Internship Wrap-Up & My 2nd Berklee Blogs Post

As you may remember from my previous post, I was asked to be a regular contributor for Berklee's student blog site, www.Berklee-Blogs.com. So, for my second post for Berklee-Blogs, I wanted to wrap-up my internship, but I realized that I had several audiences I needed to speak to about my internship and this summer leading up to Berklee in general. So, decided I would wrap-up my internship with three companions posts on flickr, here, and Berklee-Blogs.

(Note: If had to put the three posts about my internship in order for you to read, I'd start with my Berklee-Blogs post, followed by this post you're reading now, and finally with my flickr post [mostly because it has less to do with my internship and more to do with Berklee]. Also, if you really want a comprehensive view of my internship, you can enjoy my entire 42 flickr series where I posted photographs from each day I spent in L.A.)

Now, if you've read my post wrapping up my internship for Berklee-Blogs, you'll remember that I mention that I do two things to help me de-stress.

That's a lie. I do a third thing - I pray.

I seek God. I'm incapable of doing anything without his grace and strength, and sometimes I forget that. Okay, most of the time, I forget that all my accomplishments are his doing. When I get stressed, that's when the false reality - the bubble - where I'm responsible for everything in my life - bursts. When the stress sets in, that when I need to surrender myself and my life to God's will. So, while remembering my past achievements when I'm discouraged and enjoying other activities like photography are all well and good, if I don't acknowledge God's hand in my past achievements and praise him for the joy he's given me in music and photography, then I'm going to continue being stressed.

So, if you think about it, please be praying for me to seek the Lord in prayer, scripture, and Godly fellowship. Having moved to a new environment, I still have to find a small group, a home church, and a routine that includes daily scripture reading. So, your prayers as I seek to acclimate myself spiritually in Boston are deeply appreciated and needed.

Berklee-Blogs!

I have some exciting news! I got the following email during my internship:

Congratulations on your acceptance to the college. I am one of the staff editors for the Berklee blog site. Just stumbled across your blog http://risingoccasion.blogspot.com/ and wanted to ask if you would like to continue documenting the experience of your journey to Berklee on the http://www.berklee-blogs.com/ site. Let me know if you are interested.

Of course, how could I saw no! So, after speaking with the editor, Brendan, on the phone I discovered that although he liked all my posts on this blog, he thought my video blogs in particular were a great fit for Berklee. So, with that in mind I recorded a video blog for my first post for Berklee-Blogs. Check it out, here!

Berklee, L.A., & 10,000 People

This entry has been brewing since May 1st. That weekend, I played piano at our church’s main Tysons campus, meaning that I cumulatively performed for approximately 10,000 people over the course of 4 services. I can’t really express how huge of an honor or responsibility it was to play with a full orchestra, choir, and rhythm section for such a large audience.

For years, I would secretly imagine how incredible it would be to play at Tysons, or rather, how incredible it would be to be good enough to play at Tysons. Even a year ago, if you had asked me to play at my church, I would have told you there was no way in the world I was qualified or capable of such an honor. But there I was on May 1st and 2nd, at the piano bench.

I remember countless times over the past five years, crying over the phone to my friends about how I was a terrible pianist, that I’d never rise above mediocrity, and that it would take a miracle for Berklee to accept me. Other days I would be crying about how much of a poser I was for talking about being a film score composer, despite rarely ever composing. I just couldn’t imagine ever being good enough at music and I questioned if God was ever going to bless me with my endeavors.

But that weekend, I received the most overwhelming confirmation of my life’s direction, That weekend, I was playing piano in my home mega church, I had been accepted to my dream music school, and I knew that I was headed for L.A. for an internship with film score composer Deane Ogden. The combination of all of those dreams coming true led to one of those incredibly rare occasions when God speaks with such clarity that it’s almost as if He was shouting.

“Now do you finally trust me? Now can you see the plans I had set for you all along?”

So often I felt like I was meandering, directionless, and so far from God or His will. I needed to write this event down because I couldn’t have been more certain that I was in God’s will that weekend. And that feeling is something I will never take for granted.

Speaking of L.A., I’m actually about to leave for the airport right now (I told you this entry has been brewing for a while…). See my companion flickr post to this entry here.

Berklee's verdict?

Watch the video to find out:

ANNOUNCEMENT!

BREAKING: Big change of plans! I'll be broadcasting live at 9:00 PM EST, 6:00 PM PST tonight (not midnight) to reveal if I got accepted to Berklee! To see the live stream, go to my Ustream.tv channel, here.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: I will be broadcasting on the internet tomorrow, March 31st @ Midnight EST (i.e. April Fools morning) as I open my email from Berklee College of Music to find out if I've been accepted or not. It really could go either way, so please don't take this as an implication that I think I'm a shoe-in. I know some people have said that it's really bold of me to do this, but I have so many friends that I wish could be there with me and I'm fortunate that I know the exact time that I will be getting the email from Berklee so that you all can watch me find out if I've been accepted as it happens. It's not an issue of boldness or vanity - I just don't mind sharing the experience with all of you, especially since so many of you have invested copious amounts of time and energy in my musical development.

It's a reasonable time to watch on the West Coast (9:00 PM), but if you're on the East Coast and can't stay up for my midnight broadcast, I'll also be posting the video on this blog for you to watch later.

To see the live stream, go to my Ustream.tv channel, here.

- Elie

Ustream Recap!

Just a quick note:

I cannot BELIEVE that I forgot to mention in the video that after I finished playing the Debussy, the judge said, "nice dynamics."

His words meant the world to me because it was as if he acknowledged how I kept fighting to make the song amazing even with a terrible keyboard that had NO dynamic range. No one would have been the wiser if I had just done a mediocre job and played all the right notes. I could always say that the keyboard was the problem, since it was a problem. But instead, I took comfort knowing that as long as I had a great attitude about it, the performance would be "okay" anyways; that gave me the freedom to try harder and aim for a great performance knowing that I couldn't fail. I fought to have dynamics in that piece, and his, albeit brief, comment really made me believe that he could tell how hard I was trying not to settle for "okay."

Again, I cannot believe I left that out since it carried more weight than he could have possibly imagined.

(VERY) Un-rehearsed Video Blog (The Night Before)

Here's the miniature blog post I wrote on the vimeo video:

Still not quite excited about the audition yet - just excited that I actually got to stand outside several Berklee buildings today (SQEE). But mostly, I'm nervous. Usually I know what to expect the night before a performance but the majority of my audition is improvisation. Berklee wants to see how applicants perform on the fly so it's just the nature of the beast that I'm further outside my comfort zone than normal.

I recorded this somewhat spontaneous video just to test out vimeo and embedding on my blog. But hopefully tomorrow I'll be more animated, less awkward, and well-spoken.

Also, thank you all, again, SO MUCH for the kind words of support. I didn't anticipate so many people to be gunning for me and I want you all to know that I'm not taking your encouragement for granted. Honestly, you all made my day with all your kind messages and my thanks are sincere even if it doesn't look like it in the video because of the awkward hand gesture (I seriously have no clue what was going on there).

The night before... from Elisa Rice on Vimeo.