Cornerstone

As we drove to UNM for the last time this morning, Andrew said, "We are headed to a cornerstone of our lives today." 

He was right. 

I think I value sleep more than verbociousness tonight; I'll let the pictures do some talking of the fun we had. SO, SO incredible. Beyond description, truly. (Which doesn't do much good in a blog, I understand, but I think I've done enough talking about the music the last few days- I can do it no more justice now; in fact, I can offer in far less, now that the concert is ringing in my mind...). 

I will say: Dr. Stroope was an artist and we were his medium; he used us to create something incredible, and I owe him far more than a wooden roadrunner for the experience he has given me over the last three days.  It was far more than just a good time- even more than any of my descriptions of the music or the learning experience. What he gave us was the kind of strand of hope to hold on to even when you're lost in a sea of ocean waves and you feel neither up or down, only a chord in your hand, which you know will hold steady, but which leads to a shore you know nothing about, much less know how far it is away. "Don't settle for less." Those are some of the hardest words to hear (or think, or experience), when you have nothing of that standard in which you can rest- that challenge plunges you into discomfort, and in face of the frustration, you can only trust you were moved to that moment for a reason- no matter how painful it is to leave that moment and return to "real life." That moment was real life too, just a more pure, perfect, wonderful state of it. But perhaps there is better to come. Perhaps I can make things better where there are no opportunities for it to offer itself to me with such a generous gift of invitation and preparendess.

"Everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was." -Robert Louis Stevenson

"The first requisite of success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem without growing weary." -Thomas Edison

"The drops of rain make a hole in the stone not by violence but by the oft of falling." -Lucretius 

Tired and for good reason and happily so

The first day of all-state rehearsals today was AMAZING. I have never experienced ANYTHING like it before. I've never sang like that. I've never been directed like that. I've never heard a live sound like that. I've never been an element of MAKING a sound like that. I've never felt the rush of energy when, in some miraculous moment of focus, energy, sensitivity, control, grace, concentration, and also of release, everything is somehow JUST. RIGHT. We build a sound louder and fuller and more dramatic than anything I could have previously imagined and then- WHOOSH: the only sound in the room is the reverberating echos of the note we just released. It's one of the most powerful, awe-inspiring things I've ever experienced.

There are SO many boys, and every single time they sing I just want to stop everything and listen (even when I was on break). The sound comes out so pure and light, so BEAUTIFUL. I've never heard men sing this way before. The girls are also incredible; the sopranos lead in so many ways, and I can really tell the difference when they correct their sound to what our director tells them to; it is always an astonishingly clear difference.

Our director. Wow. Dr. Z. Randall Stroope. He is a composer who actually wrote two of the pieces we will be performing: "I Am Not Yours," and "The Conversion of Saul." To be directed by a person who was moved to CREATE the music I am learning to re-create (if you will) is so strange- so insightful, amazing! To understand the vision behind the sound, the meaning of the texture the notes make with their dynamics and assemblage... this is not just music: we are telling stories, and we use the most precise details to do so. I don't think I ever would have been able to predict understanding music the way I did today. What I mean is, Dr.Stroope would give an instruction, an example, a metaphor or story to explain the theory of it; he would indicate that something is wrong or not what it should be- and I would understand what he meant. I know it is because I have learned so much from Ms.Clark already, but as I phrased it to Andrew, "His directing style, (and his teaching style) is like a different dialect of the language we learned from Ms.Clark). But it is as if his words to directly to my body and I can FEEL what he means. He said music is a love affair, and the difference between a cold stare and a warm embrace is immediately distinguishable and will either turn an audience away or drawn them in. And I feel that- the sound of voices can create both of those things. When it is warm and embracing, alive, like swimming or rowing through water (the most common and powerful of his examples) you can FEEL it as you listen, because it is as if it wraps around your body and holds you. And then, just as shockingly, it can release you- you're outside of it, stunned, allowed to be left there perhaps for the sole reason of wanting back in.

This is so incredible.

On a (more) personal note, I was very flustered with a perpetual feeling of unorganized scattered-ness that had largely to do with the over-full bag I was carrying and how difficult it made it for me to find and place things in there when I needed to. On top of this, I was carrying around a sweater over my arm all day... I felt rather crushed at lunch because I left myself with only 15 minutes to eat after what seemed like meaningless wasted time which I felt I spent unnecessarily trying to gather myself and my things. It all resulted in me losing my all-important name tag, pursued by a slight panic attack, a simple fix of a $1 replacement, a quiet lunch of silence and moments taken to calm down, and finally, a rather wonderful realization that the whole thing could be (and, in fact, was) a good, and not a terrible (or even just bad) thing. What caused me to think of it is a quote that came to mind (with impeccable timing,I must say): (I didn't remember it exactly as it is written, and I didn't know who it's author was, but these details are easily amendable for the sake of this internet-assisted blog)(for the second time ":")

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Albert Einstein

I found myself muttering my all-too-familiar apologies for what a wreck I feel I am (heard primarily when I can't find what I need, I can't remember where I put something -which which are similar but not necessarily identical problems-, when I am in a hurry and/or late -again, distinct conditions but often coupled with each other- and other similar situations of awkwardness, preventable, inconvenience of those around me, and overall frustration). In that moment, I realized that this was an outcome I DO NOT LIKE. It is something about myself and the way I do things which I despise. And that's when I realized I was practicing a form of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I decided I would stop complaining about how much I dislike the outcome (and myself for causing it) and take responsibility for my own actions by simply changing what I do! I need to reflect on what it is that is causing my chaos (in these areas), come up with a plan, and actual way in which to improve, and do things differently.

