musical nerdiness

I started this blog in the ninth grade and now I’m about to enter the last year of my undergrad in college. I’ve made nearly 8000 posts and quite honestly feel like I don’t have too much left to post and certainly don’t have the time to post frequently anymore. so for those of you who were around a few years ago and are still lurking, I thought you might want to hear what I’ve been up to and what I plan on doing in the future, because I probably won’t be talking much about it on here

I’m getting a bachelors in violin performance and broad area music education. I managed to fit that into three years and I’ll most likely be graduating next year. so in this upcoming year, I’ll be doing lots of classroom observations, student-teaching, practicing a ton, reading a ton of books about education and different philosophies and methods, and preparing for job interviews

I gave my junior violin recital a bit over a month ago (played the amy beach violin sonata and summerland by william grant still), which was cool, and I’ll have my senior recital in a year (probably going to play lots of pieces based on folk music)

after I graduate, I’m hoping I can become a public school music teacher! my hope is that I can move into an apartment with the clarinet guy I’ve been dating for years and teach full-time. there’s a big shortage of elementary music teachers in my state, so that might be what I end up doing for a while. or I might really love it and stick with it. but with the broad area degree, I can teach band, orchestra, choir, or whatever else comes my way, which is really exciting

I’m moving into a campus apartment with a musician friend in a few months and I’ll have this giant cat that’s part maine coon and hopefully my little pet crab that I accidentally kidnapped from the beach two weeks ago will still be alive

I’ve been focusing a lot lately on learning to play clarinet and sing, and both are actually going surprisingly well. I’ll have a voice student next month and I’ve spent this month really making sure my vocal knowledge and teaching techniques are solid

I went busking for the first time a few days ago, which was a little strange at first but ultimately felt super liberating. played lots of fiddle tunes while little kids came by and danced. made $15. think I’ll do that a few more times this summer. in this past year, I’ve become much more comfortable with performing in front of other people and I’m really excited to do more in the future

so that’s kind of what’s going on in my life lately. I’ve been going outside a lot and trying to learn lots of things unrelated to music, which I think is really good for me. this post is just sort of to let anyone who remembers me making music memes a few years ago know that I’m on my way to becoming a full-time music teacher. I used to post a lot about how upset I was with some of the apathetic music teachers I had throughout my schooling, and my goal is to help my future students find a passion and appreciation for music. I’m really happy that there’s been a community here for years where I could share some of the joys (and frustrations) of being a musician with you all, and I learned a lot from it, but it’s getting close to being time for me to move onto something else. won’t be deleting my blog, though, because I think it’s a really cool time capsule of my musical and life progress and I’m happy to have it