ASU

I threatened earlier to write about epiphanies I've had about my experience at ASU. I'm making good on that threat now - just thought I'd warn y'all (check out my Texianity!). Especially since I have every intention of keeping a long story long. Really, I'm writing this for me. Isn't that what blogging is all about? Online journal and whatnot? Anyway, you're under no obligation to read this!

Here's how I got into ASU, although I was blissfully unaware of it at the time: In my senior year in high school, I got a paying gig playing in the orchestra pit for a community theater production of "Into the Woods" by Stephen Sondheim. It was my first such experience, and I loved it. If you're unfamiliar with the show or the composer, all you need to know is that he's famous for weird. Weird stories, weird music, and in music, weird often equates with hard. I was playing first violin, and doing a pretty darned good job sight-reading this weird, difficult stuff. I was in my prime back then! And it was noticed by our trumpet player, Mr. Randy Tivens, ASU alumnus.

All I knew back then was that a great trumpet player was telling me I was a great violinist and he could help me get a scholarship to a university. Which was a big deal in my family, since nobody else had pulled that off yet. The only one to attend any sort of college other than taking a class or two at Moorpark was my Dad (I leave it to Mom and Greg to fill out the details there; like most items of family history, I get the details all bollocksed up). The prospect was very exciting. So he helped me make an audition tape, and lo! I got the scholarship! It wasn't by any means a full ride or anything, but I was accepted at a major university, and that was good enough for my parents to spend the lots and lots of money left to spend where the scholarship left off.

Here's what I found out later about how it all really happened: Mr. Randy Tivens came from a long line of well-respected ASU alumni, and a big part of what well-respected alumni do is recruit people to their alma mater. Randy was just beginning to get his feet wet in that department, so I guess when he saw a senior who could sight-read he saw his chance. I seem to recall his father was prominent enough that his portrait hung somewhere around the music department. Somewhere where I could see it often enough to feel guilty every time I realized I didn't belong there. Anyway, when ASU got my audition tape, they were not impressed at all (my violin teacher told me all this during one of my lessons), but they wanted to give Randy a chance. Randy, not me.

Lest you think I'm feeling sorry for myself, let me assure that this is not yet the epiphany. I knew perfectly well I didn't belong there the whole time I was there. No, the epiphany comes later, and is much more upbeat. I promise.

Anyway, I wasn't nearly half as good as the worst violinist there. And I was utterly clueless as to how college worked. I don't think I can even put into words how lost I was in that regard. Credits? Levels? I almost instantly dropped the three (I think it was three) general ed classes I had blindly signed up for, and proceeded to just ride out the year enjoying the music department. Although I didn't belong in such a wonderful orchestra, I got to play with them for a whole year. I also played in what was called the Conductor's Orchestra, a small group of patsies set aside for the conducting students to experiment on. I sang in the Women's Chorus and took piano and theory. It was wonderful. In retrospect, that is. At the time, I had to deal with lots of other factors that don't play into hindsight: I also felt I didn't belong at church, so I quit going for the majority of my year there. I was dreadfully, dreadfully homesick, having never been that separated from my family and friends before. I had two utterly insane roommates. Not at the same time, mind you, but they were bad enough taken one at a time. I lived in a "party dorm," which meant that everyone was unbelievably stupid, and they put a lot of effort into lobbying for co-ed bathrooms. Ugh, those bathrooms. Had to walk across an open-air courtyard for a shower, carrying all shower necessities including clothing unless you were... pretty much every other person in my dorm. Ah, Irish B... I really don't miss you at all!

So, although I wanted to quit after the first semester, my angel mother convinced me to stay out the year (and I'm glad she did!), but at the end of the year, I quit. Much to the chagrin of my parents, I'm sure, and even to my own to some extent, but that's what I did and there's no changing it.

So, a week ago I revisited the campus with my husband and three beautiful children. Matt, I might add, has harbored some guilt for my shortened time there, since we were a couple at the time and I missed him as much as anything else. I hope that guilt was relieved after our visit. I had a wonderful experience roaming around my old stomping grounds. And here are the epiphanies I had:

The major overriding one is this: I had exactly the experience I needed there.

I didn't belong in that orchestra, but I got to play with them anyway, and played some of the greatest literature music has to offer. And for the first concert, I got to sit in the back of the second violins, at the end of a row of seven or eight french horns, while playing Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis. There's no experience in the world like it. Also, when I went home and rejoined the Moorpark Orchestra, the first piece we read was one I had played at ASU, and my ability to play it shot me straight into the Concertmaster spot, which I occupied for some time, and it played a significant role in my life.

Playing in the Conductor's Orchestra, I got to see how the conducting program worked. It was the sparking of what is now a major interest in conducting. I fully intend to study it to whatever extent I can here in Texas, even if only as part of a Music Education degree.

It was good for me to be told (more than once) that I am not God's gift to violins. It's easy to get a bloated sense of your abilities when the sampling is limited. I'm the kind of person who likes to know how things really stand. I'm not God's gift to violins, I don't have what it takes to be Great, but I'm okay on a local basis, and I enjoy playing. And it's nice not to have the pressure of trying to be Great when that's not really what I want. I even recall saying so on my audition tape. Gee, can't think why they weren't impressed!

The Women's Chorus was one of my greatest joys at ASU. I did belong there, and I shone, if I can say so without sounding like a big fat brag. Not long into the year I was given the chance to sing in a solo quartet for Mendelssohn's Laudate Dominum. It was a great group, and it fed a long-time love for choral singing and really developed my abilities.

The piano class has been indespensable. I'm no great pianist by any stretch of the imagination, but I can survive, and have used the skills I learned there (and later at Moorpark) on a near-daily basis.

The theory class opened up a whole new world to me. I was able to speak a new language with my dad, I was able to understand and appreciate music on a new level, and what I learned there led to my being able to excel in further theory classes at Moorpark, and my ability to arrange music (which I really enjoy doing) would not exist without it. Wow, run-on sentence.

Even the amount of time spent there was, I think, just what I needed. I walked around that campus with my children and wondered What if I had stayed long enough to figure the system out and really make something of it? What if I had lasted all four-plus years? If I had met somebody else and not married Matt, where would that leave Josh and his cleft chin? Would I have been around to rescue Matt from that hideous skinny blonde that dared to flirt with the hunky red-haired RM?

Nowadays, I understand how college works, and I have had enough experience to really know what I want out of it. That's a much better place to begin than the utter cluelessness I began with before. It may not happen in the very near future, but it will happen, if I may quote a hair product commercial.

And this time I don't have to leave my family behind!