Ignorance

"The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance."

don't remember who said that.. I think it was Ben Franklin?

Anyway.

Ignorance is annoying to deal with.

I will admit I am ignorant towards a few things, but at least I make sure to not place any discredited opinions towards that which I am not very knowledgeable of.

Something happened today that I'm not sure what to think of. Kind of rattled me a bit, I've never been told this before.

I was practicing my cello in one of the practice rooms at Clarke (which after today I may not do for a quite a while..:( ). I've been practicing the piece I've been so excited to learn. Here's a link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inLlNdjKgTQ

There was a piano tuner tuning all of the pianos (no way!) at Clarke and he was in the room next to me. I stopped practicing to go to choir. After choir, I went back to the practice rooms to grab my cello and head home. The tuner had moved into that room, so I knocked on the door, opened it, grabbed my cello saying "hi, just gotta grab this". Shut the door, then he came out and asked "were you playing in here earlier? Like, late morning-ish?" I replied "oh yeah". He said to me "that was you?? Wow. That was phenomenal." and smiled. And he started talking about how he was impressed. He said he stopped tuning for a while and just stood out in the hallway to listen. I was flattered. Then he said that while he was out there, a group of students walked by. I was practicing the part that in the recording is around the time 2:36-2:48, with the double stop chords ascending and then descending and all. I was doing really well, getting it all perfectly in tune and with a dramatic interpretation (which my teachers have been telling me the way I play it is fantastic and impressive). The piano tuner told me that when the students walked by, one of them said out loud "God that sounds awful."

...that kind of was a punch in the gut.

Now, I know they don't know anything, so what they say doesn't really matter. The tuner told me "I couldn't believe they said that, made me think, you know, people are so ignorant these days about music that isn't 'popular', it's a pity really."

So I'm flattered the musician thought I was phenomenal, but I don't think I've ever once been commented on sounding "awful"... that's a hard one to take. Because I'm not awful.. I'm not exactly perfect or the best, either. I *am* up there (in rating the quality of my playing abilities, sound, knowledge and over-all musicality) if not exactly very high (like say Yo Yo Ma or a Juiliard student/graduate), but I'm pretty sure I'm far from sounding...awful..

I just need to forget it. That's a lot easier said than done. I don't want to practice at Clarke anymore if ignorant idiots are going to be making comments like that.

So.

On a different topic...

I've joined the Cantabile Choir (woman's choir) at Clarke. I've always been put in the alto section because I have a wider range than a lot of people (both low and high), I can read music and sing out and am good for support. I've been told I could sing anything and always end up in the altos. Well now I'm at a place where everybody reads music very well and have been assigned elsewhere from the altos! I'm a 2nd soprano! And I think I like it a lot. :)

I think that's all.

Oh, the semester started yesterday.
I'm busy.

The end.