You Know You're a Music Major When You Understand This Joke:

So a C, E flat, and G walk into a bar...
The bartender says: "Sorry, but we don't serve minors." So, the E-flat leaves, and the C and the G have an open fifth between them. After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished: the G is out flat. An F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough. A D comes into the bar and heads straight for the bathroom saying, "Excuse me, I'll just be a second."An A comes into the bar, but the bartender is not convinced that this relative of C is not a minor. Then the bartender notices a B-flat hiding at the end of the bar and exclaims: "Get out now! You're the seventh minor I've found in this bar tonight." The E-flat, not easily deflated, comes back to the bar the next night in a 3-piece suit with nicely shined shoes.The bartender (who used to have a nice corporate job until his company downsized) says: "You're looking sharp tonight, come on in! This could be a major development." This proves to be the case, as the E-flat takes off the suit and stands there au natural. Eventually, the C sobers up and realizes in horror that he's under a rest. The C is brought to trial, is found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of DS without Coda at an upscale correctional facility. On appeal, however, the C is found innocent of any wrongdoing, even accidental, and that all accusations to the contrary are bassless. The bartender decides, however, that since he's only had tenor so patrons, the soprano out in the bathroom, and everything has become alto much treble, he needs a rest and closes the bar.

Telling It Like It Is...

Some things are just too ridiculous to believe are true.

Other things are too fake to be reality.

This was neither.

It was a normal Tuesday in the life of a busy musician, and he just couldn't stay awake to save his life. Classes had been so boring that morning that he almost fell asleep drooling, mouth agape from exhaustion. After several rough hours of class, he had lunch with a few friends and biked half-awake back towards his apartment. Nothing out of the ordinary, right?

Hitting the bed, everything went black.

As the house lights undimmed, the musician woke up in a very strange setting: a house with the television on. Wait a minute, "this isn't my apartment," he thought to himself. The street was reminiscent of the suburban town in which he grew up. Each of the two-story houses uniform, with the same type of grass surrounding each house. It seemed like a very surreal, yet normal mix of his childhood environment coupled with his current college environment- It was as if the overlap of the two chapters of his life, childhood and college, made it seem like he had lived there for all 19 years of his life.

Then there was him.

The dream took a weird turn, with weird unexplainable events that can't really be described- like how many dreams are.

Merely three houses down and living with his parents, he went to the same college, and though he didn't have the same major, he became good friends with this musician. Trips with groups of friends to this person's house became more frequent, then daily, then exclusive.

Exclusivity at its fullest.

Suddenly, it was more than just a friendship- it was more.

The dream accelerating quickly to its climax, it was all of a sudden apparent that the musician realized that not only his environment had changed, but his relationship status. He was madly in love for the first time ever. He had someone to share his life with. He cherished every minute of it and confided with no one else. Their friends didn't know, his parents didn't know. In act, no one could have guessed it.

The stage went black again, indicating the start of a new dream sequence.

In this final scene, the musician awoke to see himself standing at the front door of his friend's house. He looked into the living room, at his friend's mother, who gave him a very indignant look. It was as if daggers were shooting out of her eyes. The musician quickly ran upstairs to his friend's room, only to discover that he was not there. What was there, was the sleeping bag and clothing left over from the night before, when he had slept over. "Wait, I thought I took these home in the early morning before we went to school," he thought to himself.

Suddenly, there was an angry yell from the living room. I ran downstairs to see my friend's mother screaming up a storm. She had finally cracked and unleashed the fury that had incipiently stared me in the eye when I had walked in.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!?" she shrieked out loud, "You.. you... you.... I don't want my son hanging around a FAG!!" She waved her hands maniacally, in disgust, first up and down and then towards the front door.

"You no good dirty people, get OUT!! NOW!" She stormed into the kitchen and cussed up a storm.

