chair to part the orchestra like Moses did the Red Sea so she could leave the stage. I don't really miss playing the violin. I don't really miss playing in the Quiring trio. I don't really miss playing in orchestra. But I do miss the feeling of performing, of knowing the piece backwards and forwards, of being part of the rhythm of the piece without even trying.

That being said, I think I'd be quite fine to leave my violin in my case for a while longer yet. I know, I make no sense...
Is this whole musical autobiography one big oxymoron??

Orchestra

I just finished my last ever orchestra concert.  Now that is a weird feeling.  I've been in some form of orchestra for almost twelve years straight (minus the months I was an SM and the year I worked at home...and, of course, the summers) and it's been almost 17 years since I sat through my first orchestra rehearsal at the start of grade three.  WOW, 17 years?  I really doesn't seem all that long ago.

So, although I'm not feeling terribly nostalgic (at the moment, I'm pretty ready to be done with orchestras...which probably has something to do with senioritis), I figured I should give a little tribute to my former orchestra conductors.  Here they are:

Dr. Wolfe ~ CHAJA Orchestra ~ 1993-1996

Bev and Morna ~ Carriage House Orchestra ~ 1998-2003

Dr. Ritz ~ WWC Orchestra ~ 2003-2005

Mrs. Minner ~ SAU Symphony Orchestra ~ 2007-2010

Wow, that's quite a list.  I have to say that, except for a few years in the middle, I've had a great time being an orchestra member.  I'm just not sure if my sightreading has much improved in all those years.  Oh well.

As for the concert tonight.  Nothing exceptionally unusual happened, other than us not being quite ready for it.  We only had four weeks between our last concert and tonight to prepare so I guess we did alright for that amount of time.  And now I'm done.  It's a very interesting feeling, but not a terrible one.

Strawberry Fest

I might have just gone to my last senior recital of the year this afternoon.  Renee did her piano recital and it was really good.  I'm always amazed at her speaking ability.  Before her final piece she told the audience the story and she did a great job, both in the story-telling and the playing.  There's two more senior recitals, but I have all my convos now and I'm not really inclined to go to the last couple.  I'm getting tired of eating the same types of cake every week.  Of course I don't always have to eat the cake, but what is a senior recital reception without the cake?  Anyway, on to other things.

I went to Strawberry Fest tonight.  I was in a couple of the pictures!  I got my yearbook and ate free strawberry ice cream.  The year is winding down.  Wow, how did that happen?

Music seminar

Instead of going to vespers, Jonathan and I listened to the last section of Dr. Ashton's seminars on music from a SEYC several years ago.  They are really great and really make you think about the kind of music that churches should include in their worship service.  Bryn (who is currently in Dr. Ashton's Music and the Christian Church class) and I want our church to listen to the talks this summer when we get home from school.  I think our church could really benefit from his ideas on this subject.  Thanks goes to Jonathan for telling us about the seminars on AudioVerse and convincing us to listen to them.

If you'd like to listen to the seminars, click here.

Farewell song

Well, it's official. I'm a student in the best department (or School, rather) on this campus. Take a look and tell me I'm not right.

And to think, I almost skipped this convocation because I overslept. I'm SOO extremely thankful that Ty called me and woke me up because I would have been eternally sad to have missed this occasion. (I managed to miss this goodbye convocation for Ms. Caldwell a couple years ago...) While the farewell song was awesome, it's sad that Ms. Chamberlain is leaving. I'm just glad she didn't decide to leave before I graduated. She's truly an amazing teacher, like many others in the SJ&C.

Full office

Seems like all my Tuesday posts are about the Accent office.  Forgive me, interesting things have happened there in the past few weeks.  Besides there's only one week left of the Accent after today, so you won't have to read about it for too much longer.

