all that buildup, no follow-up. how anti-climactic. anyway, the recital is over. it went fairly well, not as well as that fabulous rehearsal the day before, but that's ok. still good. was disappointed in the first movement of mendlessohn; it won't work as an audition recording. made several stupid mistakes, flubs i don't usually hit. but hey, i kept going and it got better as i went--a nice switch. the second movement, i realized when i listened to the recording was horribly out of tune. tone was shaky, tempo was unstable...i could have sworn i played it better than that. ah well. third movement was good, i'm happy with it. tempo was actually stable. i never lost control of it, it was great. had fun with it, incredibly enough. all except the stupid stinkin last e-major arpeggio! *kick kick kick kick* i hit the harmonic anyway. (it wasn't so terrible, just not as clean as i had been playing it.)

the other pieces were fine. star wars was a riot, we just had fun with it. 3many thanks to my collaborators. i started the bach with a nastily sharp g-string (lowest string on the violin, pitch g, you sicko), which threw me off for most of the andante. the comments i got afterwards were along the lines of "well, you played it nicely, i just didn't like it...no offense..." *cough* oops. had to stop a couple times on the allegro, but i fully expected that. three pages of bach's running sixteenth notes, baby, o yeah. i got the style down nicely (o i did on the andante, too), which made me really happy.

so god me through it. sdg

o carrie did my hair. i had it curly from a french braid the previous day, and she just clipped a couple braids back so it was off my face, and left it down. i lost track of all the people who said i looked like an elf.

d-day, ladies and gentlemen.
(actually, that could be considered insulting--comparing the day of my recital to omaha beach. so not d-day. r-day.)

i had two great run-through's yesterday. honestly, it's the best i've played yet with a piano. the tempo contortions at the end of the first movement still need to be fixed, it has to fly. but we'll work on it today and all will be peachy. there's one section of double-stops that i always botch in performance. it's a somewhat tricky pattern when taken a tempo, and doing it with the piano just throws me off. so i'll drill that some. and i have to do a couple sections a lot slower. i rush the fast stuff unbelievably, it's pathetic. second movement was good. i still have intonation problems in the middle, with that stupid ascending chromatic double-stop business. grr. i was really happy with the third movement, it's come together nicely in the past few days. the last arpeggio worries me a bit. it's six bars from the end--has to be good, that's what the audience will be leaving with. so in general, thanks to two great rehearsals, i'm feeling pretty good. (bach is ok, too--i made some style changes that are working very well. and of course, star wars will be fabulous.)

anible's here. *grin grin* staying with tim. he came to church yesterday, because he's wonderful. we went to moss lake for a bit afterwards, before i had to go practice. beautiful day, beautiful lake, it was lovely. so good to see him. after the dress rehearsal (about 10), we'd planned to crash at cacie's for bit to eat (we had a big lunch, lemme alone) and work on the theory project. dan hadn't eaten yet eather, so we brought him too. had a really great time. cacie heated up some lentil soup and made thai chicken and rice noodles (spiced with, among other things, some of the most finely chopped garlic in the history of mankind), and then the guys did the dishes afterwards while cacie and i wrote out the proposal. so much fun, i love my friends. dan and anible hit it off really well, so that makes me happy.

mom and dad and daniel and grandma and grandpa are coming up today. daniel will be staying with either tim or dan, and everyone else will be at the inn. they'll be here around 4-ish, i think, and assuming hartman let's me reschedule my lesson, we'll go to dinner around 4:30. should be back by 6, so i can practice/warm up. it'll be fun--over the summer, grandpa heard the mendelssohn on the radio and got a little concerned, so i'm eager to get his reaction to my rendition.

my hands are already shaking...

the past couple weeks have been some of the most stressful in my life.

my car is totalled. i haven't seen it since i left at the mechanics, and i won't see it ever again. *sob* the insurance company has paid me book value, which, unfortunately is not quite enough to run out and buy another one. and i can't find my keys.

i had my first public solo performance at school on friday, at the "this is our music school, isn't it nifty" recital for the music prospectives. i played the last movement of the mendelssohn, and butchered it most thoroughly. choked in places i'd never had problems before. and that's not even the hard movement, so i'm just slightly concerned about this recital. on the other hand, i played the second movement in abe loft's (violinist in the fine arts string quartet for 25 years, chamber music professor at eastman) masterclass on saturday morning, and it went famously. he was pleased, his wife was impressed, it was good--granted, it was the slow movement, but it's still not an easy piece to play. for the most part, i was happy. if i screw up the big shifts at the end, i think i'll shoot myself in the foot. they're not even that hard, for pete's sake...