Wednesday, November 11, 2009

So it's been forever since I wrote anything.

This first half of the semester has been really really interesting.

I have discovered that when you are not drowning up to your ears in credits, you suddenly have time for people and extra curricular activities.

New life experiences which were direct results of having time for life;

got a hair cut. it used to be over 3 feet long- now it's a scanty foot and a half! and it's layered!!

went to see a movie on a Monday night. totally irresponsible. btw, it was district 9- I love peter jackson.

fell in love. the real thing, not a crush. not infatuation. not physical attraction. the kind that comes from your soul that causes both joy and pain.

learning tango and it's awesome! I have private teacher who teaches for Free! complete with partners -courtesy of my bible study boys. :D

can now make small talk seem convincing and not so small.

Won an eastman bassoon audition- for Beethoven 4. :)

got hit on by cute random airlines worker...

learning Jazz bassoon. I can improv? no way!

I'm getting really invested in my own religion. before it was just sort of a thing my family did but now I'm coming to a better understanding of it and I am now embracing it practically, in my own life for the first time. baby steps...

gave a recital. yeah, about time. it was Mozart and Weber, with a 5 minute break in between.

bought my own plane tickets, to a destination other than home!
________________


so, that basically sums it up. the freshmen bassoonists are super cool and totally fun to hang out with. I'm making a lot of reeds these days and they're good! :D

I switched from lysol to clorox in preference for the fresh orange smell clorox has. teehee

ok, more later.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

So it's midterms over here, and this is my first blog post since the summer? wow.

despite the fact that I'm only signed up for 14 credits, I've been remarkably busy. :/ Admittedly it's a different kind of busy, but that means I've been practicing and not studying theory. W00t. I cannot describe how much I hate music theory.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Valentin Martchev on Facebook





Hey Yo!

So I created a Fan Page on Facebook for Valentin- here it is. If you have Facebook you should become a fan. If you don't have Facebook you should join the 21st century already!!!

Peace!

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

So I just gained a much better appreciation for what my dad does all day. A friend of mine asked me a detailed religious question- actually he forwarded a link and said in essence "deal with this link, it says stuff that confuses me"so I responded to some of the ideas in the post-which turned out to be a 7 hour project. blahhhhh
My dad is amazing for doing this stuff, esp. since he's a pro and isn't being paid for it.

moving on;

So I ordered some bocals from midwest musical imports they arrived today I had a lesson and now I have a new bocal! It went so fast, i love it!

rewind and slow down;

sooo, I go to order bocals on thursday of last week and get expedited shipping ($30) so that they will arrive in time for my tuesday lesson. Well the shipping gets screwed up. Thanks UPS.

So it arrives today mid afternoon. I then run down to San Diego to see what Valentin thinks of them (i was rooting for the vcd #1 silver heckel)
Valentin eventually decided that he also liked my bocal- so much so that he wants to order them now! It must be the magical Z alloy that makes the bocals harder.

And that's it. I have a new bocal. AND IT'S FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ohhh. I look at my other bocal and I wonder how I did it.

This is probably way too soon to start talking about spending money again, but the next thing I have my hopes and dreams set on is a tuner that will clip onto my instrument. That would be cool, but even more importantly would be a tip profiler. That would be it.
I doubt it will happen anytime soon, but one can dream. :D

This summer has been amazing- I have made such leaps and jumps with the bassoon. They're not even going to recognize me at Eastman!

I'm looking forward to this next semester. My plan is to focus on bassoon and not so much academics, and with theory out of the way for a semester, I'll be able to do as much.

I'm so happy because now I have the tools that I need, I'm able to know what I need, get what i need, use what i need... it sounds so simple but it can be so much more complicated.

:D

I'm experimenting with different kinds of cane and different kinds of reeds also. It's awesome. My comprehension of music is much more mature and I am ridiculously happy with the direction I am now headed in.

So these past two weeks were full of International Youth Symphony stuff.
We played Beethoven 7, Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, Gabriel Faure's Pavane, and Mozart's Overture Cossi fan Tutti. It was a good concert.

During intermission I went to the edge of the stage and met some old friends and made some new ones. A little kid asked me to play something for him- so I busted out the theme from Glenn Miller's "In the Mood"
It seems like just yesterday that I was that kid going up to the edge of the stage and asking the performers to play something for me.

