Welcome, dear students!
It's new year's eve, and everybody's talking about it....including me, it seems. This is, perhaps, a little silly, since today really just feels like another new day, and it will come and go as winter days do (but with extra bluster here in Denver....gusts over 60 MPH, they say). Everyone feels a certain urge to take stock of things -- which my astrologically minded friends might say has more to do with Saturn frowning down at us little earthlings as we labor under the influence of Capricorn than it does with the somewhat arbitrary turning of the year. But, who am I to fight this influence....as you all know, I seldom turn down a chance for some good reflection.
2011 was turbulent, violent, and downright frightening at times. Revolutions and disasters and deaths of prominent people seemed almost commonplace. Hope and fear have danced wildly, as it seemed like every day brought news of some new financial resolution or disaster for the global market. I remember frequently thinking to myself, "Is every year this eventful? Why don't I remember anything like this before?" And, it could be that my own state of affairs as a person finishing a terminal degree (in other words, coming to the end of my last journey as a student to academia's never-never-land) is the cause of my take on 2011 -- I am certainly guilty of being mostly out of the loop on world events when my own little life has me otherwise occupied, and maybe a part of me is just waking up to what everyone else has been saying for years. However, I hear a lot of people around me saying similar things about this year in particular....2011 was a doozy.
So, what to do? We are musicians and artists, not economists or world political leaders. We aren't even engineers or doctors. What can we do? Why does our intonation or rhythmic acuity or performance practice matter in a world that is eating itself alive? I ask myself these kinds of questions a lot (here and elsewhere), and every once in awhile, I get a sliver of answer...
Last night I had dinner with a good friend, and she had spent an absurd amount of time that afternoon at the DMV, during which she passed the time by talking to someone next to her in line. The person she spoke with was a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and he had some very interesting things to say about his experiences there, particularly about the ways in which the US is "helping" the Afghan people. Specifically, he mentioned that US troops are building schools, which sounds like a lovely thing, right? Well, there's a bit of a problem...there's no money or infrastructure to put books, teachers, or students in these school buildings and run them as schools, and the intended students are part of a culture that doesn't conceptualize education in the same way we do, so the western concept of a school is something that just doesn't compute. So, the buildings wind up standing empty, or they wind up getting repurposed by insurgents, and US troops then have to blow up the buildings they just built. This guy was really frustrated about all of this -- frustrated enough to tell a stranger in line at the DMV about it, and honest enough to say that he didn't know what the answers are. I certainly don't have the answers either, but I can take a stab at diagnosing the cause.
When I first arrived in Hungary for my 10-month stint, I showed up expecting to be disoriented. I expected to need to learn about my environment, adjust to new things, find my way around, etc. I was not at all ready for the constant gnawing feeling that it took me weeks to acknowledge, and probably months to name. The problem was this: nothing about my environment told me that I was who I said I was. The signs on the street, the people around me, the procedure for buying produce at the grocery store -- all those things were foreign, they had been the way they were long before I got there, and would be that way after I left. It had nothing to do with me, and that scared me to death, and I didn't know why. In retrospect, this was just culture shock, but many Americans go through their entire lives without working through a case of it, so we have no idea how "American" we actually are. We live our lives calmly unaware that our pragmatic choices are extremely value-laden. We can't buy a carrot or wash a sock or drink a glass of water without having assumed a whole slough of things about the world around us, and those assumptions are almost 100% unconscious. We think we're being objective, we think we're being pragmatic, and we're actually preaching a gospel we don't even know we believe.
So, what's art got to do with it? Well, what do we learn from art? We learn subjectivity. We learn exactitude. We learn expression. We learn about difference. We learn about interpretation. And, while we still probably have to be caught in the act a lot of times before we really start to get it, this training does give people a basic construct for the idea that different isn't necessarily wrong or bad, and that subtle changes really do matter. It's funny, isn't it? Artists get a pretty bad rap for having "artistic personalities" and for following crazy whims and making irresponsible life choices, but an artistic education might be the best hope any person has for understanding and respecting other people. Why? Because as long as your judgments are unconscious (and therefore you just think of them as "logic"), they control you. As soon as you learn to acknowledge judgments as judgments, it might knock you off-balance, but then you get to be in charge...and you can change your own mind. Like the writer of this poem says, you keep working on it, even though someone might get hurt. You examine yourself, become responsible, and you are able to help others do the same.
