Best Necessities

How 'bout we all just back off the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, eh? Goodness. Just because those houses don't get near the same amount of page space as Gryffindor and Slytherin doesn't make them any less awesome. They hold smart, hardworking, supportive people who just aren't reckless and arrogant enough to get themselves on front-page news like Gryffindors or well, just plain mean like a lot of Slytherins (see what I did there? 'Lot' of slytherins, not saying they all are).
If you're going to judge a large group of people, you have to look at all that it includes. Not just the primary focus.
I'm about to get real political here.
It's frustrating me that the computer won't accept the house names as real spellings.
MUGGLE-COMPUTER.

In all honesty, I would for sure be sorted as a Hufflepuff. Which puts me proudly in with the likes of Luna and Nymphadora, but as well as some super-duper nuckleheads like Ernie and Justin Finch-Fletchley. I admire Gryffindors greatly and would give the Sorting Hat a real run for its (his?) money, but I'm not confrontational or daring enough for that.
All I'm really trying to say is, I'm kinda done with all the internet memes on "I think I just have to resign myself to being a Hufflepuff...."
FOOL. You gon' be ungrateful like that you can stay a muggle.
Plus, Badgers are freaking bad-a**, can I get an amen?

I particularly like the part about the badger

"ripping off the lions genitals".

Needless to say, the lion dies.

Stereotypes are dumb. Get over them.

Today, I went through all the piano music my family has accumulated over the years. I'm not sure why my mom always thinks it's a good (or productive) idea to put me in charge of that chore. Considering half the time I have to plop down at the piano and play the songs I come across. And when I say half I mean basically every other book I pull off the shelf. 

Not to mention, BEEP if I'm gonna throw any of it away. You wanting to downsize the sheet music, Mom, get a heartless heathen who doesn't know a half rest from a breve.

(um, I realize I mighta just insulted a lot of people.
'Breve' [breh-VEH] is a double-whole note.

aka really effing long)

Look at that; you're learning music theory.

I found so many old treasures, like my entire 'Seussical' score. And since I was the rehearsal accompanist it wasn't no piddly little choir script thing, it's like 200+ pages of full blown piano reduction and all my notes scrawled on it. Fun stuff going through that. I'm pretty sure that was my favorite musical in high school, playing at the piano.

Good times....good, weird times.

Naturally, however, 'Pirates of Penzance' was my best musical experience overall, considering I got to be ON-stage for that and plunking out the utterly boring score for that one woulda been much less satisfying indeed.

And look at me now, back again to play some more ('Into the Woods' this year. Can you say EXCITED??). If you had told me, that first year playing 'Thoroughly Modern Millie', that I would still be playing for the musicals 6 years from then, I probably woulda laughed. And then really, really hoped you were telling the truth. 

Accompanying, to me, is....pure fun. It's something I don't understand with 'Glee'. Each and every student has that inner diva, the "I wanna be in the spotlight ALL THE TIME and stupid Rachel Berry and why aren't I singing solos and....." and I dunno, I guess I don't believe every performer is like that. Personally, I much prefer being the back-up. I would crumble up inside if I tried to become a concert pianist. In fact, I did die a little inside when I went to NAU Music Camp in 2008 and that's essentially what I learned to be the entire time I was there. Learning those completely beautiful, epic and wonderful masterpieces that you see and hear from those girls in the long, gorgeous gowns on the empty stage save for the gleaming dark piano and they sit there cranking out a long-winded proclamation of "I AM AWESOME. WATCH ME SHOW OFF."

And I hated every minute of it. I went to a piano academy, where I had 2-hour lessons each week and I was expected to practice 10 hours a week; which doesn't sound like much, but you try sitting on a piano bench for 2 hours a day....actually practicing that is. I worked on the Mozart, the Chopin, the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. I about blew my brain out trying to get that 'ppp' [pianississimo] in Debussey's 'Clair de Lune' but I just couldn't get it soft enough. I ripped through the Haydn exercises, cramping my hand worse than any in-class essay ever attempted. 

But I hadn't any passion for it. 

I didn't care about the pianist prowess.

You hand me a Jason Robert Brown and say, "I'm auditioning for this-that, could you possibly accompany me? Oh yeah, and it's the day after tomorrow, is that a problem?"

You just made my week.

(although in the back of my head

I'm cursing you at the same time)

I live for musicals and choral pieces with those delicious scores. The epic buildup and foundation they lend to singing. What would the moon be without the rich, full darkness of the sky accented with twinkling, winking lights? A boring, pocketed orb that's what. A reflective chunk of rock. Which is interesting enough for some. But I can't express to you what it means to me when I follow a performer or group out onto a stage and nobody is clapping for me. Nobody's paying attention or watching as I sit on the bench and flip open my pages. There's no pressure. Not from the audience at least. But I can handle singers, they only need me to fill up the empty air and space between their phrases. An audience needs the entire experience folded nice and neat into their laps with no wrinkles or rips.
I think I just enjoy being needed. Nobody needs a soloist. We all enjoy them at one level or another, appreciate their talent but you don't need them. Not like they NEED accompanists. Someone's singing "Defying Gravity" you can bet your bottom dollar they ain't getting up on any stage or on any microphone without some sort of back-up. I mean, nobody wants to listen to

"So if you care to find me,

Look to the western sky!...."

Without some piano underneath all that belting. I mean honestly. Just think about it. 

Anyway, I'm happy to say I'm an accompanist and darn proud of it! 

And can we just reflect for a moment how huge Idina Menzel's mouth is? 

Reflection complete.

And look at that! It's exactly 12 AM, I'm going to sleep now.