Finding some musical balance (Blog #3)

Well, guess who was the smart one that found the wrong Oakland Youth Orchestra website? Haha, yeah... Something tells me that paying $1,200 dollars to play in an orchestra in California is a bit unreasonable. Just a teensy bit. So, the good news is that tuition for OYO in Michigan is only about $250 dollars. The prospect of joining has grown substantially, so that little glimmer of hope paid off! Yay! The bad news is that I obviously internet research challenged. Darn.

I have found my motivation to begin learning the guitar! Last night, while I was at a get together at Ocean's to watch fireworks, Ocean's soon-to-be cousin by marriage (or something like that) played her guitar by the bonfire. Much to everyone's astonishment, all of the songs she played were original, and she had only been playing for about a year. I figure that if she could learn to play and compose on guitar that quickly, chances are I'll be able to make good progress learning over the summer. So, my guitar journey is underway!

I'm going to start getting some rough ideas down for songs to write, but I'm thinking that I'll have better luck composing after I've had some Music Theory classes at school. I haven't entirely thrown out the composing part of my project, but I'll be focusing more on some basic music theory to fuel my "pre-composing". By doing this, it'll give me more time to focus on my viola concerto, OYO, and the guitar.

It sounds like everyone's projects are going awesome, and it makes me happy to read all about your progress. Keep up the great work, guys!

~Elyse Komarzec

P.S. I'm sure glad I don't live in California. xD