Tag: AGMA

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So, What’s This Recording Thing I’ve Been Doing?

So for the last month I’ve been working on a project with The Crossing: the first recording for this fledgling group, and hopefully a sign of things to come.

The piece is Kile Smith’s Vespers, written for The Crossing (a new music choir) and Piffaro (a Renaissance wind band), and I can’t wait until the CD is out in stores.

And, of course, because I seem to be one of those people who takes on WAAAY too much at once, I was not simply learning my music (including a newly rewritten movement Kile threw at us at the last minute!!), I was helping to organize flights from folks coming in from out of town, making sure everyone had the music, and even making available transposed versions for those of us with perfect or even good relative pitch.

(Piffaro’s instruments are all tuned to A=463 rather than the standard 440, which means that all the notes on the page really sound a half step higher than they look on the page, which can drive folks like me nuts.  As Adrian Monk says, “It’s a blessing and a curse.”)

At the same time, I was trying to fulfill my AGMA duties, which have seemed to multiply, Hydra-like, exponentially (and more viciously) the more tasks I complete (since the stress level for this volunteer job had started to affect me physically, I said enough was enough, and I stepped down as delegate).  Oh yeah, and never mind the fact that I had my day job, too, working at the transcription place, which I’m leaving at the end of the month (more on that later).

Since all work and no play make Maren very grumpy, Ray bought Grand Theft Auto IV for me to release some of my frustrations on.  Yeah, I know.  I don’t seem like the GTA4 type, but I’m really liking it.

Anyway, the recording was intense, but I think it went well.  And I really think the final product will be fantastic.  I posted a story that David Patrick Stearns did for WRTI on the piece.  I think it definitely sums up what the process was about…oh yeah, and you get to see me in my pigtails, which I sported every day that week because it was so hot and muggy.

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Bleagh

I’m feeling kind of icky right now, so I guess I’m going to use this blog as a personal catharsis machine, just like the rest of the world does with their blogs.

So here’s the deal. I recently got an offer from a conductor I worked with last winter to sing at a music festival in Italy this summer. It’s last minute, and it doesn’t pay that well, but they pay for transportation and housing, plus we get a little stipend for food (enough to live modestly). It’s not solo work, but it’s challenging musically, which is what I’ve been really hoping for recently, since I seem to be stuck doing a lot of the same-old choral stuff (which is great…I’m not complaining, but I’m also not challenged enough, I think).

I’m absolutely signed up for the job, so there’s no dilemma as to whether or not to go. I mean, come on, someone is going to pay for me to go to Italy? And sing? This is a chance of a lifetime, and I’m totally psyched to go. I’ve already got my Learn-Italian-Really-Fast CD playing in my car so I can brush up on the two semesters of Italian that I took 14 years ago.

I know I shouldn’t feel bad, I should feel happy and excited, but I all feel right now is bleagh (that’s a technical term, by the way.  It is that icky, vomitous feeling you get when you say the word “bleagh.”). It’s weird.

Now for the psychoanalysis: why am I feeling bleagh? Well, for one thing, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to prepare for this trip. We leave at the end of June for three and a half weeks, and Ray can’t go with me because he’s got to earn the bread and pay the mortgage and make leather stuff so we can go on vacation together another year. That’s probably the hardest thing, since we’re still in our honeymoon phase, I think…our roommates just moved out and we’ve been redecorating and being all lovey-dovey, and I’ll definitely miss him terribly.

But the second reason I feel bleagh is that I just told my transcription boss I’m going to be gone for three and a half weeks, and she was pretty upset. I know she’s probably not upset enough to fire me (and even if she did, that might not be a bad thing in the long run), but the thing that makes me feel bad is that I made her feel bad. How lame is that?

I also took on a whole lot of volunteer stuff with AGMA, and I may not be able to live up to my responsibilities because of this trip, and I feel pretty bad about that too. Not as bad as missing the job, though, since the AGMA stuff is volunteer, but I still feel pretty bad.

My head knows that I should not feel guilty about getting paid to go to Italy and sing. This is, after all, what my real career is about. Ray is totally on board with it and very supportive. Even the folks at AGMA are supportive, because they understand that one must take these jobs to further one’s singing career. So why do I feel guilty about leaving my piddly little day job who can get a temp to replace me? I really don’t know. I think maybe I just need to push through the guilt and remind myself that I’M GOING TO ITALY!

Yeah, that helps.