My friends, 2011 is at her end. We have worked hard, and we will continue into the new year. I invite you to be the reflective people you are, in your personal lives and your artistic lives, and to allow one to infect the other. Be happy. Enjoy your lives of teaching and music-making. Work on yourself, build up your weaknesses and celebrate your strengths and the strengths of others. Nurture yourself and your students with beauty and goodness, so that you can be strong enough not to shy away from difficulty and ugliness. Say yes. Love each other.
All Levels:
Just some listening assignments this time around....
Cells Planets - Chanticleer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl12ZXZeqa4
Conspirare/Craig Hella Johnson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_qfeE0TjyY
Sweet Honey in the Rock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCVvoL_F5gA
Happy new year!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Delving in...
Hello, Solfeggists on Holiday!
I don't know about you, but I'm having a little trouble conjuring up much ambition for work at the moment -- it's been a busy concert season, and the Christmas weekend was more demanding than I'd anticipated. These winter holidays are one of the best and hardest times of year to be a choral musician (or really, any kind of musician), and I've always loved the fact that I get to help make them special for other people. Beginning in high school and on through college, it seemed to me that the end of concert season was the end of Christmas, and I wished it would just go on and on. Well, that particular wish seems to have come true, and now I wish I could fully recapture the joy I used to feel in doing this work.
If I know me, however, the only way to make this wish happen is the right proportion of rest (I'm blogging in my pj's on this fine late morning, which always helps!) and pushing through the tasks at hand. You see, we are lucky, you and I. We have work to do that has a fairly obvious and direct link to meaning and beauty, and a lot of the time, we get to see the end product. That's a lot more than many people can say about their professional lives -- in fact, some of those folks come to us and the work we do on their own time because they want a taste of what we get to experience.
To be honest, it takes all my discipline to believe in this little pep talk, and it's not my intention to make anyone (including myself) feel guilty for taking some time to regroup. We all need that. But, I know that when I wallow too thoroughly for too long in the world of pajamas and TV, I just wind up getting depressed. So, wallow....somewhat....and then maybe put the TV on mute for 30 minutes or so and delve into a little listening, singing, and analysis to feed your inner musician. You might be surprised at how good it feels.
All you folks will need to track down your Music for Analysis book....
Rising Level 2's
no. 166, p. 106 (Schubert - Dance in D-flat)
no. 170, p. 109 (Rameau - Minuet in G minor)
Your procedure:
-Sing through the melody in solfa (these pieces are both very much in "cantilena" style, meaning that the melody lives in the top voice, and it's quite singable as long as you make some judicious octave decisions).
-Play through the piece and mark cadences (the preceding singing step will hopefully make that easy).
-Go phrase by phrase and apply Roman numerals, stopping to re-assess if anything doesn't make sense (e.g., if you find yourself marking a whole lotta iii chords, or if you think you've found a ii-I progression...).
Rising Level 3's
no. 233, p. 165 (Bach - In dulci jubilo)
no. 234, p. 166 (Bach - Christ lag in Todesbanden)
Your procedure:
-Sing through the melody in solfa (In dulci jubilo is very straightforward, and you may use either A-la or D-la or a combination for Christ lag).
-Play through the piece and mark cadences
-Go phrase by phrase and apply Roman numerals (which should be fine for In dulci jubilo) OR solfa chords (highly recommended for Christ lag)
Rising Level 4's
no. 357, p. 289 (Strauss - Morgen)
Because this piece is a little on the complex side...
-Listen to any one of several lovely YouTube recordings of the piece (many of them won't be in this key, but don't be thrown).
-Sing through the melody in solfa (I'd start in the key indicated by the signature, but on a chromatic syllable...when things get wacky at the end, use your listening experience to inform your solfa).
-Do a letter-name chord analysis first, and then go back and try to apply Roman numerals where it seems logical to do so. Take particular notice of the final chord and its figured bass configuration. Why do you think Strauss wrote it that way? Do you think it has to do with the text of the song (a translation is conveniently located at the end of the piece)?
Enjoy!
I don't know about you, but I'm having a little trouble conjuring up much ambition for work at the moment -- it's been a busy concert season, and the Christmas weekend was more demanding than I'd anticipated. These winter holidays are one of the best and hardest times of year to be a choral musician (or really, any kind of musician), and I've always loved the fact that I get to help make them special for other people. Beginning in high school and on through college, it seemed to me that the end of concert season was the end of Christmas, and I wished it would just go on and on. Well, that particular wish seems to have come true, and now I wish I could fully recapture the joy I used to feel in doing this work.
