depress-inc

Last night I went to the first composers inc concert of their 25th season. And I found it highly depressing. That is, hearing the music, then reading these people's bios, was the biggest contributor to the depressingness of the experience. The first half of the concert was twice as long as was necessary, and didn't have music that kept my interest much. There was a CSUH grad whose piece was played, and I wanted to like it, but I didn't actually like it much. The second half was better, but still the songs were too fucking long. The concert started at 8 and got out at 10:30 or so. TOO LONG!!! Anyhow, the first song of the second half was probably the best in my opinion, but unfortunately I don't remember much other than it was the shortest and that I liked it more than everything else. The second song had some cool concept thing, but was a little too triadic and way way way too long. And the last piece was a percussion piece by a freaking kid. I think he just started college or something, and his piece didn't suck. You know, the kind of person who makes you feel like shit because they're so much better than you were at their age.

And reading all those bios, they all went to good schools and studied with good people, and I didn't like most of what I heard, and yet almost all of them made it into a decent grad school or studied with someone of note, or have jobs at name schools, and I can't even fucking get in. And I realize it's really stupid to compare, than for several composers there is a sizable age gap, but it's hard not to.

And yeah, my piece is at a standstill, much like grad apps, because I am doing my typical "I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed so I will avoid everything," which I should know by now, doesn't work. I just hate the grad application process SO MUCH. And I think I will have a tee-shirt made that says "DON'T ask me about grad school" because I'm sick of answering the questions. No, I haven't made a list of where I'm applying, I haven't been doing much of anything about it because I HATE it. HATE hate.

Anyhow, back to the concert, I just find less and less gems in the concerts than I used to. And while I know my tastes have changed, I can't imagine that they've changed that drastically. It's just...well it sucks. I mean, the organization is only as old as me, and yet it doesn't feel new at all anymore. So it was depressing.