The first two weeks of September and a bit of August.

It feels a little weird not having to go back to school during the first week of September. I just completed 18 years of school, and it is still pretty hard to believe. I have been up to some things but I am still currently planning how to go about the year before I apply to teacher’s college again.

August

After leaving the Northwestern Percussion Symposium, my mind was refreshed and ready to go for the year. I wanted to work on my playing more than anything after the symposium. It changed my life and the way I think about percussion and my approach to playing. There was just so much valuable information from some of the best players in the world and I get goosebumps just talking about my time there. I brought an 80 page notebook and I have filled every single page. I now have an irreplaceable treasure in my hands.

Performing Time for Marimba by Minoru Miki for Ms. She-e Wu!

I was invited back to take pictures for orientation week and made a couple of short recap videos for each day. It was my first time doing something like that but I had so much fun. Part of me has always been interested in photography and videography, so to bring out my camera for an entire week was a very nice break from work. Not only was I invited back to take pictures, but I was also invited to perform. Therefore, I decided to play a piece that I love and am most familiar with. Eric Sammut’s Rotation II. Why..? If you do not know me, I have performed this piece many times but never to an audience. I’ve recorded this piece twice, played it for my jury, for the percussion studio, and in class. To put it simply, I was never satisfied with the way I played it. So I brought this piece to the stage and I think I played the heck out of it despite my accuracy mistakes. I can’t wait to show everyone when it is available! With this performance, I am finally satisfied with the way I played it and I feel more confident in my abilities than before. To get here, it took a ton of mental practice but I am starting to finally see results in the mental side of things. That is another post for later when I have reflected on my ways.

Photo taken by my friend Dane!

September

As I’ve stated in the beginning, I am out of school. I have been going to work more often and honestly, these first two weeks have been the most exhausting weeks of my life. Working full-time at a retail job takes a lot of effort and I am afraid that if I am feeling exhausted now, then I will definitely be burnt out by 2026… However, I am lucky to have gotten into the TSYO again. I hope that it will be my escape back to music after working long hours for 5 days a week. Next week I will be teaching percussion at a camp and I have received other teaching gigs. Hopefully it will be good enough for my application this time around!
Thanks for reading!

EA

hello:)

Welcome! If you are seeing this, you might have come across my website through Instagram. This part of my website is new, and I am excited to update this according to what is happening during my time away from school. First of all, I do have a story to share that might be as realistic as it gets. How did I end up here?

I am going to take myself back to the end of 12th grade. I had just received acceptance emails and many generous scholarship opportunities. I was feeling like I really aced the audition process even if my audition was one video that I reused because there was no way I was going to record 200 more takes of the same video. Ugh… Anyway, after the horrendous but successful audition period, I was super excited to go to music school so that I could be just like my high school music teacher. He was (and still is) a figure that I really looked up to and I wanted to be someone just like him. After getting accepted to all of the schools, I chose the school where my music teacher attended and where my private lesson teacher went for his master’s degree!

My audition set up (COVID times)

At this point, I was very excited to learn more about music, my instrument, and how to teach others.

Every time I talk to someone about my first year, I tell them “it is like getting pushed into a fire”. It is SO true as someone who barely studied music theory or sang in key her entire life. I was very terrible at sight reading and honestly, my four mallet technique was very underdeveloped. It was a huge change for my life. I did not have to study anything else but music and so it felt weird not having biology during 4th period. Since I was very uneducated with music theory, I would ask my peers for help and because of them, I was able to further understand the concepts which made first year a little more bearable. The very first year is known to be insanely difficult and BUSY but I’ve never had more fun studying how the key of a piece can modulate or playing a 5-Octave marimba.. I REPEAT. 5 OCTAVE MARIMBA! (I never seen one in real life until I got to school)

In my second year, I began to put myself out there more with my instrument. I auditioned to the TSYO and got rejected, performed at the welcome concert, wasn’t very successful, and I began to feel lost. Why was I feeling so nervous when it came to performing, and why did I criticize myself so much for the tiniest mistakes? In my opinion, I felt like I was destroying myself after my mistakes which honestly made me feel worse than I ever was as a percussionist. After getting rejected and having an unsuccessful performance, I pushed myself to become better and better. To exceed people’s expectations of me, an unconfident music education major, is what I wanted to do. From there, I had the most fulfilling year yet. I performed alongside James Campbell and Sam Little on Allan Gilliland’s Dreaming of the Masters I, my playing got more expressive, and I got into the National Youth Band. These performances marked a turning point in my career. I wanted to perform but where did I want to perform? On the podium or at the back of the stage? I wasn’t sure.

