(no subject)

ad diem X Kalends October

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Today was another fairly good day. The people at the Conservatory Office had no problem with me using a practice room for two and a half hours. Granted, I got kicked out of the first one after about an hour and a half, but the one next door, which a) is bigger (so less echo) and b)has a really nifty tattered-brocade-covered piano bench that is exactly the right height for me, was open by that time. And I think I'm starting to be able to play Popper No. 4. My thumb callous is about twice as big as it used to be, but I am no longer living in terror of the constant thumb position in 6 sharps. I still think that David Popper must have had abnormally big hands, though.

I should probably be thinking about St. Augustine, as I just got back from an evening discussion on him.
( St. Augustine )

I did get to use my "St. Augustine praises himself with strong damnation" line during discussion today. The professor thought it was funny.

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Hey…

I just remembered what I was originally going to post about.

So, this afternoon, when I should have been practicing my sight-singing preparations for the test next week, I started flipping randomly through my sight-singing book. They mostly have just melodies, excerpts from various folk songs or themes from longer classical works. But they had the Thomas Tallis complete. The Thomas Tallis theme that Vaughn Williams used in his Fantasia that is. It's a setting of the Second Psalm:

Why fumeth in sight the Gentiles spite: in fury raging stout.
Why tak'th in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about.
The kings arise, the lords devise in councils met thereto.
Against the Lord wit false accord against his Christ they go.