Susan Gouchee

Heylo one and all~

Sorry, this post isn’t about the most recent Broncos game I went to, like I said in my previous post; rather, it’s about my awesome music teacher, Susan Gouchee, who passed away yesterday with cancer. L

Firstly, her surname is pronounced ‘go-shayy’, not ‘goo-chee’. XD

I was never good enough at singing to be in either the senior A nor the senior B choirs that she conducted, but she was both my music and music extension teacher! (in my defence, I can say that I’m lucky enough to have somehow acquired perfect pitch along the way (although Mikey’s much cooler with absolute pitch XD) and I’m fairly sure that I can sing in tune. XD)

Music extension is a subject that’s only available in year twelve, but you’re supposed to drop one of the six senior subjects you’re currently doing to pick it up.

All throughout year eleven, Mrs. G had been telling me, “Emily, do music extension. Emily, do music extension,” and all throughout year eleven, I’d been responding, “Mrs. G., I’m not willing to drop a subject just to do music extension. Mrs. G., I’m not willing to drop a subject just to take up music extension.” XD Come year twelve, term one, continue that nagging. XD It wasn’t until the beginning of term two that Mrs. G approached me and asked, “Emily, if I ask the headmaster for you and he approves, would you be willing to take up music extension as a seventh senior subject?” my response had been something along the lines of, “Of course! That’s what I’ve been waiting for you to do all along!” Actually, if I remember correctly, which unfortunately, I probably don’t ><, I was lucky enough to top music extension class right when I joined in term two! Poor Josh Mckechie had been so pissed with me. XD

A big part of music extension focuses on composing; Canterbury College used an awesome program called Sibelius, and it was so cool, you could hit the ‘record’ button, playyour tune and the music would automatically be transcribed onto the score for you!

Now, I had the creativity to compose several pieces, but I lacked the creativity to name them! From memory, I simply called them ‘Untitled 1’, ‘Untitled 2’, ‘Untitled 3’, ‘Untitled 4’ and Untitled 5’. Obviously, Mrs. G. wasn’t impressed and sent them back, demanding that I rename them. Fine, whatever. XD So the songs became ‘Piece 1’, ‘Piece 2’, ‘Piece 3’, ‘Piece 4’ and ‘Piece 5’. Unsurprisingly, these names were rejected too; so next, I tried ‘Song 1’, ‘Song 2’, ‘Song 3’, ‘Song 4’ and ‘Song 5’. XD The final ultimatum comes from Mrs. G. “Emily, you give these compositions PROPER names, or I WILL fail you!” Fine, fine. So they get proper names. Actually, BCAC people, you may be familiar with one song: I actually wrote the opening song for PPP back in 2007! I’d called it ‘Power’ or something silly like that, but someone had kindly renamed it something like ‘Overture’ for me. The funny thing was that I didn’t know I had given my song to some PPP higher-up! It wasn’t until the opening night, after all the lights had been turned off, that my song had come on, and I’d been like, “Hey, that sounds familiar … wonder what it’s called?” then, looking at the program, I was like, “Oh my gosh! I wrote that song! Actually, Dr. Lee/fFsobao/Janice, did I send the song to either of you guys?

But back to Mrs. G. After the cruel and unfaithful god so wantonly destroyed my life back in 2007 with the brain tumour, I’d somehow forgotten that I could play piano semi-decently with both hands. Telling Mr. Hall (I wrote a post on him ages back) that, he’d said, “No worries. I’ll go back to Canterbury and ask Mrs. Gouchee (a proper man like him isn’t about to abbreviate anyone’s name XD) if she could find a recording of you playing piano.”

Awesome Mrs. G. did, and after Mr. Hall had brought back a DVD of me playing the piano, I’d e-mailed her, thanking her from the bottom of my heart. She’d replied back almost immediately, with “Of COURSE I remember you!  In fact, Mr Hall has been keeping me up to date with what's been going on - hence, the hunt for the video.

As you would see from the video, you were a lot more than "half-way decent".  I not only remember you for your excellent musicianship and intelligence, but you were also the first student to undertake Music Extension as a 7th subject AND you got straight A's.  You were always a very clever girl and an excellent musician.”

After that, she’d invited me to a Cantabile (Canterbury College’s top girls choir) concert, complete with a free ticket! (usually, they’re fifty bucks.) Mr. Hall had kindly driven mother and I along to St. Paul’s/John’s cathedral, and I’d been so excited to see Mrs. G., I called out her name! Lol, I got SLAPPED by mother for that, but I didn’t really care, coz I was just so excited to see Mrs. G.! Obviously, she was too, coz she immediately jumped down from the stage and rushed over for a quick hug and chat before returning to her singers. XD

Unfortunately, that was basically the last time I kept in touch with Mrs. G. We did exchange Christmas greetings, where she did hint about being ill, but really, I didn’t know anything was seriously amiss until Julz rang mother last night to let us know that Mrs. G. was seriously ill with breast cancer. ><

And the final devastation this afternoon, when I logged into Facebook to find my news feed littered with messages of R.I.P to Mrs. Gouchee. ><

So here’s to the bestest music teacher I was lucky to have; hopefully you’ll be happy in heaven. You’ll be sorely missed, mrs. G.~

Anyways, next post here … really, I’ve gotta post about that absolutely heartbreaking Broncos match the parents and I attended last Friday! Righteo, until then~

Cheers,

Em. ^^

P.S. if anyone/any place is offended by me mentionng them in this post, please let me know and I’ll immediately erase  all traces of you being here.