music things

Hi. I've been guilted into posting by Viv's subtle message that "nobody else is updating" , and also by the profusion of wongposts that I see everytime i open this blog. Yes, I am aware that I haven't posted regularly for a while (or at all). Sadly, this is very unlikely to change. Ahem.

To give you a taste of life as a music student (since people always ask me what music students do):
I have 4 lectures a week, performance practice, a private lesson, orchestra rehearsal, choir rehearsal and an occasional double reed workshop (+ law lectures). All four lectures are rather boring, especially aural studies. Btw my homework for that consists of training my ears using this chord trainer. Try it! It is unexpectedly difficult, well I thought so anyway.

Last week at performance practice, I had a revelation. This revelation was connected to my longtime indifference towards cellos and preference for violins. Anyway, two piano trios were performing and the violinists and pianists were average, but in both the cellists unexpectedly stood out. And as I was listening, I suddenly thought...
CELLOS SOUND REALLY BEAUTIFUL.

Something about the mellow, throbbing melancholy of the tone captures the soul of the music and conveys its emotion. Violins are also amazing obviously but I feel that cellos resonate more with people's hearts, instead of being soaring and otherworldly.

I also like lower brass more than I ever thought I would. Interestingly enough it really fills out the sound of large ensembles.

HMMM as you can see I spend alot of my time doing music-related things now/watching anime. Law is also fun, though I ...still have not done my court report OHHH DEAR. : (   

Here's to another update in 1 month (hopefully less!)

You guys still play Maple Story, yea?

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-03-20/maplestory-gets-fullmetal-alchemist-tie-in-in-japan

What is going on inside my head.

At the end of Japanese class today, Inaba-sensei asked if someone could help her carry her stuff up to the fourth floor. Instantly, Stooph raised her voice and said "Daniel wants to!" (or something along the lines of that).

Anyway, Inaba asked in Japanese while we (1) were in the lift whether I had studied Japanese before. I said I had not...because I had not. Then (for whatever reason) she said my Japanese was good (referring to spoken 日本, since she had not seen our tests yet).

Inaba then asked student O the same thing, to which O replied "I haven't before but i've watch j-dramas, listen to j-pop (i think) and also enrolled in a jap school recently". I also noted that Inaba never said O's Japanese was good, for whatever reason (again, referring to spoken japanese).

At this point I realized that I could have said 'I watch a whole lot of anime' as a better response, since it would seem odd that I could speak well without ever hearing a word of Japanese. If she complimented me first, then asked if I had studied Japanese I would probably have said I watched anime.

While I was thinking about this, Inaba and O were having a good conversation about a certain j-pop singer (2), so I couldn't butt in and say what was slightly annoying to me.

I even thought about it later, to the point where I was deciding whether I should email her to tell her, then realized it would be stupid as most likely she wouldn't even remember about the fact in the first place.

I also ran the situation in my mind that I had actually said "I haven't , but I watched a lot of anime" and realized that I may have spoken with her about anime and not allowed O to speak about j-pop with the teacher.

Finally I settled on the fact that, if she was really thinking how weird it was that I could speak Japanese OK (3), then she would have asked specifically if i had gone to japan/listen to japanese music/watch Japanese media.

Anyway, the point of this banter is to have insight about the types of thoughts I have, and what i 'worry' about. And this is what I thought about today.　さよなら！

Notes:

1)(me and another student, 'O')

2)(again, i thought it was j-pop, i was too busy worrying about what had just occured)

3)(i'm pretty sure it's one of those social compliments, not a real one)