I now (almost) officially have a senior project!

I talked to my band director, and he's letting me do it! I'm going to compose a song for our band, and we're going to play it. I'm ridiculously exicted.

It's funny because I was so nervous to ask him. I had to have my dad talk to him with me. When I told him my idea, he was literally like, "Ok!" And he lent me a bunch of books about composition and music and stuff. I started reading this one called "Score Reading" and it was CRAZY, cause there are all these examples in it from scores, and I came across 4 pieces that I've played just from reading it today! They are: Chopin's Minute Waltz, Beethoven's Leonore Overture, Wagner's Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Schubert's Unfinished Symphony in... I believe it's b minor... lemme check...

Yep, Symphony No. 8 in b minor. I love that one.

So yeah, I'm excited. :)

I had a youth symphony concert yesterday afternoon, and one the night before, too. The Friday night one was SO much better. We played Sibelius's 2nd symphony, which is pretty much the hardest thing we've ever played, but the Friday night performance went really well. Saturday was a different story. Maybe we thought we didn't have to try as hard since we pulled it off Friday night, but people weren't watching our conductor, and everyone was getting ahead and it just wasn't that good. At least the Sibelius wasn't.

Also, there was the fact that I almost passed out... I hadn't had anything to eat all day, and I think that that's mostly what caused it. When you play the oboe you get used to being lightheaded all the time, but this was way worse. During the first movement, I started getting lightheaded after pretty much every part where I played, and my head started hurting really badly, and I was like... ...This isn't good. I have a pretty big solo in the third movement (we didn't play the second one... maybe because it was a long program anyway, maybe because the other three were already so difficult) so at the beginning of the third movement when I rest for while I breathed in and out really deeply. It sucks because with the exception of the last movement, pretty much everything I play is really exposed, so I can't just drop out or there'll be this huge gap. So I came in where I was supposed to, and we hadn't gotten to my solo yet and it wasn't getting any better. I was nervous too, not because it was a hard solo, but because I was worried I wouldn't be able to play it. So that didn't help.

Anyway, I started playing my solo, and it got really bad. I was lightheaded and my hands and feet were really tingly. Then I started shaking, and least it felt like I did but I'm not completely sure, and my vision wouldn't focus and I almost felt like I was dreaming. This last part only lasted for a few seconds, and it was really scary and really hard to explain. But the whole time, even when it felt like I was dreaming, notes were still coming out of my oboe, and I was still aware of how they sounded. They sounded bad. After those few seconds, I stopped playing. I actually had a few seconds where I didn't need to play, and I sort of recovered, and I was actually sort of able to play the rest of my solo. But it sounded like crap, and there were parts where I had to drop out. The only other time that's really happened was when I was playing Schubert's unfinished symphony, during this part at the beginning where there's an oboe/clarinet solo. I'm pretty sure not eating combinied with nervousness is what causes it. I don't know how I know, but I think that's the reason.

Ok, well, I should really go to bed now... time for another week...