Born In America: The Geographic Problem

Once again, friends and cohorts, it's been a long time.

I'm happily back in San Jose after a mildly stressful finals week and many bittersweet goodbyes to friends. By my count, I've currently got friends in at LEAST five different time zones. We're all from different places, which makes summers interesting in terms of communication. But it makes an even bigger difference when you're asking some pretty big questions, which is one thing I really had to be careful about this year - not everyone loves my Californian snark.

There's one thing I've noticed both among my California and Arizona friends, and it's a kind of strange realization. (Okay, you guys know me - everything I'm involved in is kind of strange.) I've got a lot of friends who are first- and second-generation native-born American citizens, and that's great. They're all fantastic. I love them to death, even when they tease me about the fact that I actually sunburn (I still don't understand why that's so funny). They might not realize it, but they have one big advantage over me - they can identify as Indian or Korean or Vietnamese or German or the ethnicity of whatever country they're from, or they can identify as American. And while many will look at them and come to a conclusion other than plain old "American," they've got two options for answering that often-asked question, so bluntly phrased in California: "So, what are you, exactly?"

Take that as a good thing or a bad thing; it's up to you. The flip side of that is my situation. On both sides of my family, I have ancestors who lived in America prior to the Revolutionary War. We go waaaaaaay back. However, when people ask ME "what are you?" and I answer "American," they either assure me that it's okay for me to tell them or continue with "no, what are you REALLY?" Because so many of the people I know are first- or second-gen Americans, the multitudes assume that I must recently be from somewhere else, too. Sometimes I give up and just reply, "Western European," but that never feels right. Sure, three and a half centuries ago, that would have been a valid statement, but my actual lineage has resided in the States for so long that it's like saying Beethoven is only recently dead.

So next time you ask me what ethnicity I am and I say, "American," know that I mean it. It's sad that for so many of us, you can't pass as American if you aren't from somewhere else. Yeah, we're a melting pot, but it's dangerous to have a national identity that's rock-solid in political contexts yet volatile in most others. I mean, just think about standardized testing; under the Race/Ethnicity section, you don't have the option of "American;" I am forever relegated to "White/Caucasian" while my friends choose "Asian" or "Pacific Islander" or "Indian." (This is also true of voter registration, at least in California.) Despite all this, these competing labels and all-encompassing stereotypes, I. Am. American. And I will argue that until people start listening.
Love you all,
Megan

Closer to the Edge: Finals and Highlights

This is it. We're almost done.

This time next week, I'll be finishing all my packing, organizing and deciding what possessions to take home with me. I'll be going through room inspection, spending time with my best friend who will soon be three time zones away, and saying goodbye to the crazies I've come to love.

A week from tomorrow, I'm going home.

I'm not quite sure how to feel about this. Sure, it's been way too long since I've seen the ocean, and I'm thrilled to be coming home to both professional and social opportunities, but what about this life I've created here? Do I just push pause for three months and come back like nothing's changed?

That's silly. This is real life. Nobody can do that.

Still, I'm really going to miss my friends here at ASU. They're dependable, honest, really fun to be around and a lot like me - most of us are music majors, so we've shared a lot of the same trials and tribulations over the past nine months. Some of them I've only known for a semester, but they've already become extremely important to me. Others I've known most of the year and have become my rock. There have been smiles and tears, laughter and heartbreak, and my phone's autocorrect now speaks fluent Italian. We've created some amazing memories, and I already know/hope I'm going to be keeping up with some of these people for the rest of my life.

So we'll Skype and FaceTime and call and text, and come August we'll all return to the fiery furnace that is the land of the Sun Devil. Will we be different people then? Most definitely. Summer is a volatile time, and I'm sure the gossip mill will once again go crazy next fall - we'll all have stories to tell, and this time we'll have old friends to tell them to.

Anyway. I'll get all nostalgic and emotional later. Now, on to a very important list: (More) Things I Learned My Freshman Year. [For Part 1 of the list, see this post.]