But it was 4 stinking hour rehearsals at 8:45 every morning for two weeks. We had a lot of repertoire, but not enough for the gross amount of time we had to rehearse. goodness gracious.

I made several friends there, and one of the things I love about these international events is all the language stuff you can pick up. Being in America isolates most of us from experiencing any other cultures or languages and so being surrounded by these things is one of the most amazing experiences ever. And you pick things up. WooT!!! I learned some some spanish from principal clarinet (Ester) , second bassoon (Marcella), and second clarinet (Solenesky) who were all fluent. Some dutch that I can't remember from dear Kimberley (flute), turkish from Beyhan (violin), and made an ass of myself trying to speak German with one of our viola players, Paula. :D She was really nice about it though, and it got better!

well, it was fun. I'll put fun pictures up when my peeps post them on facebook.

Until then, ciao!

this is me and Ester, from Venezuela. She's an awesome person and clarinetist. <3

Saturday, July 11, 2009

away from school

So I'm on summer break and it's great. I'm back home now and have one student.

I am taking a lesson with Benjamin Kamins this Monday- it should be interesting.

For this past month while Valentin was in Bulgaria, I've been studying with Ryan Simmons, Curtis graduate and the Second Bassoonist of the San Diego Symphony. He's a really great teacher. He had me working on the Bach Suites. We didn't make it past the first one before he stopped me at Minnuetto II and asked me to play it more sadly. I tried to concentrate the way he was telling me and focus all of my sadness into the instrument... but alas I had no idea what to do- esp. on the spot and burst out laughing. 
yes there I was trying to play this beautiful sad song and all I could do was cackle. It was appalling. 
On the flip side, I have been fortunate enough to have experienced very little sadness in my life, and what little I have experienced did not want to come out as music... more like sniffling sobbing. Not something you pay to hear (unless you're very sick...)
So Ryan set me on slow 'sad' etudes. Back breakingly slow. 
The etude I'm working on for Ben Kamins is #20 Milde Concert Studies. It starts off slow, but it's enough of a technical etude to tax me in that direction too.

Just when I thought I had gotten everything to work just fine for this etude, Valentin comes back from Bulgaria and I go to the lesson. He makes me think about this etude very differently and I suddenly couldn't play it. It was totally weird. He gave me some musical pointers, and made sense of the etude's structure.. ideas which I might be able to back with my Eastman theory... but am not going to.

So my goal is to come back with this etude and be able to play it cold. Under any circumstances. Even if it turns out that the cat has rabies and is chewing my toes off.


I am positively addicted to Phillipe Jaroussky- he has the most amazing voice.


--ahh back tracking-- 

ok this is random but I bring it up because of my previous comment about the cat having rabies (and it's late...)

My sister saw this little ditty online posted on facebook by a friend and we both love it sooo much! It comes from our cold heartless british background. haha

Hushabye baby,
hush quite a lot,
bad babies get rabies
and have to be shot.

:D 

Anyone who shares in my distaste for noisy children will appreciate this bit of frigid nonsensicality. 

So the parents were in Switzerland for the last week and have returned. It's nice they're here, but I wish they would stop being sooo... how do 
we say... parenty? 
They're here to offer guidance over every single little thing that you've done a thousand times without them knowing, but since they're there they might as well interject some helpful advice just in case you could figure it out for yourself.
yes sarcasm is the refuge of losers... and I'm happy to be hiding there. Because when I do something stupid and immature it's usually delibe
rate and there's no use in hiding it. Making it painfully obvious... it adds flavor.

Lesson tomorrow. Yay. Valio is going tell me what I'm doing wrong with my reeds and help me not to be so "sloppy" I hope. Though that reference was to their basic construction last time.. so hopefully these blanks won't be so bad. ahhh :/

I'm going to put a new poll on the bottom of this blog... this one shall read;

Is it lame to keep a blog you started in highschool through college, and beyond?

Yes/No
 
 
Don't forget to check the bottom of this blog to poll Your answer!!!

ok. now it's really late. 

A quick shout out to Andre, Tabs, Daniel, Lynnann, Carl, Seth Man, Hillary, Brettt, and Lukeyloo. I miss you.

(ps. Congrats to Hills on the competition :D)

I like this photo emmy took at mission bay... I look super emo but it's also kinda artsy. :D

Friday, May 29, 2009

summer break

Well I'm back for the summer, and loving being home. The lack of stress here is very refreshing.

