Friday, October 28th. Day 62.

Isn't there a song by some whiney teenager about friday? Anyway, I digress. Today was a most spectacular day indeed! A much needed refreshment! Beginning (far too early) with my jazz vocal trio (that is now a quartet), we actually made some good music and had some good fun doing it (right?). The pinnacle of the rehearsal was when we were getting lectured on playing together, and the director looks at me and says "what's the problem? what do you hear?". I carefully explained that since I and the bass player were both listening so intently to each other, one of us would make a change in the rhythmic pattern organization, and the other would follow. This lead to a sort of one-legged hopping around any semblance of a good feel. The director leaped from his chair and shouted "YES! That is exactly right! Stop listening! Do not listen!". Words I would have never expected to hear, as I nothing short of pride myself on my ability to listen intently (and therefore play off of) the other musicians in the ensemble; even more so in small group jazz such as this. To prove his point, the director even took the whole ensemble outside to demonstrate, by marching, the difficulty of acting in sync with one-another while paying too much attention to the other person. While I understand the principle, I think he was taking it to the extreme for educational purposes, but he got his point across.

After that whirlwind of a rehearsal, I returned to my room to finish engraving the changes I had made to my piano piece. While doing so, I actually managed to compose a few more bars (at the computer, no less) and shore-up some transitions. I was actually feeling pretty good about the piece, which has not only not happened yet with this piece, but it rarely happens to me at all. If you reading this have known me for very long or have been reading this blog for more than 3 posts, you will know that this is very unusual, and causes much confusion with regards to my "what should I do with my life (professionally, and otherwise) soul-search".

Anyhow, I felt very good bringing this piece into my composition lesson. As it had been some three weeks since my last lesson (and that was a very rocky lesson, to say the least), Prof. Bons was very interested to see how I was doing, however less interested in the actual music (at least a first). I told him about my meditation, my trip to London and Paris, and my personal progress in deciding my future. However, this was all complicated by the recent progress I was making in composition and the "fun", albiet it once lost, was beginning to come back. That being said, we came to the conclusion that it might be BECAUSE of my new-found peace in pursuing finance and economics that I allowed myself to have fun, thereby making it less of a "job". This actually coincides perfectly with my decision to abandon my large ensemble piece (which I would need to apply to grad school) in favor of (another) piano piece. When we looked at the piece, it was very fun to see a professional composer analyze my piece right in front of me, telling me what was working and why (despite it all being largely subconscious). All in all I was just tickled to death, and very excited to continue the work on my piece.

However, I would not be working on it anytime soon, as one of my best friends from Redlands was coming to visit Amsterdam! After the lesson, I called my friend, and made plans for dinner. I had the brilliant idea to take the three ladies from France to MKZ, a local vegan co-op that served food three nights a week at 5euro a plate. I had never been there, so I had no idea what to expect, and it was probably ill-advised to take my guests to such an unconventional, wash-your-own-dishes kind of place. I think it turned out pretty well, and I had a lot of fun (I'm not sure if everyone else did, I mean they said they did, but they might have just said that to avoid hurting my feelings). In the theme of halloween, all three courses featured pumpkin: pumpkin soup, roasted pumpkin, and some sort of candied pumpkin fruit cobbler for desert. Nothing short of phenomenal, and all for 5euro!

Afterwards, I took the ladies to Dam Square and the Red Light District, two of our only real tourist attractions we have in Amsterdam (at least compared to Paris, where they live, with the Eiffel tower and the Notre Dame). After some more wandering, we sat at a cafe and talked for a good long while. However, the ladies wanted to turn in pretty early, as the night before they were on a bus and were unable to sleep much. All is well, as we have quite an adventure planned for tomorrow!