1. To ensure the music majors get exercise, have the elevator in the music building break - for three weeks. Add extra travel time into your schedule so you can actually climb the five flights of stairs and still be on time to 8am theory.
2. Don't expect anyone to text you back, especially if it's important.
3. Dining hall food gets really repetitive (except gelato).
4. Sometimes you're going to eat by yourself. Rumor has it that's okay.
5. Having a baby grand piano in the dining hall does NOT mean it will be played well. If anything, it is a guarantee that multiple people will play it badly. (It is also less likely to be tuned on a regular basis.)
6. Hugs are rare. Cherish all of them.
7. It's good to have friends who AREN'T in your major.
8. Sometimes sitting around watching movies until 3am constitutes an exciting Friday night.
9. You'll start to realize that you now have multiple friends with spouses and/or kids.
10. Most of the friends in #9 will be more than a couple years older than you. Be glad.
11. Late-night food runs are the best thing ever.
12. Naps are also the best thing ever. (Though they can and will mess up your sleep schedule.)
13. Despite having technology that allows you to communicate almost instantly, if your best friends are in different time zones, you may discover the true joys of snail mail.
14. You will never be able to not check your email again.
15. Time management will always be really important.
16. Setting your own bedtime is great if you know you'll get enough sleep to be functional. If you know you won't, you have only yourself to blame.
17. Sometimes your friends will need things at inconvenient times. (Sometimes = almost always.) It's important that you at least try to come through for them anyway.
18. Girl talk and frozen yogurt go hand in hand.
19. You can wear pretty much whatever you want to class. Pajamas? Sure. Concert dress? You'll only get a few strange looks.
20. If you're a girl, you'll develop your own system for dealing with that special breed of college boy that enjoys whistling at, catcalling, and otherwise attempting to objectify you.
21. If you're a boy, you'll start hearing about this more and more from your female friends.
22. You'll be really glad you got good at BS-ing in high school. Because sometimes you will remember that assignment for your gen-ed class fifteen minutes before it's due.
23. After completing Human Event, you'll wonder what you're going to do with all your extra time. (Oh, wait, you still have a thesis. Never mind.)
24. If you're a musician, people will consistently think you're insane. They're frequently right.
25. Post-performance high fives and hugs are among the greater things in life.
26. You'll find that certain people require you develop an opinion about everything.
27. Having small classes is great because your professor almost definitely knows your name and quite possibly has some time to help you if you need it. It's nerve-wracking because nothing goes unnoticed.
28. Composition majors make friends with performers by helping them with the theory homework.
29. Put your name on everything you submit - including digital files.
30. Sometimes the best part of your day involves Chipotle for lunch and raucous mealtime conversation with your fellow brass players. Enjoy it.

As usual, I've probably forgotten quite a bit, but hey, it's summer. One final shout-out, though: last night at the ASU Composition Studio Recital, a brass quintet of good friends of mine premiered my newest piece, Supernova. They did a fantastic job and I'm so lucky to have musicians like them to work with. Can't wait to see what next year brings!
Good luck on your finals, everybody. We're almost done!
Love you all,
Megan

I'm Just Sayin': Music Major Problems

Well, folks, we're in it for the long haul now.

The school year is quickly coming to an end, and in just a few short weeks I'll be saying goodbye to these places and people I've come to love. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to come back in the fall (and go home for the summer), but really, three months is a long time to be without your co-conspirators! That said, we aren't out of the woods yet. Finals are looming over our heads, projects need to get done, and I've got more mandatory concerts in the next two and a half weeks than I can physically attend. Not to mention all the little annoyances that come up during normal school...

...which is the point of this post. I'm compiling a list of the little things that are either funny or irritating, all of which fall under the category of #MusicMajorProblems. A lot of them are composer-specific, but some of them apply to almost all of us. (This post is mostly for fun, if you haven't figured that out already.)

