All the Angles

Had a subbing gig today in Trig and Statistics. I could have actually done some teaching if I had known how to solve the problems in the lesson plans. Unfortunately, I had forgotten the law of cosines and sines.

I've been trying to brush up on my basic math skills because I registered for the GKT April 19th. I last took calculus back in 1976 so I'm pretty rusty. The other fun part of the GKT will be the hand written essay part. I have to get my head around the concept of not being able to go back and edit something once its written.

Keyboard or Camp?

I'm trying to decide between buying a weighted 88 keyboard (Casio PX200) or a week of summer chamber music camp for $500. I can't justify spending $$ on both things this year. I currently have a 61 keyboard that's somewhat adequate for practicing exercises and pieces and I can go to the local college and practice on their pianos twice a week. I also could wait until I have another year of cello-ing under my belt before going to music camp.

Being Lazy

Been lazy this past week. Part of the problem was an ear infection which put me out of sorts.
I finally got around to trying out my new pastel pencils on this sketch yesterday.

Being Able to See

Just thought I'd share an interesting observation. I was attempting to play from memory some pieces and just for fun, I tried closing my eyes. I really flubbed up. I didn't realize I relied so heavily on being able to see what's I'm doing. Does anyone else experience this or do you play better with your eyes closed?

Loud Enough

Last night, I was actually told to play a little softer during chamber music class. The teacher was amazed that I'm finally loud enough.

Subbing and Tutoring

The past few weeks, I've been getting some experience teaching. Been subbing at the local magnet school -- so far covered classes in Environmental studies, Marine Biology and Geometry. Also been tutoring some college kids in Music Theory. I have a curriculum prepared to submit to a private school for their after school enrichment program. If I get the job, it will be one hour a week of teaching music from March - June. Will see what happens.

Today I was called in to help a pianist rehearse a piece for her recital this Friday. It started out pretty shaky but after a couple of hours of drilling, there's hope. My help was appreciated by both the pianist and her teacher.

Valentine

Haven't drawn anything lately, so I did this last night for the Cartoon Valentine Challenge on Drawspace. Color and lettering added with photoshop.

Must Be Getting Better

My cello-ing must be improving. Received unsolicited compliments on my intonation, tone and loudness during chamber music class last night. I did spend an hour before class working with the metronome for two measures that required playing groups of sixteenth notes. I recently was informed that its better to work with the quarter beat on the metronome. In the past, I had always set the metronome to the smallest increment. So if a passage had sixteenths, I would set the metronome to click on the sixteenths. I was told to not do that.