Transitions Update- Family

This is my final update as the semester comes to a close, so I thought it appropriate to talk about who has helped me make it through the semester. My family. I love how my family never ceases to come through for me. All of those times that I forgot to bring my paper and my mom takes the time to find and email it to me last minute. All of those times that I forget something at home and my dad takes the time out of his day to bring it to me. And my sister, who is nice enough to drive me everywhere. My younger siblings who always make my day better.

I have come to appreciate the time I get to spend with them more. In high school, homeschooling, I saw them every minute of every hour of every day. Now, i'm lucky to see them in the mornings for a little bit, if they are awake, and when I come home for dinner. I am very greatful for a family that loves and cares for me, is always there for me, always eager to help me succeed, and keeps me set straight no matter what I'm going through.

 

This girl, UGH! what would I do without her! I think I can solidly argue that I have the best older sister in the world. She's always there for me, no matter what I need. Always ready to hear about my little "Freshman problems" and help me fix them.  

My awesome parents! Ever-ready to get me out of any scrape that I can't get out of myself. Always loving me and worrying about me.

 My little sister who helps keep me crazy.

 

 

Baby Brother #1, who should seriously be the next Andrea Boccelli, and if not, then Frank Sinatra will do just fine.

 And Baby Brother #2 who's always there to give me hugs and kisses when I'm feeling down. I couldn't decide which picture was cuter, so I'll just let you decide.

  Love these people so much! These guys are my support group, my team. They're always there for me, and I am so so SO grateful for them every day.

 

 

Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

Here it comes!

Here it comes! The end of the semester! Packed full with nerves and excitement all blended together until you can't tell the difference between the two. Nerves about Juries, and vespers, the upcoming semester, finals and final grades. Excitement for the holidays and perfomances. It's all coming around. By now I have started to feel some relief alongside the tension. Some classes are coming to a close while others are going at full speed. Registration is over and done, I am signed up for every class I needed/wanted. Next week is Thanksgiving and I get a little breath of rest and relief.

 

Looking back, I feel so blessed to have had so many oppotunities come up. I have gotten to perform at Paten Elementary, a friend's art show, another friend's wedding, and am looking at maybe another opportunity to play at a Christmas party next month. I also feel a little overwhelmed at how much I feel I have learned in such a short span of time, particularly about music. If you had given me a sheet of music this past summer and told me to sing it to you then and there, I never would have been able to. If you had played an inerval and told me to name it I probably couldn't have without some struggle. If you had asked me spell out the chords in a scale or write out a simple melody for the progression, I would have looked at you like you were crazy, and I NEVER would have thought I could learn so much on piano so quickly! And it all does seem like it happened so quickly. I still remember going to commencement speeches and fall regisration like it was only last week, and now the semester's about to be over soon.

 

 I'm excited for next semester and what it has in store for me. New friendships, new things to learn, new opportunities. If next semester goes half as well as this one did, I will be very happy :)

Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

Mistakes and Learning

Mistakes have played a big part in my learning, both academically and musically. In writing, mistakes and revision are what make for great writing. The more mistakes you find and fix, the better your writing will become. This has been very true of my learning to write. I remember a few particular papers in high school that I wrote, thinking I had done a great job. I turned them in to my mom, and when I got them back, they were marked up with corrections. Only when they were pointed out to me was I able to see how terrrible some of the wording sounded, all of the grammar issues, spelling errors, "messiness" in my ideas, and bad structure. Learning to fix these mistakes has made and continues to make me a better writer. So I  guess you could say that it isn't the mistakes that teach you, but rather learning to fix them. This went over to math too. My mom was a good teacher in that she made me work, and work hard for my grade to ensure that I reall knew my stuff. In math, if I wasn' getting it, she wouldn't just stamp on a bad grade and move on. She would make me do the same or similar exercises over and over again until I got it and it clicked. This frustrated me for a while, but it ultimately led to mastery of the materials. Realizing the mistakes helped reveal my weaknesses so we could pinpoint and refine them until I had it all down. The same went for my music. My teacher would help me pinpoint my weak spots and we would work on them over and over until they were fixed. We wouldn't stop until all of the tranitions were smooth, the duds were gone, and the tone was perfect. As you can see, realizing your mistakes and learning to fix them is very important. Though they may sting for a little while at first, they bring beauty to the finished product and confidence in your own mastery.



Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

Update on my Transition into College

Yesterday, I was walking across campus thinking about how well and how smoothly  my transition has gone from high school to college. For me coming to college hasn't felt like a huge deal. This is thanks to my older sister, who we call "the family guineapig." Since she is the oldest, she always has to experience the huge life milestones before anyone else in the family. She was the first to homeschool through high school and graduate, first to get her driver's license, and then first to go to college. With all these things, I have always had the chance to get used to the idea of things before having to experience them for myself. The same was true for college. She had already started here at TLU last fall, before my senior year, so I kind of knew what to expect. Now, here I am.

 

Thinking about where I probably was at this exact moment last year. I woul probably be sitting in my bed, in my pajamas (don't say "lucky homeschoolers" just yet!), reading my physics chapter trying to make heads or tails of it alone, or writing one of the two 3 page essays I had due every week, plus written homework responses and all of the reading I had to do. Just the usual routine I have had over the past 12 years of my education. Now, here I am going from class to class like it's no big deal.

 

The routine has become fused in my mind already, and like I said earlier, I don't find it wierd anymore. My study habits are improving and declining at the same time. My procrastination levels are still about the same, but I am more focused since I have bigger goals now that I have my mind set on college. My junior year, I loathed the idea of college. I thought, "what is the use of spending tons of money for classes I don't even care about. I want to teach music!" Now, I see it as improving myself to help me improve my future students and the extra classes help make me a well-rounded person academically (TLU has me sold over the "liberal arts education" idea). The better I become, the better I can help them become. This "bigger picture" focus, helps to keep me set to my work.

 

However, now I don't have my mom here to make sure I'm working on my essays instead of on facebook. Responsibility is about the same, although in different ways. In high school, I was responsible for both teaching myself the material, and making sure that I learned it well. This is a HUGE load for any person of any age, and has really matured me. Now, in college, I just have to take notes, and make sure I'm learning enough to pass the tests and (in the case of music classes) make sure I am prepared for my career. In this way, responsibility has even decreased a little. In other life areas, however, I have had more responsibility placed on me. I don't have my mom to make sure I'm where I need to be on time, I am responsible for managing my own money, and as I mentioned earlier am solely responsible for getting my work done.

Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

Confidence in Talking to Myself

In Virgil's Aenid, he writes "Possunt quia posse videntur" or "they can because they think they can" (17). This is very true in any type of performance situation, whether sports, your job, school or in my case music. In this past week, God has blessed me with three performance opportunities. As a performance major, this is a BIG deal, since this is all great work experience and music resume material. 

I was invited last minute this past Saturday to play at an old friend's (who had been in the same guitar studio when I started taking lessons) wedding. Since we had just talked about this blog post in class the day before I was invited, this was a great opportunity to see my confidence- or lack of it- in action. I took careful note of what kept going through my head as I prepared. When I was first asked to play at his wedding, my first immediate mental reaction was"No! I can't do that! There's no way I can have those songs performance ready in one school day!" I had failed at the very beginning. However, I remembered that we had also been talking about goals in Comp class to prepare for the "Write to Serve" project. One of my goals had been to take advantage of every performance opportunity that came my way. This snapped my mind into "Yes man" mode and I agreed to the performance. Over the course of the next day again and again my mind kept freaking out. How was I going to do this? I didn't want to ruin my friend's wedding! The one thing I had to keep repeating to myself was that I had performed the main piece for all of my scholarship performances last spring. I had to keep telling myself "If I could do it then, I can do it now!" 

Also, a few weeks back, I had been invited by the music teacher at Paten Elementary to play for her fourth and fifth graders this past Thursday  With the wedding performance, I had completely forgotten about it until my mom reminded me a few days before. This time, I was prepared. Yes, I did struggle some at first when I saw that I didn't have much time to prepare, but I was able to bring it all under control by remembering how much of a success that the wedding had been. That got me through, and this performance was a success as well.

Finally, this past Friday evening, another friend called and told me that because of the cold weather we have been having lately, she had to drop the band that she had hired and find someone who could play indoors that night. With the success of the past two performances behind me, I had the confidence that I could do it, and said no without any hesitation other than some minor details about repertoire length, but that was soon sorted out. That performance was a success as well. Thus, I know very well first-hand how much of a difference confidence can make in a performance situation. 

Work Cited
Nettleship, Henry, et. al. "Liber Quintus." Trans. Henry Nettleship. Virgil's Aeneid. 
     London: George Bell and Sons, 1898. 1-59. Print. 

