A Day in a Musician's life Part 2 – Nicole

Hello! I hope your second day back at uni was alright for you! Mine was alright today. I had a really long day that I probably don’t really know what to feel now. 😐
But, it’s okay! There will be a brand new day tomorrow, and I’m excited for the future. 🙂

Alrighty, today! Here’s my typical schedule for Tuesdays!

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TUESDAY

6AM
Conversation with myself in bed
“Wake up Nicole. Time for another day!”
“Oh, what? Brah, that’s not fair. Can’t we get 8 hours today?”
“Well, too bad sweety. You could sleep earlier tonight.”
“Oh boy… HAHAHAHA. I hope that happens tonight… If I could finish my ML early. HAHAHAHAHA”

Yeap. Me in the morning every Tuesdays.

Today, I did my usual routine: got out of bed, made my bed, quick shower, etc.
OHH! I had time to eat half of my breakfast today. Achievement unlocked… for this morning! Hahaha.

6:40AM
I left home on time, and that felt great for once! Haha! I didn’t even have to run today, and I had a nice chat to a volunteer at the train station. What a legend that volunteer is! This volunteer stands at my train station every morning, since start of April from 6AM till 8AM. Then I think, that volunteer will be in the city to do more volunteering work later on this week. This volunteer is raising money for ANZAC Day. So guys, if you ever see a volunteer, doing charity work for the ANZACs, go say hi to them, or give them a gold coin donation. Pretty friendly people!

6:51AM
“Hi usual train, you look fabulous like usual. I love it how you’re an express train. It makes my train ride so peaceful like always. ;)”

8AM – 10AM
Practise time!

Usually, I practise to get ready for my piano lessons for today, and that is my studies for Semester 1 (Étude by Chopin, technical studies and Sonata by Scarlatti). My thoughts today were, “I better practise hard, because I think I didn’t practise hard during my mid-semester break!”
I ended up practising till 10AM, and I had to power walk to my MBB Lecture. Silly me.
NOTE: This happens a lot because it’s either I want to practise more, or that there’s this part I kept on stuffing up, and I wanted to get it perfect for once. Hahaha.

10AM – 11AM
Mind, Brain and Behaviour (MBB) 1 Lecture

Usually, MBB breaks up into sub topics that we’ll be studying for this semester. So, from Week 1 till 4 we studied on Behavioural Neuroscience, Week 5 till 8 is Sensation and Perception, and Week 9 till 12 is Learning and Cognition. So far it has been very interesting, but a lot to take in! I found Behavioural Neuroscience was a lot to handle with because it was connecting with chemistry (at one subtopic in one of the lectures), VCE Psychology (which was fine), and biology (which was also fine). I did Physical Education and Psychology during my VCE studies. So, when those two subjects interplay into Psych in MBB, I was doing fine… excluding when they introduced chemistry terms. Oh dear lord…

Today, it wasn’t so bad. Although, I did ended up slightly dosing off to sleep. I sometimes can handle a lot of talking, but not today. Nah uh. It was very interesting! But today my brain said, “let’s dose off to sleep, goodbye world,” while my consciousness said, “BRAHH! WAKE UPPP!”
It wasn’t a good start with my day. But it’s okay.

11AM – 11:30AM
Break

I usually do my ML during my break, or have a quick snack. But today, I wanted to work on my scholarship application. My laptop kept on closing my tab to do my scholarship application during the break till now.

11:30AM – 12:30PM
Piano Lessons

Piano Lessons at uni is a blessing. They are all great, wonderful teachers to have! I really like my teacher so far, and I think my technical skills are getting better. But today, when I showed my scales, arpeggios and my Hanon exercises, it sort of didn’t go well. Oh well!

However! My teacher said that I’m going well anyways; my teacher expects us to memorise our pieces for out technical exam this semester. I personally think it’s a great idea! I’ve been trying to play my pieces without the score in a performance, ever since I started playing Classical pieces. But I have been hesitating to, ever since I had a memory lapse during a performance, and that traumatised me. So, I think it’s a good way for me to push and challenge myself to do so. 🙂

Typical piano lessons for me are:

• Showing my knowledge and technical status on my scales, arpeggios, double staccato octave scales.
• To play my studies in front of my teacher
• Getting feedback from my teacher and my thoughts
• Fixing a problem in my studies or my technique

12:30PM – 2:15PM
Break

I usually hang out with my friends to work on ML, and then we have lunch together before our ML Lecture. But today, I was catching up with a good friend of mine, and I attempted to do my scholarship application… again.

2:15 – 3:15PM
Music Language 1 Lecture

Oh! I SERIOUSLY HAVE A BALL IN EVERY ML LECTURE! I’m not even joking. I always have a good laugh in ML with my friends. There’s one time my friends and I couldn’t stop laughing during the entire lecture. That was some lecture back then. :”)

ML Lectures usually breaks each topic in each week. So, you would have to learn very fast, or else you’ll be screwed for the assignment. It’s very fast paced in learning new things such as counterpoint and new information on music theory. But it’s okay. As long as you’re passing your assignments, you’re all good.

3:15 till 4:15PM
Practise time!

It’s a quick one like always. Usually, I work on my extra pieces, or my studies. So today, it was my AMEB Grade 7 studies and my duo piece.

4:15 till 6:15PM
Art of Piano Teaching (AOPT) Lecture/Seminar

Don’t be too overwhelmed about a 2 hour lecture. If you did VET in your VCE studies, you’d be a gun for concentrating for a long time. But today, I wanted to finish my scholarship application, and I FINALLY DID. RIGHT BEFORE 5PM. I usually do things early, not last minute, and that was the most stressful feeling ever – doing things last minute. I think I was being very rude during class, because I was freaking out on sending in my scholarship application before 5PM. So, I’m so terribly sorry I was being noisy. I still feel bad from today, but it’s okay. What’s done is done. I’m so happy I finished it and got it out of my way.

OKAY! Typical AOPT lecture is usually explaining about piano teaching. We have three assignments, and two of them are oral presentations, while the third one is an essay. Not too bad. But I heard it’s hard to get a good mark, I think. We’ll see when I get my results back from my first assignment.

Lectures have been very interesting, and I have applied that in my job, ‘Piano Teaching’. My student loves the memory game, where you memorise a particular part of the piece. We usually get a 5 minute break, and it’s nice to have one in a two hour lecture. 🙂

Today we finished AOPT lectures early, because Assignment 1 is still on going. So, we finished at 5:15PM today. I was go happy that I literally ran out of the door celebrating. As you can tell, I don’t have early days, and I’m usually hyped up about an early day for once. Hahahaha.

6:15PM or 5:15PM (for today) – HOME TIME. MY GOD. 

As usual I do…

• ML assignment
• Sleep on train
• Chill out
• Catch up with family, and etc.

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SUMMARY

• I had an alright day
• The only things I was happy about was ML lecture, hanging out with my friends, finished my application and a little small gift (hair clips for performing) from my mum today. So sweet of my mum. 🙂
  Wow, that is a lot of things I enjoyed today. Huh. That’s not so bad. 🙂
• I finally understand assignment 4 for ML – so happy 🙂
• I need a brand new day now.

Music of wanting a new day? You guess it, ‘Brand New Day by Kodaline’

NOTE: Sorry about the late post, I had to do my ML assignment! I’m so  close to finish it!