Today Andrea came in and told us that there would be a group of people coming in to look over our shoulders and watch what each of us does - her next year staff.  She had told them that they should come around 8 or 8:30 since that's when most people are in the office.  Usually that's true for me, but tonight was Jonathan's bass recital so I had to leave before 7:30 and run to the music building.  I didn't get back to the office until just after 9, and by then it was filled with students who are in News Reporting right now (and one graphic design major).  They had taken all the extra seats in the office and were sitting in a circle (some people were even sitting on the floor) in the middle of the office.  I grabbed a page off the board and started reading through it standing up.  But that got uncomfortable really fast so I went out to the student center and pushed one of the chairs into the office, making it more crowded.  Anyway, the point is that we usually have six or seven people in the office at a time, but tonight there were six extra bodies filling the not-really-huge room.  It was pretty cramped.  And then the next year staff were having a big discussion about who else they should get for the positions that weren't filled yet.  It was kind of hard for us current staff to communicate with each other.  And also hard to objectively look at the news articles since most of the people in the office had written them and were listening for any hints about what we thought of them.

After most other people had left, the potential next year news editor stayed around to ask me all about my job since I wasn't around earlier when he'd first come in.  So I had to stop editing and tell him about that, which was fine but meant I couldn't leave as early as I thought I'd be able to.  Oh well, I'm glad that Andrea's getting her team together now and having them come in and talk to us.  I wish I'd had that opportunity last year because then I wouldn't have just come in cold at the start of this school year.  I'm really curious what the Accent will be like next year with all these sophomores running the operation (well I guess they'll be juniors by then).  OK, I'm done now.

Almost.  Just wanted to add that Jonathan's recital was great.  It's always interesting to hear bass solos cause you usually just hear them play in orchestras on jazz ensembles.

Celebratory meal

We had a lot to celebrate tonight so we went to the VM after orchestra and got two frozen pizzas for a celebratory meal. What were we celebrating, you ask? Well, first, Bryn did her senior recital jury and passed. She didn't have to play anything again for the professors and now just has to do her senior recital (April 13 for any of you who need convo credit or just want to come because you like classical music) to be able to graduate. Second, Jonathan did a test to challenge Discrete Math, which he needed to graduate. He said he felt it went well so we figured that was a good reason to celebrate.

And finally (and least importantly since it didn't impact whether I would graduate or not), I did my last debate for Mass Communication & Society. It was on digital strategies and my position was that the Internet and new media are debasing journalism. I half believe that stance and half don't, but apparently all the media world don't agree with that position because it was super hard to find any sources to back what I was supporting. In any case, I did find a few and I think I made a pretty good argument despite not having too many great sources. I did plan out a pretty great rebuttal and James, my opponent, played right into my hands on that one. I think my rebuttal was probably one of the strongest parts of my debate, so for that I'm pretty happy. Anyway, so now the only thing I have left to do in that class is my 10-12 page research paper. Man, I can't wait until graduation...

A Suite Concert

I don't think I've ever been so happy to be done with an orchestra concert as I am tonight. I was getting so sick of going to orchestra rehearsal three times a week and playing those same suites over and over again. But now we're done and we can start on our new pieces for our last concert of the school year! There's not too much to report on about the concert. I think it went pretty good. At least the crowd seemed to appreciate it, giving us a lengthy standing ovation. I'll take that as a good sign.

Good-bye "suite" concert music. Hello new music.

Turtle Island Quartet

I went to the double convocation tonight. Danielle had me thinking it was going to be great (I think she saw them play or maybe did some work with the cellist at a music camp or something like that) so I got one of the free tickets for their 8:30 concert. After two songs I was bored out of my mind. Not that the group wasn't good. They each played pretty well and the songs sounded good. It's just that every single song sounded exactly the same to me. That's my opinion of jazz. I feel kind of bad saying it, but it's true; jazz is boring. I came to that conclusion at Walla Walla where they added a saxophone or bass to song services to jazz things up, literally. I mean jazz is fine in moderation, but there's a limit to how much a person can handle at one time. So, throughout the entire concert, I was sitting in Ackerman wishing the Turtle Island Quartet was playing Cape Breton fiddle music. Forgive me, I'm Canadian. I can definitely relate better to the trills and reels Celtic music than to the slides and dissonance of the jazz style.

