Solo and Ensemble-

Well, it's that time of year again. Time for all of my piano crap. Tomorrow is the first of a long line of exhausting and draining piano.. things. Not really competitions, but kinda like that. The one tomorrow is definitely the easiest. Only one song, and it doesn't even have to be memorized! But of course, I didn't know that until AFTER I had busted my butt to memorize a six-page song.. >.>

Next is my college music dept. audition, which is scheduled to take place next week. I have three more songs to memorize on that one. One is mostly memorized, the next is so very close, and the last one still needs a lotta work. Yep, I suspect that I will be practicing a LOT of freakin' piano in the next week.

The next one issss... Guild, I think? Guild is perhaps the biggest pain in the butt of all of them. I have to play every song from memory, and I am playing eight songs. They aren't easy songs, either! It's killing me trying to learn all these, and them memorize them!! The reason I have so many this year is that, since this is my senior year, I wanted to go out with a bang. That's why I'm doing a class A piece at Solo and Ensemble, and I'm doing this "diploma program" for guild. In the fall when I choose to do all this stuff, it sounds great. Until I have to buckle down and freak out in the spring until the very. last. minute. Then, it's not so great, and I always think, "Why couldn't I have just chosen three songs for guild? T_T"

The last one is MED. MED isn't so terribly bad. I only have to play 3 songs from memory, and obviously I can pick from the ones I learn for guild. They just have to be from three of the four stylistic periods of music, which isn't hard at all. Then I have to have a "technique exam" where a judge will come in and watch me do scales (all major and harmonic minors) and all my cadences (I, IV, V, V7, and I), also arpeggios for each and every scale (only two octaves though, so not bad. The scales are four octaves.), and for every cadence I play, I have to play the augmented chord, the minor chord, the diminished chord, then back to the I chord. Do you have any idea how long that takes? It takes a long freakin' time, let me tell ya. After the technique exam, I have a theory exam! Yaaaay! No, not really. First there is the ear training, where the teacher will play two notes on the piano and you write on your paper the interval that she plays. Then she hits a random note and you write down the one you think it is. It's not really funnn.. Oh, and then you have the REAL theory test, where you have to write out scales and cadences and write in the counting for each measure of a song they give you and all that. It's really no fun at all. OH! And I almost forgot, we have to do a sight-reading exam. You go into the room and sit at the piano, the lady hands you something to play, and you have to play it PERFECTLY, or else.

Oh, but at the end of all that, we get a PLAQUE!
... > . >