Memories

I remember back to my days of psychology class in high school, learning about the theory of taste recognition and other psychological memory pulls, and thinking to myself how amazing the powers of the human mind can be. I can think of dozens of sounds, smells, etc. that make me remember various times in my life.

The smell of Abercrombie & Fitch 8 reminds me of vacations in Florida, the taste of soup brings back memories of Christmastime, and hot chocolate just makes me laugh when I think of the gazillion times I've had it at The Cubbyhole listening to friends playing - I could really go on for hours about it.

But something about last night really made me stop and think. Dr. Craig Jessop, a well-known director in the music community, is the new head of the music department at school and Saturday was the first concert of his new student/community choir he began this semester. One of the faculty performed Mozart's Concerto in C Major with a community orchestra, and was followed by the choir's performance of Mozart's Requiem, which for those who have never heard it is breath taking and I fully intend on having a portion of it sung at my funeral, even if that's weird. My funeral, my decisions.

Is it lame to mention now that it made me cry? Yeah, the ultimate lame meter just went off BIG TIME. My only justification is to mention that I've sung this piece before and understand how trying and draining singing for that long is.

Lameness aside, I was just sitting there in the concert hall listening to them perform and I had the craziest flashback to high school choir, endless hours of singing and criticisms by my teacher (ever crossed your legs during your choir days? Yeah you'd be out of our choir in like 5 seconds for doing that), threats of mutiny, and finally a concert performance that made even us surprised and made me realize how amazing music is. I mean really, I'm not sure how any human can sit through Lacrimosa, one of the movements of the Requiem, and not think that Mozart was A-Mazing, even if he did only write the first few bars of that movement. Who else is going to think about writing music when they're on their death bed? Oh right, Mozart.

But more than it making me think of high school and such, it made me really miss little things I've overlooked. Listing them would be pretty counterproductive considering no one would really get it, so let's just leave it at that. Mozart made me homesick.

P.S. Mom, why is it again you can't follow me everywhere I go to play the piano? I've never been so frustrated at myself and pianists around me for not being able to sight read like you do. Wait, do normal pianists actually practice beforehand? Weird.