Hello all,
I spent this past weekend in Dallas and my birthday was Friday. I could pretty much only make it up to Dallas for a visit once this semester and it just so happens that I chose the perfect time. Here's why
-bday weekend
-the recital of a dear friend of mine
-the return of two other SMU evacuees
All in all, I must say it was a great weekend in Dallas. Although I am happy with my life decision to transfer to Houston, I must say that I truely miss being at SMU and it makes me so angry that I could not pursue track and field there due to a lack of a men's track team! Doing track and music at SMU really would be the perfect situation. They threw me a party and it was fun... I got to see a lot of old friends and I was touched when people came by to wish me happy birthday.
The next day, I went and saw Charlene (SMU oboe major) and TJ's (SMU clarinet major) joint recital and as is the case with all recitals, I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a very well played recital, indeed. Recitals by professionals are very touching but seeing your own colleagues in recital is something special. I had the pleasure of being stagehand. Fate kind of reared it's familar head with me...it turns out, that every recital that Charlene has ever played, I was a stagehand. The weekend that I was availiable to come up was the weekend Charlene had scheduled a recital months in advance...how could I avoid it? I had to be stagehand. One thing I have missed dearly is watchign recitals. UH has been having recitals and such but my schedule lately hasnt allowed me to see them. Seing arecital this weekend in such afamilar place really placed me back into that peaceful musical refuge.
In other news, I had a pretty good lesson last week with my trombone teacher here. Things are finally starting to kick back up and I'm beginning to feel my stride in playing. I also taught my high school kids today and did it rather well I must say. Teaching is something that I'm real proud of. I do have some young teacher's flaws in my teaching but I think my overall apporach is working extremely well for the most part. I expect a lot out of these kids and they seem to respond. The ones who didn't I encouraged to quit for the sake of not wasting each other's time. I've only lost 2 students...everyone else understands what I expect of them and they do it...it's awesome. I really emphasize the importance of being responsible and playing for the sake of...well, playing. Some of these kids get trapped in the competitive aspect of playing and have lost understanding of the gratifying experience of bringing love and respect to their playing and their audience... Im really glad to be able to influence a wave of young players to directly influence and shape their musical pursuits how ever far they take them.
Now I must go do Math HW and study for a math test... just 3 of my 21 hrs of class.
Stay tuned!
-JL