Bittersweet visitation

When I woke up this morning I decided to stay in bed for a bit and start a new book. The one I finished last night was part of the Dear Canada series (yes, I'm pretty sure it's a copycat of the Dear America books) about a slave girl from Virginia who escaped with her family to West Canada (modern-day Ontario) during the Civil War. The book I started today "The Unfinished Angel" by Sharon Creech is written very differently than any book I've ever read. I'll probably do a review of it on Enjambments when I'm finished with it though, so I'm not going to spend much time talking about it here. While I was chatting online to Jonathan, my friend Jodi called so I spent about an hour on the phone with her catching up on her life and telling her about mine. It was nice to hear from her again, but it definitely would have been better to see her in person. Oh well. She spent Christmas with her brother and sister-in-law in Spokane and then went to Walla Walla to visit her grandparents before going back to Alberta. After that I was planning to get some of my stuff together and start packing since we're flying down to Seattle tomorrow evening, but that never happened. At this point in time I'm unsure if I'll even be finished packing by the time we have to leave for the airport. I don't even want to think about it since I'm not sure what's going to happen once we get to the airport. Since the Christmas Day airplane bombing attempt most international flights to the States have new security measures and many airlines aren't allowing carry-ons at all. I sincerely hope that rule relaxes before we fly out tomorrow since Bryn and I brought home our violins and we sure don't want to be checking them. Oh well, whatever happens happens. I'm not going to worry about it tonight.

We had a really early supper, well at least it was early by our standards. We ate around 4 p.m. and then cleaned up the kitchen and got ready for a night of visiting. We started by dropping by my friends Brad and Sharlet's house to see their new daughter. She was a week old on Thursday. She's pretty tiny and pretty adorable and Bryn, my mum and I took turns holding her and getting pictures with her. Then Brad and Sharlet gave us a tour of their new place. They've only been in it for two months now so it's pretty new to them. Finally we let them have their baby back and then drove down to the hospital to visit Auntie Beth. She seemed in a better mood then when Mum and I were there to see her yesterday. My mum read her an e-mail and then I asked her some Bible questions from a trivia game my mum had brought with her. Then Bryn read another e-mail, Ty read a short story from the Women of Spirit magazine and then we sang a few songs to her before my dad closed the visit with a prayer. Then we drove to Vernon, a town 40 minutes north of us, where we visited our former pastor and his wife. They have been family friends of both my mum and my dad's side of the family for years and have been like an extra set of grandparents to us kids throughout the years. I really wish I had the words to describe how Pastor Teranski and his wife have impacted my life. Maybe someday I'll be able to find the right words to say, but for now I'll just say that they've always encouraged and mentored us in life whether in our music, or studies or just choices that we had to make. I so appreciate their input and guidance. The best picture I can give you to describe Pastor Teranski is that he is an extremely kind-hearted and caring man, who adores jokes, riddles and puns. He's of Ukrainian descent and his favourite jokes are Ukrainian jokes. He will never pass up an opportunity to tell a good Ukrainian joke. For years Pastor Teranski has raised money for new churches in Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union. He has traveled to Ukraine many times to dedicate the churches and to put on evangelistic meetings. When I was seven or eight, my mum and her sister went along with the Teranski's and did the VBS and children's meetings for 500 children a night while Pastor Teranski held evangelistic series for three weeks. A couple years later my dad went along with the Teranski's on another visit to Ukraine. Mrs. Teranski is as petite as he is rotund, but they compliment each other perfectly. She always would be playing the piano for church services and meetings and she played so beautifully. I hope that gives you a bit of a picture of the Teranski's.

