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Friday, July 31, 2009

Overwhelmed

Time started: 20:00
Place: My room (Adelaide)
Listening to: "Everlong" Foo Fighters
Weather: Too cold >.<;;
Mood: As the title suggests...

I am back in Adelaide (and what is with this FREEZING COLD, WINDY AND RAINY WEATHER?!?!?! *Craves for Darwin*) and so far I have survived the first week of Semester 2. I am not pleased. It already seems like a tough semester...

My repetoire consists of extremely difficult pieces for Classical Performance. Here's my program:
~ Study in Blue White & Gold - Miriam Hyde (very artistic, fun little piece! Quite difficult to play)
~ Prelude & Fuge no. 12 in F minor Well Tempered Clavier Book II - J.S. Bach (hate the Prelude but the Fuge is okay.)
~ Sonata in E minor - Grieg (HELL YEAH! Gung Ho Norwegian Patriotism at its finest haha! Lots of fun to play but very difficult!)
~ Variations on Theme by Robert Schumann op. 20 - Clara Schumann (Absolutely gorgeous! I've never heard such love and romanticism in a piece like this! Again, very difficult!)
~ Pour le Piano: Toccata - Debussy (AWESOME piece!!! Wanted to learn it for a long time but is EXTREMELY difficult!)

I am very happy with my program......BUT IT IS INSANELY DIFFICULT!!!!! I mean...two are of A.mus standard, and the other three of L.mus standard! That's as hard as it gets! I pretty much have to learn it all in like...2 months if I want any hope of passing the exam, and entering the competition which is IMPOSSIBLE for me! Pieces like this would probably take me 2 years to learn... Now, to add to the stress...Accompaniment. I'm accompanying my friend, David Bruce who plays the saxaphone for my assessments. The accompaniment is really awkward to play on the piano. I can't sight read to save my life either and the first assessment is in 2 weeks. I haven't finished learning the pieces....*cries*. This will take up a lot of my practise time and I need all the time I can get for my solo repetoire! Then there's theory. After our first lecture and tutorial...I swear, my mind exploded! It was so mind boggling, the theories we have to learn! It is so different to what we learned before and far out...whoever came up with these theories had waaaaaaay too much time on their hands! It's like geometry and trigonometry within the 12 pitch class... Earlier music was more rigid, asymmetrical, and was less flexible with direction due to the rules of suspension and resolution, revolving around simple ratios of the intervals in chordal progression within the asymmetrical diatonic scale. As music progressed to the Romantic period, composers discovered ambiguity and symmetry within the 12 pitch classes and the flexibility of the chromatic scale. Chord contained intervals of the tritone that allows 2 (or more) directions for it to go creating ambiguity. Everything is governed and ruled by numbers. It's scary how "art" in the music form, when broken down, is purely just numbers that work within each other in a very organised system. It's crazy! *Head implodes* There's also Chamber where Pey Shin and I wish to do another piano duo (we're thinking Bartok and Weber....hard stuff!). Then there's history, and music, media & society...both requiring essays of 2,000 and 2,200 words respectively. Oh, and aural was strange. We were supposed to identify the rhythm and melody of a voice in a fuge...A FUGE! What the hell?! Easy stuff? Easy stuff my BUTT it's easy.........*dies* Kill me now! If I survive through this year I am going to jump for joy...and possibly shoot myself before next year which will probably be five times worse!

Time finished: 20:48
Listening to: "Overwhelmed" - Butterfly Effect <-- lol!
Mood: Exhausted

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