My Week After Concert Week

Last week was tough to navigate. I thought this week would be easier. In some ways, it was. Not so much in other respects.

I got to go out and have fun with my friends (got wasted. oops). So that was one major plus of not being in the middle of a rigorous performance schedule. However, I'd forgotten how badly drinking can mess with my ability to function, and defaulted to skipping section on Wednesday. Oops.

This may be a tiny bit premature, but I'm going to go ahead and call this week a good one :)

In other news, I had to take a listening quiz on Baroque instrumental music today. Well.. and some classical stuff. There were about a dozen pieces, and I had to memorize the names, keys, composers, opus numbers, and number numbers of all of them. The opus and number were the most tedious (and a total pain). In fact, I resorted to juvenile memorization devices to cram it all in. Ex) J.C. Bach's Piano Sonata in D Major is opus 5, number 2 because J.C. Bach was born in 1735 and died in 1782.

I'm not sure why those two little numbers were so hard to remember, especially since I can very clearly recall his dates...??? Maybe it's just because all of those other pieces with opuses 3, 6, 2, you name it. Ughhh.

I understand the importance of listening identification as a part of a music major's education, but I cannot wrap my head around how memorization of trivial numbers is supposed to better my understanding of history. A lot of those pieces aren't even put in chronological order! Why can't "J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major" suffice? That's plenty specific. That's all people ever put on concert programs.

/rant

With that said... I think I did really well lol.