All posts by hannahviolin

I am a violinist. I also enjoy running, working out, reading, and hanging with my friends and cat.
Auditions

Bits and pieces

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Oh hey!

Figured I’d just give a quick update on yesterday’s little ol’ audition.  I know why people don’t tell people when they are taking auditions, or especially why people don’t blog about them, because when they come out and name the person who advanced in your round (of 13, 1 out of 13) and it isn’t you, your inclination isn’t to tell the world.

Grumpy Cat, New Years resolutions.

But hey, I’m a blogger, I have to tell the world.  And I’ll write more about the experience later when I have a little more perspective.  I’m less (slightly less) angry than I was last night but only slightly.  Anything I say would be tinged with bitterness.

And tears.  Sometimes I hate being a girl, because of the tears.  After I finished playing I was texting with Chris and I said, so yeah, after the results I’ll probably go cry in the car for awhile and then drive home.  He said, oh, don’t cry!  As if that was an option.

I texted the same thing to my friend Jen, and she said, well, sure, but don’t cry for more than five minutes.  I thought that sounded like a really long time!

I didn’t time it, and in fact I basically held out UNTIL I got home.  So there you have it.  I was too terrified in the parking lot that I would see someone on the committee that I knew and they would be aware of my failure.

This is a great day:  admitting both professional failure and a crying jag on the internet for all to read!

Let’s see.  Bright side…

It is time to reset and get back to life as it was.  This morning I’m taking a rest day, plus my first finger joint hurts oddly, but I’ve got a concert Friday night with Chamber Project St Louis (and the same program the following Friday, so come see us if you are local!)…I’ve got teaching…I’ve got TONS of blog reviews people want me to write (we’ll see about those, but I’ve been reading some fun books and trying some stuff out and I’m just super behind on all of that)…I’ve got an overflowing email inbox which would ordinarily stress me out, but again, I’ll get to it…

Plus I’ve got a half marathon in April (yes, half) that I really need to start running for again.  Not today.  Today is diet and detox and rest, and tomorrow I’m back to working out.  I’m not super happy with what I’m seeing in the mirror and now there are no more excuses for stress eating and skipping workouts. 

(unrelated cat picture—see I’m just fine 😉 )

Is there a shame category to publish this post under?  That’s how I feel.  Even though if I were a friend I’d tell me that auditions suck, everybody hates them, it’s okay, and plus, all that work I put into it will ONLY help me be a better player overall and there’s no negative side of having worked hard…all that stuff you tell your friends because you love them…it’s harder to convince yourself of.  It just feels like I tried to do something and I shouldn’t have bothered and it’s a little embarrassing.  Or why couldn’t I have played better?  How hard would that have been?  Maybe if I hadn’t been sick and missed that week of practice.…

Don’t write platitudes in the comments.  I already know.  Tell me funny stuff to cheer me up instead.  Pretend I have the emotional capability of a small child and if you get me smiling and giggling again everything will be okay 🙂  Bonus points for emailing or posting funny or cute animal pictures.

(I was about to publish this when a friend called.  She was telling me how the author of A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle, spent 12 years trying to get the book published.  She knew it was good but had a hard time convincing anyone else of the book’s value…she kept believing in herself though, and look at how well known the book is now.  I shouldn’t concern myself with people who are just looking for me to make mistakes because they don’t appreciate the BEAUTY I can bring to music.  There’s a wee bit of perspective for you.  Or like my friend Sarah said the night before, I might be selling apples but they want oranges.)

Auditions

Relax. Have Fun.

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That’s my mantra for tomorrow’s audition.  Relax.  Have fun.  I’m so NOT a mantra person, but I am doing whatever I can here.  When I was younger, I thought that people in their 30’s (and 40’s) couldn’t possibly be as good as those of us who were younger and had such quick muscles.  Now I know better.  I have never been playing the violin better than I am right now, and no matter what happens tomorrow, that will continue to be true.

(Curious about orchestral auditions—you’ll have to read this blog post I wrote a few years ago to understand more how the system works—or doesn’t work.)

