My music is best understood by children and animals.

This weekend was incredibly busy for me, starting with Friday.  I was only able to practice for 70 minutes; however, I also had Wind Ensemble.  After Wind Ensemble, I left for Greenfield to be band babysitter for the evening.  We took the kids to see the band documentary "From the 50 Yardline."  If you have not seen this movie, I suggest you do (It has just been released on DVD) not only because I am in it, but because it is very inspirational.  The kids loved it and asked me many questions afterwards in the Q&A session.  I also gave autographs after the screening as well. :)  

I stayed in Greenfield that evening because we had our first competition on Saturday near Louisville.  I did bring my mouthpiece along so that I could buzz some of my music.  The highlights of Saturday were the amazing run before we left for Corydon, the phenomenal lunch that the boosters prepared, the awesome performance at the Corydon competition, the director's hospitality room and judge's critique.  They served a full meal at the hospitality room!  And it was good!  Critique was also a great experience of the teaching and critiquing process.

After staying the night in Corydon, I arrived back on campus Sunday, today.  I was able to fit in two practice sessions.  Here are the practice logs from Friday-Today.

9/5/2008   7:40 AM

Buzzing - 5 min

Long Tones - 5 min

Slurs - 5 min

Articulation - 5 min

Scales - 2 min - "Performance"

Kopprasch - 3 min - Just #9

Pottag - 2 min - "Performance"

Morceau - 30 min

Fantasy - 10 min

Warm Down - 3 min

9/7/2008   3:30 PM

Buzzing - 5 min

Long Tones - 2 min

Slurs - 3 min

Articulation - 5 min

Scales - 5 min

Kopprasch - 5 min

Pottag - 5 min

Alphonse - 5 min

Morceau - 15 min

Fantasy - 15 min

Warm Down - 5 min

7:15 PM

Buzzing - 5 min

Long Tones - 5 min

Slur - 3 min

Articulation - 2 min

Scales - 5 min

Pottag - 5 min

Alphonse - 5 min

Fantasy - 10 min

Morceau  - 5 min

Warm Down- 5 min

Total time Sunday: 2 hours

Friday was a very productive practice.  I broke down Morceau and took it at a slow tempo to get the triplet variation and the sixteenth variation.  I also broke down the Adagio section and the final section.  I also did performance runs of my scales and Pottag.  Both sounded very good and prepared.

My first Sunday session felt very good as well.  It was nice to have a break and the lips enjoyed it.  I had to pay special attention to my chin and make sure it wasn't curling up.  I also broke down parts of Fantasy and prepared all four Alphonse exercises.  

I would not be able to say the same thing about my second session.  I felt recovered from the first session and decided to play.  When I warmed up, I sounded great; however, after playing through a few things, my lips became very fatigued.  I ran through everything to make sure that I did not lose the fingers and muscle memory.  I then warmed down extensively to make sure that I would not injure my lips.  I need to be very careful in these first few weeks in taking care of my lips.  Otherwise, I felt that I did not lose too much from the loss of practice on Saturday.  Many of the etudes are ready for my lesson and others are getting close.  Since the solos are new, I am still breaking them down and learning them.  I look forward to getting back on schedule and hopefully my lips will recover.

Quote:  Igor Stravinsky - Yay atonal music!