Where have you been, young man?
Yeah, I've been out of pocket for a while. Pretty much ever since I got back from California, I've been doing non-stop rehearsals for a couple jobs that I had lined up. Here's the rundown:
I got back, and was able to put in an entire half a day at SFG (for those of you who don't know, that's where I do part-time computer tech work in-house). And I haven't seen SFG since. Thankfully my boss is very cool, and is ok with letting me galavant all over the place and still come back to my little office and my browsing, err, work computer. Oh, and I guess I should mention that's where I'm at right now. It's been almost a week and a half. Dang.
If you read down a couple blog entries, you'll see the jobs I was working on. The director (Susan Boylan) over at Grace Community High School (to be called GCS from now on) is a sweet lady, very dedicated, super religious, and crazy. OK, I say crazy lightheartedly, but really, she is just one big bundle of nerves. She's never not moving, and when it's a competition day, she never doesn't come by me and say something like "Oh Karl, please pray for *fill in whatever thing is going not quite right here*" Well, let's just say she's not all about having no practice with her accompanist until about a week before her competitions. If I had a tent and provisions, I might as well have never left. I went from one choir to another, then scheduled practices with vocal soloists, and THEN went into the next room where the strings teacher (Pam Eikner) was scheduling me to rehearse with 4 or 5 of her students. Back and forth, back and forth. Anytime I was able to get away, I scheduled a rehearsal with one of the two girls over at UT Tyler that were doing the duo vocal recital. It was hard to decide what music was really priority. I had a pile in the front seat that looked like ... well, a whole lot of music (I can't think of what else looks like that ... where hath mine witty muse gone?).
So: Wednesday, rehearsals. Thursday, rehearsals. Friday, rehearsals. Sunday, rehearsals. This morning I call Susan and ask when the rehearsals start, and she tells me that one of the music professors over at UT had died on Saturday. Dr. Allen had a massive coronary. I've had him for quite a few classes, and worked with him doing musicals and such. I was never in the choir which was his real specialty, but I still felt pretty shocked by the news. The guy was so virile. Even at 62 years old, I thought he was going to outlive ME. He smoked like a chimney though, and maybe that's what contributed to the heartattack. I'm making calls to everyone I know. I'm getting calls from everyone I know. It's amazing how much that one man meant to a whole community, and extending so much farther. Thank goodness for weekend minutes.
By about Sunday after rehearsals, I'm starting to really worry about the quality of these choir groups. Some of them are just horrible. The show choirs are about as dead as can be. They walk their steps, they sing the notes, and they look bored to death. I usually wouldn't care very much, but here's the deal: If these groups go to the district meet and get a one (1), then they advance to state. Big deal, right? How does that affect me? Well, if no one goes to state, then this job is pretty much washed up after Wednesday. I told Desirée that maybe I should give the students a private pep talk about how Karl needs money and that their sucktitude could put me in the poorhouse. She seemed to think they wouldn't care. She hasn't heard them cheer for me when I walk in the door. :)
Monday rolls through, and I see more students in one day than I ever want to again. I rehearse all 5 of my vocal soloists, I rehearse 5 string soloists, and a new addition since Sunday, a trumpet player (the band director sees me outside on Sunday and is like "hey, need something to do?" Ha, he's funny). Not to mention that I rehearsed every choir and ensemble that Susan has: Ashira (full choir), Celestial Singers (full girls choir), David's Mighty Men (full guys choir), Cougar Chorale (smaller elite singing ensemble), Tapestry (girls show choir), and the Freshman/Sophomore girls choir (with no fancy name .. aww). And then I went and rehearsed Stephanie over at UT. And then collapsed.
I find out that Dr. Allen's funeral is going to be during the afternoon on Wednesday, and these competitions that day will not roll along without me. I'm in a funk for a while because of it. Tuesday is the first day of competition. Susan has written a schedule for me so I can get to all the rooms for every soloist and small ensemble (the large choirs go the next day). LARGE sections of the day consist of me running from room to room every 10 minutes. It feels like every 4 minutes Susan is tracking me down and asking me if I've practiced with *insert name here*. And every 6 minutes, it's Pam doing the same thing, but for her students. I'm already thinking about the awesome stiff drink I'm going to have that evening.