Music Major Problems

1. When you tell a performance major friend that you're going to a concert and s/he automatically assumes you are performing. Nope, that's actually probably NOT what I'm doing. (Composer)
2. When you tell someone you want to be the next John Williams and they insist that only being the next Zimmer is acceptable. [This happened to me the other day. Even though I knew they meant it as a joke, it was really annoying.] (Composer)
3. When you're explaining your hopes and dreams to someone and telling them about what you're studying, and they ask, "So what's your actual major?" (Music major)
4. When you don't have time to practice ensemble placement parts so you can move up... because you're too busy composing. (Composer)
5. When you get to meet a composer and constantly have to worry about how you phrase your questions and comments. (Composer)
6. When your friends all get to go meet a world-famous composer... but you can't, because you have rehearsal. (Music major)
7. When you're less than fifteen minutes early to just about anything. (Music major)
8. Having to be both awake and functional for that 8AM theory class. (Music major)
9. Useful people keep graduating. And moving. (Music major)
10. You really only want to write music for your instrument family (and various other special people). (Composer)
11. Not getting to play in front of people. Pretty much at all. (Composer)
12. When someone asks what you play. Which instrument are you talking about? (Music major)
13. There's no easy way to combine classical and jazz music programs in your schedule. (Music major)
14. A lot of us want to do extracurricular a cappella... but we're so busy studying music we don't have time for any more ensembles. (Music major)
15. Too many one-credit classes. (Music major)
16. Do we really have to take general ed classes? [When will math ever help us again? Don't answer that.] (Music major)
17. Realizing you're going to have to charge people for your music eventually. (Composer)
18. Writing enough music to actually fill your senior recital. (Composer)
19. Not enough people writing for brass instruments. (Composer)
20. Boring your non-music-major friends to death with talk about Copland and Schoenberg and functional harmony. (Music major/mostly composer)

Anyway, that's my little rant for today. Hope everyone else is less stressed than I am! Hang in there, guys!
Love you all,
Megan

Uptown Girl: Back to the Daily Grind

Once again, friends, it's been way too long.

There was drama. There were four concerts in five days. There was the premier of my first trombone duet and the composing of a second one. There were midterms and battles to be fought and existential crises and tears and hugs and who knows what else. A lot can change in a month. Every once in awhile, that fact hits me. Hard.

But we're not going to talk about that - the point is, things are different.

I'm spending more time with my brass buddies and my fellow composers. Crazy as I am, these people both know how to deal with me and actually seem to enjoy doing so. They're my first line of defense and the root of my happiness in college. Without them, life would be so much more complicated, and so much harder to deal with. They love me when I'm a good composer, and maybe more importantly, they love me when I screw up, too.

Life's still moving by pretty quickly, but it's not as bad as it was before Spring Break. The weather here is approaching 90 degrees on a daily basis now, and while I'm bummed my standby of a sweatshirt and jeans won't really work anymore, it's nice to break out the sundresses. I'm taking more time out of my day to compose, and as a result I almost always have multiple Sibelius files open on my computer. I sometimes feel like I'm taking on too many extra projects, but hey, if it keeps my mind off other problems, that's not the worst thing in the world. Plus, it's still a joy to realize that I'm creating music (and I hope it always will be).

I've had quite a few moments of weakness in the past month. Things get rough sometimes, and my knee-jerk reaction is to hide out until I can find the one or two people who help me get my strength back. As a result, there's been quite a bit of radio silence from me, and I apologize. Academically/musically, things continue to be positive (and getting better), but in terms of being really socially comfortable and confident in my self-worth, I'm still climbing the mountain. Don't get me wrong; I'm making progress, and that's great. But like most teenage girls, I've got a long way to go.

I've left this post purposely vague. A month is a lot to cover, and if I went into detail you wouldn't reach the end without falling asleep. Also, I don't need everyone getting into the guts of my personal life. This is everything I'd tell you if you walked up to me and asked how I was doing, which seems fair to share with my e-following. :) In any event, I hope everyone's healthy and positive, and I'm excited about where my journey's going next - particularly musically!

