I AM EMPRESS

This is the piece that I played today for my bassoon jury (basically a final for my private bassoon lessons). It’s called “Concertpiece for Bassoon and Piano” by Pierne.

Today was interesting. I only got 2.5 hours of sleep last night because I stayed up really late studying and freaking out about my Music/Ent. final. I went to take the final from 8-11am, and then went back to my room to nap for an hour before going to do some last minute practicing because I’ve HARDLY worked on my Milde etudes and my scales - particularly the melodic minors. I woke up at 12:30pm, and then went to go get lunch with Mary. Then I went back to the practice rooms, practiced for 30 minutes, and then decided to rest for a few minutes before my accompanist came to rehearse with me because we would be running through my entire piece and I didn’t want to get worn out. While I was resting, I noticed my vision starting to go blurry, and that instantly freaked me out. I have this thing where if I don’t get enough sleep, my vision starts to get really fuzzy, and then I get really dizzy and the ONLY way to make it better is by sleeping. I got really scared and felt like crap, and I didn’t know what to do. Then my accompanist came to rehearse with me at 2:30pm, and I told her what was going on. After we rehearsed, she told me I should just go back to my room and nap before my jury at 5:30pm.

Strangely after I rehearsed with her, my vision started getting clearer again. I could see fine, even though I was still paranoid about my vision going bad again. So I called Jordan and asked him what I should do, and he said I should probably still go and rest. I ended up practicing my etudes and a few scales until 3:30pm, and then went back to my room and tried napping until 5pm, although I couldn’t fall asleep so I just ended up laying there for like an hour. However, at least I felt a little bit better because I rested and did nothing - way more rested than if I had just stayed in a practice room for that hour and practiced scales the entire time.

At 5pm I got out of bed, changed into nice clothes, and then went to the Conservatory. I warmed up with my accompanist and ran through my piece one more time, and then we went to the concert hall and I performed. When I went on stage, Nic (my bassoon professor; short for “Nicolasa”), told me that the stage lights randomly went off, so I ended up sitting on the stage for a good 10 minutes before they found somebody to turn them on for us. Nic asked me how I was doing, and my eyes started tearing up and I said, “Not so good”. She asked me what was wrong and I told her all about how I had stayed up and how I had a headache, and she saw that I was like falling apart. She comforted me and just told me to relax and play a few notes to get used to the concert hall, and to just pretend that everything was going fine, and to just fill up my sound in the big concert hall. I played a few easy scales and she said they sounded good, and then somebody FINALLY turned the lights on. Then my jury began.

Since I play bassoon, my jury was adjudicated by all of the woodwind professors. Nic introduced me, and then I played my piece. Despite my bad condition, I tried my best and gave it my all, and it actually went pretty well. I wasn’t able to hit the high notes at the end, though, which annoyed me, but whatever. Then Nic asked me to play my Milde etude, and that went fine. I just lacked dynamics because I was so focused on not missing any notes. After that, the flute professor asked me to play scales. I played Eb, Ab, Db, D, and B major, and then I had to play A, C, G, and possibly D? melodic minor. I totally freaked out about my melodic minors, but thankfully he chose all of the easiest ones. I screwed up one of them because I played it harmonic minor, but they told me to try again, and then it was better. Then I was FINALLY done with my jury!

It wasn’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I wasn’t really nervous. Just scared about getting blurry vision in the middle. I’m glad that I’m finally starting to get better at performing - I don’t get nearly as nervous as I used to…which is good because whenever I used my vibrato, you could TOTALLY tell that I was shaking, haha.

After my jury, I put away my bassoon, and went to a tutoring session for the theory final that Mu Phi Epsilon, one of the music fraternities, threw together for us. That went well, and then afterwards I headed back to my room and took a three hour nap. I just woke up and I’m feeling a lot better, which is really good.

Now all I need to do is start studying for my theory final tomorrow >< I’m scared, but it shouldn’t be TOO bad, I hope. At least not as bad as my Music/Ent. final today -.- I’m glad that’s over.