MUSIC

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. -- Aldous Huxley.

You know how people say that absence makes the heart grow fonder? I know it's true. I mean, it will never be disproved. When you're separated from something you love, or even threatened with the idea of separation, you realize just how important it is to you.

Like, say, music. All my life I've been surrounded by music. I sing in the shower, I've had a piano at my house since I was about six. I've been in choir since fourth grade, and I've ALWAYS had a music class in my schedule. But I leave for college tomorrow. I won't be able to sing in the shower. I won't have a piano handy so that I can just stop and play one quick tune on my way to do laundry. Yes, I'm taking my guitar with me, but I won't have silence and privacy while I struggle to learn a new song or fiddle around with chords and melodies while I write.

I have to audition for choir, and I am not entirely confident that I will make it. Not for lack of talent or trying necessarily, but perhaps because of lack of training. Compared to the musical backgrounds of the other people that I imagine will audition, mine is sort of skimpy. I had a year a piano lessons, 3 years of singing in a choir that got straight 1's at the state choir thing. But the only solo singing I have done is my auditions for musicals. I can belt, I have a broad range. I have spectacular diction. In English. The only problem is, my audition piece is an Italian aria. I think I've got the pronunciation right, but I don't know for sure. I can hit all the notes, and I have expression, but I struggle with my phrasing because I run out of air. I'm made for singing chorally. I can hold my part in a choir, but I don't know if I can hold my own in a solo audition.

Also, I don't really have a great ear. I can sight-sing just fine, but learning melodies by ear? It takes me days! My guess it's the way my brain is wired. I'm all formulas and it makes sense that I can do better relying on my brain than the physical functionality of my senses. But i'm still worried.

Also, I packed my guitar already and I wish I hadn't.

DOUBT

When in doubt, tell the truth. -- Mark Twain

Sometimes I wonder why I do what I do.

My plan for my life is to go to university, study mechanical engineering, have a stepping-stone engineering job that I'm not necessarily thrilled about, and then go work for NASA or something. This is all fine and good because I love math and am awesome at math, and I really like physics and I'm pretty good at it, too.

But today in physics class, we talked about chemistry. Now, I used to like chemistry. In grade school, when we were talking about all the molecular-level stuff. That was cool. But I had a really crappy chemistry teacher in high school, so 1) I know nothing useful about chemistry and 2) I don't like it. Generally when I don't like things, it's because I'm bad at them, but in this case it's simply because I was never taught it. And I'm expected to know these things because I got an A in honors chemistry two years ago because I know how to take tests. It made me reconsider. Do I really want to spend my whole life doing science? If I'm going to be an engineer, I'm going to have to take a ton of science courses in university. The only science class I've ever liked is physics. The only science classes where I've ever learned anything have been physics and biology, and biology won't be useful as a mechanical engineer. Do I want to do this?

But I don't want to talk myself out of engineering before I've truly tried it. The most I should let my doubt do is caution me to keep an open mind. I would do that anyway, though. All doubt does in this case is make me uncertain. It makes me nervous. I don't want to be stuck doing something I hate. I know I could always go back to school and do something else, but I don't want to be in school forever.

I don't want a desk job, either. And I don't want to be a teacher.

What's left?

Writing Again

I'm writing again.

Now that I'm looking out on five months with no english classes--indeed, where the majority of my time will be spent thinking with my objective mind--I've decided it will be good for me if I start writing again. Poetry, journaling, music, stories, whatever I feel like writing. Perhaps blogs, even. Hah.

I started a separate blog for poetry. It's called Silent Music. Because (to me) that's what poetry is. Music without a melody, without sound. Silence. With meaning. I don't know what kind of poetry I'll write, but I'll probably keep that up fairly regularly for awhile.

I'm also writing much more music now. I'm doing FAWM again in February. I did 50/90 last summer/fall, and have been writing even since then. I revised some 50/90 songs (last year's fawm songs weren't worth the effort), too. I'll hopefully be putting some of that on youtube. And, this semester, I'm going to switch classes and take music theory. YAY! Perhaps my band, Never Silent, will happen after all.

That's all. Ben Folds is awesome.