small hills now, mountains later

Hmm....well I climbed a small hill this week. I would rightfully say that I worked my ass off! So much that I wore my entire body out. So, after my lesson last Wednesday I was already frustrated and it was the first week of the semester. So, I took that frustration and the frustration about my grade for last semester and attempted to do something productive with it. My choice was good. It was to practice as much as I could possibly do. Plus I was determined to get my embouchure right. I had made some progress over break, but not as much as I wanted because of the long periods of rest. So what was a 20-30 min warm-up became a practice session in itself. By Sunday, I had kept my internal promise to myself to keep working hard. I played about 8 hours. Tuesday was even more, 9 hours! Amazingly by Thursday, lesson day I felt prepared. I had a reed that could do what I needed, and I knew my etudes.

I played my first etude transposed, and then he asked me to play it in the original key. After that we had a long conversation about what he wants to do with me to gain the knowledge I need to splash into the real world. We decided what I'm should be working on and he had my play my first etude again. He said that I played it really well and was happy that he could finally be picky. So the lesson went on and I it ended much better than alot of mine from last semester.

Now my task for this week is to be better or at least as good as last week. It's so hard, and I'm so behind for my level. Grrr. Why couldn't I have started at the normal time and had a great beginning band director? Or at least a real oboe teacher? It's so frustrating, but if I continue to exhaust myself I should get there. Hopefully the exhaustion doesn't come like it did this week, with me forcing myself to go to bed at 9:30 pm only to wake up at 9 am the next morning. Craziness!

Alright.......onward to more productiveness.