All posts by hannahviolin

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

Beginning of the Week

Today is Monday, which is technically the beginning of the week for most “normal” people. For us musicians there is no beginning of the week, nor an end of the week…the week just continues on and on.

Well, except I’m free today until late afternoon. We finished the Phantom of the Opera run last night, and I am sad to be done. It was a fun show to play and the most fun I’ve had in the pit! I know that many “serious” classical musicians like to hate on Phantom, and like to hate on playing shows, but the truth is that it’s an amazing paying gig here, and I have learned I quite enjoy doing it. Each time you play the same thing, yes, but you try to do better every time.

Today I’ve cleaned the bathrooms and done some vacuuming already (much to the chagrin of my dog Mackenzie—she is only afraid of one thing and that is the vacuum cleaner) and soon I shall do some exercise before starting on my practicing. I also have to run some errands with Louie and then I have about 3 hours of teaching. Not a bad day, really!

This week is the calm between the storms, as next week I’m playing Book of Mormon. It’s been a great month as far as opportunities go, and don’t think I’m not thankful for the work. I feel like it’s taking me a long time to get established here, but as I’ve said recently, I’m starting to feel comfortable enough knowing that if I keep playing well and showing up, people will keep calling me. And that the students will keep coming…hopefully this is all true and writing it here doesn’t change everything Winking smile

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Have a great Monday, readers!

Feisty

I had to take my cat, Muriel, back to the vet to get her stitches out from getting spayed. She happily walked into her carrier, but then when I passed her to the vet tech, she hissed, and a few minutes later the vet tech came back to ask if she was always this “feisty.” Evidently she was hissing and growling at them and they couldn’t do anything! I left her there after speaking with the vet—they are going to give her a little laughing gas and then they can take a look at everything. She is such a pleasant kitty normally—true, perhaps a little rambunctious, but very sweet! The other thing that I find a little unsettling is that while I’m her owner and I’m taking her to the vet and all these things, I don’t know how well she really likes me or considers me a source of comfort or even terribly familiar. Having a new pet is different for sure!

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It’s Friday already, but I again work through the weekend, so I’m really looking forward to NEXT weekend! I don’t have much work at all, I get to see my friend April who is visiting (actually that’s before the weekend), I have a couple of fun things with friends planned…all in all it’ll be a nice time. I am still too busy at home, but you can see I have time to blog and take animals to the vet, so things are more under control.

Have I mentioned that I’m looking forward to the summer? It’s basically here, since college is done, but it’s not exactly quite here. People are vague on when summer starts, understandably. Is it when school ends? After Memorial Day? June 21 (or 22, is it?). For me, I think it really has to do with the school schedule, because that’s when the students start taking less lessons, traveling more, going to camps, and my schedule totally changes.

I felt like last summer I tried to do a bunch of fun things but ended up just feeling like I was working too much. I don’t mind working, but sometimes it feels like I work a ton in the summer but hardly make any money because the work is spread out and there are hours of nothing but I can’t do anything better because I have work later. If that even makes one iota of sense! This summer I’m trying hard to consolidate things. I’m getting rid of Friday teaching, so everybody will be Monday through Thursday. I have some gigs and whatnot scheduled, but I have less weddings that in the past—I do assume I’ll pick up a few things, but I’m going to try to maintain some downtime and some free weekends to be a normal person. We just bought tickets for two operas at Opera Theatre—I love modern opera, so we got one for An American Soldier, and Louie picked Orfeo and Euridice. I was thinking back to previous summers and what stood out in my memories and going to the opera was oddly one of those things.

I’m also hoping to get to the Shakespeare Festival this year. I have a few tentative dates in mind for that—well, one in particular, and I hope that the weather holds up! Outdoor festivals are certainly a fun activity and a memorable one. We have so many cool things to do in the summer here, and hopefully I can take advantage of more of them.

You can’t always plan what activities will be the most fun (I do suffer from the issue of trying to over-plan life) but I think you can make an effort to do fun things and not just sit around watching Netflix. Though I’d love to do a bit of that too…I look forward to having enough down time to just sit around and watch tv too Smile 

In all honesty though, it is very telling to me how much more relaxed I’ve been once the colleges were done. I love teaching college students, and frankly I enjoy the feeling of prestige I get from being a “college violin teacher” but it really adds a lot to my already busy schedule. This isn’t a readily solvable problem (without quitting things I don’t want to quit, and the money is useful), so for now, I’m just going to appreciate waking up and not feeling super stressed out and feeling like I’m actually on top of a few things in my life instead of being behind on everything!