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(how big the cat was the last time I took a St Louis Symphony audition…approximately)

I was just thinking, the last time I took a full St Louis section audition (I’ve taken the sub list here and a one year audition, but never for a full position) was in the winter of 2003.  Long time!  Most of us who take auditions have taken a fair amount.  Let’s see—my first professional audition (meaning, for a full time job, not a regional orchestra, because I’ve take tons of those too) was for the Rochester Philharmonic.  I’ve also auditioned in Houston, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Detroit, San Diego and Charlotte (a position I won and left after a few years for a variety of reasons).

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(several couches and millions of pounds of food later…)

But I’m more ready for tomorrow than ever.  I’m terrified to admit that on the internet, and what bothers me most, is if I don’t advance tomorrow, then I’m just lumped in with all the other fools who didn’t advance.  Not that they are all fools, but there’s such a range, some people who had no business being there in the first place, people who just didn’t play their best, or people who would really be great for the job and just didn’t manage to show the committee that.  I feel like I’m in the last category—I know I would be an asset to the orchestra, to any orchestra, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get that chance.  And I hate just feeling like some idiot who took the audition and didn’t advance, and being lumped in with (actual thing that happened) the woman who, in my last audition, was unable to tune her own violin and ASKED FOR HELP.  But yet we both didn’t advance…and in the eyes of the common bystander, are the same.  Someone who auditioned for the symphony and didn’t advance.  Doesn’t seem quite fair.

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(This is also not fair—my sister’s new kitten in black, being cleaned by her old kitty…the cute just isn’t fair!)

That seems like negative thinking though (and maybe a little bit mean :/ ), so I’m going to think positive.  I’m going to go out there, I’m going to stay relaxed, sit back on my heels, focus, and let my preparation shine through.  I am going to be excited to show them how beautifully I play each piece or excerpt they ask for, and I’m just going to have a good time with it.  No matter what they think, if I go out on that stage and enjoy myself, I don’t care.

Well, of course I care.  I care more than just about anything.  But let’s pretend I don’t, because I know the odds here.  I also know that I’m proud of the work I’ve done and my husband is too, and that’s probably, in the greater scheme of things, most important.

Advice from my teacher in college on auditions:  If you drink the night before, don’t drink too much.

(And publishing this post terrifies me:  I have friends that take auditions all the time and it seems like no big deal to them…maybe that’s just them covering up their feelings, or maybe they are just better at it than I am?  I don’t know!  I’m not freaking out or anything, but I’ve been utterly unable to focus on anything else in the past couple of weeks.)

Cat, Food

Sunday Night thoughts (mainly about cats)

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Today was the first day I wasn’t filled with time and schedule panic.  I slept in and I have already practiced several hours, along with having watched last week’s two hour Downton Abbey and spending plenty of time chatting with my friends on twitter.  (I lead a full, rich life.)  And here I am, blogging.  CRAZY.

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I’m starting to feel like this guy.  Just a fat blob, resting on the couch.  It’s cool though.  She’s pretty freaking adorable, so if I’m half that cute, I’m still okay, I think.

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(checking out the lovely flower arrangement Chris brought home)

Oh, and Happy (belated) Valentine’s Day to everybody.  We wanted to go out to eat (I know, surprise, us, going out to eat, that’s CRAZY) but we wanted to go somewhere new, so we went to Harvest.  Valentine’s Day is never the best night to go out to dinner, because it’s so ROMANTIC and the service was slow and the menu was a required prix fix menu, but the food was pretty good.  Chris was sad because they ran out of the dessert he wanted (goat cheesecake) but overall we enjoyed our meal.  We’ll probably go back and try the regular menu sometime, so that’s a good recommendation. 

I left my blogging hat at home and didn’t take any food pictures, but I believe Chris had the short ribs and I had something called the “duck reuben” which was really tasty.  Everybody told us to try the bread pudding, that it was to die for, and it was very good, though…I don’t know that it was my favorite.  It was weird because it was obviously made with the same bread that they had served on the table so it felt like I had already had it.  Though the caramel sauce was delicious.

