I'm a'back, in all my crazy glory...

I'm playing 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' for our Christmas Eve service at our church. I have, oh, a few weeks to learn it perfectly (including the chords for when I fade into the background a bit) and to be able to play it alongside a guitar. Major stress? You bet.

You know, I really wanted a quiet Christmas this year.

One where I can just flop down underneath the Christmas tree and watch the halos around the lights, and then suddenly remember that Jesus came. So then I'd shout 'HALLELUJAH!' and then watch the angel on the tree give me a really odd look.

You guys are probably giving me odd looks right now too.

Random Question:

Which pseudonym (or pen name) do you prefer: Heaven Silverring or Yors Trooly?

Piano Highlights

...when Galdor accompanies me. Ever played Bach with a 2 year old?

...when Luthien dances to a Sonatina that I'm playing.

...when Erestor grabs his guitar and we whip out a jazz/rock version of Handel.

...when I finally 'get' the phrasing technique.

...when I made up my first really cool song.

...when I played 'Caro Mio Ben' and it actually sounded good.

...when I played Sonatina for a ballerina.

...when I work on a duet with one of my piano students.

...when I think about how awesome music is.

Ever had moments like these?

Crazy Eights (Tagged by Cornet Crazie) And Music!

8 books I've read recently:
An Usborne Introduction to the First World War. Yes, history, but I really like that book!
Anne of the Island, which I kind of liked.
The Castle of Llyr--I have read books that were a lot better.
The Hobbit (for the thousandth time) One of my favorites.
Habakkuk, from the Bible. I really like it. =)

Oh...that's all. I haven't been doing that much reading for fun at all lately.

8 Songs or Albums I listen to all the time (I pick songs):

Sarabande, by Handel (I play it)
Brave, by Nichole Nordeman
City on our Knees, by Toby Mac
uh...mostly I just turn on our local Christian radio station and listen to random music...



8 Things I love:
music
writing
reading
animals
school
"Hogan's Heroes"!!
LotR
Jesus Christ

8 Things I've learned this year:

How to accompany ballerinas
that high school is really crazy
that I really miss my old piano teacher (she retired =(
that I suffer from severe writer's block
Clue #2: Find a blog with a picture of tons of balloons!
how to be a historical interpreter
that I really have some areas I need to work on
that I have carpal tunnel syndrome
crazy is not an insult

8 new recipes I want to try and make by the end of the year:

pickle ice cream re-try
cheesecake
sweet potato souffle
uh...I'm blanking out

8 Favorite online hangouts:
blogger
miniclip
lolcats
uh...

8 Projects I need to work on:
eight? How 'bout a million!? Actually, I can't remember any right now.

8 people I think should do this tag:
igirl
Olive Tree
Hannah Marie
Bekah
Vellvin
Ivorydancer
Milisande Awnia Grim
Guinevere

Now for my music...

My old teacher, who I've raved about on this blog a couple times, retired. =( She's working with my accompaniment class though, so I'll still see her at least once a month. So now I have a new teacher, and I'm starting up voice! I really like my new teacher. Depending whether or not she comes up on this blog often, I think I'll refer to her as Miss Kat. She's pretty different from my old teacher, though. My old teacher was dynamic and really spunky (and short) and this one is more of a calm, gentle person. She's really awesome.

But anyway, because I'm doing piano and voice, I'll be really pressed for time, so if you hardly see much of me anymore, it's because I'm busy. =)

Yesterday

Well...Thursday was eventful...

A ballerina and I began rehearsing for our performance in May. It was fun, but I was a little nervous and not quite prepared. You see, I'm the kind of person who has to know the exact surroundings that they'll be in to be comfortable. I don't know why--I'm unique that way. So I was picturing that us and our teachers were going to meet in the ballet room, and then we were going to practice a little (I had never met her before). Well...I didn't expect playing in front of the whole ballet class!

Also, I had practiced the Sonatina very fast for the Sonatina Festival that will be coming up soon. However, Olive (which is what I'll call the ballerina, after one of my book characters) can't dance that fast. So I had to slow it WAAAAAAAAY down.

Don't get me wrong. I had a ton of fun, and I actually caught myself playing the Sonatina in my sleep (I'm not kidding, people. I was half asleep when I heard a drumming on my bed. I didn't realize that it was my fingers doing a run until a few minutes had passed). Also, Olive is exactly three days younger than me! And there's another girl who is 1 day older than me, and she looks like Erestor's age!