I often read career advice blog posts and facebook posts. Here’s my career advice for any readers: keep a good calendar. Show up early to gigs. Practice and be prepared for whatever comes up. Be friendly to your colleagues.

Maybe I’ll expand upon that in a longer post. While I haven’t found much in the way of the popular “work-life balance”, I’ve found a lot of work!

In any case, I’m off to get Muriel, lunch with a friend, teach a few students, practice, and play another show. Tomorrow morning we are planning a bike ride, then it’s two shows. Sunday is a student and two more shows and then the Phantom run is over! I’m really loving playing it—it’s one of my favorite musicals that I’ve played, and I guess all the haters can hate Winking smile

May Flowers

I keep waiting for the extra time I calculated from no longer having college classes to materialize but it really hasn’t yet. Of course, playing 8 shows of Phantom of the Opera each week cuts into that time…

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I attended a board meeting for a music teacher’s organization I’m a board member on. While I haven’t been able to contribute as much to my position as I feel I should, I’m still glad I’m doing it. I learn so much from the meetings and the other people! Most of the other members are piano teachers, but they run such creative and amazing studios and want so many opportunities for their students and I find it inspiring. It’s also nice to learn about organizing events, disagreeing with other people yet remaining civil, and how to stay organized while remaining so very busy. Though as the woman sitting next to me said, well of course you’re busy—you teach at so many different colleges! I realized, as I’ve said here, I may have bitten off too much. I’m allowing a small amount of attrition in my private studio to let myself breathe a bit (though, in all honesty, it’s mostly because I have 7 weeks of shows booked for the fall and that means so much evening teaching I’ll need space for rescheduling.)

Nonetheless, there were years here in St Louis where I felt like my musical experience was completely underused and underappreciated, and the other day when I got another request which I unfortunately had to say no to, and was feeling bad, Louie said, well, isn’t it great to feel so in demand? And yes it is! Right now I feel like things are at a point where I will continue to have a reasonable amount of work without panicking …and that if things start to dry up because I had to say no to too many things I have so many contacts that I will have no problem making things flow again. And that feels positive!

Of course, often I worry about being positive because then that’s when things go wrong, right? Eh, I think this time things are looking up. I just have to figure out how to balance it all so I’m a little less overwhelmed than I was last semester!

I was delighted last night when one of my student’s families came up to the pit at the end of the show. They didn’t even know I was playing, but were just looking into the pit to see all the musicians, and we were surprised to see each other. I love that they were curious about the music!

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I’m lucky to have the opportunities I’m currently having too—as much as I complain about my stress levels and such, I’m lucky, I’m grateful, and yet I also know I’ve worked hard and deserve some measure of success, even though that measure is different for everybody.

The other thing I deserve IS time off. I’m looking forward to taking a short trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. We are camping for four nights at Glacier Basin Campground (we’ve stayed there before) and I’m really excited. I’ll be celebrating my 40th birthday while I’m there, and we are definitely taking another downhill bike tour. Other than that we plan on lots of hiking, hopefully seeing a bunch of critters and animals, taking pictures, and hanging out by the campfire.

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Planning is in full force! It isn’t a crazy trip like we’ve done in the past, just going there, camping, and coming back, and I’m really looking forward to it!

Until then, teaching, playing, and lots to do around the house! I’d better go work out, run a few errands, hopefully do some practice, and then teach.

Morning Off

I have this morning off! Mostly I’m responding to emails, but I figured I’d put up another post after last night so you know I’m not totally off the deep end Winking smile Freelancing IS hard though!

The new cat, Muriel, is doing well. We got her spayed last week so she still has her stitches, but she’s starting to act more and more like herself. Yesterday she kept trying to sneak out while I was teaching, and one parent actually let her out—she was so insistent that he assumed she was an indoor/outdoor cat. Luckily she had only gone a few feet…I don’t know. I don’t WANT her to be an indoor/outdoor cat but she is really pushy at the doors. I think we can get through this period though, right? Any advice?

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In the above photo she looks like she was mid-crawl, but she was actually just sitting like that. Below she is stalking the front door.