The visit was bittersweet for me. I care for the Teranski's quite a lot and it's hard for me to see people I care about hurting. Mrs. Teranksi was diagnosed with Alzheimer's about a year and a half ago. The first time I saw her after I heard about her diagnosis was right after I came back from my first year at Southern. I was at our high school gym for the Mini-Campmeeting that our valley has during a weekend in May when I ran into Pastor Teranski. I gave him a big hug and then turned to give one to Mrs. Teranski, too. She was happy to hug me, but then asked her husband, "Now, who is this young girl?" He looked both shocked and terribly pained as he explained who I was. Then she said, "Oh yes, of course I know you," and the rest of the conversation went on normally. This past summer our family went to visit the Teranski's just before Ty left to come back to Southern early for RA duties. Mrs. Teranski seemed to know and recognize our whole family and was pretty good with carrying on a conversation with us and remembering trips to Ukraine with Pastor Teranski and my parents. This visit was different. Right from stepping into their warm kitchen from the chilly outdoors, I could tell Mrs. Teranski was worse off. She kept interrupting sentences with nonsensical phrases. Her words made sense, but not the way she arranged them into sentences. My mum and I sat on either side of her on the couch and tried to respond to her ramblings so that she wouldn't feel left out of the conversations, but it was hard to do that and try to follow what Pastor Teranski was saying. He questioned each of us kids about our schooling and how things were going down in Tennessee and asked about our cousin, Breanna, as well. Of course we slipped in several jokes, too. Then my mum told Tyler to bring our instruments in from the car and joked to Mrs. Teranski that she would have to play the piano to accompany us. We'd brought our instruments along to play some songs for the Teranski's. They've always been so encouraging of our music and Pastor Teranski has always promised to take us with him to Ukraine to play for the churches there that he goes to dedicate. Up to now we still haven't gone, but he mentioned tonight that he feels really urgently about fulfilling his promise to us. He talked about how he was thinking of going back there in June once more to dedicate several new churches that have been built since his last trip. As we got out our instruments Mrs. Teranski stood up from the couch and carefully made her way to the piano. At first we thought she just wanted to be closer to us to hear us better, but then she fumbled with a songbook sitting on the stand. My dad got up to help her flip through the pages and then she stopped at one song and placed her shaky fingers on the piano keys. "Audrey, why don't we just listen to the kids play?" Pastor Teranski tried to encourage, but she broke in. "Let's play a song together," she said to us and pressed the keys. The first few bars were filled with mistakes and incorrect notes. I didn't know the song. Neither did Bryn or Ty, but after quickly glancing at each other, we all started to play along. As we got close to the end the incorrect notes faded into beautiful chords and Mrs. Teranski continued right on to the second verse, the violins and cello following her lead. My dad sang the words and my mum joined in. Pastor Teranski sat in his chair listening to the harmonies fill the living room. As we finished the song, she immediately start flipping more pages, but then Pastor Teranski suggested to her that maybe the Hymnal would be easier for her to play from than the Christ in Song book so my dad got that and helped her find the Christmas section. We played "Away in a Manger" with her and during that song Pastor Teranski was wiping his eyes. He seemed so amazed to see his wife still playing the piano like she has always loved to do and that she was still able to do it quite well. She kept apologizing between songs that she hadn't practiced in a long time and that she wasn't very good, but we made sure to tell her she was doing great. Next we played "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World" with her and for each song she wanted to do all of the verses. Then she wanted to try out some non-Christmas songs and had a harder time with those. It almost broke my heart to watch her try to figure out "All Creatures of our God and King" with two sharps. She could figure out the C sharp, but not the F sharp and she kept playing the first line over and over again and trying to get the F sharps, but the chords kept turning out minor. Bryn tried to show her which key to play, but then in the end my dad found "Softly and Tenderly" and we played that instead to end off. Then Pastor Teranski told her she had done a great job and now she should take a break and just listen to us play. So we played our version of "All Creatures" that we played for church at school at the start of December and they both really enjoyed it. We told them about how we didn't know we were supposed to be playing for communion and that we decided to dial back the rhythms a bit to be more appropriate and Pastor Teranski thought that was so funny. He just let out huge Pastor Teranski-esque guffaws and we all grinned to see him so humoured by our story. Then he made us sit down while he cut up some slices of a Ukrainian poppy-seed dessert for us to try. It was an acquired taste, but by the end of the slice Bryn and I shared I kind of liked it, minus the raisins embedded in the pastry. Then, after a few more jokes and enquiries about family and friends, we gathered together for a prayer before exchanging hugs and saying good-bye until the next time we get to see each other again. Just before we left Pastor Teranski said again that he wanted to take us to Ukraine with him in June. I think if we don't go soon, it won't happen so we'll see what happens with that. We all, including my dad, want to go with him. Anyway, I'm extremely glad we took the time to drive all the way to visit them. They're very special people to us all.