I'm hoping I can start teaching again, and spend this time really focusing on playing my instrument. 

Goals for summer;

practice

get job

study german

study piano

eat right

figure out reeds

get fit (a six-pack would be nice too)


We'll see how much I get done. Every new experience is a chance to learn and grow. Hopefully that's what this summer will be.

time to practice! :D

Saturday, April 25, 2009

jury week









Eastman
Wind
Orchestra
pre-rehearsal goofiness. ;)





so, it's this was jury week.. which means No Classes!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!

This week was fantastic. I feel so much better having been active and interested in life again. lol but seriously, I think the strain of all the work we have
to do was slowly eating me. So much so that I feel like a different person now. I'm visibly healthier, mentally happier, and the weather is fantastic. I've been using that word a lot recently, fantastic that is, because everything has just been fantastic. FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And it's all because of the way we kicked off jury week, (we being my small bible study and I) which was to go watch movies at Luke's Apt. till all hours, and then dance to loud stereo music. haha The neighbors probably hate us!

So we did that again the next night, minus the dancing but we stayed up talking till all hours.

The next day I went over to Luke's apt. whilst he cleaned and vacuumed and I half-heartedly did german homework.... always german homework. He mentioned that he was subletting the apartment for the summer and I made a poster for him with the pages program on my mac. That was exciting.
That evening, Tabitha, Seth, Luke and myself went to an awesome Mediterranean restaurant called Sinbad's. It was good. yum yum. Then we got a movie from Block Buster and watched that in Luke's Apt.
The next morning I was actually more productive than the rest of my week combined (except today) because I organized my week, cleaned my desk (mostly), fixed my printer, printed luke's apt. advertisement, made copies of it and posted them in the dorms and school, finished the german homework that I half-heartedly done the previous day, showered, napped (because 7:30 is just too darned early and 2:30 am is way too late) had an aural skills coaching, and ran to the beach with Tabs (Tabitha), Luke and Lynnann. We ate Chinese food, took lots of silly pictures, declared vehemently how cold the water was on such a warm day! (82 deezgreez) I hit the swings with luke while the girls chatted (they're so grown up...) then we hit the pier, which is where the real excitement happened.

So we're walking down the pier which is about a half mile long and on the way we meet this fisherman who had some serious attitude. The reason we met him is because we saw a fish on the pier that we assumed had jumped up by mistake and couldn't get back into the water. We were wrong. The fisherman yelled at us to leave it alone and just let it die because it was not an indigenous species to the area. It was some type of goby from the Mediterranean, and it's because of some Russian ship that accidently picked up these fish in some part of it's hold that these fish even exist in Lake Ontario. They're breeding faster than rabbits and eating all the microbey thingys in the water (not sure if it's plankton or algae), which is causing the rest of the fish to die off.
So I confront the fisherman and ask him if we can put the poor dying fish out of it's misery instead of just letting it drown in the air, since he wouldn't let us throw it back in. He asked why I cared and I told him it had to do with my philosophy behind being a vegetarian (and bizarrely humane...) and that it bothered me to see it just dying like that. Instead of doing something about the fish he avoids it and asks if I smoked. I told him no and he then informed me that they make a part of cigarettes out of animal fat. I asked him again whether or not he could do something about the fish... well no he'd rather just try to make a hypocrite of me instead of doing something about the situation at hand. Oh people.

So we're still on the pier, we walk to the end of it and it starts to rain. So we head back. In passing the crazy fisherman we hear him yelling violently at everyone to "GET DOWN!!! THERE'S A STORM COMING!!! THERE'S LIGHTING AND IT'S GOING TO STRIKE!!! GET DOWN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!!!" And that is when I noticed peoples' hairs standing strait up in the air (or maybe luke noticed first- our stories differ on that point)... my hair is about 3 feet long and there were strands standing strait up, just because of all the electricity in the air... wow. So we're laying on the ground, just chillin waiting for the fisherman to stop yelling and to give us the all clear. The guy himself was scarier than the prospect of being struck by lightning... yeah...
AND then it rains. Not little cute droplets like in CA, but really rains. Huge massive droplets which were surprisingly warm. That's when we all made that half mile dash for the shoreline. Obviously we survived, but the fun thing was the fact that our hairs were still sticking up even though it was raining! lol
Then we had dinner at Lynnann's watched The Soloist in theaters and went to bed.