That was from 7 to 8 PM. Then, because our family only has one car, Mom, Luthien, Galdor, and I had to run and pick up Erestor and Dad from baseball practice. It was getting dark, and we were running out of gas.

To cut a long story short, we had an...eventful...stop for gas with 2 miles left in our tank. The attendant made Galdor throw up. Not on purpose, of course...he was just laughing too hard. And then we picked Erestor and Dad up way after dark.

But anyway...such is life.

Izori

Randomness

Teaching music must be one of the best preparations (aside from being the oldest in a good-sized home-schooling family) to be a home-schooling mom someday. You have to figure out how the kid learns, how quickly, and for how long before their attention fizzles. In a way, it's harder because you wouldn't know them as much as you would your own child. However, my piano student (Liz) is a remarkably good student. Much more better than I was at her age.

I have my Sharpshooter Bar 4 in air-rifle!

Schoolwork has been a killer. So many writing assignments...interviews! Ack! I interviewed my great-grandma last week, which was really fun. Grandma has an AMAZING memory! No kidding; it's astounding. Better then mine.

I thought I was above all of that 'teenage attitude' stuff. After all, I'm not a teenager! I'm a young adult! But...well...ours in a low and deprived generation, to write a parody of a quote from Uncle Andrew from The Magician's Nephew. *Sigh*. How does my mom deal with me, sometimes?

My friend, Liz's older sister, read a story I was writing--a retelling of Snow White, Red Rose and White Rose, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, and more, all combined into one book. She really liked it, so now I shall add her to my list of editors (along with igirl and my dad).

Off to fold laundry!

Izori

A Mish-Mash

Contents:

1. Thoughts on the Inheritance Cycle
2. Piano teaching
3. Contests and quizzes
4. St. Patrick's Day!
   

Remember that time when I said that I'd stop reading the Inheritance Cycle for a while because of Roran and Katrina's adultery in Brisingr (and a little in Eldest, too)?

I'm actually hoping to get Eragon out of the library again. There wasn't any adultery in it, and it was actually my favorite book out of all of them. By the time I've finished that, I think I'll be mature enough to maybe start Eldest, and eventually Brisingr back up again.

Brisingr was actually the best written out of all of them, in my opinion. Except, of course, for Roran and Katrina's adultery. That was unnecessary to the plot (or if it was, like maybe their kid will become the next Dragon Rider or something, Paolini could have easily gotten around it by simply having Roran and Katrina marry in Eldest) and it was discussed in so much of the book. What's more, it wasn't really considered wrong. In Brom and Salina's case it was actually excused by stating that they 'considered' themselves married.

But yeah, other than that Brisingr was well-written.

Eldest was my least favorite. Arya was just...snobby. In Brisingr she was, like, my favorite character because she was so much more reachable. Not quite so made out of stone, which isn't how I imagine Elves at all. In Eldest, all of the Elves were made out of stone. Not to mention SOOO blind. They're athiests?! And they saw a miracle. Good grief. Also, Eragon managed to humiliate himself in just about every chapter, starting from asking about Arya's age!

Eragon was very good. Nothing really immoral that I could remember, and I could relate to Eragon the most. In Eldest and Brisingr he was an adult, but in this he's a kid (well, not quite a kid, but whatever).

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the Inheritance Cycle. Now onto part 2, my piano student.

You know, I'm in a mood for writing. I'm going to describe this charming young angel masquerading as a piano student in 1st perspective story-style. Just to practice, y'know.

My heart was knocking in my ribs as I clutched the bundle of piano books, and I felt like cold sweat was trickling down my back. Could these steps belong to the same porch that I had ran up merrily to ask if my friend could play? I wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't.

'Oh, Lord,' I silently prayed before giving a fateful push at the doorbell. 'Please, please, PLEASE let everything to go okay! Just don't let me make a total fool of myself...and please make it so that I don't have to put on the 'frumpy old teacher' act!' I totally didn't want this to interfere with our friendships.

Almost as soon as I rang the doorbell, the sound of stampeding buffalo emitted from behind the door. In 'annoyed Bilbo' fashion, the door popped open like a cork...only it wasn't a hobbit that opened it, and she certainly wasn't annoyed.

Of course, Lizzie [name changed because, well, it's the Internet, people!] could have passed for a hobbit. She's short, strongly built, and has light brown curly hair and chipper green eyes. Her face is almost literally glowing as she gushes, "Oh! Yes! You're here!" Turning, Liz shouts, "Mom! Izori's here!"