When we got home we made hot chocolate while my dad brought in some wood and built a nice roaring fire in our fireplace. Then we sat around the fire drinking our hot chocolate flavoured with peppermint stir spoons. Somehow we got around to talking about how my parents ever started dating and found out some new things about them. Those kinds of conversations are usually quite interesting and informative. Then my mum read a story from a "Christmas in My Heart" book and then I read another short one. It was a good ending to a kind of happy, kind of sad, day.

Away in a Manger

Happy Christmas to all my readers! I can say, from years of experience, that probably the most obnoxious way to get woken up in the morning is by someone jumping on you. I know this because every Christmas morning my younger siblings come wake me up sometime between 6 and 6:30 a.m. by jumping on me. This morning I was already slightly awake so I heard someone running through the kitchen and dining room. I tried to roll into a ball to protect myself but before I could, Ty was already in my room pouncing on me. I was surprised that Bryn wasn't with him because usually one of them wakes the other up (of course by jumping on him/her) and then they jointly come to wake me up. Bryn showed up two minutes later so I got jumped on twice. Usually I greet this treatment with some gruff-sounding mumblings, pull the covers back up to my chin (they always pull them off), and stuff my head under my pillow. But since I was already kind of awake by the time they showed up, my grumbling session was shortened and I was soon up and racing into the living room with them to check out our stockings. We waited for my parents to come join us and then we all opened our stockings. I was surprised by the number of books that can be fit in or nearly in a stocking. I'm really not sure how I'll be able to read them all before break is over. I haven't even finished "Harriet" yet, but I'll try to work on that this coming week and then get through a couple of my new books. I read two of the small kids picture books already this morning between stocking and Christmas present-opening time. One of our traditions on Christmas morning is to open our stockings really early and then to make hot chocolate and/or freshly-made coffee cake and drink/eat it either during or right after opening our Christmas presents. We also hand out all the presents from under the tree to each person and then we just go around the circle each opening one present at a time. None of this ripping all the presents open at the same time for us. We use a orderly method to prolong the package-opening ceremonies. I got quite a few awesome gifts. Actually they're all awesome. But I have to say, my most surprising (and therefore most memorable) present was a voice recorder. Now I just have to figure out how to use all the features, but I'm sure my dear brother will help out with that. We tried it out on my grandparents this afternoon and we were both pretty impressed with the sound quality. The recorder will help out my interviewing so much, especially to get exact quotes! I'm excited to try it out when I get back to school.

