Restless Anticipation
We are now 6 days away from my first day of classes for the semester. It would be a complete lie to say I'm not nervous at all. I'm scared of drama, of losing friends, of people that I don't need back in my life contacting me, of having trouble with my classes again... I'm scared of everything. The start of the semester used to mark excitement and new beginnings, but after the issues I faced throughout 2025, I'm only weary of what's to come.
For the back half of this week, I'm doing my best to get myself in the best possible shape for this semester. I just built as much of my schedule as I could on some app I have and sent out some emails to finalize the few missing things in there. I think being off most social media will continue to be good for me since it takes away some of the stress that social life causes me.
I'm also making sure that I have fun things to do throughout the semester. I'm starting off strong with a concert on Sunday and a LOTR marathon on Monday, but I've already bought tickets to a few more shows as well! Hopefully, my classes won't interfere, but we'll have to wait and see.
Another thing I want to do is get as familiar with these classes as possible before they start. The classes aren't available online yet, but what I do have right now are the website course descriptions for each class. Let's see what I've got:
- Careers in Audio: This looks like a setup for our internship that'll take place next year. We're gonna talk about different jobs you can go into with my degree, and they'll apparently have some guest lecturers come in to talk about their careers (will this actually happen? I don't know.) I don't think this is anything I'm gonna have to stress about.
- Multitrack Production: We finally get to use one of my favorite rooms in the building! We have this really great tracking studio that we haven't been allowed to use on our own until now. It looks like our goal here is to learn how to run a whole basics session on our own, where we record a whole group at once. We're gonna have a recording project, but there's no elaboration on that at all. It looks like this might be the most time-consuming course I'll have because of the recording sessions I'll be doing.
- Advanced Audio Theory: We're gonna go into depth about how all sorts of recording equipment works. There's gonna be another recording project and "technical research," which I'm guessing is a research paper of some sort about products of our choosing? This could be very time-consuming, depending on whatever clarifications I get about this stuff in the syllabus. I'm a little worried because this is the same professor I had that appeal with. Truly the wild card of the semester.
- Fundamentals of Sound Recording: Oh man... another physics course. I really hated physics. I skipped most of the course and never studied, but because I'm alright at math, I still got a C. Looking at the topics of this course, I don't think I'll be able to BS my way through it this time. At least we don't have a lab like last time.
- Complex Variables I: I've talked about this class before, so I won't go into a ton of detail. I'm doing everything I can to prepare for it because I know it's gonna be hard. I expect this to eat up a lot of my time as well, but as long as I space things out, I think I'll be okay. Maybe I'll make a friend I can study with, but the STEM people at my university don't socialize a lot. (They don't wear deodorant a lot either. The smell of some classrooms is CRAZY.) Here's to hoping, though.
- Applied Bass: These are just my bass lessons. My worry is that I know that I need to write an original piece for my jury in May. It's something I should get out of the way sooner than later. Maybe I'll just make a jazz chart and call it a day? I really don't want to have to write some solo etude for my bass.
- Choir: I FORGOT ABOUT THIS. There's a requirement where you have to do a certain number of conducted ensembles, and this was my only choice. I either had to take it now or next fall, and I'd rather get it done now when I know my schedule is open for it. I'm friendly with the director because I've worked a lot of concerts for him, and he was happy to have me, so it should go fine (apparently, they desperately need tenor 1 singers, so he was so giddy when we figured out my range at my audition). It's just four hours of singing a week, though, and I'd rather be doing other things.
- Percussion Ensemble: The other thing in question. I love this ensemble, and I love the director. We're even friends on Facebook. I play bass for it, which is something people always wanna do, and I'm so happy I've had this spot secured all year. I was supposed to leave this semester because his other favorite bass player already called dibs over the summer, but then at the performance, he told the audience, "for the first time ever (2 decades), we're gonna have two bassists next semester!" A wonderful surprise for me and the other bassist, since we're also friends. Our director loves doing a noisy avant-garde piece, so I'm hoping he finds a way to utilize both of us in a piece at some point! I hope we do a Zappa piece again too because this was fucking crazy to learn (though my bass part was actually the bass marimba part with all the fun 32nd note quintuplet stuff) and I'd like to do something like it again.
Looks like things are gonna be hard but very fulfilling. It's gotta go better than last semester... right?
CDs!
On my journey from Spotify to Bandcamp, I've found that there's some things that aren't on Bandcamp that I absolutely wanted access to at all times. I bought a few CDs and they came in the mail today!
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| I've never heard that live album before, but I had a feeling it'd be worth my money. |
I'll write more about them later when I've had some time to listen to them again.
My Music Collection
A CD that I have had time to listen to is Loveless by My Bloody Valentine! This record was an immediate 10/10 for me the first time I listened to it. I vividly remember sitting on my bed in high school, picking this album randomly on RYM's top 100 chart, and getting goosebumps the second Only Shallow started. I still get goosebumps now! It's hard to think of any other albums that get that kind of reaction out of me. Really great stuff. Everything about it feels like a warm summer sunset. The first time I drove my new car home, it was during a beautiful summer sunset, and I made sure to play this CD so fucking loud on the highway.
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| Shoegaze doesn't get better than this. |
That's all for now. Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow! -G
It sounds like you are going to have an exciting semester ahead of you! Having things to look forward to that are not directly related to university is a great help.
ReplyDeleteIt definitely helps so much. With the way my schedule works I'm usually spending 90% of my day in the music building (one of my part time jobs is there too), so having an excuse to leave is always great.
DeleteSTEM students not smelling good might be one of those universal things. Last year I had a year long lecture right after an engineering class and I've never been more glad my sense of smell is gone for 70% of the year because of allergies.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Bass!! Very cool, big fan (new bass player). I think its really cool you get to play bass for an ensemble and very cool of your director to have 2 bassists.
It's so crazy how that's a thing at every college. We have the occasional stinker in the music department, but every STEM building on my campus REEKS of BO. I skipped so many lectures for my math class in the fall because it smelled so bad in there (the class was required for Comp-Sci majors).
DeleteIt's super cool that you play bass too! I'm really excited to see what my director comes up with since this is a first for him with this ensemble. The dude is an awesome musician, so I'm sure it'll be something fun.