Through the course of the day, I think I was one of the very few people that met every judge there. I hit every room at some point. Oh, wait. Not percussion. Shoot. Well, pretty close. For one of the rooms, I sat down, and the judge said, "...Karl Harmdierks, what are you doing here?" I looked, and recognized her, but I couldn't place her face. Well, actually I thought she was someone else entirely. I gave her a big hug, and was like "Are you going to call me this semester about playing for you?" She looked confused and said, "I don't know. I might be able to use you." This is when I realized it was NOT who I thought. So, I carried on one of those hopeful conversations. You know what I mean .. you keep talking very cryptically while asking probing questions hoping to figure out who he/she is without just giving away that you don't remember them at all. FINALLY after she mentions TJC (Tyler Junior College) it dawns on me that she was my sight-singing professor over there, and had moved right after I left. I really liked her ... she was very nice. Then I felt bad that I didn't remember her faster. Anyways, we caught up after the student sang, and held up the proceedings for a while.
I also knew another one of the judges (I'd eaten lunch with her before with one of my UT professors), and almost ALL the accompanists were familiar faces. In a smaller-ish community like Tyler (pop. 100,000) you get to know all the quality accompanists (and even some not so great ones). You also know who you're battling for all the good jobs in town. Jerks.
The last ensemble I played for that day sang for a judge that I had seen multiple times already. And never ONCE did I see him smile. Not a THING. Just a deadpan "thanks" and that was your cue to hightail it out. I felt bad for all the students that went in to him. So, the Cougar Chorale did some sacred pieces, ending with a great up tempo a capela piece. Afterwards, he TOTALLY SMILED and was like, "Good job. Great piece." I think I speak for the entire group when I say we were shocked. You could see it in their eyes. Here's me sucking at singing that piece because I liked it so much. Maybe I'll actually try to get it right sometime.
That evening was visitation for Dr. Allen. It went from 6-8, and I got there about 7:15. My friend Christian was there about 6:30 and he waited for me til I got there. The line was out the door. He had already gone through, and he was naming all the people that he saw. It was pretty much everyone we had ever had a class with or hung out with in the last 4 years. I was sad I was late, because I missed the majority of them. I didn't know what to say to Mrs. Allen. I've worked with her, too. She's a fantastic pianist, and so I've done jobs with her and Dr. Allen both. Thankfully, I was in line with a bunch of other awkward UT Tyler students as well, so we all were able to bond together in our insecurity. I didn't mind leading off the group either. Mrs. Allen told me that Dr. Allen really liked having me around. I don't think I could have asked for much more than that.
Oh, and I saw an old girlfriend there that I hadn't seen or talked to for probably a year (and neither had pretty much anybody else .. she fell off the planet). She was there with her boyfriend. He looked about as tall as me. That made me laugh.
Wednesday was the large ensemble competition in the afternoon. So, I did a rehearsal over at UT in the morning, and then I sat in on an impromptu choir rehearsal for Dr. Allen's funeral. It was great. Anyone could be part of it, and lots of old students showed up for it. Even my composition professor, Dr. Emge (who is an oboe player) came in and did his part in tenors. I'm sure the funeral was a great homage.
Not much to say about the afternoon groups. I lived through it, and Susan didn't go too crazy (even when she saw my bill .. it's pretty big). The good news: every ensemble made a one. I don't know how either. Some of them were pretty iffy. The bad news: I have to play for every ensemble again. I mean, sure that's good in most respects, but I totally could have been happy with maybe .. 3 ensembles going or something. I really was ready to throw away some of this music.
Thursday I had a day to slack off. That was until I had promised Christian that I would show up in Tyler at 7:45 to eat breakfast with him and another girl (she works in a psych ward, so she was just getting off her 12 hour shift, and she told us if we didn't do right when she got done, she was going to fall asleep). So, I get there. She's there. He's not. I call him, and he says, "Dude, that's tomorrow." I like, "WHA... he says it's TOMORROW. Talk to him." She talks to him, also quite angry. He was joking, thankfully, but I wanted to kill him anyways.
I had a rehearsal at 11am, and then back home til the show that evening. Instead of sleeping like I should have, I got this crazy need to record the song that is showcased earlier in this blog, and then to write some entirely new music. And somehow I churned something out .. at least the first section of it. So, I guess all is not lost. My friend Scott was stage managing the show, so he came by my house, and we left together. Pretty nice crowd of probably about 55-60 people showed up, and the music didn't go really badly like I worried that it might. My page turner had a couple screw ups early on (first time she was just listening to the music and forgot to turn it, and I had to. Another time, she turned two pages and I was looking at the blank back of a piece of music). After that, she was totally right on. Just needed a couple "oh crap" moments to get her in the right momentum. I only screwed up here and there, which is better than I expected, seeing as how GCS took all my time up for the last week. Afterwards, I went with a group of friends to Bennigann's, drank dollar margaritas, and LIKED it.