Love you all,
Megan

PS: The song doesn't have anything to do with the post. It's just been stuck in my head all week.

Team: Couldn't Do It Without Them

The last couple of weeks have been absolutely insane. I've had compositions due, essays due, projects and homework and tests and pretty much everything else that plagues college students. It's been a constant battle of time management, but so far I've managed to get everything done and enjoy the life I lead while doing it. I've strengthened a few key bonds and gotten to spend time with people I love...

Watching the Olympics: our little brigade of friends has been awfully sleep-deprived lately, as the good parts of the Olympics are on either late at night or early in the morning. (Just to clarify, we've been staying up late, not getting up early. We're college kids.) It may not be the ultimate group bonding experience, but hey, cheering on Team USA (and the Jamaican bobsled team, since we watched Cool Runnings last weekend) is just one of those fun things we don't get to do very often. (Read: once every two years. This won't happen again until we're juniors!)

Going to movies: despite being crazy busy and having more responsibility than most college freshmen should have, we managed to get off campus last weekend and see a movie. (Since most of us don't leave campus unless it's absolutely necessary, that was a pretty big deal.) And since we were celebrating a friend's birthday, it was even more fun. :)

Making mash-ups of songs: I've got a few friends who are voice majors (and some that aren't but join in anyway, because why not?), and we've been mashing up songs for the last couple of weeks. It might sound like a big deal, but really it's just a matter of picking an order - I'll play piano and somehow we'll figure out when to modulate or change keys for different songs. It's insanely fun, and though the guys will roll their eyes and complain a little bit when we decide to make a medley of Taylor Swift songs, they're good sports about it.

Going to concerts: A couple of my friends and I got to go to the ASU trombone studio's concert on Valentine's Day (which was actually really fun for me, since my boyfriend was performing in it). The concert itself was fantastic, and I have a feeling we'll all be going to more concerts together in the future (even some of the non-music majors).

Movie marathons: In the last couple weeks, we've watched multiple Star Wars movies and have begun the High School Musical series (which is a pretty hilarious time). It's a great way to unwind after a long week and have some fun with the gang.

This all seems fairly mundane, but hey, that's life as we know it. There's always something new right around the corner, though!
Love you all,
Megan

Radio Silence: Making Time for the Little Things

It's been awhile.

Sorry to everyone out there who actually reads this; it wasn't my intention to go an entire month without blogging. Things got hectic around the time I returned to college - many of my friends and I were affected by tragedy, and then I had to jump into a new semester with some challenging classes, so things were busy for awhile. That said, all is [relatively] calm now, and as I've gotten back into the swing of things, I remembered why I love music school so much. I've made some new friends this semester who have already become invaluable to me, and the atmosphere around music majors here is pretty amazing. It's difficult to figure out exactly what to say about everyone who's currently making a difference to me as a musician, so I'll just share something I posted on Facebook last night:

"I'm blessed to work and be friends with fantastic musicians here. They're the kind of people who don't look at me funny when I write a brass quintet in three days; instead, they smile and high-five. A lot of them are looking for opportunities to work with me, which is great, but when everything goes wrong they don't run away or bow out. They're talented and dedicated, and I'm excited about the work we're doing here."

That's as close as I'm going to get right now to conveying how awesome music school is.

In semi-related news, I'm being more social this semester. I'm spending more time with the people who are important to me, and knowing I'm going to see those people in a certain class or after a test or in the lounge at Barrett is one of the best feelings in the world. Sure, there are good days and bad days, but when you've got a host of co-conspirators to commiserate with, even the bad days aren't so terrible.

It's also been a HUGE composing week for me. I finished two pieces last night, one of which I'd only started on Monday. I'm excited to hear both played live, and thanks to the host of ensembles and concerts we have here, getting both pieces performed in the same semester is absolutely feasible. More details on that later. :)

Once again, sorry about the lack of posting. Hopefully I'll be able to write on a regular basis now that things are more comfortable.
Love you all,
Megan