If I know me, however, the only way to make this wish happen is the right proportion of rest (I'm blogging in my pj's on this fine late morning, which always helps!) and pushing through the tasks at hand. You see, we are lucky, you and I. We have work to do that has a fairly obvious and direct link to meaning and beauty, and a lot of the time, we get to see the end product. That's a lot more than many people can say about their professional lives -- in fact, some of those folks come to us and the work we do on their own time because they want a taste of what we get to experience.
To be honest, it takes all my discipline to believe in this little pep talk, and it's not my intention to make anyone (including myself) feel guilty for taking some time to regroup. We all need that. But, I know that when I wallow too thoroughly for too long in the world of pajamas and TV, I just wind up getting depressed. So, wallow....somewhat....and then maybe put the TV on mute for 30 minutes or so and delve into a little listening, singing, and analysis to feed your inner musician. You might be surprised at how good it feels.
All you folks will need to track down your Music for Analysis book....
Rising Level 2's
no. 166, p. 106 (Schubert - Dance in D-flat)
no. 170, p. 109 (Rameau - Minuet in G minor)
Your procedure:
-Sing through the melody in solfa (these pieces are both very much in "cantilena" style, meaning that the melody lives in the top voice, and it's quite singable as long as you make some judicious octave decisions).
-Play through the piece and mark cadences (the preceding singing step will hopefully make that easy).
-Go phrase by phrase and apply Roman numerals, stopping to re-assess if anything doesn't make sense (e.g., if you find yourself marking a whole lotta iii chords, or if you think you've found a ii-I progression...).
Rising Level 3's
no. 233, p. 165 (Bach - In dulci jubilo)
no. 234, p. 166 (Bach - Christ lag in Todesbanden)
Your procedure:
-Sing through the melody in solfa (In dulci jubilo is very straightforward, and you may use either A-la or D-la or a combination for Christ lag).
-Play through the piece and mark cadences
-Go phrase by phrase and apply Roman numerals (which should be fine for In dulci jubilo) OR solfa chords (highly recommended for Christ lag)
Rising Level 4's
no. 357, p. 289 (Strauss - Morgen)
Because this piece is a little on the complex side...
-Listen to any one of several lovely YouTube recordings of the piece (many of them won't be in this key, but don't be thrown).
-Sing through the melody in solfa (I'd start in the key indicated by the signature, but on a chromatic syllable...when things get wacky at the end, use your listening experience to inform your solfa).
-Do a letter-name chord analysis first, and then go back and try to apply Roman numerals where it seems logical to do so. Take particular notice of the final chord and its figured bass configuration. Why do you think Strauss wrote it that way? Do you think it has to do with the text of the song (a translation is conveniently located at the end of the piece)?
Enjoy!
Monday, December 19, 2011
To tell the truth...
Greetings, dear readers!
It's a snowy winter's evening here....just right for the week before Christmas, the darkness of the winter solstice almost at its full strength. I think I just might have finished all my Christmas shopping this afternoon, and while there's still Christmas Eve and Day left in the realm of holiday singing obligations, things have finally slowed down. The cycle of the year brings around lots of memories as it moves, and in my line of work, those memories sometimes appear unexpectedly in the form of people who I associate with a past time or former place showing up to concerts in my here and now. And, since the nature of the season inevitably leads to some exhaustion, verbal filters sometimes don't work so well.
This is all sort of an oblique way of saying that I said a little more of what I meant than I really should have at least one time yesterday, and I feel a little bad about it. I'm inclined sometimes to blame my penchant for excessive honesty in these moments on my parents' choice of a name for me, which is derived from Gabriel, angel of the annunciation. Naming a kid after a celestial being who had to start most of his sentences with, "Fear not!" seems like kind of a set-up to me. I've met a few other folks in my time whose names have the same derivation, and we do seem to have this in common...the urge to proclaim sometimes just overrides common sense.
I'm mostly not serious about this, but I'm a little serious about it. People sometimes engage in behavior that is not the best choice for a given situation. People have default settings that steer them consistently in a particular direction, and while it is possible to override those settings under optimal conditions, tiredness has a way of bringing out whatever is most natural or most habitual. For me, that often includes telling the truth...the whole truth, and way more truth than anyone really wants, in far more detail than is necessary or helpful. There have been situations in my life where this tendency has served me excellently -- and probably many more situations where this tendency has gotten me into trouble or made other people feel awkward or created other kinds of problems. We all have stuff like this, I believe. In A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle deals with these kinds of hard-wired personality traits through the character of her protagonist, Meg Murry, who is in the throes of pubescent angst, and is very unhappy, even downright ill-tempered, for much of the book. However, at the moment of crisis, it is Meg's temper and stubbornness that actually winds up saving the world. L'Engle still refers to these traits in Meg's personality as "faults," but it makes me wonder: can the traits that save us truly be considered faults?