Oh, and no one's paid for me any of these jobs yet. Boo.
I got back, and was able to put in an entire half a day at SFG (for those of you who don't know, that's where I do part-time computer tech work in-house). And I haven't seen SFG since. Thankfully my boss is very cool, and is ok with letting me galavant all over the place and still come back to my little office and my browsing, err, work computer. Oh, and I guess I should mention that's where I'm at right now. It's been almost a week and a half. Dang.
If you read down a couple blog entries, you'll see the jobs I was working on. The director (Susan Boylan) over at Grace Community High School (to be called GCS from now on) is a sweet lady, very dedicated, super religious, and crazy. OK, I say crazy lightheartedly, but really, she is just one big bundle of nerves. She's never not moving, and when it's a competition day, she never doesn't come by me and say something like "Oh Karl, please pray for *fill in whatever thing is going not quite right here*" Well, let's just say she's not all about having no practice with her accompanist until about a week before her competitions. If I had a tent and provisions, I might as well have never left. I went from one choir to another, then scheduled practices with vocal soloists, and THEN went into the next room where the strings teacher (Pam Eikner) was scheduling me to rehearse with 4 or 5 of her students. Back and forth, back and forth. Anytime I was able to get away, I scheduled a rehearsal with one of the two girls over at UT Tyler that were doing the duo vocal recital. It was hard to decide what music was really priority. I had a pile in the front seat that looked like ... well, a whole lot of music (I can't think of what else looks like that ... where hath mine witty muse gone?).
So: Wednesday, rehearsals. Thursday, rehearsals. Friday, rehearsals. Sunday, rehearsals. This morning I call Susan and ask when the rehearsals start, and she tells me that one of the music professors over at UT had died on Saturday. Dr. Allen had a massive coronary. I've had him for quite a few classes, and worked with him doing musicals and such. I was never in the choir which was his real specialty, but I still felt pretty shocked by the news. The guy was so virile. Even at 62 years old, I thought he was going to outlive ME. He smoked like a chimney though, and maybe that's what contributed to the heartattack. I'm making calls to everyone I know. I'm getting calls from everyone I know. It's amazing how much that one man meant to a whole community, and extending so much farther. Thank goodness for weekend minutes.
By about Sunday after rehearsals, I'm starting to really worry about the quality of these choir groups. Some of them are just horrible. The show choirs are about as dead as can be. They walk their steps, they sing the notes, and they look bored to death. I usually wouldn't care very much, but here's the deal: If these groups go to the district meet and get a one (1), then they advance to state. Big deal, right? How does that affect me? Well, if no one goes to state, then this job is pretty much washed up after Wednesday. I told Desirée that maybe I should give the students a private pep talk about how Karl needs money and that their sucktitude could put me in the poorhouse. She seemed to think they wouldn't care. She hasn't heard them cheer for me when I walk in the door. :)
Monday rolls through, and I see more students in one day than I ever want to again. I rehearse all 5 of my vocal soloists, I rehearse 5 string soloists, and a new addition since Sunday, a trumpet player (the band director sees me outside on Sunday and is like "hey, need something to do?" Ha, he's funny). Not to mention that I rehearsed every choir and ensemble that Susan has: Ashira (full choir), Celestial Singers (full girls choir), David's Mighty Men (full guys choir), Cougar Chorale (smaller elite singing ensemble), Tapestry (girls show choir), and the Freshman/Sophomore girls choir (with no fancy name .. aww). And then I went and rehearsed Stephanie over at UT. And then collapsed.
I find out that Dr. Allen's funeral is going to be during the afternoon on Wednesday, and these competitions that day will not roll along without me. I'm in a funk for a while because of it. Tuesday is the first day of competition. Susan has written a schedule for me so I can get to all the rooms for every soloist and small ensemble (the large choirs go the next day). LARGE sections of the day consist of me running from room to room every 10 minutes. It feels like every 4 minutes Susan is tracking me down and asking me if I've practiced with *insert name here*. And every 6 minutes, it's Pam doing the same thing, but for her students. I'm already thinking about the awesome stiff drink I'm going to have that evening.