Today I got up called my parents, did some other things I don't remember doing, and hit the practice rooms. I was there for many many hours, not practicing (tho that did happen) but practicing aural skill material for the upcoming final. Aggghhh!!! So that evening I make plans to take Tab's car with Luke to Wegmans and get a money order for the insurance policy on my broken blender (the same one from Thanksgiving- procrastination is my middle name..) but that snowballed into dinner at a couple's apartment with some other friends from church and then a game of some sort. Wegmans had actually closed their money order section of the store six minutes before I got there so I ended up not getting that done. Came back and studied aural skillz, contemplated my crazy crazy week and then admired the wet though perfumed air of the outdoors as I also admired the source of the perfume, which was a great tree covered with thousands of beautiful white blossoms. The weather is absolutely awesome and peachy right now. I don't want it to ever end. I want to be perpetually stuck in my 19th year with Luke and Tabs and Lynnann and Seth and Hillary with this wonderful weather and the flowers, studying music and having the most ridiculous amounts of fun during our free time.

Tomorrow is church. Reality check. lol

This was an awesome break. Now time to rock the 5 formidable tests I have this week. Esp. the aural finals. But hopefully also the piano ones and the german one.

I'm not taking german next year. It is really really Really time consuming and I already have 23 hours of french I've taken extra curricularly at Palomar College. Those credits better transfer. lol But this year of german has been really good for me. Now I can actually understand most of what my Austrian friend Lorenz (from SDYS Musicamp) writes to me on skype. :)

Ok, I just got texted by Luke to go to bed.. I don't know how he knew I was still up. lol

I must obey- I'll be back after hell week has come and gone. :)

peace out.

this is Tabs, me and Lynnann from left to right- Luke is taking the pic

Saturday, April 18, 2009

So it's Saturday night and I should go to bed, but I delved into the Nutella- since I don't have any actual food in my room. Eating chocolate before bed is a bad idea. I'm wide awake, and exhausted. My parents are probably groaning as they read this. Let's not talk about that... lol

So finals are coming up. Again. More importantly however is jury week. This Tuesday I will have to perform for a group of judges who will decide weather or not I have a future at this school. 
I'll be fine if I don't freak out the way I did at studio class today. That was scary... 
That incident was a combination of pent up everything, stress, fatigue, poor diet, poorer exercising, in-practice, the reed (which was awesome just a few days ago), lack of electrolytes and this wicked adrenaline rush that left me shaking beyond control. It was so intense.
But after I calmed down again it was better. I need to play for more people.

So, I spent about 12 hours on this thing here at Eastman we call a Listening Module.
You listen so some pieces and write in prose a series of theoretical observations and then elaborate on them and how they affect the piece as a whole. You also try to give your ideas on the what music means and how it effected you.  (yes affect and effect- am I using them correctly?) So I spend every available free minute on this listening module, and complete it the day before it's due. Wow how diligent am I? It only made me sacrifice much valuable practice time, added much undue stress, and prevented me from thinking about anything else. Well at least it was done on time right? Wrong. The day it's due we all hear from the head honcho of the theory dept. that there has been an extension on the due date of this listening module because it is unreasonable to ask for this assignment right before juries. Un huh. Too bad I already spent my jury practicing time on this bleeping module. 12 hours? What could you do with that time? Yet another example of the smooth function of the great cogs running this well oiled clock that we benefit from. No no, I'm not complaining. How could I possibly hold faculty up to the demands that they place on us, the underling students? 

German is tough, but you know what's tougher? MUSIC THEORY!!! oh wait.. I meant to say English... lol... whoops....

I feel really bad for those who didn't grow up with English as a native language, because it is a series of broken rules, exceptions, irregular verbs and run-on clauses. (oh wait, that's my blog... lolz)