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I still can’t believe I have several months off from college teaching. The college year is strange! It is nice having the extra time, because while this week is pretty darned busy due to playing a show (Phantom!) at the Fox (this is the big venue for traveling musicals in St Louis) at least I only have my private students to worry about.

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I never mentioned a really fun workshop I attended last weekend. I went to the Max Aronoff Viola Institute Workshop on Saturday. One of my colleagues helped to put the event on here in St Louis and I spent the day learning about viola technique, teaching, and repertoire. I had a private session with one of the teachers, Joyce Ramée, which was informative and helpful. I’ve been a little uncomfortable asking for help with my viola journey from local people…(not sure why, variety of reasons) so I’m really glad I attended the workshop. Of course many things are similar between viola and violin, which meant that during the day I kept being reminded of important points to help my students with regarding bowing and vibrato in particular. I love attended educational seminars and workshops and always come away with valuable information that I mean to go back over and really study…and then often run out of time! Joyce also gave me some ideas on exactly what to practice on the viola in order to improve my skills, and gave me the confidence that I was already doing many things well, which as a professional I needed.

I then spent the week being incredibly picky with my students on their intonation and posture. Which I think is good: I didn’t make anybody cry, at least not IN the lesson. And sometimes I have weeks where I’m more particular, and other weeks I’m not, because it’s hard to pull teeth every week.

Another nice thing I was able to do was get my hair done last week!

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Next week I hope to get a pedicure. It’s sandal weather already and I LOVE starting the summer with nicer feet. I am okay with paying somebody else for that.

Okay, I’d better get off the computer and get to a workout. Then it’s a matinee show, a few lessons, and another show…did I mention it’s a busy week? The show is so much fun though, and low pressure because I’m sitting with their traveling concertmaster. I just have to do exactly what she does, unless it’s a solo in which case I have to be certain to NOT play. It’s much easier than being the concertmaster (this is why concertmaster pays more!). And tomorrow morning we are planning on a bike ride, if the weather isn’t bad. I’m afraid to look, but assuming it’ll be warm with a small chance of storms.

Freelancing will make you crazy

I just got home from a long day of rehearsal, teaching, sound check, and a performance. It was a fun day—both challenging and satisfying, with some good conversation, lovely colleagues, and a few interesting lessons. But what a day.

I’m trying to put together my gig schedule for next year and I keep getting offered really cool opportunities, that conflict with other things I’ve done. This is the big conundrum of freelancing: to bail on the first gig to take the second gig? I don’t like doing it, in fact, it makes me sick to my stomach, but I have to sometimes. This is my job, and I am failing at my job if I turn down $3000 (or more) to make $300. It’s hard though, because you want to be seen as dependable!

I was having a hard time making a decision today, until an older colleague who I greatly respect said, well, of course you have to take the other thing, when I was telling her I didn’t think I could play this gig she’d asked me about. And yes, she was right. I have to sometimes put myself and my financial future first, and take the well paying job. Why is this something that makes me feel bad? It was a no-brainer.

I also had to rearrange a quartet concert. This was a hard thing too, because my quartet is my favorite thing to do and I want to be dependable.

I want to be dependable. I always show up early, I’m prepared, I’m ready, I’m dependable.  I’m talking about a job that is 4 months away, and worried about canceling on people.

It’s been a hard year. A good year in many respects, in terms of career opportunities, financial rewards, and things like that, but hard. I’m hoping things get a little easier in the months ahead, though I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach all afternoon, just the stress of it all.

Freelancing will make you crazy.

I shouldn’t have to be uncomfortable with some form of career success. I’ve worked really hard to get where I am, on every level.

Camping at Babler State Park

Since today was my first day off from college teaching, Louie and I decided to take a short trip to celebrate. Since we try to make life so much harder than it needs to be, we made a reservation to camp at Babler State Park, which is about 40 minutes away. We wanted to take the dog, Mackenzie, along, since she is getting older and we thought she’d enjoy being outdoors and camping, and also having us to herself (away from Muriel the new cat.) We almost canceled the trip after we realized Muriel had a little bit of recovery to do after her spay surgery, and then when the weather looked iffy, but we decided all would be well.

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The other reason I wanted to get out for a night of camping, besides relaxing and getting outside before it gets toooooo hot, was to check on our gear situation before taking a longer trip this summer. It’s easy to forget what problems occurred, so I thought we’d have this trip to remind us of what we needed. Basically we are in good shape, but there are always a few things here and there to make life easier.

