Crappy Day...

First of all, I would like to thank Mom for the card in the mail, and all of my family for the care package to commemorate my 1/2 birthday... It helps a lot... Because today has sucked... :-(

My flute lesson today was from hell... I am not joking. It was absolutely terrible... I had practiced Monday and Tuesday, with a metronome no less... For 50 minutes! That is a lot for me! (And I usually have my lessons on Wednesday, but last week it was moved to Friday, so I had 2 days less to practice) and I felt fairly prepared for today...

So I got to my lesson and my teacher begins GRILLING me on my scales. It was crazy! Like, not even spaces between them.... We've never warmed up this way before! We just went around the circle of 5ths, only stopping when I messed up... (Which was quite often.) And it threw me off when we went from D-flat major to B major because for some reason I thought we would do flats, then go back and start on G major and do sharps. But no, we went allllll the way 'round the circle of 5ths. (And of course I have to play all my scales extended, so no matter what the key signature, if it's flats I start on middle C, and play up three octaves to the high B-flat then back down to middle C. Sharps are the same except you start on C-sharp and go up to B-natural.)

Then we did minor scales, up to three sharps and three flats. Yeah... THOSE were also rather painful... Because I know them on piano and not very well on flute... So she asks me to play the minor scale with 3 sharps, which I identify as f-sharp while thinking: 3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4, which is the ascending finger pattern for that scale on the piano, (two octaves.) Well, of course this doesn't help me on flute... So, because I'm already flustered from the major scales I stumble even more through the minors.

Then we do... *shudder* arpeggios... Which were the worst of ALL! She had me do ALL my major, then ALL my minor arpeggios, right after another... And part of what drives me nuts about this, is I always practice by playing the scale followed by the arpeggio... That's how she TOLD me to practice!

AHHH!

And she wasn't just sitting there doing nothing, she was constantly saying things like: "No, start again... Your articulation was off, begin again... You missed a note, start over.... Sarah you need to get these down, now start again!" in a very impatient, agitated tone.

Then Margie, who plays piano for me, comes at 10:25 like I scheduled her, and I'm still running arpeggios. When I finally finish, I feel so frustrated with everything... I know I can play my scales and arpeggios. I really think the whole thing was ridiculous...

Anyway, so we start working on my solo and I get to the third beat of the second measure and she stops me because it's too slow... So then she grills me about what tempo I've been practicing and then she goes on about how I should be at 120 = the beat instead of 84 and all that... (The piece I'm playing in in 6/8 time with lots of crazy subdivision.) Granted, that is a big difference, but so is being able to play 32nd notes and not being able to play them at all.

So we start the solo again at a tempo closer to what she wanted, and we get towards the end of the movement and I play a rhythm incorrectly. So she stops me saying, that I should be playing the trills and grace-notes by now... I've "evidentially" had this solo long enough... And gives me a measure to start from so I can get this rhythm. And I miss it again. And she's instantly like, "NO! Start again!" Then she counts off weird, which throws Margie and I off... So we start yet another time, and halfway to the trouble spot she starts counting out loud, which is honestly SO annoying! Like, it is NOT helping! :-P Then I get to the trouble spot and am totally off, and she freaks out! She comes over exclaiming how much I'm playing it wrong and asking why I am having problems with this passage... The whole, "You should know this! Why can't you play this? How much have you been practicing?" From my perspective, I see this as completely unreasonable... I don't know why this was such a big deal! Had she come over and been like, "Ok, this part is giving you trouble. Do you know why?" and walked me through what was giving me a hard time, that would have been fine. I don't want to be spoonfed the answers, but I don't want to be marooned at sea either!

Overall, the whole lesson was a disaster and I got out of there as quick as I could. Margie gave me about 10 long hugs as I cried about the stupid lesson. This pretty much ranks up there with my jury experience last year.

I really hope she was having a bad day or something... Because I REALLY don't want to go to my lesson next week... Not if I'm going to end up in tears again.



All I want is someone who's on my side...