Quick! Say it With Me: An-ti-ci-pa-tion!

Did you say it? I'm not even sure I did, and I was the one typing it out. Rather, I think the operative word is preparation. So tonight I was at rehearsal, and we're working on getting a school show together, and my problem was that I don't think I was adequately prepared. My fault entirely. I mean, I should have had a solo together, and was actually doing lightening fast solo-composition this morning, but I know myself, and I know that I need all that soaking-in time. Like I can write a solo (painfully) but need the time to let it seep into my bones so that when the time comes, I can just play it. It was amazing that I was doing lightening-fast solo-composition at all, but I just knew, I just knew, that we'd be working on it tonight, but was I prepared? No. Maybe it's the old English major in me that was trying to cram a solo in at the last minute, like writing those 12 page papers at 2 in the morning the day before it's due. I had a roomate once that would ask me to wake her up at 2 in the morning so she could start working on her paper. Now that's last minute if you ask me. She always got them done, though, and I thought that was amazing.

Ok, I'll be the first to admit it. I hate composing solos. It's so painful for me. It's hard. It's hard work. Oh, and did I mention, I wasn't just an English major, I was a creative writing major, so it wasn't just about spitting back facts and arguments from literature, it was about writing literature, or smut, or whatever you want to call it. Creativity. And do you know who my worst critic is against my own creativity? ME. So I'll have a sentence or a paragraph, and guess who's at my shoulder shooting down every word I write? ME. And guess who's at the end of each line of matsuri solo saying that sucks, or that's so unoriginal? ME. But there is something about the pressure of a deadline, or a Thursday night rehearsal that will send the critic running for cover and let me compose or create. Tonight I got home from rehearsal and I was like: I'm so stressed! I need so many solos and I have only so much time, and I need to get this done NOW! So what I did was hunker down and write a matsuri solo I like, and will probably keep in its present form, much like my Kanki no Wa solo I wrote for that concert a while ago. We're still working on Kanki, and I find myself going back to that original solo, but tweaking things here and there, but I like it, and hope that it emerges from stress and deadline a renewed animal. It's the same with this matsuri solo. I'll stress all over it, but it will become engrained within me, and I'll probably remember it forever.

But tonight we were working on Mokuyobi solos, and I totally had this prepared for drum camp, but when it came time to noodle with it, I could not, for the life of me, remember how the @#$% it started. Janet was like, it's good to try to work on changing a solo, but it's also good to keep the beginning the way it is, and I was like, but I can't remember how it begins! I couldn't! I really couldn't! I don't know if it was the pressure of having to actually perform the solo in front of a live person, or if the pressure stemmed from the fact that the live person was Janet, because even after a couple of years of actually working with her and being around her, I am still incredibly shy around her, I don't know why. I mean, when she solos, it's like magic, and when I solo it's like kerplut...don. Also a problem I'm having is that I've been working on coming up with a solo for this song for over a year, and when it comes time to even think about it, my mind just goes blank. What's up with that? Does that ever happen to you? I assume if you're still reading, then you must be a taiko player, or else have some sort of interest. Why do I always run into a brick wall with coming up with a solo for this one?

Anyhow. I have less than 24 hours to come up with solos for another song, and they're short and sweet metered solos, and I'll try to turn off the internal critic while I compose, because I really have no choice. Solo or DIEEE!!

Ok, and because I've had way too much time on my hands lately, or because I've been procrastinating too much on those solos, I've found the new toy that I absolutely must have. It's a minidisc recorder that uploads to your computer effortlessley. If you're a minidisc afficionado, then you know that to get your fabulous recordings onto your computer, you have to play back your recording in real time back to your computer's mic-input--remind you of cassette technology? A friend said, why make those great digital recordings if you have to re-record them back in analog? So why did I pay so much for the fancy mic and the juice box and consider buying the other expensive stuff if I'm just going to be utilizing analog technology?

Look at the pretty picture:


I must have it. Ugh. Keep me busy at work or I will be shopping for this thing endlessly on the internet. Boy o boy is it late for me to be up. Gotta go to bed now. Solos will be replaying through my dreams tonight. Night-night everybody.