Frustration and Music

Why? Why does the orchestra suck? Why don't the members of chorale care? Why am I still part of either?

This year in orchestra we have barely 30 members, and the total apathy and lack of skill is simply astounding. For starters, intonation is abominable. I can understand occasionally missing notes, but our degree of not-skilled-ness is inexcusable in a high school orchestra. For example, one of my fellow violas consistently plays a B flat rather than a B natural during a viola solo no matter how many times I remind him that he's wrong. I think the violins think they're playing the right notes, but they aren't even close to in tune with one another. It's hard to say much about the cellos. I'm so excited when they actually play that I'm willing to give them a bit of a break. The music we're playing right now isn't that great. I don't mean that I just don't like it: I mean that musically it isn't good. The harmonies are sub-par, and in one song they build chords that shouldn't fit into the key we're playing in. It's just bad. Even if we had decent music and we could play in tune, we still wouldn't be making music. There is minimal dynamic contrast, scarcely any phrasing, and a negligible amount of emotion. Add to all of this the fact that our teacher is unreliable and garners little (if any) respect from the orchestra. I come to school at 7:15 in the morning every day to participate in a group that I am thoroughly ashamed of. Why? I have a tremendous amount of love for my viola, but I have no time to plug into a group of devoted musicians outside of school. I can't wait to play in college. After all, it can't get much worse.

The chorale is the top audition chorus at Finneytown, so all of its members are talented. In this way it far surpasses the orchestra. Unfortunately the class is unbearable. People never stop talking. Literally. Some people talk while we're supposed to be singing, and more than half of the chorus bursts into chatter the second we pause in a song. It's ridiculous and irritating. Absurd, even. The director has to tell us to fix the same things day after day since few people pay any attention to him, so we can be stuck on a single passage for days with minimal improvement. Like the orchestra director, the chorus teacher doesn't demand much respect. He is generally liked (unlike the orchestra director), but nobody pays much attention to him. I despise that class so much that I'm considering dropping it and jumping into AP Art History (which I originally wanted to take, but rejected for the sake of chorale). I do love to sing, but I can always sing elsewhere. I'll probably audition for the vocal jazz ensemble (even though jazz isn't exactly my thing), and if I make it I'll give more serious thought to the idea of dropping chorale. I'm not going to go into all the reasons for and against taking art history instead of chorale, but it's going to be a more important decision than it may seem. The issue goes far deeper than chorus versus art, and my choice could have a major impact on how I make future decisions. I'm going to have to put a lot of thought into this.

Thank you, readers, for reading through my disorganized mental dump. Sometimes it's nice to vent a bit.