scholarship for diversity
I’ve begun my big search into college scholarships. Obviously my trek has begun late because most scholarships are awarded not long after the Christmas season, so my choices and options are limited already. Not to mention such things as affirmative action and how diversity apparently heavily enhances your chances of winning these awards. And since I’m a white male, well, that says about everything. According to most higher-level educational institutions, my class of people are too dominant in this world and have more control than other people of other walks of life. I don’t understand this philosophy at all; ever since minority-focus has become the trend, the white male “category” has incredibly declined in abilities and authority, meaning that our resources are, and will continue to be, depleted rapidly whereas our resources are quickly funneled to lesser numbered peoples. So anyways, I won’t be surprised if I don’t turn out a dime in scholarships. I wouldn’t mind some financial help however.
We’ve started learning the Star Wars symphony in Advanced Symphonic Band. I’ve always wanted to play this and just never knew how I’d get that done, seeing the talent that existed at school. But this year (and last year as well, after we played the LOTR original score) our director has decided to try it. So far I’m having an incredibly easy time picking up on it, because I’ve been playing it myself for years. Around my 7th grade year, my parents wanted me to continue playing trombone over the course of the summer, and since I was enthralled with Star Wars at the time they went out and purchased the melodic score transposed entirely for trombone. This was a little incentive to get better. So I played that thing until I honestly started to not like it. But since I’m now a senior, and nostalgia has kicked in full-force, I’m really looking forward to hear this in it’s entirety.
And some symphonic related news: I’ve finally learned how to double-tongue. And for you pitiful, non-musically educated people out there, double-tonguing is the ability to pronunciated a note with your tongue in the upward direction and the downward direction instead of solely relying on downward movement. It’s a difficult thing to be taught and catch on to, so most of the time people learn without knowing it. And that’s how I got it. I was just warming up for our trombone quartet practice on Monday and all of a sudden I realized I could ‘tongue’ really fast. So, yeah, now I’m kind of glad to see some more progression in my playing. But it’s kind of odd because, since I have been playing the Star Wars music for a long time, I learned how to triple-tongue before double-tongue. Maybe it’s the incessantly annoying triplet-sixteenth notes lined back-to-back-to-back, but oh well.