Through the course of the day, I think I was one of the very few people that met every judge there. I hit every room at some point. Oh, wait. Not percussion. Shoot. Well, pretty close. For one of the rooms, I sat down, and the judge said, "...Karl Harmdierks, what are you doing here?" I looked, and recognized her, but I couldn't place her face. Well, actually I thought she was someone else entirely. I gave her a big hug, and was like "Are you going to call me this semester about playing for you?" She looked confused and said, "I don't know. I might be able to use you." This is when I realized it was NOT who I thought. So, I carried on one of those hopeful conversations. You know what I mean .. you keep talking very cryptically while asking probing questions hoping to figure out who he/she is without just giving away that you don't remember them at all. FINALLY after she mentions TJC (Tyler Junior College) it dawns on me that she was my sight-singing professor over there, and had moved right after I left. I really liked her ... she was very nice. Then I felt bad that I didn't remember her faster. Anyways, we caught up after the student sang, and held up the proceedings for a while.
I also knew another one of the judges (I'd eaten lunch with her before with one of my UT professors), and almost ALL the accompanists were familiar faces. In a smaller-ish community like Tyler (pop. 100,000) you get to know all the quality accompanists (and even some not so great ones). You also know who you're battling for all the good jobs in town. Jerks.
The last ensemble I played for that day sang for a judge that I had seen multiple times already. And never ONCE did I see him smile. Not a THING. Just a deadpan "thanks" and that was your cue to hightail it out. I felt bad for all the students that went in to him. So, the Cougar Chorale did some sacred pieces, ending with a great up tempo a capela piece. Afterwards, he TOTALLY SMILED and was like, "Good job. Great piece." I think I speak for the entire group when I say we were shocked. You could see it in their eyes. Here's me sucking at singing that piece because I liked it so much. Maybe I'll actually try to get it right sometime.
That evening was visitation for Dr. Allen. It went from 6-8, and I got there about 7:15. My friend Christian was there about 6:30 and he waited for me til I got there. The line was out the door. He had already gone through, and he was naming all the people that he saw. It was pretty much everyone we had ever had a class with or hung out with in the last 4 years. I was sad I was late, because I missed the majority of them. I didn't know what to say to Mrs. Allen. I've worked with her, too. She's a fantastic pianist, and so I've done jobs with her and Dr. Allen both. Thankfully, I was in line with a bunch of other awkward UT Tyler students as well, so we all were able to bond together in our insecurity. I didn't mind leading off the group either. Mrs. Allen told me that Dr. Allen really liked having me around. I don't think I could have asked for much more than that.
Oh, and I saw an old girlfriend there that I hadn't seen or talked to for probably a year (and neither had pretty much anybody else .. she fell off the planet). She was there with her boyfriend. He looked about as tall as me. That made me laugh.
Wednesday was the large ensemble competition in the afternoon. So, I did a rehearsal over at UT in the morning, and then I sat in on an impromptu choir rehearsal for Dr. Allen's funeral. It was great. Anyone could be part of it, and lots of old students showed up for it. Even my composition professor, Dr. Emge (who is an oboe player) came in and did his part in tenors. I'm sure the funeral was a great homage.
Not much to say about the afternoon groups. I lived through it, and Susan didn't go too crazy (even when she saw my bill .. it's pretty big). The good news: every ensemble made a one. I don't know how either. Some of them were pretty iffy. The bad news: I have to play for every ensemble again. I mean, sure that's good in most respects, but I totally could have been happy with maybe .. 3 ensembles going or something. I really was ready to throw away some of this music.
Thursday I had a day to slack off. That was until I had promised Christian that I would show up in Tyler at 7:45 to eat breakfast with him and another girl (she works in a psych ward, so she was just getting off her 12 hour shift, and she told us if we didn't do right when she got done, she was going to fall asleep). So, I get there. She's there. He's not. I call him, and he says, "Dude, that's tomorrow." I like, "WHA... he says it's TOMORROW. Talk to him." She talks to him, also quite angry. He was joking, thankfully, but I wanted to kill him anyways.
I had a rehearsal at 11am, and then back home til the show that evening. Instead of sleeping like I should have, I got this crazy need to record the song that is showcased earlier in this blog, and then to write some entirely new music. And somehow I churned something out .. at least the first section of it. So, I guess all is not lost. My friend Scott was stage managing the show, so he came by my house, and we left together. Pretty nice crowd of probably about 55-60 people showed up, and the music didn't go really badly like I worried that it might. My page turner had a couple screw ups early on (first time she was just listening to the music and forgot to turn it, and I had to. Another time, she turned two pages and I was looking at the blank back of a piece of music). After that, she was totally right on. Just needed a couple "oh crap" moments to get her in the right momentum. I only screwed up here and there, which is better than I expected, seeing as how GCS took all my time up for the last week. Afterwards, I went with a group of friends to Bennigann's, drank dollar margaritas, and LIKED it.
Oh, and no one's paid for me any of these jobs yet. Boo.
posted by Karl at 6:31 AM
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