Music Festival

Today I had to play four songs. Our adjudicator was Sarah Konecsni, which was so cool, because I've heard her compositions before. She was super nice...she's my favorite adjudicator. She marked really hard though. But she had a way of saying the stuff we did wrong without making us feel stupid. Which is good.

First was Sonata in C minor, which I thought was my best but I only got 83 on it, which was tied for second place. Lauren, who also played Sonata in C minor got first with 84. When she was adjudicating me she was like "you do a really...interesting thing with decrescendos." Usually people say "interesting" when it's bad, but they want to be polite. I was like "is that a good thing or a bad thing?" She thought that was quite funny. It wasn't bad or good, it was different.

Second I played Sonata in G Major. I don't like sonatas and sonatinas as a rule...there is way too much stuff to remember. Slurs, dynamics, drop lift, arm weight. Usually I get bad on them. But when she asked me whether I liked Sonata in C minor or G major better, I said C minor, and she thought that was interesting. Usually if you like a song, you play it better. I felt kind of stupid, because that meant I really liked Sonata in C minor but couldn't play it. Anyway, I got 87 on that one, which made me so happy, and first place because I was the only one in the class. Damien page turned, and we were joking that I got so good a mark because of him. On my adjudicating sheet I got a happy face. Cool. I just noticed that.

Third I played Dance of the Marionettes, which is a study. I was against Megan, so I thought I would get second. Anyway, there's a really hard part and its really fast, but I also have to accelerate. And then I have several runs of sixteen notes and I got lost but I sort of had it memorized so was trying to play them, but random notes came out. They were all kind of muddled too, but she said that one part was really good.

Fourth I played Spider on the Ceiling, which I wasn't really comfortable with yet...there are some hard parts. I have to half pedal it throughout, which means just press it halfway down, but sometimes I would forget and push it all the way down, but she said it was really good. At the end I have to play two different chromatic scales at the same time (SO HARD) and then drop on a group of notes at the end so it sounds like the spider got smushed. Anyway, I always skip out a bunch of notes at the end of the chromatic scales because my hands get muddled, and she didn't even say anything about that. I went up to get adjudicated, and was just thinking "I messed this one up so bad, I don't even want to get adjudicated." But I also got 87 on this one. On my adjudication sheet she said "you're a very (which was underlined) talented pianist. Keep it up!"

Tomorrow I play my duet which we've only played together twice. Should be fun.

For lunch break we went to Peppertree ("we" being me, dad, Baba, Sarah and her mom, and Damien and his parents. Then we went cruising around (me, Damien, and Sarah) we went to watch Sarah practice sax, then to Sarah's house, then to Saan store, where there was a whole bunch of Easter chocolate on sale. I got a chocolate crocodile for 3.50 and a box of chocolate for a buck. It was pretty sweet. (lol I made a joke)
When we were in Peppertree I showed Damien a business card from my farm, and there was a phone number on the back, and he's like "who has a seven digit number?" Sarah and I just looked at him and I'm like "um...everyone?"
Another funny thing Damien did, was when I played Spider on the Ceiling, three other people (including him) played Song of the Waterfall and he's like "hey...mine and Jennifer's don't have the same composer! Are you playing the same Song of the Waterfall that I am?" and I'm like "um...they are the same composer!"
He was all confused because one said Loeschhorn and one said Carl A. Loeschhorn. He's funny.
Anyway, I'm gonna jet. Ciao!