What Sucks

Do you know what sucks? What sucks is when you don't well at something that you expected to do well at, especially when that something is rather important to you.

Like today.

Today, we had all-district auditions. I got my audition piece last semester, so I had plenty of time to prepare the music and practice and whatnot.
Here's a rundown of my audition.

• Room 1
  

1. Chromatic Scale- not catastrophic. I think there might have been a shrieky moment somewhere in the high A or B range on the way up, but I don't remember.
2. Solo Piece- (Quantz Concerto in G) Didn't go horribly. I had this gross, airy tone some of the time, and some of the runs weren't as phenomenal as they could have been, but whatever.

• Room 2- I go in, they ask for my name and audition number. My audition number was 234, which means that I would have been number 134 in line if we went in order, which we didn't. Since I was thinking 134 (that's how they were calling for us in the warm-up room, not by the actual numbers on the nametag) I said, "134... so 234." And they looked confusedly at me, and as I was clarifying my thought process, the lady cut me off with a tone that said "whatever, shut up" and said "C scale."

1. Scales: I played my C scale, and it was okay. After I finished, the lady looked at me expectantly, and I was thinking... what does she want? Then I played my A-flat scale, and as I was playing the arpeggio, it occurred to me that I hadn't played the arpeggio for the C scale. I apologized, asked if I could, and they looked at each other and said, "...sure," in that tone of voice, the one that says, It won't help your chances because we've already made up our minds that you're not worth paying attention to. So I played the arpeggio, and it was not terrible. Then I played my D scale.
2. Sightreading: While I got all the notes right, the rhythms were... interesting. I messed up some very easy stuff.

While not getting into all-district isn't the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination (there's no possible way I got in.), it's quite disappointing. One of the things that particularly gets on my nerves is that you can play something extremely well one day, go back the next day, and completely bomb.

So then I left the audition in a bad mood. It was 3. I had planned to be in Greensboro at 3 to see the all-state chorus concert, but I thought, Whatever, better late than never.
I got in my car, got out my online directions to Greensboro, and I couldn't follow them because none of the roads I was supposed to be on were labeled the way they were on my directions.
I gave up and went back to the school.

Thus ends the part of my day that I didn't like.
I got to see some GSE people, though! Mostly Instrumental Music people, but I saw some others as well.
In that sense, the day was not a waste.

Then I watched Cloverfield at my house with friends.
Why is watching a movie so much better as a group activity?

The musical next year is Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.
I'm jealous. I wonder if I'll be able to help out in the orchestra pit at all?

**** is really, REALLY obnoxious. More on this later.