Reflecting on the end of Germany

The reason for my fall out on this blog is that I have a habit of drifting away from journaling and keeping record of my practice as I am approaching a performance. I think it is a psychological tactic that prevents me from overanalyzing what I am doing and enables me to focus more intently on my music. Anyway.

Musically speaking, the last week was characterized by my frequently running back and forth between practicing and receiving Wolf Lieder coachings from Eckart. I really enjoyed having another opportunity (after my Collaborative Song Recital at the end of this past semester) to concentrate solely on collaborative repertoire. I do feel like I have gained some insight from this course and will take away ideas that will improve my piano playing. Additionally, I have acquired a much greater love for the Mörike Lieder. There are 53 total in the collection, and I have played 16 of them in some key, so I am almost a third of the way through with learning the whole set!

As far as the performances go, I was generally quite happy with how I performed with my singers. I have a lot of work ahead of me to improve a few songs, but in such a short period of time, I'm content with what I've accomplished. I'm glad to have gotten a head start on some of the pieces and am really happy to have noticed significant improvement in some of the others I performed. Best of all, I really enjoyed the actual performances.

On the last day, I received many gracious, meaningful comments about my playing ability from our program faculty and mentors. Oftentimes I am not swayed by post-concert compliments, but for some reason I felt much more self-assured by what they all had to say. I am very thankful. Something that I did not anticipate achieving from this program was a greater confidence in my abilities to meet a musical task. I found that throughout the course, I never felt unable to accomplish what was given to me (except maybe a few moments with der Feuerreiter, but I soon accepted that'd be a lifelong project anyway). I also think I have acquired a sharper ear, so that is a big winning validation that this program has contributed positively to my preparation for grad school.

Although I contributed less energy towards learning my German in the last week, I found that I was becoming much more successful at carrying and understanding conversations. It was really an exciting feeling for me. I have mentioned previously that before this trip I had forgotten about the joys of language learning. Now I can definitely see myself going overseas again to continue sharpening my foreign language skills, be it Germany, France, Vietnam, or a country whose language I have yet to learn. I have also (re)recognized that although I have a disposition towards learning languages, I find my fulfillment in music, so this trip catered to both sides. I would love to do something like this again in France to exercise and improve my knowledge of French.

I definitely felt sad to leave and miss some people. I have no doubt that I will cross paths with some of the American students from this trip again at some point in our careers, but I certainly hope to run into some of the wonderful German natives who assisted with the program. As I was going from airport to airport, I noticed a decreasing use of German around me, and I never felt so disappointed to be around so many American English speakers.

As predicted, I felt that I had grown in ways I had not expected through this program. On the down side, I've discovered that I will not be able to pursue German as an Outside Area of study in my Masters, so the fate of my German conversational skills remain uncertain. I have a very good feeling, however, that this will not be the last time I use them.

What lies next? I will be preparing myself mentally and logistically for my move to Indiana for the start of my masters. For the next month and a half, that means a lot of practicing SOLO piano repertoire, figuring out what I need to move, figuring out various things with money, making money, etc. Above all, I am just excited to go back to Harrisonburg to spend time with friends and relax a bit before I'm off again to somewhere new. Something I also did not expect is a somewhat mitigated sadness about leaving Harrisonburg. For both Harrisonburg and Germany, there is a feeling of letting go, but the feeling is only to be caught again sometime in the future. I hope.

Many thanks to all who shared this journey with me, either as a program participant or as a blog-creeper. I've enjoyed the adventure and have only one last thing to say--who among you stalked me religiously?

Let's be honest. This is really why I want to go back to Germany...