nothing nothing nothing | jupiterjenkins.com

Some days I feel so numb that I don’t have much to write about. Hard to believe that talkative and exuberant jupe sometimes just wants to crawl in a hole. But it’s true.

My doctor’s appointment went well yesterday. Blood Pressure okay. Doctor satisfied with my exercise and diet approach.

Had lunch with lovely Mom and took her to shrink.

This is a piece of art my Mom made and my brother stole from me.

Managed to pick out prelude and postlude for Sunday sometime in there.

I am feeling a bit unmoored since my gig. The recordings have been a bit disconcerting to listen to. Still haven’t listened to them all the way through. They seem like evidence of my mediocrity as a performer. Like I need evidence.

But not as a writer. I still believe in my work, even though I can’t see much beyond occasionally performing it. It is a herculean task to get it from the page to sound. Meanwhile I concentrate (weirdly) on making up stuff (composing). I have already been thinking of more things I want to write.

I got up this morning and wrote an article for Sunday’s bulletin about the hymns. This is a task I have been avoiding. It seems like I am drawn into my work at church and end up giving far too much to a part cheap valium 1000 time situation. One of the things I am comfortable omitting is this little weekly article.

But judging from the way people talk to me about the music at church, most of the coherence in my musical choices are missed. Making these connections explicit is what I do in the article (today’s sequence hymn is based on this passage in the gospel…. blah, blah, blah).

So I can choose between doing my work well and communicating with my community or only doing as much as I feel like the community is able to pay me to do. Fuck. I hate this choice.

I am playing my way (once again) through Bach’s 2 and 3 part inventions. These pieces are pretty wonderful in my book. I took an edition along yesterday and read it while waiting for my Mom. Reading introductions and taking the time to look at footnotes in pieces I know pretty well usually helps me understand them better.

I have a planning meeting today at church. Feeling a bit goofy since I haven’t really done much planning, but I guess this meeting is mostly about calendar.

Looks like it’s going to get sweltering again here today. I turn on the AC at the last possible moment. Right now it’s pretty cool.

A panel from ASM #3

0 thoughts on “nothing nothing nothing”

It is apparent to me that you should remember an old saying. If it is worth doing it is worth doing well.

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Rehearsal’s for Grand Haven High School’s production of Bye Bye Birdie are now over. Our first performance is this evening. Performances are a bit less wear and tear on me. Last night’s run through went pretty well and was somewhat like a performance. The alarm went off this morning and I had to get up to prepare for my class today.

There were two phone messages from last minute people looking for an accompanist for Saturday. I returned these calls. Yesterday my violist decided it was too much for him to try and do his solo on Saturday and canceled. So now I have four confirmed solos for Saturday and one on which I am waiting for confirmation.

I did call the people from Holland High School who still haven’t paid me for a pit orchestra job back in December 2006. Although the man who hired me (not a school employee) assured me he would continue to try to get me a check (He even took my social security number again), I am beginning to feel like I have been taken advantage of. My relationship with this school has never been a good one. I was the classic disastisfied parent with much of what this school did with my three kids. Oh well. At least this way I won’t feel guilty saying no if they ever call on me again (fat chance).

I ordered music for Randy Newman songs recently and they came in the mail yesterday. I like how the piano parts are very close to what he plays when he accompanies himself. I am thinking of Napstering some of the tunes I don’t recognize. He is a strong craftsman as a song writer. And I tend to like a lot of what he writes about.

Well I have to get back to prepping forÂ today’s class…… Today I have to give a quiz, then lecture on Modernism, Debussy, Satie and Ravel. As I move into the 20th century I feel more and more at home discussing the music without too much prep. But still I have to do some…..