I'm Beethoven

Ah yes, Beethoven. Yesterday I played Beethoven's 5th about 300-500 times before getting dressed in somewhat formal suit like... suit, then getting in a car and going to Prindiville Catholic College to perform Beethoven's 5th in front of a bunch of parents who were just there to see their kid perform instead. Yeah I learn Piano (and have been for about a year and a half now) at Joondalup and they hold this annual concert for their students to show off a song. Cool huh?

Well, I walk into the backstage room where a bunch of students were waiting and there is absolutely no one there over 12! THEY WERE ALL SO SMALL! :| One of them walks up to me and goes "are you a teacher?" Curse you little kid, I'm a student just like you... just... a very old one. Thank fully the backstage room was actually divided into two and past a gap there were a bunch of other students, some of which were older than 12... Though I'm pretty sure I was the oldest one of there, thankfully not by that much though.

NO ONE WAS WEARING FORMAL ATTIRE BUT ME... Except one guy. But yeah, special occasion? Nah... casual man, it's just a concert. Curse you mother for demanding I wear formal wear and shiny shoes! Aren't my converse look-a-like shoes good enough for playing Beethoven? (Apparently not, though shoes are really just a formality for car parks, as inside is not dangerous to feet at all and I wasn't using the pedal)

Well, there's a nice quaint keyboard in the large room backstage which I then start to play just for fun (playing music instruments calms the nerves, which is kinda ironic that I was nervous about playing a musical instrument... I'd never performed in front of anyone before OK?) and of course, I'm improvising as I go playing something nice... then the kids start gathering around to listen to me. It was nice to see them so fascinated by just how much I rocked. So that was good, when you realise that your audience is not very judgemental and easily impressed you kinda relax and go "It's Beethoven... it's impressive in itself, and if I get it slightly wrong people are unlikely to be so familiar with anything past the opening to notice..."

Fast forward, I'm standing slightly off stage behind a curtain listening to a cute little blind girl play a slightly off-beat rendition of Advance Australia Fair with the aid of her teacher (who looks sweet, but yells quite loud when he wants to get a squabbling mess of prepubescent children to get themselves in order backstage) so that was adorable. Also meant I wasn't coming straight after someone who had done something more impressive.

Well, I walk on stage looking incredibly formal compared to everyone else and turn to the audience and go "Howdy!" before sitting down and going DA DA DA DUMMMMM!! (On the piano, I didn't just sit down at a piano and yell "DA DA DA DUMMMM!"... though I totally should have)

Then the rest is a bit of a blank, but I do remember I made a bit of a minor error at some point but covered it up. No one noticed but mum, who, like me, had heard the song 500 freaking times while I was practising it so could tell what was right and what wasn't. Dad couldn't, he thought I was brilliant. So did everyone else.

Yeah, I don't really ever remember what happens when I go on stages. Like, I remember when I walk on, a little bit in between that proves it did happen, then walking off. But really I have to rely on the memory just afterwards of my impression of what I did to have any idea if I did good or poorly. Same went for Graduation.

Afterwards random people who I walked past during intermission would go "good job" and "you were great". Then I stood next to a table for a charity raffle and people's parents would approach me and ask me about the raffle... after a while I realised it was because they thought I looked old enough to be one of the teachers at the school that were organising the event, not a student. Damnit! Formal attire and beard strikes again... So I moved away.

Then, instead of sitting around for everyone ELSE to perform, (because hey, I had performed, and I don't have any kids) my parents and I fled from the building into the rain and off to drop me at a friend's 18th birthday party...

...still dressed in my damn suit.

Yes, I was completely out of place at the concert, and now, surrounded by adults drinking I was still out of place. Though out of place with people my age. I spent the first half an hour explaining to everyone I ran into that I had just come from performing Beethoven which is why I dressed as a classical pianist.

Twas a fun night, and now my throat hurts (which is always a sign of a good party, when you've talked so loudly and so much over the awful repetitive dance music being played near the rarely even lightly populated dance floor, that your throat starts to hurt)

How to make a dance track: 4/4 timing..... and anything that sounds electronic. Don't innovate, don't experiment, don't create. 4/4... people didn't come to listen to you compose, they came to hear steady 4/4.

Beethoven on the other hand, loves his odd fingering, makes your fingers go all over the place, likes to make you jump. Take it, take it in 2/4 timing! Damn straight you love it like that.

Now! NOW I NEVER HAVE TO PLAY BEETHOVEN'S 5TH EVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!

Democracy! (100th post!)

Today, on.... the 21st! I voted for the first time. Yes, this young blogger has grown up and become a man! A man who must partake in voting for THE FUTURE! Yes, this is ALSO my 100th post! I was waiting until I had something of depth to say for good old #100... and it's political!?

Nah, it's not going to really discuss politics, well, maybe a bit.

There's a candidate for One Nation in the seat of Moore!? My goodness if it didn't invalidate my ballot paper I'd have rated you much lower than 6 you racist son of a-

Right. I went to the primary school which I used to go to as a child (Springfield. Yes, I know the ONE JOKE that goes with that school's name) but now feeling quite like an adult. I was ready democrate all over this primary school, oh yeah. I saw the line where people waiting to vote were in, but then noticed the pamphlet holders standing in front of the easiest access point to this line... Sigh... Too tight a path to not make eye contact, too committed of people to take no eye contact for an answer. I walked briskly past going "I know how I'm going to vote, no thank you. I know how I'm going to vote, no thank you" (one of the parties had a KID handing them out! Dastardly tactics, using today's youth as a way to promote whoever you are!) then turned the corner to see that at the end of the line where people would join was a person handing things out FOR THE GREENS! Ah, she be sneaky! She had chosen a place that was unavoidable, and not mingled into the blob of other peddlers. Yes, quite sneaky indeed... you think you're pamphlet free and BAM!

You get hit by environmentalism! Ah yes, a nice little pamphlet with the image of the one and only Sheridan Young! Youngest candidate for Moore, Greens, and probably any party for that matter. I know her personally so did not need a piece of paper to tell me what she thinks.

Let's all wish the best of luck to her :)

So anyhoo, here were are, at 100 blog posts. I started this blog with some random thing about fish (which appears to be even MORE about the future than this blog post is, also, wow I really didn't use this blog for many youtube updates AT ALL) back when I was in year 11 of highschool. Now I'm doing a Major with two minors in University.... but my hair is still exactly the same. Some things change, some don't.

Slowly, I am chronicling my life online (as we all are now with twitter) and perhaps one day, I won't need to write a biography (nor anyone) thanks to online blogs. Archived updates from 20 years ago still stored on prolific servers, backed up and open for the public to read, events recalled fresher than they ever could've been at the end of someone's life. It'd be an interesting look back on someone's life to see how they developed, what motivated them at the time to write, things that seem trivial now they could've written pages on then.

What will the next 100 blog posts hold? Perhaps dark secrets... perhaps by the end of them they'll have got mass marketed flying cars in production! (HURRY UP DAMNIT!!!) I seem to be blogging slower and less often. I'm sorry... to my non-existent audience.

Now to go and practice Beethoven's 5th on the piano constantly, I have to perform in my first ever concert tonight! (Today is a day for many firsts... many being... two)

Have a nice day.