Finish me these finals three...

Blech. Busy day, busy day.

I had three finals today, Aural Skills at 8:00, my Jury performance at 10:12, and my Theory final at 13:30. Woooo.

Anyway, so I woke up bright and early to go over to the Fine Arts building for my Aural Skills exam. I trudged through the rain, my umbrella shielding me from the torrent. I was wearing a suit (I looked pretty nice, too.), so I didn't want to get wet. The suit was for Jury, I wanted to look nice. :)
So I arrived at the classroom at five until, and was feeling anxious. The test would be simple, there were only two parts:
1) Sing a song that you have prepared out of our Sightsinging book. We'd been doing various sightsinging exercises throughout the half-semester I've had the class, and he could ask you to do any one of those to sing for him. I didn't have a copy of the book, so I couldn't prepare for this part. Blech.
2) Sightsing a song he gives us when we go in to take the test.

So... as you can tell, I was extremely unprepared. The teacher was running late, so in the time we spent waiting, the class decided to go over some of the songs. We only had time to do one before he arrived. Needless to say, this did little to quell my growing fear of failure. After taking care of some business, we were all shuffled out of the classroom to wait in the hall- we'd be taking the exam one at a time. I waited outside, talking to people and such. Since I didn't have a book, I made a deal with a friend to borrow his once he was finished with the exam. After a while of waiting, I decided I wanted to go pretty soon, to prepare for my Jury.

And at last, my time came. I walked in the door with my borrowed book, ready to bomb this. The teacher (I still don't know his name, haha.) sat down at the piano and told me that I was going to sing Exercise 2.29 from the book. Luckily, not only was that the easiest one of the "prepared" pieces, it was the one we had gone over while waiting for him! Relief flooded through me as he played me my starting pitch. I belted out the first "Do" and proceeded to sing the whole thing perfectly, to the very last "Fa Mi Re Do." He told me he was glad I prepared for this (Ha!) and handed me the page I'd be sightsinging. I had a minute to look over it.

It was in the key of G, and was mostly scale patterns. "Do Re Mi Fa Sol" and such, fairly basic. I was a bit shaky on the pitch (I know for a fact that I sung a "Le" instead of a "La" at one point- 6ths are bitches. So it was in E Minor for a measure, wooo.) but overall, I didn't stop and made no major mistakes. He gave me a thumbs up and told me to send in the next person.

Aural Skills Final: COMPLETE

So, my next mission would be to secure a practice room for the next 30 minutes and prepare for my Jury. If you know me at all, you know that I've been freaking out over this performance for just over a month now. It's a big deal (20% of my grade for lessons), and I was scared I wouldn't be ready for it. Especially after my sub-par recital, I felt I needed as much practice as I good. So for thirty or so minutes, I ran through the piece and went over all the tricky spots. At 10:00, I figured I needed to go ahead and head down there. I was nervous.
I waited outside the door with my accompanist. He's actually a pretty cool dude. We talked about some stuff regarding the piece (How fast to play the Allegro Maestoso, dynamics, when to come in at this one part...) and in what felt like no time at all, the doors opened and I was beckoned in.

I entered the Choral Hall with my trombone and music. Sitting at the table was the entire brass faculty- Dr. Lucas, Horn; Dr. Kelly, Trumpet; Dr. Perry, Tuba/Euphonium; and Dr. Tychinski, Trombone. I put my music on the stand and got ready. The judges nodded to me, indicating they were ready to start. I gave a quick glance to my accompanist to let him know I was ready, and we began.

Eight minutes later, as I held out my final F, I was ecstatic. That was my best performance yet! Sure, I made a few small mistakes, but those were overshadowed by my awesome 16th note runs and keen dynamics. It was brilliant. They smiled and I left. I thanked my accompanist and went on my way.

Jury: COMPLETE

And then, I ate food, slept until 13:15, went and took my Theory exam. I didn't prepare for it, but I knew the stuff so I wasn't worried. It was as easy as I thought it would be, and I turned in my paper within 15 minutes. There really isn't that much to say about it.

Theory Exam: COMPLETE

And so, that's about it. I'm SO glad to be finished with all of that. One more final to go, and I'll be home for the holidays!


-David