Rolling with CPE Bach

in high school one of my IB electives was music.  i took it mostly because my shyness didn't allow for silliness like performance theater or dance.

i'm not sure how the normal high school classroom operates, but in IB we're taught to analyze everything.  in english that meant jane eyre's dress wasn't just blue because blue muslin was the cheapest fabric found in town.  nor was it because charlotte bronte thought it'd convey her character's plain-ness well.  no..  it's freaking blue to express the melancholy state of the life of an abandoned woman in love with a man who keeps his delirious wife locked up in the attic.  all the while she's being pursued by another man destined to make her his wife even though she cannot see him as more than a brother.  secondarily implying the crumbling destruction of gender roles and hierarchy of courtship rites in the social universe as reflected in the vast blueness of her eyes.  and maybe also something about knights fighting blue dragons in the distant land of celadon city.  that's why it's blue.  inference was always my english teacher's favorite word to throw around during class discussions.  you could basically make up any amount of bs and get away with a hundred participation points and an approving nod from the teacher.

oh right, i was talking about music.  IB music was just about the same.  we'd sit around listening to a piece of music, manuscript and red pen in hand - armed to completely tear up the music with critical analysis and lots of creative imagination to make sure we leave class with enough participation points.  [can you sense how much i hated participation points?!? plghhh]  at the end of senior year when we got ready to take our IB exams, the practice had been so ingrained in us that whether it be an oral or written, we could easily rant for pages and pages or speak miles on any given topic.  even in a foreign language. 

some things just don't change.  last night my friend played this piece for me on the piano.  my heart melted/died/seized and then the expository parallels began to flow.  except, instead of reflecting on how this song metaphorically conveys the alignment of jupiter and the 27th galaxy with the earth, i was thinking more how this song feels a lot like how i feel.  darn you ib program for crafting me into such a thinker!!  why can't i just sit and listen to how beautiful it is without delving into the way its intricate trills and voicing lines intertwine with the messes i get myself into.  or how the conversation between the right and left hand represent competing voices in my head trying to get me to make choices i don't want to.  how the brevity of the melody switching to G major in measure 21 is quickly reminded of its dreary nature before the line is over.

in the words of sherlock, "bullocks!!"


i'm wearing long flannel pajama pants because apparently the weather realized how ridiculous it was enveloping us all in sweltering heat yesterday, so it decided to slide the mercury down a few notches today.  dear weather, you kinda overshot.  it's freaking cold.  oh yeah, here are the highlights from yesterdays happy day =]