The musician, shocked because the dream had not even alluded to his friend's mother up to this point, ran up the stairs to his friend's room to grab his belongings. His friend was right behind him, equally upset, but significantly calmer. As the musician grabbed his clothes, he turned around and looked his friend in the eye. His friend gave him a sorrowful look of pain that was enough to break even the coldest Russian soldier's composure. At this point the musician wanted to cry, but couldn't. It was moving too quickly to be reality.

"I'm sorry," said the musician's dear friend, "but you have to go."

Without another word, the musician burst out the front door, never to return again. He trudged over the freshly mowed grass of the neighboring yards, his belongings trailing on the ground from a heap in his arms.

Suddenly, everything went black.

The musician awoke abruptly from his nap- his nightmare. He looked around at his college apartment: the bed, the sheets, the pillows, the mess. His mind grasped words to comprehend what had just happened, but there were none. He sat dazed on the bed for a few moments, then got up to stare in the mirror. Was this reality? Was this life?

A story with a climax but not a resolution.

A nightmare in an alternate realm, a reality in another.

Don't talk of love

Well, I've heard the word before

It's sleeping in my memory

I won't disturb the slumber of feelings

that have died

If I never love I never

would have cried

I am a rock I am an island

Hiding in my room, safe within my womb,

I touch no one and no one touches me.

I am a rock,

I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;

And an island never cries.

-Paul Simon

"I am a Rock, v.3-4"

Step #1 of...

"What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

What if what we seek is what will make us flee?

vice versa,

What if what we flee is something that we seek?

Perhaps the act of not fleeing permeates from a lack of experience.

vice versa,

Perhaps inexperience would discourage the onset of an incipient desire to flee.

Then again, could inexperience result in the onset of unsatisfaction?

vice versa,

Then again, could eternal complacency result from infantilism/naivete?

A or B?

X or Y?

Certainly one is not to choose both.

Hide-And-Go-Seek In The Dark. Necessary at the moment, not recommended. You might run into a few brick walls...

Where are you hiding?

Unsatisfied, restless, incomplacent,

-KKZ

What's the purpose...

of investing in a group I see twice a week or less and often less than that because I'm busy with so many other things? A group that I hardly talk to outside of our two meetings weekly, and most of whom I don't even go to school with. Don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed almost every aspect of being with the group, and I've allowed it almost a year and a half's time, but the distance and schedule differences between us are just so great...

I'm toying around very seriously now about joining that music frat. Sure it will suck up most of my free time on Fridays and Saturdays, and every other day... but at least these will be people I'm around all the time, call my brothers and feel accepted.

Hmm.. A or B?

****

On another note, the concerto competition was today. As predicted none of the classical concertos even placed... except for one doctoral student's Beethoven 2 and that's because she was amazing! I probably didn't prepare well enough anyway, considering I was scrambling just to have the thing memorized well- and I started last semester!! *Sigh* it's my hope to play with an orchestra in my undergrad. If I decide to take the choral conducting route, I may never get the chops or opportunity to do so ever again...

Next time: romantic or contemporary concerto!!

-KKZ

KKZ is...

Thinking about joining a fraternity.

Yes you read that right. A frat.

But not a dirty, stereotypical frat where everyone gets drunk... A REAL, legit one. A music one. With many friends I already know...

Who knows?? This may help me not feel so lonely and alienated in Houston (story of my life for the past year).

And most people who think about frats give it negative connotation. Perhaps. But not this one..

-KKZ

There are times when we all feel like lonely, insane, idiots...

Right now is one of those times... I would like to wake up tomorrow morning and think that the whole past year and a half has just been a big, unreal dream...

There's nothing like watching a movie all alone and crying on and off for an hour straight until you fall asleep, a third of the box of kleenex gone-- this after a shitty day. You should try it sometime...

Heart broken. Brain in a mess. Life confusing.

Emo in a box? Yeah, that'll be $14.50, please.

Everyone Has Their Own Skeletons...

The question is, are they out of the closet?