Blehhh...

So. Our school is doing a musical. Actually, we're not just performing any musical, we're performing Miss Saigon. It is a good musical, a tragedy, but it's still good. However, for me, it's been ruined before I even started playing.

I play the alto clarinet in the pit band. You may be wondering what that is. It is actually just like a clarinet, but deeper (same shape and size as the alto sax, but looks more like a clarinet, more 'woody' sound). To begin with, I had never played the instrument before I started playing it in the pit band. There was only one clarinet part, and another grade 12 got that because she played in two musicals before and I had only played in one. So I got the crap part.

Well, it wouldn't have been that crap if there had actually been an alto clarinet part. But there wasn't. There was only a bassoon part. So I had to transpose the entire thing from bass clef and tenor clef into treble clef. That wouldn't be too hard if it was just one piece, but it is 35 numbers. THIRTY FIVE. Do you know how long that took me? A very long time. My clarinet teacher told me that the amount of work I had to do was ridiculous and if she had to do it she would at least get paid for it.

And what do I get for the enormous amount of work I have done? Rien. Nada. Nothing. A big fat, "Oh thanks Emma," for hours and hours of work and misery over this damn show. Not that I want to be paid or anything, I just think some kind of recognition would be nice. Some people (*cough*) clearly think that I am bad (which I am) but they don't understand how weird my music is, and that I never played the alto clarinet before this show.

My music teacher said that some of the music was actually written wrong, after I showed him a certain part that sounded really bad to me. So it wasn't even my fault. Just great.
The instrument that I'm playing is continually flat. There isn't anything I can do about it, since I don't know how to fix that, and based on how I fix my Bb clarinet's pitch, I don't think there IS any way to solve it.
And there are some parts that just sound wrong no matter what I do--blehh... I just want to hand my music over to my conductor and say, "I quit." However, that really isn't an option right now. I would love to have a huge actressy meltdown and threaten to do just that, but I'm not an actor and I don't do meltdowns. Haha.

I'm heartily sick of it, but I know that when I look back on it I'll be like, "Oh, it was so fun to play in the pit in high school." Ha. How great--rosy retrospection.

Well, I guess I'd better go, so have a great evening (it has to have been better than my musical-filled one).

E

P.S. Oh, did I mention? Got into my number one university today -- improved my night a little :D