THE S IN DDS STANDS FOR SERVE ✨

I forgot I have to be active here so here’s my Twitter tutorial on how to draw folds I made a while back to help a friend!

how it feels to stop tossing and turning and get up to piss

Today, May 17th, would be Howard Ashman's 75th birthday. If you aren't already aware, Howard Ashman worked with Alan Menken to create the wonderful musical Little Shop of Horrors, which has had an undeniable affect on myself and my life. Ashman would go on to work with Menken on multiple Disney films; The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and he even did a lot of early work for Aladdin. He sadly passed away in 1991, during the production of Beauty and the Beast.

Howard Ashman was primarily a lyricist, but he was also a very talented and passionate storyteller. He had such a strong grasp on what made a compelling musical, and in all of his work you can feel an earnest passion for what was created, I think. I personally have a lot of love for the stories him and Alan Menken have brought into the world.

I'd like to conclude my post with words posted today by Alan Menken himself:

Howard Ashman would have turned 75 today. And I'll always ponder what we might have shared and the new works we might have created together in those 35 extra years. Still I somehow know, deep in my heart, that his spirit has been an integral part of everything I've accomplished since his passing. Happy Birthday, Howard!

- Alan Menken

‘Death before Detransition’

@catboybiologist said it best here -

"Death before Detransition" does not mean that I will kill myself if I can't access hormones or be referred to by my preferred language.

It means that there will always be another way. There will always be a stockpile, or distributors, or ways to synthesize the medicine we need. And even if that fails, there will always be community. There will always be identity. There will always be expression, and identity, or some piece of the trans experience, whether it be societal, physiological, or even completely internal, in perpetuity, that lives through every transgender person.

‘Death before Detransition" means that the only way to erase my reality as a transgender woman is to put me in the ground.”

whys he so hot i cant handle it

hey.

If you are thinking of going to college to study an instrument, whether you are an education or performance major, start developing a healthy relationship to practicing now.

When you get to college, you will be expected to practice way more than you currently do. You may be the best musician at your current school; that will likely change in college. You won’t be the only person who is practicing daily anymore.

Your band directors and your private lesson instructors will want you to practice as much as possible. You may see your peers practicing 4+ hours per day. You will feel a lot of pressure to practice more no matter how diligent you already are.

Practicing is a skill that you need to learn. There are a lot of aspects to practicing that you will learn for yourself; however, from a health perspective, these are the three main skills you should learn.

All of these are from the perspective of a band kid. These may or may not apply to strings, piano, etc.

Make sure you have good playing posture

If you didn’t have a private instructor, it is very likely that you learned to play your instrument from a director who played something else. To avoid stress injuries, it is essential that you perfect your posture before you go to music school.

No matter what instrument you play, you need to have a relaxed posture with no tension. Your shoulders should be down and back; you should sit straight up without straining; you should not be gripping your instrument any tighter than you need to support it. I have a tendency to push my clarinet up and out from my body while I’m playing, and I grip it very tightly during technical passages. These issues led to me getting carpal tunnel twice in two semesters.

Along with this, look up some back and wrist stretches to do before and after playing to relieve pain and prevent injury.

Motivate yourself to practice without shaming yourself

You cannot bully yourself into wanting to practice. Shaming yourself for not being a good enough musician, worrying that you’re falling behind, comparing yourself to your peers, all of these things will cause you an immense amount of stress and make you dread practicing. It will become a chore and a punishment, not something that you do because you love playing and want to improve.

It’s similar to how motivating yourself to exercise just to lose weight is an unhealthy and, often, ineffective strategy. You’re thinking of exercise as a punishment for not having the body you want, rather than something you do because you love yourself. I was never able to make myself work out until I started doing it because it improves my mental health, rather than because I thought I needed to lose weight. And even if the shame does motivate you to work out, it will be hard to give yourself a break if you need it because “I have to do this.” It’s the same with practicing.

Learn to practice because it is time spent on something you love, not because you’re a failure without it. Practicing is absolutely essential to a music degree, but it doesn’t have to be a source of stress and shame.

Know your limits

You do not have to push yourself as hard as you possibly can to be a good musician. Steady progress is far more beneficial for your musicianship and your overall health than burning yourself out or getting injured from over-practicing.

I cannot consistently practice for more than two hours per day. Whether I practice all at once or break it up into multiple sessions, that is my physical and mental limit. Your limit may be higher or lower than that; that is perfectly okay. Practice for an amount of time that you can be consistent with every single day. When you know how much time you are going to spend practicing, you can design your practice sessions to fit your goals within that time frame.

However, it’s also important to give yourself breaks when you need them. There are going to be days where you just cannot get yourself to practice; you are allowed to take days off. While consistency is key, everyone needs breaks once in a while. You should also watch out for signs of pain or frustration while you’re already practicing. If you are in pain or getting frustrated, distracted, and tired, you can (and should) stop. “No pain, no gain” is a lie. Take breaks before your body takes matters into its own hands.

My strategy for figuring out if I genuinely can’t practice or if I’m just having executive dysfunction is to give myself a short warmup that I play every day - in my case, all the major and minor scales (I alternate between NM, HM, and MM each day). It takes about 10 minutes.

If the issue is that starting things is hard, I’ll get invested in practicing and I’ll continue my session. If I still don’t want to practice after doing scales, I take that as my sign that something is wrong and I need to take the day off.

the music nerd in me is absolutely eating this up rn

oh also, fun little tidbit about orin's songs: dentist has very prominent and consistent percussion (im convinced it was inspired by "oh yeah, maybe baby" by the crystals.) this sets him up as a character who is stable, powerful, methodical, and consistent in his actions. its also a musical contrast to audrey, whose music is very melody-focused

now (it's just the gas), on the other hand (specifically during orin's parts) is the complete opposite. the rhythm speeds up and slows rapidly, which not only makes it a horrifically difficult song to play and perform, it also symbolizes his slow fall toward death! as he gets weaker, that steady rhythm he once had fades and it becomes more erratic and inconsistent. its super clever and im surpised i havent found other mentions of this

orin scivello save me

I'm coming to realize how vital it is to keep a running list of shit you did in the past few weeks so that you can participate in small talk. It's literally not anything to do with them being interesting at all it's just having Something to say to give people even the barest thing to hold on to. It's so you don't get into the "what have you been up to" "nothing much what about you" "yeah same" trap. Literally just say something.

What have you been up to? Um well it's getting warmer so I've been having to brush my cat every day.

Like no it's not that interesting of a thing to say. But now they can respond to it. They could say, man yeah it really is heating up, I've been trying to think of things to do inside more often. Or, oh you have a cat? What's their name?

Like. It's Something. All you need is Something. And if you're like me and your brain immediately goes blank upon entering small talk then keeping a list will help you remember things to say.