Thursday 22, Day 3: After briefly checking in with my sponsor this morning, I went back home to practice on mom’s new cajón. That sucked up a lot of time, but I developed some percussive patterns that I can use both in the ensemble show and in the album.
From 9:30 to 12:30 I played the cajón and the piano. At first, I couldn’t come up with anything, but I remembered a pattern that luckily not only begins in E but ends in D; I’ll use it as the transition out of the midsection second riff of Dyschronometria, leaving me back in gear for a closing verse/pre-chorus/chorus (in D), also allowing me to use an inverted midsection first riff to outro. I’ll spend 3-4 transcribing riffs, then I’ll practice for SHHS Theatre Awards, set up, and perform. That’s a solid 6 hours (assuming it ends at 9). Total hours spent today: 9. Cumulative total hours: 25.5 out of 120 (100 required).
Theatre Awards were a blast of fun and some confusion. After setting up in TC 130 (classroom), we were told we could set up in the Large Auditorium. Cue moving lots of instruments. After hooking everything up to an extension cord and power strip graciously provided by Mr. Tisdale, we ran through a bunch of potential riffs. First was something Alex and Sydney came up with, which I underscored with bass an eventually delved into a bit of solo work. Then we did another one of theirs, same deal. We closed with some 7/4 riffs I developed, Alex on the cajón. Sydney sat out. There were other riffs which didn’t make it.
During the show, I wasn’t sure whether or not I was supposed to underscore Thespian tapping. I began a little thing on the piano, the music guy did confirm he was supposed to play, so we transitioned smoothly over. Whoops. Then of course, when I accept a most likely to succeed professionally award I hit up Mr. Sumerak first, responding with a head bob to the side which I interpreted as, “get back in your corner musician,” but he intended as, “now go hug Mr. Johnson and Ms. McBurney. Well, good news is when I am presented another award for senior playwright, I get a second chance, a do-over. In other news, Eric Relman, Barber of my “Barbershopera”, won a most memorable performance award. Everyone in that show deserves it, but for someone whose stage and music work extends to improv club and cello lessons, and as much a dancer as I, he really deserves it. To [mis]quote, “It was really great, but never again.” I’m glad I got be that for him and he got to be that for the rest of us, Alex and Katrina and Max and Elena and Lauren. In unrelated news, he became Bar-Mitzvah in a cultish ceremony at his house with a bunch of friends and his parents. Apparently, his father heard Jethro Tull coming out of the basement phonograph and knew it was me because “only Steven would be playing Jethro Tull.”
Sorry for the digression. At the end of the awards ceremony, there was this huge reception with champagne glasses with not-champagne (I hate carbonation, but they had ice so I filled a glass with that), a bunch of fancy pastries (LEMOOON SQUAAARES!!!) and a chocolate fountain with fresh fruit. I pulled a wolverine and jabbed pretzels between my fingers into the fountain. People were struggling to keep the enormous strawberries on the tiny little wooden sticks, so I used a thick prezel instead. After schmoozing a bit, I gathered my peoples and hit up the bass and jammed everything from Ingrid Michaelson’s “The Way I Am” to good old RATM’s “Killing in the Name” until we got kicked out at closing time. Such is life. Bounced more riffs off Alex and invented some during the process, tried to convince Mr. Sumerak that 7/4 is the king of time signatures, and had fun.
P.S. In the parking lot, we (mother and I) had a long conversation with Ruth Geye (sophomore) and her mother. Ruth’s interested in film. Why does nobody tell me anything? Notice to everyone: if you’re into film, fricking tell me! It isn’t enough that I telegraph my passions beyond belief, y’all gotta reciprocate! Anyway, we talked about schools I visited and their pitfalls. Columbia IL was in a big polluted city and gives virtually no aid. Syracuse has duplicate facilities for Art and Communications, gave off a weird vibe, plugged “study abroad” way too much (a feature that should be standard with all colleges), and has a stupid mascot. Ithaca was nice, but they’re private and expensive and competitive and post-application they don’t maintain great contact. Bowling Green is alright, but not as good as Ohio University, my top choice. Going there. Great department facilities and courses, substantial aid, in the middle of a lush valley, architecture with an uncanny resemblance to Shaker, what’s not to like? We also went over undergraduate degrees vs. graduate degrees; one should get into the field asap, and going to schools which focus on grad students tend to do so at the expense of undergrads, and the degree is important but experience is even more important and grad degrees can be a bit much, and that UCLA and NY colleges are expensive and in big cities (if you have loads of money and don’t mind choking on car exhaust for eternity, be my guest). Also, International Baccalaureate classes are the worst – more work, they lure you with “alternative thinking styles” and end up pulling out the rug and shoving standardized tests down your face daily in the form of classwork, only there’s no multiple choice. It also screws up your schedule if you want to take other classes. Also, it’s not what classes bring to you, its what you bring to classes. Bring that alternate thinking and analysis to “regular people classes” and you’ll have a much better time, and not waste all that energy and money. IB earns my stamp of disapproval and a spot on the mantlepiece of hell next to vanilla ice cream and the 4-chord pop song.