Excellent :)

I'm quite thankful for ALL the lessons I have learned today, in many areas. At the present, I must take advantage of the time I have, prepare a better baggage system for tomorrow (I have already followed Andrew's idea and found a backpack I think will work much better), set out my clothes, make a sack lunch, and enjoy some simply rest and reflection in bed.

I don't mean to get so detail-oriented about things that are probably exceedingly dull to read about (at least in the latter part of this entry; and with no pictures, either! tsk, tsk). I'm afraid I become even more verbocious when I'm tired, you see, and tired would be a very accurate adjective for my present state of being. Tired. Exhausted. It feels like 10-o'clock-I'm-so-ready-for bed...yeah. :) I'm so thankful, so happy, so blessed. Thank you, God for music, for this experience, for my friends, for my life, for my family and my home and my bed, and for the grace to be given the chance to improve and do things better. Amen ~
GOOD NIGHT!

(I already included a quote for today...that's all).

66th NMMEA All-State

It's too late to try to be poetic about it, so I'll get right to the point: Andrew, Chelsea, and I all made the All-State Mixed Choir tonight! I sung small portions of three out of the six songs I memmorized, and after I finnished, my judge wrote a blue star on my right hand, which meant, "I'll see you tomorrow morning for rehearsal; you may go get your seat assignment now; have fun."

Wow.

I can't believe how many fears this audition brought up in me.They did a really amazing thing, though: The very first thing we did as band, choir, and orchestra students who had all been selected from the primary auditions (which really were the ones we had the right to be worried about; this one just had far more hope riding on it, having made it so far and worked so hard already...) were gathered into a HUGE theatre: Pope Joy Hall at UNM. That is the stage we will be performing on, (Saturday 9th at 9:00; adults $7, students $3). We got to listen to a concert of the honor jazz band, which was from Las Cruces. The trumpets and horns amazed me with their soft, floating melodies, and exciting sounds. In the dark of that huge auditorium, it all felt surreal. The music was so calming; I could feel the tension leaving me. The director seemed to laid-back, tapping his foot, moving his hands gently, walking around from student to student, listening, giving small, presumably wordless cues and instructions... as great performers, I could tell they were so involved in the music they were playing. It was FUN. It reminded me, before the stress of trying out to know for sure that all of the information they were giving on the rehearsals of the next two days would even be relevant to me in an hour, the reason why I was there at all: "oh yeah...MUSIC."

Throughout the course of the night, I was amazed at music. After I found out I made it, I peed out my relief (I appolagize if it's TMI), and while I was in the bathroom, a girl walked into a stall a few down from mine, singing one of our songs; when she stopped, I finnished it for her and we both laughed. As I washed my hands, I heard two girls outside practicing a Treble choir song in Italian. Their harmonizing notes floated and echoed through the bathroom, even through the door from the hall where they were sitting, studying their music. The sweet harmonies, the sweet words and phrases stunned me, moved me- so beautiful! In the hall where we were waiting to meet up with each other afterwards, I heard a large group of singers up the stairs on the balcony of the second level, vibrating with the familiar tones of another of the songs we will be sining, my personal favorite: "I am not yours." It reverberated; I could practically feel the low notes move through my body. I could hear all the parts, but it sounded like one voice. People all gathered together like that, having been given the ability (given from their teachers, the opportunity of the experience, and by themselbes and all of the hard work they had put in) to be able to sing together, to create something so beatuiful, so powerful, so gentle and moving and deep...that's when I first felt tears, because tomorrow, I will be a part of that. I will have a place in that wholeness, in that belonging. Oh it will reverberate all right: two hundred and fifty voices all joining sensitively together to create something that will MOVE with purpose and feeling and oneness.

I can't find the page in my book to find the actual word (I will need to track it down at some point because it's my homework) but in English this morning, I learned that the Greek word for poet means a "maker," one who creates something out of nothing. Out of nothing, we will be creating music. Complicated, careful- creation of SOMETHING, using only our bodies; we are poets, and "poetry actively intervenes in the world and transforms it for the better"(Sir Philip Sydney).

As we ate some complimentary pizza (and cookies), a group of people behind us was singing along to a guitar, which also added to my reflection on what an incredible thing this strange substance is, of sound and emotion, bringing people together (or leaving people out), a gift that can be practiced, but not really controlled. Not really. "You can feel a song comming like a dog feels a storm in it's bones." I was joking when I said that, but really: where does it come from? Ms.Clark began improvising on the piano in class yesterday and I was struck by the simply beauty of the melody that flowed effortlessly from her fingertips, the first and only time those notes will probably ever be played exactly that way.

I better stop reflecting on how incredible it all is, because I'm sure the "complicated" fascination of it will seem far less intriguing tomorrow morning at 5:30 when I have to get ready for a 12 hour rehearsal. I cannot even soak this in, though- that I get to do this with two of the most beautiful people I know. To be able to work with such a team is beyond priceless. This is the first and last time I will do this, and could not be more thrilled, more humbly filled with gratitude, awe, excitement... Please, Lord, let me be fully open to the joy you have given me ~ Oh thank You ~

QUOTES (I was going to share them yesterday, too; I've been thinking of them a lot)
"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." -Vincent Van Gogh

"You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction." -George Horace Lorimer

"Choose a job you love, and you'll never work a day in your life." -Confucious (I like this one the best of these, I think)