Recently I decided that life without music is no life at all. I sat at my cubicle, registering gifts in the computer system, and I realized that my favorites (e.g. Coldplay and John Mayer) just weren't cutting it. I needed my Debussey, my Rimsky-Korsakov, my Tchaikovsky and my Ravel. Boy did I ever open Pandora's box. Every strain of the violin I heard on my "Classical" iPod playlist made me yearn to play. (Sorry to say I hadn't touched my violin in months, certainly not since I moved to DC.)
Thus motivated, it seemed postponing work to explore community orchestras was my only option. In my excitement I emailed three different groups to see if they were holding auditions for the coming season. In their excitement, one of them responded. And yes, I have an audition in three Saturdays. Yipes.
Of course, I hadn't been practicing in anticipation of an audition. No, no, no...I had just been daydreaming and not doing anything practical at all. Today I set up the audition. Today I practiced for the first time since...well, since 2008 began. Needless to say, my violin was extremely out of tune. I pulled out my trusty tuner, flipped the switch to 440/A and - wait for it...nothing happened. The battery was dead. Well I certainly couldn't practice an untuned violin. What to do? I grabbed my cell phone, hit #2 speed dial and put it on speaker.
"Hello, this is Donald."
"Hi, Dad, how are you?"
[blah blah blah]
"Hey, Dad, my tuner's dead. Would you give me an A?"
Yes, good people, over speaker phone my father went to the piano and gave me the A I needed to tune my violin. Now THAT'S music for you.
On another note:
This blog provides me an opportunity to keep the people I love updated on my life in the big city, a.k.a. my life after higher education. I'm not the best at calling as often as I should or sending fun postcards of monuments and such, but I want to keep you in the know. I do not promise thrilling stories or entertaining adventures, but I do commit to letting you know what's up. As the last of the Ryan kids to blog I feel a bit like the resistant elder who can't quite handle the technology, but my siblings have set an excellent example. Check in on Laurel to see how she's faring in the land far away (entertaining adventures almost guaranteed). Click over to Barron's blog if you're feeling nostalgic about his summer here or want to reread a classic post. Then visit me. Snooze Fest 1999 it might be, but now you'll know the rest of the story.
Laurel Ryan
13 years ago
4 comments:
Oh I love it, Gillian. Glad you pulled out that violin and have an audition on the calendar. Now we will have an update on the blog in due time.
love
ak
I read "sending fun postcards AND monuments..." If you are actually sending monuments, please let me know; I'd like to sign up. If not, disregard.
Great to hear from you my dearie. Hope to see you soon. I'll still looking into flights for Oktoberfest 2008 DC style. And nothing you do is Snooze Fest 1999, maybe 1980, but that was a good year. Props on the humor.
Love ya
There was no mention of chalupas!! I've wasted so much time.
OMG Gillian! That is such a cool title, I'm so impressed! On the real, though, it's about time ya started blogging, ya grandma. Everybody cool is doing it these days (or recently finished doing it, anyway).
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