Justa Fast Mule

Fun fact for the day, Gambit's race name was Justa Fast Mule. And his show name is no longer Dare to Compare because my trainer decided all horses on our show team had to have the word 'sweet' in their show name, so we had to change it. It's now Sweet Masquerade, and if you know the horse, this works much better.

Well I have a show tomorrow (YIPPEE), but this means massive work. How to prepare for a show:

Your tack has already been cleaned, and  you stayed up till 11:00 the night before washing your horse and loading the trailer. 

1) Be at the barn at 6:00 in the morning. The barn is in Heber, and I DON'T WANT TO BE IN HEBER FLIPPING UTAH AT 6:00 IN THE MORNING! 

2) Clean up your horse and wrap his legs for shipping. This is a tedious process consisting of, "Oh hey look, I just spent the last five minutes rolling up that shipping wrap, and wow, I dropped it." **10 minutes later** Yes, it's wrapped again and I got every minuscule piece of dust out of it. **Trips** Oh, would ya look at that, I just dropped it. Again. *Tries to stomp off melodramatically and trips again.* 

Five minutes later, try this again.

Whisper to yourself frantically, "I will not drop the shipping wrap, I will not drop it, I WILL NOT DROP THE FLIPPING SHIPPING WRAP!"

Your whispers scare your horse so it farts and you, in pursuit to not smell the horrible gas, cover your nose. Their goes your shipping wrap.

It NEVER works like this

3) Take care of kids horses. Yeah, you not only get to take care of your horse, but of the other eight year olds' horses because they always arrive fashionably late and are "Too young for the responsibility." Too young my butt.

4) Run frantically around barn trying to make sure you packed everything. Leave that bridle you really really really need out because you need to change the bit before putting in the trailer.

5) Once your horse is (by miracle) wrapped this morning, wait in line to load it.

6) Load horse. This consists of pulling on the lead rope and the horse following, then stopping right before the trailer. You pull harder, the horse stays. It's giving you the  I'm-1200-pounds-you're-115-who-do-you-think-is-gonna-win-this-battle-hmmm-let-me-think-oh-hey-I-think-I-got-it-ME-HARDY-HARDY-HAR-HAR-HAR-HAR-NICE-TRY-HUMAN look.

Story of my life

7) Repeat step six eight times.

8) Get in car, then all the little kids arrive, fashionably late, totally innocent, completely clean, in show clothes and well rested (meanwhile you're in the car, hair ruffled, sweatpants and sweatshirt from last night on, hay sticking out from the back of your head, bags under your eyes, and you smell bad).

9) As trailer pulls away, realize you left that super duper important bridle on your tack trunk, and scream and beg your trainer to stop so you can go grab it.

10) Run with as little coordination as possible, grab the bridle, grab the bit, and hey look, your water bottle, grab that too, oh wait there's your video camera, might want that, oh and look, your show breeches!

11) Run desperately for the truck, jump in, slam your foot while closing the door, cover your curses with wonderful things like daisies and butterflies.

12) Now you only have the show to worry about! What could possibly go wrong?!

Auditions!! (Part 2)

In my last post, I gave you the first very three steps on how to do an audition, and it just kind of abruptly ended. I decided I wouldn't throw like 1,200 words at you in one post, so you are welcome. But if any of you had an audition between the time I posted my last post, and now, you probably were completely lost because you were missing out on the rest of my expert advice on auditions! ;) JUST KIDDING! I have no idea how I made it into the band I was auditioning for so I wouldn't exactly call myself an expert....

 4. Finish your piece.

Correct way*: Grand finale! Dynamics, tone, musicality, rhythm! AND YOU DID IT! Breathe quietly and smile because you survived the first part.

Incorrect way: Grand finale! Oh wow, look how fast I'm playing this! There goes another five accidentals, I sound awesome! The piece ended, and I'm still playing. This may be an issue. Whoops. I might need to work on that some more.

Haha haha haha. Nope. 

5. Sight reading

Correct way: Look at piece. Oh sheesh! It's hard! Oh well don't panic. You don't have to be perfect. Key signature, time signature, dynamics, fingerings. Make sure you have your fingers for first five notes then you can work from there. Start when your ready, and even when it's hard, just keep looking for patterns. Play through, just worry about notes and rhythms, and don't stop. You made it! Not your best reading, but it could've been worse!

Incorrect way*: Look at piece. Oh sheesh! It's hard! PANIC! Those are really high notes!  I don't know those fingerings! Oh look this piece changes time signatures. That's nifty. Look at piece over and over, try to figure out first notes, but it doesn't work. Stare at piece. Person looks at watch again. Look at piece, try to start, mess up, and try again. Play through. Yup, this sounds great. I have no idea what I'm doing! Oh is that I spider in the corner! Nope, I'm just hallucinating. Oh good it's over. Oh well I wonder what that piece is supposed to sound like. Not like that!

This is scarier than spiders

6. Scales

Correct way*: Person asks you to play a scale from the lowest note you can play to the highest note you can play. Sweet! You know chromatic scales like the back of your hand!

Incorrect way: What's a scale? Where's the back of my hand? Oh look! I stopped shaking! Progress!!

7. Exit.

Correct way*: Look at the person auditioning you, say thank you, they nod back at you, grab your music, and walk out the door.

Incorrect way: Look at the person auditioning you, apologize (NEVER, EVER DO THIS IN AN AUDITION), they look at you like they don't know what to say, walk out, then shuffle back in nonchalantly because you forgot your music. Trip out door, and while closing the door behind you, say really loudly, "That was horrible!" and that person shakes their head in agreement.