After the presents were all opened and hugs were exchanged were brought our stuff to our rooms. Then we talked to my older three siblings. Ty skyped my older brother Mark and his family and that was hilarious. The kids were so excited to see us all on the screen and they showed us all their new toys and other assorted items Santa had given them. We also got to see their new-to-them dog, who is really cute. I can't wait to meet her in person . . . or in canine-son. Then Coral and Tucker sang "O Tannenbaum" for us. Well, Tucker sang the words in pretty good German and Coral spent the entire song dancing, jumping and twirling all over the room. I'd say she must be a Q. cause her jumps looked a lot like the ones I experience every Christmas morning. When that call was over we all took showers and got to work on the Christmas dinner preparations. Then my grandparents came over. Bryn, Ty, my grandpa and I set up the crokinole board and, after us kids practice our shooting a little bit to regain a little bit of skill, we played a game. Sadly, Ty and I lost to Bryn and my grandpa with the final score being 105-50. I'd say we were sorely beaten although it was a pretty close game at the start. Then we ate Christmas dinner, which was amazingly filling, like Christmas dinner's should be. We were all so stuffed full, in fact, that we vetoed dessert for the time being and listened to my mum read a couple Christmas stories instead. Then we had sundown worship and played a Bible trivia game, guys against girls. The girls won 25-22 so at least I won one game today. When worship was over my dad and Tyler took my grandparents home and then Bryn, my parents and I went to the hospital to visit my great-aunt, my grandma's sister, who has been in the hospital for a week and a couple days because of asthma-related problems. She was really glad to see us, especially since all her roommates were either moved to other rooms or gone for the holiday. We talked to her and read her some e-mails from church friends and family members who live far away. Then the nurse came to assess her and visiting hours were over so we left.

Now my siblings and I just finished figuring out what we're going to play for our church Christmas program tomorrow. We thought we'd play one of the songs we did with orchestra for the School of Music Christmas concert, but that sounded pretty bad with just us three, so we tried a few other ideas, none of which worked out too well. Then Ty said we should just do something easy, like "Away in a Manger" Bryn started playing it and Ty joined in with the rhythm from the version of "All Creatures of Our God and King" we made up. I came in with a harmony part and that's how we decided what we'll play. It's weird how we just play around with things and get kind of discouraged and frustrated that things aren't working out and then all of a sudden something comes to one of us and we all contribute ideas to make it awesome and a new version of a song is created. What a weird process. But it seems to work. Bryn and I tried out some different ways to change up the verses and I had the idea to do a round kind of thing for the first verse. It sounded really cool at the start, but had some clashing notes in certain parts so then I tried coming in a bit later. It worked sounded weird. So then I tried waiting a bit longer to come in and it worked all really good until the last two lines and then that part sounded just awful together. We were almost ready to toss that idea aside when I realized I could just switch to playing a harmony part at the place where it started to sound bad and we could finish play in unison instead of a round. We tried it and it sounded good. So we kept that idea. Then just a little more tweaking made it sound reasonable. I hope it's not too short though. "Away in a Manger" is a pretty short song so we thought up four verses and an ending, but it still seems not that long. Anyway, the audience will just have to be happy with what we play. Hopefully it goes well tomorrow.

Christmas concert

Today we had our last orchestra concert of 2009. We did the School of Music Christmas concert for vespers last night for the students and then this afternoon we did the exact same concert for the community members. I was relieved that our concert this year wasn't anything like oratorios or anything like the concerts we've done for other years. I don't enjoy them nearly as much and they take a lot more work to bring together and sound good. This year choir took the brunt of the work load and orchestra only had to play a few songs, which I liked since we got out of rehearsals a lot earlier and even got to miss a few rehearsals. While actually performing the concerts though I realized that the only downfall of not playing a full work was that it was actually not that interesting to be involved in. For most of the concert we just sat up on stage listening to all the other groups play/sing. Oh well. There were some interesting parts. One was last night between the final two songs. Just as we finished the second last song Dr. Kibble, who was sitting behind the first violins, did a shouting whisper of, "Mrs. Minner, Mrs. Minner, Laurie! Can you get her attention?" We tried to pass the message up through the ranks of violinists but, before we could, the narrator started reading. Mrs. Minner's head shot sideways in surprise since she was gearing up to start our final piece. Dr. Kibble whispered, "It's OK, just wait," and, although Mrs. Minner looked rather startled and confused, she went along with the new plan and waited until the narrator was done reading before starting the last song. There had been just enough time for all the people on stage who needed to move either off the stage or to another location on stage. Anyway it all worked out in the end and the concert came off without a hitch. The concert today went smoothly as well and now we're done until next semester. Yay!

