Practice Journal- Assessment-

Piece (song) or exercise	This song/exercise will help me improve in the following areas
1. Performing Exercise	1. Help me not look so terrified on stage
2. I run to You- Lady Antebellum	2. Help me to harmonise with a male singer
3. Bust Your Windows- Glee	3. performance/ range
4. Mighty Fortress- Christy Nockels	4. Its a power song with a lot of Range
5. Vegas- Sara Barilles	5. The song is the complete opposite of me.

  

At the beginning of the semester we had to make a practice goals and add songs to our repertoire ect. Then we had to journal every time we practiced and how we improved or didn't! Then at the end of the semester ( NOW) we were to write a 300 word summary of our time with out practice journals. I'm posting mine as a blog because it was a very honest paper for me to write. It made me look back at myself from the beginning up until now. I went back and read a paper I wrote on my goals for the semester. I haven't accomplished any of them but thats okay because I've gained so much more!

 I know my practice journal looks a little different than everyone else’s. To be honest I was so excited at the beginning of the semester to do this. I carefully thought out all of my songs and picked things that I really thought would help.  Looking back through my notebook/journal I remembered how fun it was to practice in the beginning and how I looked forward to the quiet time with the music. My plans were to learn theory and bust out non country songs and just go with this full on.  

Then I got sick. I’m pretty sure I didn’t sing at all after the ultrasound and results unless I was in my room singing songs about healing and declaring them over my life. Looking back at it now I wish I wouldn’t have let Satan take the music from me in this hard time of my life. I didn’t want to sing, I didn’t want to practice, I didn’t even want to get out of bed. When I felt well enough to go to church I couldn’t even worship, nothing came out of my mouth but prayerful tears. I don’t know why my voice left. Maybe it was Satan or maybe God just needed to deal with me in other ways. My worship time had become something very different and so much more than a song.  After the surgery and as I slowly recovered my voice slowly started coming back. I wanted to sing again. My band were some of the most supportive people through the whole ordeal. I remember the day I came back to class and sang “I want to know what love is” one of them was like “oh yeah I forgot you could sing, Im just used to you being sick.” Looking back over my journal and semester I feel like that’s a statement to my whole semester.   I’m not happy with the way my practice journal looks, but I’m not going to fabricate it for a grade. I realized the other day after a conversation with Mary that I’m not Surgery Sarah, and I shouldn’t let this semester define my whole time here. I thought about the girl who auditioned and the girl who actually got on stage and sang “I want to know what love is” for my performance. They were two completely different people. So even though my practice journal doesn’t show improvement or proper competency I know that I learned more this semester than I ever could have dreamed but not the way you or I thought or expected.