Angeles area. Although I'd rather not move, I used to live there, and liked it. A friend of mine
who's also unemployed thinks there are more opportunities down there, especially for people who want
to do research-oriented networking projects. (I'm willing to do a commercial networking project,
but my friend isn't.)
Piano practice is going ok for the most part. I can almost play Arabesque at about 100bpm
with proper dynamics and technique. My teacher's goal for me is 110bpm. I am still having some
trouble bringing Spinning Song up to tempo.
I have noticed that I tend to get frustrated more easily with piano practice than singing practice.
For example, in our last concert, my chorus did an a cappella spiritual called All Night.
There aren't that many notes, and the words are pretty simple, but it is a challenge keeping it in
tune while maintaining proper dynamics, etc. I spent a lot of time singing my part repeatedly until
I could do it very softly when needed. (This takes a lot of breath control.) I didn't mind doing
that, but it seems to bother me more when I try to do similar things on piano. I find it difficult
to use different dynamics for each hand. Perhaps I just have more vocal experience, or I have a
better sense of how much practice I have to put into a vocal piece to get it to a performance
level.