After the concert Bryn, Ty and I found my older brother Mark and his family and talked to them for a few minutes before they took us out to eat at Lupi's. It was nice to see them again and hang out as a family. And the pizza was great, too! Now we have a few people over to our apartment to make and eat cookies and other dessert-type foods and drink hot chocolate as we listen to Christmas music and watch a movie a little later on. I love this time of year!

Subconscious singing

My family has an affliction. I call it The Singing Disease. We sing all the time. This is mostly evident when my younger siblings and I are at home for breaks. When the three of us and our parents are all in the house together there is probably at least one of us singing at pretty much any point in time (and many times more than one). Some of my family members sing normal songs. This would include my sister Bryn and my brother Tyler. They go around the house singing or humming typical songs that most everyone can understand. I call them the Normal Singers. Then there's my dad. He combines singing with a strange type of humming. I call him the Hum-Singer. I've never heard anyone else in the world try to Hum-Sing. I'd really like to explain the sound to you all, but I fear there are no words to express it. Here is my humble attempt. The Hum-Sing isn't really singing or humming. It's more like half humming and half doing that thing where you use dum-dee-dee-dums to "sing" a song instead of actual words. Most of the time Dad Hum-Sings with his dum-dee-dee-dums to hymn-like tunes. I'm not sure if any of that explanation got the idea across, but maybe I'll just have to get a recording of it during Christmas break. Then there's the Subconscious Singers of the family, my mum and me. We have the ability to sing without even know we're singing. Now if you are the one subconsciously singing there is no problem. You can be going about your business and joyously singing to your heart's content with no problems. But if you are listening to an unconscious singer, you will probably go crazy. This is because the Subconscious Singer does not usually sing typical songs. I know, from years of my mum driving us to a town 40 minutes north for music lessons two or three times a week, that being subjected to unconscious singing for a long enough period of time with no way to escape will drive you batty. Despite this knowledge I still have trouble stopping myself from engaging in subconscious singing, especially when I'm around family members or people I'm completely comfortable with. I think my siblings can attest that this is true. One time I submitted them to a five minute rendition of my thoughts on hot dogs. It was only when they told me what I'd been singing that I realized I'd joined my mother in the status as Subconscious Singer. And now you know just a little bit more about the weird and wacky family I come from.

Cave Exploration

Well, I think our special music went OK. Several people told us that they really enjoyed it, so that's always good to hear. When we got to the church for our sound check Robbie told us that Pastor Nixon was still speaking for the second service so we waited in the back until that service was over. Ty had talked to some of the people in charge of the communion and had found out that we weren't playing for a traditional special music, but rather the special music was going to be during the time the deacons handed out the bread and wine. I started worrying that our song would be too raucous for that, but then we decided that since it was Renewal we wouldn't worry about it Then they had to convert the stage from a girls choir and handbells to be ready for a praise team and a string quartet. Finally when they were done that Robbie told us to go on stage and do a quick sound check. Lots of the people were already filling the pews for Renewal so that was a bit weird, but it was fine. We did the sound check and then, after putting our instruments in the back again, we sat down near the front of the sanctuary. We left to go backstage when Nixon started his sermon and as soon as he was done we filed on stage and then started playing as the deacons started receiving the plates of bread and wine. After we were done the deacons still had a few more pews to serve and we were just supposed to stand quietly on the stage until they came back to the front of the church. It was a little awkward, but I tried to make it look like that was the plan, so hopefully that came across. We talked to each other afterward and said that, had we known earlier that it was going to be for that particular time in the service, we could have added another verse. Oh well. Maybe next time, haha. Anyway afterward we heard good comments from people so I'm happy. It was really fun to perform again actually, especially for a church a little bigger than our home church.