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(my true valentine)

Even though generally we will sit in the same house for hours without talking, I’m always pretty proud of our ability to carry on a good conversation in public 😉  Is that weird?  When we were in Paris, we ate (very early) at a restaurant with only one other couple there at the time, and they weren’t talking.  It was totally weird!  We felt STRANGE having a conversation when they were just sitting there all disgruntled and awkward.  To be fair, lots of people were talking at Harvest and there were lots of awkwardly dressed couples which made for excellent people watching. 

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  This week is going to be stress city, but I feel fantastic.  No matter what happens on Tuesday in the audition, I know that I sound really good, that I can play the HECK out of my excerpts, and as long as I don’t freak out, I should have a good audition.  The results are irrelevant and out of my hands, but I can control how well I play and how I feel, and that’s my main goal.  I’ve done the prep (and a bit more left to do, but I KNOW everything really well) and all that’s left is to perform.  I’m ready to get back to real life as well, but I’m trying not to think like that.

Oh, and Friday night at 7 pm I’m performing with Chamber Project St Louis at the St Louis Art Museum.  Come out and see me play!

Oh, and my sister Leslie and her husband got a new kitten.  I’m totally jealous and trying to lobby Chris to let me get a new kitten (or dozen).  So far he is pretty convinced that it’s not the greatest idea at this time, but I bet I can wear him down.

Auditions, Performing, Practicing

DON’T PANIC

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I finally had a quick urge to come tell you guys how I’m doing, and then Windows Live Writer (the program I use to write my blog posts) wouldn’t OPEN!  I briefly panicked, and tried to open it a whole bunch of times, and kept getting error messages, then I started to do a Google search, realized I didn’t have time to get into a fancy computer problem because I’m already an hour late on my practice schedule (which is fine, it just means I HAVE to, absolutely HAVE to practice tonight after teaching)…anyway, then magically about three windows opened up, so here we are.

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My teacher once (or more than once) said, the most important things at an orchestral audition are rhythm, intonation, rhythm, and rhythm.  Others have argued for more intonations.  But yesterday I think I actually started to get the whole “something special” idea…

If you’re not a musician, you’ve probably already stopped reading.  But in a nutshell, I’m trying to get everything on my list (which includes a couple of solo concertos and then a whole bunch of excerpts from the orchestra literature, i.e. Brahms Symphony no. 4, 1st violin part, measure 392 to the end) in tip top shape.  I’m practicing with a drone, I’m practicing ever so slowly, I’ve broken everything down to get the precise rhythm, bowing, and sound that I want…and now I’m putting it back together.

The trick is to put it back together so that it doesn’t sound like you are worried about rhythm or intonation.  To play in a way that makes it sound as if you are absolutely throwing caution to the wind WHILE playing with wonderful sound and intonation and rhythm.  And while you are absolutely focused on the tiniest of details, you must make it sound like you are just thinking about the long lines and the long phrasing…something that I do much more naturally outside of audition preparation because I am actually less focused on the details (maybe that’s a major fault of mine in other performances, but I can’t worry about that right now).

Plus there’s the audition scene—it’s like the Olympics. you have to be in the zone, you have to focus, you have to do the whole Michael Phelps, have your headphones in, ignore everybody and just do your thing that you’ve been training for…and then in a couple of minutes you’re done. 

This post probably doesn’t even make any sense because I’m just rambling, and I’m overwhelmed, and I should already be practicing.  I’ll be okay in a few more days though, that’s all.  The other day I was having a minor breakdown from the stress, and I asked Chris if it had been like this in the past—he said he didn’t remember.  Musicians do this sort of thing all the time, but I think as I’ve gotten older I am putting more pressure on myself.  Or I was too young to know better.  Or I’ve just forgotten how being under intense stress all the time felt?  Anyone want to weigh in on that?

Random thoughts

I know I’ve made this joke a bunch, but really, what is a weekend?

