done for the year

i am done with contest for the year! you have no idea just how good it feels. now i can kinda slack off until all state starts coming around.

i was in five events at state contest. i am extremely happy with most of them and just happy with a couple. my piccolo solo was just okay, and i'll be surprised if i got a one. i feel that it shouldn't deserve a one, i could have played it better. the duet markus kritzer and i did went well and i am pleased with how it went but we both agree that the best we ever played it was when we ran through it on friday. woodwind choir, eh i don't really care, we got a one. celtic celebration was good. really good. but my favorite performance was the very first of the day; my flute solo. i played the first movement of martinu's sonata. i am in love with how the flute and piano sound together. of all the pieces i have played before that is my favorite.

contest is a day that makes me extremely nervous. i have a nervous habit of biting/tearing at my fingernails on my pointer finger on both hands. i am proud to say that i did not bite or tear my nail once on saturday. that doens't mean that i wasn't nervous, it just means that i have a greater exercise of self control than i used to. why does contest make me nervous? i was playing pieces that i had practiced for months and was ready to play. okay, so my piccolo solo may not have been as ready as it could have been, but it was ready. the only people that were going to hear me were my parents, my lesson teacher, pianist, and a judge i didn't even know. my parents know what i sounded like when i first started playing and are subject to all the wrong notes and rhythms of practicing. my lesson teacher is the same. she hears my play for an hour every single week. she knows that i'm not perfect and little things always happen when i'm playing. my pianist also knows that i make mistakes. i know that if i mess up in front of those people they will not have that as their only image of me. they have all seen my highs and my lows. it's the judge that i have never met before that gets me. how i play in front of them is the only thing they have to know me by. i try to tell myself that i don't care at all what people think about me but you know what, i obviously do. my nerves show that. i think everyone cares just a little at least.