The Shaking and The Quaking

Today was the flute trio competition and Jazz dog's annual vet checkup, so there was a lot of shaking and quaking going on.

The shaking flautist:
It seemed like a good idea back in January - enter the competitive, advanced flute class of the music festival. It's a long way from January to April, though, and that little thing called performance anxiety has been raising its ugly head in the past few weeks. The other trio entered in the competition had two things going that messed us up. They were scheduled to play first, and they played the entire Flutes en Vacances, which meant that they would finish with the exact movement we meant to start with. Obviously, we had to change our order. We had to start with the piece that was more challenging, especially the runs and arpeggios and other tricky things like turns that I had, plus it's nine minutes of continual playing.

The first trio played unbelieveably well. In the "holy shit, maybe we can just leave now" kind of way. Then we had to wait about ten minutes for the adjudicator to write her notes about their performance. Since they played four movements from the same piece, they got to keep playing until they were done. For us, since we played two contrasting movements from different composers, we had to wait in between. For some of us, "stewing in the stress" about sums it up! The first part of the first piece went well, until about the middle when my shaking fingers made it difficult to play, and I got a bit lost. Or maybe it was the second flute, because she thought it was her getting lost. In any case, we kept going and got back together, but I was practically hyperventilating by that point. We did finish together, and in tune, too. Then we had to stand and wait. It started well, and overall it was okay, but I know I screwed up, and both of the other trio members said that they had some problems, too.

It goes without saying that the other trio won, with a score of 88. Amazingly, we got marked at 82, which our conductor (who was watching - she can't conduct when it's competitve) thought was accurate. She thought that we were more musical in the Flutes en Vacances movement that the other group, who had played well, and at breakneck speed, but without a lot of dynamic change. Overall, a good outcome. But I don't think I'll be doing the competitive thing again anytime soon!!

The Quaking Dalmatian:
Miss Jazz survived her checkup, with a lot of trembling and shuddering. She hates the waiting room, so this time I kept her in the car until they were ready to see her, then brought her in, got her weighed, and then we went right into the examination room. The good news is that she is in very good health. Yay!!! I've been so stressed because she's ten and a half, and several dogs I know have had sudden turns for the worse once they hit ten. In the last year alone, four dogs on our street have been put down due to failing health, and two separate clients have had dogs put down as well. Jasmine may be pathetic, but at least she's healthy!!!