I wasn't surprised that my hands were shaking as I unzipped the packed that Liz's new piano books came in. My pupil sat demurely, hands folded in her lap, watching me. The only excitement she showed came from her eyes, which could have passed for spoon-tops.

I set the book in front of her. "Okay, Liz, let's get started here--" I paused to keep my voice strong. Was I as excited as her? Oh, most definitely.

Twenty minutes past by in a whirlwind, and in twenty minutes a new future musician was introduced to the quarter note. I had taught my first piano lesson.

Yep, I was THAT nervous a week ago! I have played piano for 8 years...and Liz is about that old, give or take. I was old enough to remember her baptism. She's also one of my many BFFs (along with her older sister). I just taught her for the second time today. It went WONDERFULLY!!! I am SOOOOO proud of Liz! She is such an eager student, and she's learning much faster than I ever did.

Also, the quiz and caption contest were supposed to end today. I didn't have many entries, so I'm continuing them until the 23rd of March. Click HERE to get to the quiz, and click HERE to get to the Caption Contest. Be sweet if you entered!

Ah, and another holiday is almost upon us! It's ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!! Almost. Whatever. Anyway, I'm one of the, like, millions who has prominent Irish ancestry, and I'm also very Irish at heart. Hey, I even have an Irish name! So, anyway, that explains the temporary background change. Tomorrow we're having an Irish dinner and we're seeing Celtic Woman live! Yee-haw!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Izori

Wow! All of these comments! They're making my day(s)! Yay!!!!! Mucho gracias!

Guess what! For an early (super early) birthday present...my mom and Luthien are taking me to see a Celtic Woman performance! YES!!! How sweet of them! I wish Meav and Orla would be there, though. Both of them are completely opposite and they both have completely amazing voices. However, I'll see Lisa and Chloe and Mairead (as well as Lynn and Alex, but I have to say that I don't like them as much).

Izori

My Musical Story

A five year old girl sits on the wooden piano bench, her chubby fingers poised stiffly on the white keys. A worn, well-used book rests on the music stand, it's yellowy pages bent with old age. The pout on the girl's face could curdle milk as she rebelliously stares down the notes. The endless ticking of the metronome is the only sound in the tiny room.

The oldish man sitting next to the girl sighs. "So. Are you going to play the piece for me?"

Reluctantly, the girl nods and starts plunking out the awkward notes, wishing she was somewhere else. Playing outside with her brother would be fun...even doing math would be better than piano lessons, in her opinion.

Yep. That was me at about age five. My mom signed me up for piano lessons at an old shop that no longer exists. And boy, oh boy, did I ever give her grief about it! She says that it was my idea to start piano lessons...but I don't ever remember saying that I wanted to. I'm not doubting my mom or anything (well, okay. Maybe I am) but I seriously don't remember.

So...did you get the picture that I didn't really want to be playing the piano? Basically everyone else did. My mom, my dad, my brother, my teacher, my friends...

I think it was because of the scales. My teacher made me practice C scale five times before we began music lessons. And D scale. And F scale. And A scale. And...

The point is, I couldn't see the point. I felt that it was a waste of time just running my fingers up and down the keyboard. And I didn't really feel that I was very good at it, anyway.

After about six more painful years of scales and exercises, I finally started to notice something. I was improving! I could do long scale runs very fast in songs, and generally move my fingers quicker. Now I had moved out of the boring lane and gotten to the point where things got really fun. I actually got a little enthusiastic about going to piano lessons.

And then the music shop closed down. So we decided to switch--to an actual music school. My old teacher was more of a composer (maybe he'll be Beethoven II someday! Who knows?) and this would be an actual official music school.

I was really, really nervous, because I still didn't consider myself that skilled at piano. Erestor and I (Erestor plays the guitar) both had the same music teacher, who majored in guitar. And he taught me piano. Seriously.

However, there was only a few months of that before that piano teacher's wife began to teach me. And she is a wonderfully skilled pianist, not to mention a lot of fun. Sometimes she brings her dog, Bo, with her to lessons, and he'll sit under my bench.

Mrs. Y-- is still my teacher today, and she's a very good one. Although I got a lot of technical skills with my first teacher, not to mention my basic training and the beginnings of appreciation for music, a lot of my enthusiasm comes from Mrs. Y--. She makes lessons a lot of fun, and we end up talking about half the time. XD

Now, I'm possibly considering majoring in music in college, and also teaching (that actually would start at age 16).

One thing I learned from all of this...

Do. Scales. Every. Single. Day. You'll go very far.

Izori

Praise!

YES!! YES, YES, YES, YES!!!!!!!