In the afternoon Jonathan brought his cousin, Tom, Bryn, Ty and me out to a neat cave north on I-24. Bryn and Ty had to leave early, but Jonathan, Tom and I explored one whole arm of the cave until we came to a place that had caved in or something like that. Jonathan had been to that cave twice before and he remembered it going farther, but every direction we tried to take led to dead-ends so we finally had to give up. It was still a lot of fun, even though we had to walk through a very cold stream, squish through tons of mud and try not to disturb the bats (who were adorable, by the way). When we came out of the cave it was dark and we were frozen until coming back to our respective dwellings for really hot showers. Of course, before we got all showered and clean we took pictures of how dirty we got.

Special Music

Before break one of Ty's friends asked him if the three of us Q.'s could do special music for the Renewal service tomorrow. Ty asked Bryn and I and we agreed. He wanted to do an arrangement of "All Creatures of Our God and King" that we had made up in the summer and played at our home church. So when we met for the first time to practice it this week we played through what we could remember and thought it sounded rather weak and bland. Then we came up with a great plan, one that was both simple and would give us more depth than just our trio: ask Jonathan to play his bass with us. I asked him and he said sure. The next time we met together he came and the song with the bass sounds just so much better. So we'll see how it goes tomorrow. I just found out this afternoon that it's communion at the church tomorrow and our song is a bit upbeat rhythm-wise, but it's just for the special music so I think it should be fine. I'll let you all know.

Mastering words

Here is the concluding blog post that was inspired by last Tuesday's (Sept. 15) discussion in Creative Writing class...

Topic 2: Becoming a master
In high school whenever I started learning a new piece, my violin teacher always reminded me that I had to learn the correct notes, the right rhythm and the ever-changing dynamics as they were written in the score before I could take the song and change it around to make it my own. I had to know the piece so well, so completely, that I could play the entire thing exactly as the music indicated. Then, and only then, could I take that music I knew so well and start changing it - holding certain notes for longer than they were supposed to be held, playing with roboto and adding my own feeling and expression - to make it my own.

Last week in Creative Writing, Janelle mentioned something similar in class about how before a person can become a master at poetry (s)he has to follow all the guidelines and obey all the rules. She was using that idea in the context of poetry, but, as I explained above, I understand the concept better in the context of music.

I wonder if I'll ever get to the master stage in my writing. Will a time ever come where I can break a rule or two here or there? Will the rest of my writing be so solid, so unmistakably perfect, that I can tweak a word, a spelling, a punctuation mark, to make the writing 100 percent my own? All I can do is try to make the switch in my brain from music to writing. Wish me luck.

Audition

Today I had my orchestra seating audition. I never really get scared for auditions, but I never really do all that well either since I have some eye problems that make reading music really difficult for me. I basically just listen to the pieces lots and memorize most of the music by the time we have our concerts. Anyway, Bryn and I went over to the music building around 11 a.m. and practiced until our auditions, which were just before 1 p.m. I felt like mine went all right at the start because the first few sections were the ones I knew pretty well and could mostly play by memory already. The ones further back in the piece were more difficult for me, but I think they went semi-OK. In any case, auditions are over so now I can relax and not worry about that anymore. Yay, one more thing crossed off my list of things to worry about!

Notes vs. Words

Back in my early years of high school I had a brief aspiration to become a composer. Of course, that was before I started music theory. Soon after beginning theory lessons I realized I wasn't a very good theory student. While I reluctantly followed the traditional rules of music, I felt constantly cramped and constricted by them. Following the rules simply because "that's how it's always done" bothered me. Many times I'd ask my theory teacher why I couldn't just write music the way I wanted it to sound. I never got a satisfying answer, but I continued taking theory lessons, to compliment my violin and piano lessons, until I graduated from high school (although my fantasy of being a world renowned composer disappeared somewhere in the middle of my first year of theory lessons).

Thinking back, I'm glad I had the desire to be a composer even though it was short lived. It reminded me, during those years when my career goal changed every semester (or sometimes every month), of my true dream — to inspire others. The difference is that now, instead of trying to use music notes, I use words.