performance anxiety

If performance is an activity that causes such anxious and negative feelings in many musicians, then why do they perform? Does it stem from a love of music and the desire to share music? How much of the desire to perform is developed from the rush of positive feelings that an individual. so do people perform the way some runners run to get a high?

I would contend no, but then I might disagree with myself.

trying again

ok...maybe this time?
totally!...yes that is indeed me. I happen to have maybe this and one other picture of myself on my computer.
so posting pictures is indeed something I can do.


some thoughts about schumann:

There seem to be two contrasting themes in Schumann’s Mein Wagen rollet langsam. The music seems to make a commentary first on the condition of the outside world, and the second acts as a commentary on the internal world of the wagon’s rider. The rider’s thoughts just drop in suddenly but not in a brash manner. The third time the voice enters through the piano there is a combination of the internal world forcing itself upon the outer world, though perhaps the opposite is more likely.

Upon first listening I did not think that the music accompanying the riders thought about his beloved were appropriate. It was almost abrupt in nature, no lingering sentiments, merely points of thought. However upon further contemplation this may in fact be less brash than I thought....in the end it turned out to be the recording that I was listening to. the particular performance gave it that discontenuity.

THis could lead way to an interesting discussion about music and performance and how the are, or are not, or should be related.

but I have astrophysics calling my name.......come figure out maximum emissions for sunspots...

test run I guess

This was a test to see if I could get my blog to publish pictures. however all I see is a sea of pixilated gray. oh well if you can see it, it is a scanned copy of my father's old dorm t-shit, we have essentially copied it for out t-shirt this year...pretty cool yes?



EDIT: so you can see the picture there really small in the top left corner....the rest is just garbage...I'll see what I can do later

racism

recent events my dorm have gotten me thinking about racism. Namely how we define it.

The University has recently come to terms with a sort of latent racism that is on campus, now when I say latent what I mean is that it is something that we're not even aware that we have, but we think that it's ok because we don't display outward signs of hate. The real trouble begins when we think that racism, or any other sort of intolerance be it religious, sexual orientation etc, doesn't happen any more, that we don't have to concern ourselves with it. To think that we are done with a subject because we've dealt with it before and "learned" that it is bad.

anyhow there were some anti-semetic and racist remarks posted on a white board in my dorm. Housing and University takes this sort of thing very seriously, there has been dialogue in the dorm, and ultimatly as a result the person who wrote it has been kicked out of houseing, and the person who's white board it was, and knew who had done has been kicked out of this particular dorm.

There are many people who think that The University is just using this incedent to make an example of these student...well of course they are. but this brings me to the point, the jewish roomate of the person who's board this is on, is not offended and is trying to have these people "saved".

so when is it racism? when can we define something as racism? Is it only racism if it offends the person or people that it was directed towards? or is it racism as soon as someone thinks that it might offend someone. At which point does this person have the right to tell the effected party that they ought to be offended and do something about it?

we are in a funny time when we think that we have dealt with these sorts of issues, yet are hyper sensitive to them. Is it better to just not be offended and move on, or is it better to be pro-active and stamp this sort of thing out where ever we think it might exist?

I suppose it just tells us that whilst living in a pluralistic society it is not going to be possible to create a sweeping paradigm that works for everyone.

farce

I may be a slightly moody person, that does not make my inderstanding of the world invalid.

firstly all misspellings should not make individuals assume I am an angsty 14 year old, I'm not, I'm just dyslexic and have difficulty with letters.

secondly, I am probably less superficial than this blog will make me seem, really this is a space for me to explode into the vast nothingness that is the internet, perhaps I will tell people I actually know about this blog, but perhaps not.

thirdly there people far more clever than I am who you ought to read blogs of before mine. That said if you want to comment on my passivity (as has been commented on a past blog of mine) please feel free to, but leave a venue for dialogue rather than remaining completely anonymous. This of course doesn't mean I am looking for an address.

ok

I am currently thinking about Fraz Schubert's Erlkoning and how one might create a conceptual integrattion network between the music and a horse and rider. Conceptual Integration Networks are an idea created by the linguistGilles FAuconnier to assist the way that we understand conceptual blending. An example of conceptual blending is Eeyore from Winnie-The-Pooh. talking donkey....they don't really exist...so we use our powers of conceptual blending to make it work. input donkey, input human traits from this you get Eeyore space and generic space, we're not so interested in the generic space.

anyhow, how might one do this for Erlkoning?

this is a vocal piece with continuous pulsing triplets in the right hand and sort of traveling motions in the left hand, ascending by step and then descending by skip. It is reletively simple harmonically except for that we run across i6/4's a bit too much. we know that i6/4's don't exist right? so how are they functioning here? and do they help me map from music space to horse space?

I say nay....

In other news I sang mass at St. John Cantius up on Chicago today. That is one rich congregation...so maybe that's not fair, but everyone seemed quite well-to-do. Isn't it interesting that we choose to worship with individuals not only of our same faith (obviousely) but also of the same socio-economic standing? I don't have anything really negative to say about this because I have no thought that it could necessarily be different, though it might establish an interesting dialogue.

It is a really beautiful church, large ornate, smelling of wonderful incense. they do most of their services in Latin there, except the homily because I assume they recognize vatican two. I say the venacular is a good thing!

I have to write a cover letter for othe opera music theater, and make a recording for Blue Lakes Fine Arts camp. I need to prepare an audition for the concerto competition, and make sure that I have a spot for the mid-february recital. I must go to the library to get the book on hold so that I can write my review of it. I need to grasp Galileo's assayer so that I can get 15 pages of goodness out of my brain. and I probably should make my self go to the second half of tap class.