(Originally wrote this last week, but forgot to publish it. Found it today and decided to revise :D)




Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

Music, Music Everywhere!

      Of all of the changes in my transition from high school to college, my favorite part has been all of the opportunities I have had to enjoy and participate in music. In high school, I had been able to attend many symphonies and concerts with my family, but not quite so much as I have in just these past few weeks of college.

      First of all, as a Music major, I have my recital attendance requirements to meet. This means six TLU sponsored music events every semester. I have no problem meeting this requirement and have been enjoying every bit of it. Thus far, I have attended four of the music events. I went to see "The Power of Music:  Music in the Lives of Children," where they had guest speakers come and talk about how music played a part in their childhood development. I also went to see the pre-screening of Alive Inside, a documentary about the influence of music in the lives of alzheimers patients at "The Power of Music:  Music in the Lives of the Elderly". I got to see the Navy Band Country Current Perform at the Jackson Auditorim, and tonight I went to see Mark Alexander play the music of Franz Liszt on piano. What a wonderful opportunity to be able to hear all of these amazing speakers and musicians and get credit for it! I don't know about the other music majors, but I know that I sure am enjoying all of this! 

       Another big thing that I have been enjoying is all of my music classes. As a Freshman Music major, most of my classes have been pre-selected for me. I have all music classes besides my Freshman Experience Class and Composition I, which this blog is for. I struggled a little bit in my first couple of weeks of music theory, but am back on track and doing my best. I have discovered a knack for sight reading/ sight singing while here at TLU. Before I never would have thougth it would be this way, but it is actually one of the classes that I am enjoying the most. Because I love all of my music classes, I don't mind all of the work. I just enjoy it and soak up all that I can. I know that I probably won't be saying this once I get to Music Theory and Ear Training and Sight Singing IV, but for now, I am really enjoying it all.  

      This past week I had my first major choir performance during Homecoming. It was great getting to meet so many alums who had been in our place years ago and who came back to celebrate TLU's 100th anniversary homecoming. It was also great that we didn't fall off of the stage when all 200+ of us crowded onto the stage to sing "Beautiful Savior" together. 

      There is such a great music community here at TLU. Almost everyone I have met here on campus is involved in music in some way, or has a great passion for it. It was fun going to the coffee house evening in chapel a few weeks back to hear so many talented singers and instrumentalists. I'm hoping to maybe get up there myself, at one of the next ones. Overall, I am very excited about where these past few weeks have taken me in my journey with music, and am even more excited to see where the next four years will take me.


Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.

Transitions and Finding the Time

The toughest part of my transition into college so far has been finding the time to practice playing my guitar. Before starting college, It was easy for me to make the time to practice. Being home schooled with a clear focus on my path in music, I could take two or more hours out of my day no sweat. Lately, though, I have been struggling just finding a few minutes to do it. Toward the end of this past spring I had lots of auditions to prepare for, because of my coming graduation, and had been working myself like crazy. I practiced every spare moment that I had. The result was beautifully polished songs, but a very tired out musician.

 As soon as the auditions were over I decided to take a short break and cut down on my practicing.  This was for many reasons: first, I was tired; second, this was my first summer without lessons, and the freedom brought out the worst in me; and lastly, I had developed an arm injury and was unsure if I would be doing myself harm by continuing to practice. Luckily, it turned out not being serious at all, and I was able to practice again.

 As I got into the swing of summer and got my plans together for college, I completely dropped off of my practicing. By the end of July I was only practicing maybe once or twice a week.  This is a very bad thing for me going into college as a performance major. And now that I am in college, things haven't gotten any better. I have been able to practice maybe thirty min before classes or when I get home, but at my level of playing this is barely enough time for a decent warm up. 

As a result of all of this, my arm muscles have gotten out of shape, I have less dexterity, and less accuracy. When I am able to find the time, I use it to kind of quick play all of my songs just to keep them under my fingers. However, I haven't really had the time for critical playing. I haven't been able to just sit down and perfect individual pieces. This is a very important and necessary thing for a musician. The lack of it has made my songs sloppier, made them lack tone, and I have developed many bad habits overall. In short, it has all been one downhill ride.

 I need to find some way to schedule in some time for practice. After all, this is my major! I am hoping to improve on this during my next few weeks in college.  This is something I need to set straight now before my classes become harder and I need to spend more time on them.

Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.