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Is that title too long?  Mike asked me this morning how my weekend was.  I laughed at him.  WHAT?

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In the pit at Winter Opera St Louis. 

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Me in the pit.  My friend Sarah caught me taking a selfie and she may have mocked me mercilessly and used the phrase “duck face.”  I think you can tell that’s not a duck face, right?  That’s just my face, and I consider self portraits to be important documentation of what is happening in my life.

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So so much of this.  Drone, drone, drone, slow practice, slow practice, slow practice.

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A new addition to the fridge—a postcard from Carrie in Norway.  Welcome back Carrie!

I’m dropping the marathon.  I’m only running the half.  I had too much going on, and I had to make some choices.  I chose the audition and work.  Everything else had to go.  I’ll start catching up next Tuesday.  Considering that I haven’t actually run since my race in January…yeah.

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This was me texting my sister Leslie that I was dropping down to the half in April.  I’m the one in blue.

And with that…

Travel

Cars are supposed to be cute, right?

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I’ve driven a variety of cars over the years.  Some were based on getting a really good deal, others were based more on appearance and the “cute factor”.  In high school I drove an ’88 Oldsmobile Calais.  I believe I got the car at 180,000 miles and it already barely worked.  It was a car though, and I was 16, and for even more fun, it was a manual transmission which meant that I had to learn quickly how to drive a stick shift.  Since I had just recently learned how to drive, neither me nor my father really wanted to go through the trauma of learning something else together, so he just gave me a crash course in how to drive one (and what I mean by that is, he literally DESCRIBED to me how to drive a stick shift) and then I was on my own.  I never did learn how to start on a hill and I quickly learned the least hilly routes to drive around town to get places.  (This would come in handy as a runner as well, I think.)

(It looked much like this)

After that my next car was a brief lived stint with a Chevrolet Celebrity which had belonged to my grandmother.  I drove this car for a summer and then about a month in Cleveland until it got stolen from near my apartment overnight.  It was recovered, but totaled.  They had taken all of the wheels off among other things.  I had to go pick up a few personal belongings from it at the salvage lot, and I recall it was a rainy day and the lot was very muddy.  My poor car was hard to find because it was on it’s belly in the mud, sinking it.  Literally, the WHEELS were gone.  I do not mean simply tires.

Next my dad found a wonderful Toyota Camry for me to drive.  I got this one in the low 100,000s I believe, and I think I had either just hit 200,000 miles or was about to (I unfortunately can’t recall—if only I’d had a blog then).  This car lasted until a flash flood in Charlotte—I was out of town at a friend’s wedding and had left my car at home.  My cat sitter (another friend) called me afterwards to tell me my car had been submerged in water for several hours.  I called the insurance company to tell them my car had been in a flood, and they asked “is there anyone inside?”  Um, no.  I’d be calling 911.  To be fair…not everybody would.  The sight of my car being towed away with water pouring out of it was a sad sight.

I could keep going—Buick Regal, VW Jetta (another manual transmission which I learned to drive a little bit better than the Calais, and I allude to a strange story about it in this post), and currently I drive a Ford Focus.

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But what sort of car would I want if I could get anything?  I like small cars, and I like good gas mileage.  When I bought the Focus I was into the Focus hatchback and the Toyota Yaris.  The Focus I ended up with was again, a good deal (I am and will probably always be, a used car sort of person).

When I went to Italy in 2001 I was obsessed with the smart car—we saw them everywhere—I loved how tiny they were and how easy to park and maneuver.  I also loved that they seemed to come from car vending machines.

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I didn’t realize that they are owned by Mercedes Benz now.  You can find a smart car dealer here if you aren’t familiar with them—I definitely see more around the US than before but we are such a “big car” country that’s it still pretty unusual.  If I lived in a city and only needed it to get around or perhaps as a second car, I would love one.  I think it would be really handy! (Blog readers, please send me a free car!)

What’s your favorite car?  What do you drive?  Do you know how to drive a manual transmission?