Hoosier Mama, a leek and sausage biscuit and black light roast coffee later, I’m feeling much better about my last place voice competition stance last night. I was the first one to sing and gave my most heartfelt and technically sufficient performance so far in my singing career.. but it landed me last place out of the 5 singers competing for $5000 worth of prize money.

I woke up in a fuzz this morning, having slept for over twelve hours. My eyes gazed at the congratulatory flowers on my desk, reminding me of my successes earlier this week. A mix of emotions rose me out of bed. I lugged myself out of my apartment, hobbled to the closest coffee shop, feeling the left-over pain from the Chicago Marathon in my feet exacerbated from standing in 4 inch heels all night along the way. There, I buried my mind in my biology homework. A slide read:

“measuring the integrity of sound processing at basic levels of the auditory system opens a window on human communication and the imprint of a life spent in sound”

OK, so everyone in that competition room heard something different last night depending on their life spent in sound. For me, I heard my best performance to date, felt the emotion of the content and what it means to me, which might have been out of context for the rest of the singers or judges in the room. Maybe, being the youngest person in the room, my sound was less impressive, or maybe I just need my “life spent in sound” to be curated in a different way through more experience.

In the 12 hours since the competition, I’ve been thinking about how these feelings are manifesting themselves, and how, as I make a career switch, the notion of subjectivity will carry through from a life spent in sound to a life spent in taste.

I pull up an article about Michelin Guide inspectors out of curiosity. The criteria that inspectors base their award decisions are the following:

Michelin Inspector’s 5 Restaurant Rating Criteria:
1. Quality of products
2. Mastery of flavor and cooking techniques
3. The personality of the chef represented in the dining experience
4. Value for money
5. Consistency between inspectors’ visits

The subjectivity that frustrated the hell out of me in the results for the show last night and that has slowly been pushing me towards a world of gastronomy will remain. Maybe that’s why I’m attracted to it all: the ephemeral, subjective, experiential nature of an opera performance, a dining experience. The peaks and the valleys are thrilling, and the discussion of why is more important than the final results, whether a Michelin Star or a Grammy.

Connecting this back to my Biological Foundations of Sound and Music class: experience changes the afferent (ear to brain) processing capability of the neurological auditory pathway.

This is all going to take time. Back to the bottom of the totem pole.

A bottle of 2014 Nebbiolo d’Alba sits on my kitchen cart alongside an empty to-go container that housed a date cake with whipped mascarpone from the Italian restaurant I work at in Evanston, IL. The electricity from a connected night with two lovely friends hangs in the air of my studio apartment as music blares from my Bose speaker, throwing the light of my candlelight back and forth.

Today, during a vocal coaching in between a Bach cantata and a Verdi aria, I received an email from the United States Fulbright Association revealing that I’m a semi-finalist for a Fulbright to attend the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. I burst out into tears in front of my vocal coach, who has had an important impact on my musical journey from rural Wisconsin to a top-ten University. The world seems to be working in my favor in ways that are beyond explanation.

Earlier in the day today, I was the focus of an interview by a writer at the Northwestern student publication North by Northwestern. I spent forty minutes explaining my summer research, and as I became more comfortable with the interview, I felt the passion and excitement bubbling underneath my words that transported me back to my summer of planned spontaneity. I began to remember the feeling from the streets of Rome to the mountains of Switzerland and stringing through all of the major Italian cities I set foot in; an invisible force leading me from one fulfilling evening and lesson learned to another.

This blog has followed my journey from a Portland Half Marathon before my summer research until now, and I have never felt more secure in my path than I do sitting in my bed on the 7th floor of my Main St. apartment than this very moment. The taste of Nebbiolo, a grape strongly associated with Piemonte, where the University of Gastronomic Sciences resides, speaks to my palate and tells me that the next email I’ll receive from the Fulbright committee will bless me; whether a welcome into the financial freedom of $30,000 towards my master education or the opportunity to learn how to figure it out on my own without the financial support of the US Government… I am thankful.

I am thankful.

Cheers, with a glass of Nebbiolo, to a year of connecting my story to others’ in this beautiful, complicated world.

Dreaming

So, Ti.. Do. So, Ti.. Do. So, Ti.. Do. So, Ti.. Do. So, Ti.. Do. 

Philip Glass’s repetitive whirling of tones circles my apartment, my flickering candlelight moving with the sound pressure waves vibrating through it and through me. Never have I heard the piece like I have today. For some reason, the revelation of the vocal line repeating the pitches on solfege never stood out in this way. Things music school does to your brain….

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In music school, the principal foundations of musical theory are set freshman year when we learn musical counterpoint.

In most of this music, the melody dances around the tonal centerpiece in different patterns and according to different rules and returns to do. As history moved along, people started changing the rules, breaking the rules, and reinventing new soundscapes.

I won’t go into details, but essentially, music is obsessed with “do”. I use solfege everyday in class, but I haven’t thought about it in a new context until now.

Recently, I listened to a Tim Ferris podcast about Essentialism. The guest, Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, maintains that in a world of noise, information overload, and choice anxiety, revealing your individual essential goals, pursuits, and dreams is a powerful path to success. I’d agree with Ferris that learning about yourself is the first and foremost tool to develop your sense of identity, path… essentialism.

Philip Glass’s sound waves revealed something to me today. Essentialism is about finding your “Do”. What do you return back to?

Glass: Dance IX