It wasn’t until 3rd year where I finally realized what I loved most and wanted to pursue. I wanted to be a music teacher so badly in my first year but this year showed me a lot about percussion, particularly the orchestral side. I decided to audition for the TSYO again and this time, I was accepted. I worked extra hard that summer because I wanted to try orchestral percussion. I have always loved orchestral music but when I listened to my favourite orchestral pieces, I developed a curiosity for the percussion section. Why did it sound so… AWESOME?! Me being the band-loving nerd, I pushed myself to try something different even if it meant sitting until the 4th movement…

At the beginning of this year, I had the opportunity to take the stage again at the Welcome Concert with my dear friend, Claudia. This performance was severely different from last time because I was more confident in myself. I was excited to play even if my brain was convinced that I was scared out of my mind to play in front of so many people. After doing this performance, I was so proud of us because we played very well together and it was like something I have never experienced before.

TSYO deserves a separate paragraph. Anyway, throughout the year with the TSYO and my coach, I have fallen in love with orchestral music all over again, this time, with more passion for the instruments and how the orchestra works together. The very first time I saw the TSO, I was shocked because what I was hearing live sounded just like the recordings I’ve listened to except… IT WAS LIVE! It was shocking to hear an orchestra play for the first time and now, I was part of the youth orchestra. As a member of the orchestra, I worked very hard on my repertoire throughout the year because it was a very valuable experience for me, I got to play insane repertoire. I was encouraged to explore percussion more and to find sounds that I like. Since my first year with the TSYO was very positive, I was inspired to pursue orchestral percussion.

That was until life hit me…

At my part-time job, I had my shifts cut over summer so I was not able to work 5 days a week and get a hefty pay cheque for a student like me. I was on my own financially at this point and I had to pay for my commute to school which was roughly around $300 a month (until the transit system in Toronto decided to introduce the “One Fare” program 😍). The commute and my daily expenses for food ate up the money from my pay cheque of 2-3 work days bi-weekly… That wasn’t enough and applications for schools began to open up. I was starting to feel lost again. I wasn’t sure what to do until I had a talk with my percussion teacher.

This last year of university? It was the year I truly felt like I belonged in my program and with my instrument.

After the talk with my teacher, I had a new sense of self. I returned back to my dreams of being a music teacher even if I wasn’t sure about it anymore. I was able to apply to one school only with the money I had left. While I had this new sense of belonging, I was still pursuing my dreams of becoming an orchestral player. I was constantly improving my percussion playing throughout the entire year. My teachers this year, they supported me and provided me with so much to begin thinking about when I become a teacher. They brought me out of my comfort zone and facilitated change within myself as a musician, teacher, and conductor. I made new friends around the school through the FMUA and created silly content just to give the FMUA page a push in the right direction.

At the end of the year, I decided to bring back the Music Education Recital along with my EMU456 colleagues. Even if there were 5 of us in the course, my colleagues inspired me to bring it back. They are some of the most outstanding musicians in the music education program and I look up to them for their wisdom and their passion to inspire others. The recital was very successful but unsuccessful for the livestream (lol). From this recital, I was set on becoming a music teacher.

What am I up to now?

Well I got rejected from the school I applied to… It doesn’t hurt though. This rejection is what fuels my story.

I am currently taking a gap year to figure things out financially, and how I am going to go about the next few years of my life. I also need to gain tons of experience outside of school before I apply again. To those who are with me throughout this journey, thank you for being here with me.

Until next time!

Elyssa Arde