Did ya guess? Just an hour or two ago, while we were watching the Women's Biathlon (Olympics), we got a call from my teacher saying that the accompaniment class was canceled! WOW! I really wasn't expecting that.

Basically, last night when I was supposed to be sleeping I was worrying about the accompaniment class--I was absolutely certain that it would just be a huge embarrassment for me. And then I thought, "Well, God's in control, and he's obviously trying to tell me something. Maybe it's his will that I play without any music. I'll just think of it as 'character building'."

And so I was SHOCKED when that phone call came.

Anyway, let that be a lesson to all of us--God answers prayers! (even really unimportant ones)

Had a blast today! (and a prayer request)

So that mom could do taxes, Dad took all of us kids to Chuck E. Cheese today! We had an awesome time!! My favorite game is probably the Star Wars one, but there are some other good ones. Unfortunately, I only got to play two games because Erestor 'borrowed' my last tokens ('I'll return them! You owe me three, remember that!' 'Yeah. Whatever you say')...but minor detail!

And the prayer request...you know how I was so glad that last week's accompaniment class was postponed because of the snow because my music was at my teacher's room and I hadn't practiced at ALL? Well...it's been rescheduled to tomorrow. And when I told my teacher I had left my music there on Tuesday, we looked and couldn't find it anywhere. And she was sure I had left it too. So PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE pray for me that I could somehow find my music, or somehow that the class would be canceled again, or SOMETHING drastic! If you did, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!

[a very worried] Izori

Finally something to do with Christmas!

Or was going to. I was going to post a video of me playing 'Away in a Manger', but the video was taking so long to upload that I finally gave up.

So, I suppose I'll write about Christmas-y stuff.

We've just started making cookies--I've made the dough for candy cane cookies, and mom and Erestor have just made peanut butter blossoms. The inside of our house is decorated, but Dad and I haven't got around to hanging to icicle lights outside yet. Hoping to before Christmas!

And I've almost finished making gifts! All I have to do is make something for grandparents.

While I'm posting...would anyone like me to do another post on making up names? Because I just made up two names that I think sound SO beautiful. Aryn (wait, is that made up? I thought I had thought of that, but Blogger isn't marking it as a mis-spelled word) and Elìan (okay, this one's a 'mis-spelled' word).

I've been thinking what names I would name kids (if I had any), because that'll probably come in handy sometime in my life. Here are all the names:

boys

Shane
Ein (pronounced like Ian, but spelled the way I like it :)
Patrick (maybe...I really like that name, but I'm good friends with someone who has that name. Why'd you have to steal that name, dude?)
Darren
Haldir (hey, I really like that name! I know someone who's named Galadriel! Now THAT'S a beautiful name!)

There aren't that many boys' names as girls' names.

girls

Aryn
Elìan
Colleen
Brigett
Fiona (I really, really, really like that name--it's Scottish)
Angela
Mikaela :)
Galadriel (I just had to add it. I love that name. Although, if I named just two kids after a LotR character, and then ALL of my kids turned out to be fans of LotR, they'd be awfully jealous of poor Galadriel and Haldir. And we don't want that happening!)


Tell me what y'all think of the names!

Izori

Oh, joy (not)!

I've been looking over Sarea (working title) and I have found the worst. I knew that I would have to edit the book--but I only pictured a few changes, and perhaps one or two re-written scenes. Well...

I have decided that I need to just re-write the whole thing. Re-name a bunch of characters, and even re-do a bit of the plot. Igirl has been kind enough to edit Sarea for me, and once she's done correcting (no pressure, igirl!), I'll rewrite.

Also...I have Masters Accompaniment Class tonight. We go to this music school called Allegro, and all of their best students attend the Masters Accompaniment Class. I'm one of them; but don't get me wrong. I am NOT a musical prodigy. It is simply because I have been playing the piano for over half of my life (I'm 13). And for playing that long, I'm not very good. So I'm REALLY nervous. I have to accompany this dude on the clarinet, see, and I wasn't able to practice the piano much in November because of NaNoWriMo.

So anyway...ignore my complaints and whining.

Good news...I'm a good way done with editing my NaNoWriMo book. It was actually sort of fun reading over what I've written. Also, I'm starting to get ideas for the sequel.

Izori

Had piano lessons today--and I'm going to be starting a class for advanced students at the end of September. We'll be learning accompaniment, so eventually I'll play the piano for the ballet students. And I also found out I'll be doing a Sonatina contest in February, and I'm starting learning Christmas music! I love Christmas music.

Izori