(diaryland) May 24, 2006 - 9:12 a.m.

Brahms has it in for me. I don't know why. I never did anything to him that I know of to make him so mad.

The first time I tried to play Brahms was when I was small. I played that famous Hungarian Rhapsody on the violin and everything seemed to be OK at that time.

Then, in first year uni, I played the same one on piano as a duet with another person. I thought it would be a fun one to pick. It might have been, but the person I did the duet with was so crap and disinterested that maybe it actually offended Brahms. It wasn't my fault, though. I was trying, but it doesn't sound all that good when the bass is going off and the melody is sounding all uncertain and sickly. We still passed the exam, though.

The next time me and Brahms crossed paths was when my piano teacher told me I should play some Brahms because Brahms was good. I was suspicious, but I found a really nice piece that was only three pages long. The next thing I knew, my teacher had ripped the piece out of the book.

The third time I had anything to do with Brahms came to its conclusion yesterday. I had to do an accompaniment exam with a cello player and she said that she wanted to do Brahms for it. I secretly thought, "here we go," but I decided to give Brahms another chance. We had to play a little minuet thing.

I got the music about eight weeks ago and boy, were there a lot of notes. They were all in awkward places and I didn't know what they were all trying to achieve. I practiced them faithfully anyway, and then in the first rehearsal with the cello player I could sort of tell what most of the notes were doing but it still all felt a bit wrong.

It was pretty difficult. I had to practice it for hours but I was sure I'd mastered it. I even knew it off by heart.

Then, yesterday, I had my exam. I went in there, all calm-ish. I opened up my book and the cello player got ready.

The demon of Brahms awoke from the ground and stabbed me in the brain. I spent the whole time sort of dabbing my hands at the piano and wondering what was going on. What the fuck? I'd practiced the freaking thing six zillion times faithfully and respectfully. It was a piece of shit. I knew something like that would happen. The examiners said, "Thanks," and I pissed off out of there, embarrassed. I passed, though.

So, Brahms, I was thinking of playing an Intermezzo in b flat but now, no freaking way. You can stop messing with me because we're through, man. Never again.