Tripping over flat surfaces requires talent

TAH-DAH

Note to self, the stars are what I did. And no, I did not do all the incorrect ones, I'm not that special.

One last thing, if you are a band kid and haven't already seen this, you will appreciate this.

True fact... More on this next time

Auditions!! (Part 1)

First of all before we begin the fun, this happened before last weeks blog, but I didn't have time to write it then because I needed a de-stresser blog.


ANYWAYS, auditions.

FUN FUN FUN

How to do a successful audition/non successful musical audition.

1. Entrance to the audition.

Correct way: Walk into the room quietly and calmly, and make sure you have collected yourself. Close the door quietly, but make sure it is closed. Say hello to the person auditioning you, smile politely, tell them the piece you are doing.
*
Incorrect way: When the person before you comes out relieved, you stay in your seat and start shaking and hyperventilating. Then realize you need to do an audition so stand up, trip over your music stand, slam your reed or mouthpiece on something so it chips, freak out, then trip into the room you will be auditioning in. Smile sheepishly at the person auditioning you, shake nervously some more, realize you forgot to close the door, so go and slam the door close (whoops!). Shake even more, look at your reed/mouthpiece, and shake nervously some more. Then smile at the person, again (they probably think you are really creepy now), and introduce yourself (even though the band teacher already knows you) and your piece.

My general expression during auditions

2. Begin the piece.

Correct way*: After introducing yourself, don't wait too long to start because you don't want your audition to last forever. Start with a solid first note, just like you have been practicing, and make sure your audition-er doesn't know you only had four days to prepare the piece. Play through keeping calm thoughts in your mind but stay focused. You got this!

Incorrect way: After your failure of an introduction, realize you probably completely failed the whole thing. Would you look at that? You are still shaking. Wait forever to start piece because you are scared. What if you mess up on the first note?! What if you have to start over?! What if you miss an accidental?! Oh crud, he's looking at his watch. HE'S SO DISAPPOINTED IN ME! I DON'T KNOW  WHAT I'M DOING! WHY DID I EVEN DECIDE THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA! I'M SO STUPID I KNOW I CAN'T DO THIS! Unceremoniously start, and your tone sucks because you're shaking so much. Well at least you didn't mess up the first note, we'll take what we can get.

3. Play through your piece.

Correct way: After a smooth entrance, just play the way you have always practiced. Those accidentals come naturally, and so do the dynamics. This hard run is coming up, focus! Well, you missed a note, but don't start over, it's in the past now. YOU CAN DO THIS! You start shaking a little bit because everything has caught up to you, but don't give in. You know you want this, and you know you can do it!
*
Incorrect way*: OH HEY LOOK AT THAT ACCIDENTAL! WHEN DID THAT SHOW UP?! I guess there are just a bunch of fairies writing in notes to screw me up. WELL MY AUDITION-ER WILL NEVER KNOW! It's not like he's heard this piece a thousand times before.. Nope! Well on the bright side, I'm not shaking anymore, I'm vibrating. Oh wo, look at this run, my brain now thinks I have never seen it. Okay let's restart that bar quickly. Shoot! I was told to never restart! Oh crud, now I need to restart this too. This is really lovely, I'm enjoying myself. I didn't know it was physically possible for a human to shake nervously this fast.

I shall continue later!

Pauline's Key to Destressing

Well it's the end of third quarter here, and I might as well die. There is so much work to be done in so little time. And if you're anything like me (you care about your grades, you won't sleep until every little last thing is done, you are a perfectionist, you have to study for everything, you are a nerd), you are quite familiar with this little thing called stress. And yes, we are all feeling it right now. I'm partially writing this blog for me, partially for whoever is reading this, but I think we all need a de-stresser moment in our lives.

Social Life? How do you Social Life?

Here are some ways I like to de-stress:


1) Gossip Girl: It's great, I curl up with a mug of hot cocoa or tea, and savor the next forty five minutes of overly-dramatic-trying-a-bit-too-hard-tv, but hey I love that show. I try my hardest to forget about what ever auditions, finals, tests, or assignments may be coming up. If you were just gonna sit around and think about your homework and not do it, might as well relax during that time.

2) A good book: Actually I think this should be number one, but I'm too lazy to move it. I'm reading Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (who else), The Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart, and I'm starting to reread Divergent by Veronica Roth. And these books are necessarily calming books, but what beats a good book? NOTHING! Maybe a cup of hot tea actually.

3) Yoga: Well I've only like tried it once, and it didn't work great for me because I struggle with this condition called L.A.Z.Y. and doing yoga actually requires me to get off the couch, while reading a good book or watching tv doesn't.

YERGAH

4) Calling or texting a friend: Sadly for your poor friends who are already stressed enough, complaining actually does make you feel better because then you realize you are overreacting a tiny little bit, and you are forced to see that it could actually be much much worse, so you are weirdly forced into this tiny bit of comfort from your complaining. I actually might be crazy and you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about.

5) Riding: Well this is probably just me or you fellow horse people out there. Nothing soothes me like a good ride and one-on-one time with my big black, way too fast horse (I love you Gambit!).

6) Did I already say reading?

7) Music: Either playing music or listening to it, when you find a good piece or song, you can just blast full volume and sit back and relax and let music overtake you instead of your stupid teachers.

8) ICE CREAM     Yeahhh, I know where it's at.

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE! ONE MORE WEEK AND ONE MORE QUARTER!!