The Potpourri Post: The Cutthroat Life, Brotherhood, Humility, Voids

Today I volunteered the entire day at the music school's piano auditions. They started at 9 AM and will end at 5:30 PM. Sitting outside the door and listening to all the auditionees, it dawned on me that there are thousands and thousands of people out there who have played or are playing my pieces- most of them better than I'll ever play them. What makes my playing any more special than the next person? After all, a piece has probably been played millions of times since it has been written. How can I be successful when to my friends I'm known as a "prodigy," but to the outside world I essentially "suck?"

I was contemplating this in lessons, as I was worried about upcoming piano auditions and all the competitive pianists that would apply. This summer, the two main festivals I want to attend are Brevard in North Carolina and Chautaqua in New York. It was during my lesson that my teacher noticed my worry and said essentially this: "No matter where you are in life, there is always someone above you, and someone below you. I played in the Van Cliburn competition and even then I realized this. Work hard, but don't compare yourself to others. Your own achievements should make you content, not the standard of others."

Maybe that's why my teacher is such a calm, understanding, happy person. I have seen that this has been impossible to come by in the music world- I have yet to meet a musician like my teacher- not a nutcase, but also a musical prodigy, hard worker, and yet still sane and calm.

It's so hard to not desire success in the music world. Not success in terms of fulfillment, but success in terms of "making it." Perhaps that's why the suicide rate among artists is so dang high. It goes the other way too. Some people find so much contentment in music- that emotional experience, that nothing of the world can compare to it anymore- in a bad way! There was this story of a famous pianist who had great acclaim. Yet, he took his own life because he felt that beyond the ethereal side of music, there was nothing in the world that was worth feeling anymore. So many musicians think they can fill voids in their life with something as powerful as music- which is obviously much stronger than we can describe or imagine. Yet, it's still not enough to satisfy the soul, apparently.

*******

An update from the fraternity side of the world. I knew I was in for a time crunch, but one never understands the true extent of something until they are officially a part of it.

Two things the fraternity has been teaching me thus far in the process. The first which is a sense of humility. Being required to shake a brother's hand and addressing him every single time he walks into the room, dropping whatever you're doing, might sound awful- and it has been pretty taxing, but it has also degraded me to a place of humbleness. I think the first thing I thought about was how Jesus was treated in the hours of humiliation before his crucifixion. He likely could have thought "I'm not lower than all these people spitting on me or beating me, but it's still my job and place to be humble despite how I could be reacting." I think that's another reason why so many guys don't go through the rush process. It's a lot of work, with very little comprehension until the final result: initiation.

The second thing I've been learning (not to mention my greatest weakness): patience. If there was one thing in the world that drives me, it's impatience. Usually this is caused by me running late, having a billion things to do, overstressing myself and not taking care of my body. If you're a musician and reading this, it sounds kind of like you, right? Being in the fraternity, the thing stressed to the probationary class is unity. We recite things together, in rhythm. When one person screws up, we all screw up. When one person doesn't have their crap figured out, then we all don't. With one of the largest probationary classes in many years- a total of 10 members, it's frustrating when one person messes up and we have to wait on him. Eventually, little things start getting on your nerves. Learning to work together not only builds a sense of tolerance, but also makes us closer in our relationship as brothers.

Not going to lie though, this is going to be one hell of a long semester- and I'm really sad that I might have to suffer from lack of attendance at CCF.

Sadly, though, I've been extremely torn by the void that comes with the distant (both physically and stably in the context of time and emotional attachment) relationship of CCFers. I know they try, and I've sure been trying as well- this is definitely NOT to say I've given up on CCF. Unfortunately, I feel a huge need to find acceptance and brotherhood within my own circles of musicians and friends. In addition to this, what better way to surround myself by brothers and have voids from SSA filled in a healthy relationship? After all, there is no dating allowed within the fraternity itself. My line brothers are people I'd want to be around all the time and my big brother cares about me a ton. At the same time, I feel like it's really draining my spiritual life, emotional life, and church life.

But isn't life always like that? So many voids, so little time to fill them. The whole idea of "Christ-filling all voids" sounds great hypothetically, but it's just so difficult to accept when life gets crazy and busy. It seems that it's only in times of slow-paced, molasses life that one actually gets time to think about this and actually feel enough space to act on it or pursue it.

Anyway, not much time to write. Homework is piling up and I have recordings to do.

Wish me luck,

KKZ

Crossing Over...

As of 10:00 PM tonight, I officially became a probationary member of Phi Mu Alpha- Class of Gamma Pi.

As for the future and what it holds, I'm uncertain, but I do know that things will be different from here on out.

Hoping to keep you updated,

-KKZ

Voids

Torn into two.

A wrestling match.

A stalemate.

What is it to desire love but not accept it?

Love is..

a sacrifice

patient

kind

not boastful

Honorable character, yes love is, but why so difficult to accept?

I cannot love and yet I am loved.

I do not accept, but I am accepted.

I desire love, but will not find.

This reality has become my nightmare.

A struggle within a struggle.

The root connected to the symptom.

Sick of the bullshit misunderstandings of ignorant fools, I wait and wither away.

Not one day goes by that I do not feel depressed or despair.

My body is weak and frail. It will only fail. It will only die.

Please help me.

Dear God,

thank you for sending DMC into my life again and speaking the hard truth to my face even though I didn't want to hear it.

It doesn't mean I'll feel compelled to respond right away, but you have no idea how encouraging it was. (well.. maybe you do, I guess, since you're God...)

-KKZ

Football, Football and MORE Football!!!

So last weekend I visited friends from A&M. Before I got there, I had called my friend to see what they were all doing.

"Just playing some football, but we don't have to."

But when I got there, I realized that my friend was the one who organized the pickup game (it was tackle), and so of course I said "yes, we have to go!"

What I thought would be a 1 or 2 hour game, turned out to be 3 straight hours of football.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my friends and I love running around (mainly soccer and track), but 3 hours of football?!

Afterwards, I found out that everyone there wanted to watch the TAMU game against Nebraska. Hence, another 4 hours of football!!

Wooooooooo!!!

I had never been exposed to so much football in one day.

Two things I realized from all this:

Patience. After a while, it didn't feel so awful to be running around (however stupid and inexperienced I looked). I realized that I was willing to do whatever- as long as good friends were involved.

Passion. Mine is music. Others might be football. And while I have a totally biased view and am surprised when people aren't as responsive to music as I am (my parents for example...), I often don't realize that other people may have an equal passion for something in their own lives. Though, admittedly, I find certain things easier to sympathize passion for than others.

If a friend visited me on a huge concert weekend, their post might have been "Music, Music and MORE MUSIC!!!"

Either way, this weekend was a good mix of everything- and as odd as it was watching [as the minority] a bunch of A&Mers cheering for their team,the game was actually kind of exciting. Especially at the end- when the crowd rushed the field and chanted their little traditions together in a giant circle.

Every school I've visited has a really close-knit IV, Epic or other group like that... A&M, UT, Rice. They do everything together- study, eat, live. Sometimes I wonder what happened to that at my school.

One can always ponder...

That note aside (oh the irony),

Happy Thanksgiving!!

-KKZ

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"