I heard our native german teacher say an english phrase in which she made what should have been an adjective, an adverb. And why not? It was seemingly modifying the verb... except it wasn't really. It was the weirdest thing, because when you try to figure out why it's wrong, it's hard to explain. 
It appears to be modifying the verb. So if I said; "That sweater goes nicely with those pants." That would be a grammatically correct statement. However, if I said "That sweater looks nicely with those pants." That would be wrong... how 
do you explain to someone on the spot why that was wrong?  :D
It boils down to how the verb functions in the sentence. 
I think we can say without a shadow of a doubt that "goes nicely" is correct. The adverb modifies the verb (in this case) and the knee joint connects to the hip joint and so on.
However, does the adverb "nicely" really want to modify the verb "looks?" 
Well let's see, if your sweater had eyes and was in the habit of looking at things, it would be ok to say that it "looks nicely " however if you want to say that the sweater itself is nice in appearance, then you would say "That sweater looks nice with those pants." 
The word "looks" is not what you are trying to modify, you are in fact trying to modify "sweater." This is why you need an adjective (which modifies nouns or pronouns) instead an adverb (which modifies verbs, adjectives or other adverbs)

These two sentences "goes nicely" and "looks nice" both mean (virtually) the same thing. 
Grammar grammar... tisk tisk

You'd think I'd have more to say about the bassoon at this point... 

I hate reeds.

Beyond that, just pray that I totally trash (in an awesome way) my jury and kick butt on these finals. 

The Nutella is slowly wearing off and there are an increasing amount of typos in my writing...

Church is tomorrow and every new day brings a new adventure. 
Getting up and being on time are adventure enough for me. One day I'll figure out how to do it. :p 


Can't wait to see CA again and my fabulously family. 
yes. just to bug you.

This is my Quintet at Eastman which never actually got a name, thought I pushed for Quordal 5th, it never stuck. This is our end of the year concert, we played the Nielson Quintet- huge bassoon solo. :D

Friday, February 27, 2009

ok, the weather here is absolutely out of control here! We go from strong (and I mean very strong) winds to cool, sunny, calm weather almost over night. Yesterday it was sunny and windy, today it is really really windy overcast and raining. Tomorrow it will snow. Oh yes. The the blizzard conditions will return.Life is so crazy here. I am getting what is known as the Eastman plague. It's an actual bacteria/virus that makes people really sick here, but not enough to keep them from infecting those who don't have it. (STAY HOME YOU SICK PEOPLE AND STOP BREATHING ON ME!!!!!)
Now it's audition season, and all the little auditionees are here... it was cute at first but now it bugs me. (ps. I'm in a very foul mood right now) 
I just got out of the most harrowing german exam ever. EVER.
But back to auditionees, it's sort of a joke amongst those of us who have actually made it to the other side of the audition process, and we like to freak out the visitors. hehehehe }:D
There was one story of an upperclassmen who was literally pointing to certain auditionees and saying very loudly "NOPE.... well MAYBE"  "Definitely NO" "YES, YES OH OH YES!!!" 
lolz I love it.
I just got out of a really depressing orchestra rehearsal, and as I was walking back to the dorms there were a group of auditionees standing in a circle around some tour guide asking questions. Just as I was just shuffling past them in my moody glory, some girl asked "What's the food like here?" 
I couldn't help myself- I laughed very loudly and sardonically. I was greeted by the sound of uncomfortable silence behind me as people processed the connection between the laugh and the question. 
It was pure gold.

quick disclaimer; the food can be really good here. it really depends on who's cooking (and when it's time to renew a contract... yes again being a rain cloud)

Good news is that now I can go to my bible study since classes are over for the week, I'll make dinner with Ms. Judd and it will be awesome. The next day I'll have another very depressing rehearsal, go to the pastors bday party, and then the Winter Dance. In fact I need to go get the appropriate clothes from my very awesome Bible Study friend Tabitha, so gotta run.  

love and peace (which admittedly have no part in this particular post)



Here at Pastor's house we're having Bible study. Present is the good Darcy, Seth, Mary queen of food on face, Tabs and my knees under the grey blanket. It is Cold at pastor's house!

Monday, January 12, 2009

Well it's been a fabulous Christmas break- I missed my friends at Eastman terribly but I'm going to be missing San Diego even more when I get there.

I'm waiting for my flight in the SD airport (got about a half hour)

Just so you know, the weather is incredible. It just took a turn for the better. It is completely sunny and the Santa Anna winds (local term for desert breezes) are making it warm, dry but totally comfortable. The sun is just awesome. haha

I am not looking forward to leaving. I would like to spend my whole life in this place. 

Over break I got to go to the beach twice, Coronado island and Carlsbad right off the Pacific Coast Highway. I actually tanned and feel so much healthier than when I was scraping by in Rochester on 6 or fewer hours of sleep.

ok, well peeps are boarding...