(diaryland) May 24, 2011 - 2:14 p.m.

It's been a while so I can finally bring myself to talk about it now.

On the day of the Eurovision Song Contest Final, I myself was involved in a little musical competition of my own. And I robbed myself of second prize. MYSELF. Ugh.

Anyway, I should explain more. This competition was for an eisteddfod, and my section was Accompaniment. So I had to play a piece I prepared with someone else, yeah? Daniel was playing clarinet. I was playing nice stuff; some 19th century impressionist French work which we had been practising shitloads in the week coming up to the competition day.

I had to play last. There was some 10-year-old playing for two singing sisters, some ace piano trio, a girl accompanying another singer, and Daniel himself, who was playing a fiendishly difficult piece for his girlfriend on clarinet. So Daniel made an appearance twice. He was playing a bit weird when he was doing his piano performance, especially because the piano was crazy, and he accidentally turned two pages at once at one point and got very lost. But it was still good.

So, yeah, I was last. I played like a God, which is a bit of a turnaround for me, because I hate playing in competitions and I still wasn't sure why I'd entered. Peer pressure, I think. But somehow, I wasn't nervous. Everyone was like, "WOAH. That was GOOD." It was slightly magical. So, I felt a little bit into myself afterwards. I thought I'd probably not take out first prize, because the piano trio was pretty fucking good, and I was playing something I'd only practiced a few times, but it still sounded ace. It was just that the difficulty wasn't at crazy levels or anything.

Then, the judge dinged a bell, and the results came out. "Everybody wins an award today," said the announcing lady. I tought, OK, whoop-de-doo, because there were only five people in the competition. But then, it turned out, I got a stupid Honourable Mention along with the 10-year-old child. I did one of those grins you do when you find out you did not win America's Next Top Model.

I was lost. My ensemble work was really good, I thought, and everyone thought my playing was top notch, so why? I was freaked.

But then I received my certificate from the judge, and she said, "I think you got one of the rhythms wrong," and lo and behold, I looked at the music and had make a fucking HUGE mistake in the rhythm. A HUGE and SIMPLE mistake. Something where it still sounded ace together with the clarinet, but was technically incorrect. Everything the lady wrote on the report was really nice stuff, except for when she pointed out the rhythm discrepancy. She said it was a big deal on the report, and to tell the truth, it was.

So I robbed myself of a prize of fifty bucks probably, just by being a complete tool yet still sounding awesome. ARGH.