my mom watched on old tape of Anything Goes today. she said i had good timing and that she thought i could become a good performer. thanks mom

my boyfriend and i had a long talk about whether what we're doing is "worth it" and whether or not it helps people. he finally broke me down about the whole money-for-art conundrum. i had been against that. but duh, someone is supporting you if you're not living off your art. like say, a university, or a rich patron. are those things more honorable than selling paintings or poems or "entertaining" people with music?

my friend james said something about not taking entertainment gigs anymore because he would rather be practicing. but i wonder: bach was entertaining while he was experimenting, and by entertaining, i mean he was providing a spiritual service and was being paid for it. isn't the ideal something in between pandering to an audience and playing only for yourself?

i had this realization that i hadn't really thought of making a career of something besides art. i thought of being a doctor, but i thought i would always have time for art. now i think nothing less than being an artist would give me enough time.

so i was lying in bed thinking of all the jobs i've ever had. i thought about following my friend lee around while he tuned pianos in people's houses and once in the mount washington hotel. when i got to college, i asked if there was a way to arrange an internship with a piano tuner, but they sort of brushed me off - too much of a working class question, like, can i have an internship with the janitors?

i thought about working at the greenhouse, mixing soil, having a stern boss. the whole place smelled like earth and wet flowers. at the time i thought growing flowers for other people was so frivolous. they could just grow them from seed. now i think flowers are nice, but i still don't respect those particular customers.

i thought about how my mother still paints even though she's never earned her living that way. but she sort of earned her keep by baring a child.

after all of it i kept thinking, well, if it is possible, i would like to sing, at least right now. i will consider getting a piano to practice tuning. that would be a nice day job.

and opening a scissor sharpening and cutting board refinishing shop. because i think when the economy really starts to go, people are going to stop throwing out so many things.

oh, but back to "entertainment": one of the reasons i was so turned off of music as a career is that i want to create something that's unequivocally good, right, everyone does. but music can change. sometimes i get sick of music that i used to love! sometimes i hate a composer because people tell me he or she is horrible, but then i really love the music at some time in my life, or in some performance! or sometimes, a composer will have one good work or one good song, but the rest will be junk! or, Or, one person that i might respect a great deal will like a piece of music, but i won't like it at all, or visa versa! how can a person make art that will be so unstable?!

soooooo wish me luck getting some kind of job in new york, where i'm moving in a couple weeks, and where, hopefully, i'll have a chance to study voice with my teachers' teacher. i have no idea what will happen there but, as ACB says in theconcert.blogspot.com, come along for the ride!

also, mark applebaum just got tenure at stanford, he's a great teacher, and mark, although i was quite skeptical of you at the time, i'm glad you'll be around to puzzle budding composers and show them the affection you showed us when you taught us to improvise.