My years of camping experience have taught me how to interpret a campground map as best as possible to figure out what site to reserve in order to best meet our needs. Since we tent camp, we want privacy and shade, or at least as much of each as possible. I’m diligent in my searches, looking online for exact site numbers, looking for pictures of the site, comparing the availability, seeing which sites are MORE popular, and therefore likely better. Since this was only night, I wasn’t too concerned, but I’m pretty sure I got the best site in the campground, or at least one of the best. The only drawback was that it was very far from the restrooms, but it was very close to water, had lovely shade, privacy on three sides and was below the road a bit too, so I’d say we did well. Site 68 at Babler State Park, if you are keeping track.

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You know I love taking pictures of my tent in various locations.

Let me back up just a little, since you know I hate to stay on topic too much. Since I’m done with my college teaching for the semester (15 more hours a week, I believe) I’ve already forgotten how hard it was. This happens immediately—as soon as I have a relaxing evening or afternoon I tend to forget how awfully stressed out I was. This is a good sign, I think, but looking back a few weeks, Louie was saying he wished we could get out and about more, that we used to do a lot more outdoor activities. So we planned a trip—we figured even though I’m going into a few busy weeks (playing a two week run of a musical) we’d take a day and do something fun. I realized we could get away overnight and the plan was hatched!

I ended up of course teaching in the morning before we left and then of course had to get back to teach today, but nonetheless we were able to get away. Packing the car for camping is no small feat (and unpacking) but luckily some of our systems were in place and most of the gear was in one box and ready to go. We did forget a few things but nothing we couldn’t live without.

We got to the campground around 4 pm and check in was easy. We bought firewood there, and then set up the tent and the campsite. It was a little sloped and we weren’t exactly sure the best place for the tent, but overall it was lovely. We were at the end of the road on a cul-de-sac, and while we did end up with neighbors across, it was still pretty private.

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After we set up, we wanted to take a short hike. I’ve been having a little knee trouble, and Mackenzie doesn’t like walking too much so we picked a short hike—Steve Henry from 60 Hikes within 60 Miles of St Louis said it was his favorite though, so we were okay with our choice. We went on the Hawthorne Trail, which was about 1 1/4 miles.

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After the hike we headed back to our campsite and relaxed a bit before dinner. I’d brought Trader Joe’s vegetarian chili for dinner and popcorn for dessert…we made a campfire (well, Louie did) and relaxed a bit first.

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Mackenzie couldn’t figure out how to get comfortable (not much grass on our site—they’d put down a lot of straw to cover the dirt, but we didn’t think of that) so she kept pacing around, giving us these looks like, are we heading home soon?, and finally ended up napping in the backseat of the car. Then the storms started. We couldn’t relax because it kept raining off and on, off and on. It wasn’t anything terrible, just the edge of a storm or two that was passing through, but Louie and I kept going into the car, then back out by the fire, and the car, the fire, etc. Finally we realized we might as well just make dinner—we could always hold an umbrella over the stove if needed, so we did that. The rain held off long enough to make the soup, and then started up again. Finally it seemed to be a long enough time without rain and we were able to enjoy the campfire. Fascinating story, right? But the moral of the story is: always be ready for rain. It will likely rain.

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This is the other view of the campsite.

Anyway, we finally decided to just go to bed. Note for those camping with an older dog: make sure the pad you brought for her is working. We brought an older inflatable pad for her to sleep on, but it wouldn’t hold air. She was antsy all night until finally she squeezed at the foot of the tent on the thermarest and sleeping bag combo and then she was comfy! Other note for those camping or hiking: it’s definitely already tick season…

Oh, and another thing: camping so close to St Louis, it never really got dark. We kept expecting it to get darker, but it never got totally dark. And before we went to bed for the night, we did hear something bigger in the forest, moving around, but didn’t see anything. So that was a little fun and exciting!

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Anyway, we slept well enough, and then got up around 8:30 am. The weather was nice—not too hot, not raining anymore, and we made coffee and oatmeal, and then packed up. We thought about trying to do another short hike, but I think we overestimated what Mackenzie was up for, so we thought maybe she’d better just get home…so we drove home, unloaded the car, and then got back into the workweek. It was a nice diversion and quick overnight trip.

Since there weren’t any photos of me in this post, let me include one from last week after I got my hair done–

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That’s totally how I looked while camping as well.