To look at the same idea from a different angle, consider a group exercise/pep talk my dear guest blogger, Ted, likes to have with his choirs sometimes:
"Ok, will everyone in this room who is perfect please raise your hand?"
[no one moves, nervous giggles ensue]
"Well, I have news for you. You're all wrong. Each of you is exactly who you need to be. Do you always do perfect? No. But, you all are perfect, right now, today, at this very moment."
So, no matter what we do -- all of us, any of us, even the jerk who stole your parking spot, or the moron who screwed up your account at the bank, or the nasty lady who yelled at you for cutting in line at the coffee shop even though you apologized and said you didn't see her -- we are operating from a good place. We're doing the best we can under the circumstances. It is not easy to believe, and it isn't a release from responsibility or a license to do whatever we want, but...
We're perfect.
And there's nothing that can be done to change that. You can't screw up.
Pretty liberating...and when you get to thinking about it, extremely scary. Sometimes we all feel like freaks/jerks/morons/nasty people...but this is what we've got to work with. And, speaking of work:
Rising Level 2's
Take a look at this piece:
http://www3.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/han-mf10.pdf
Many of you will recognize it -- you're probably used to hearing a soloist sing essentially the same material before the chorus comes in....
For our purposes, use this scheme for the key changes:
in m. 5-6, all parts will move into A Major
at the pickup to m. 19, all parts will return to D Major
in m. 26 and 29, the G-sharp and C-natural are just chromatic inflections
So, you may do as you wish with this piece, but in the spirit of today's blog theme, consider this: what comes the most naturally to you in solfa class? Singing? Analysis? Memory? Sight-singing? Dictation? Whatever your strengths are, design some activities for yourself with this piece that give you a chance to delight in what you already know you do well.
Then, ask yourself about your weaknesses in the solfa classroom. Whatever these might be, design some other activities that will help you build your skills in these areas.
Rising Level 3's
For you, a setting by William Byrd of the same text, but in Latin:
http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/9a/BYRD-SUR.pdf
You're on your own for key area choices (though I will tell you that the opening signature is a little deceptive....perhaps even a little Dorian....), but follow the same procedure as the rising level 2's -- seek out your own strengths and weaknesses, and use this piece as a tool to work with both.
Rising Level 4's
And for you, a polychoral setting by Palestrina of the same text, also in Latin:
http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/pal-surg.pdf
You, too, are on your own tonally, and should follow the same procedure as the others -- use what you know best and do best to access what is harder for you. After all, this is what it's all about.
Notice that the text of all three pieces has everything to do with the theme, too:
Arise, shine, for your light has come!
It's a snowy winter's evening here....just right for the week before Christmas, the darkness of the winter solstice almost at its full strength. I think I just might have finished all my Christmas shopping this afternoon, and while there's still Christmas Eve and Day left in the realm of holiday singing obligations, things have finally slowed down. The cycle of the year brings around lots of memories as it moves, and in my line of work, those memories sometimes appear unexpectedly in the form of people who I associate with a past time or former place showing up to concerts in my here and now. And, since the nature of the season inevitably leads to some exhaustion, verbal filters sometimes don't work so well.
This is all sort of an oblique way of saying that I said a little more of what I meant than I really should have at least one time yesterday, and I feel a little bad about it. I'm inclined sometimes to blame my penchant for excessive honesty in these moments on my parents' choice of a name for me, which is derived from Gabriel, angel of the annunciation. Naming a kid after a celestial being who had to start most of his sentences with, "Fear not!" seems like kind of a set-up to me. I've met a few other folks in my time whose names have the same derivation, and we do seem to have this in common...the urge to proclaim sometimes just overrides common sense.
I'm mostly not serious about this, but I'm a little serious about it. People sometimes engage in behavior that is not the best choice for a given situation. People have default settings that steer them consistently in a particular direction, and while it is possible to override those settings under optimal conditions, tiredness has a way of bringing out whatever is most natural or most habitual. For me, that often includes telling the truth...the whole truth, and way more truth than anyone really wants, in far more detail than is necessary or helpful. There have been situations in my life where this tendency has served me excellently -- and probably many more situations where this tendency has gotten me into trouble or made other people feel awkward or created other kinds of problems. We all have stuff like this, I believe. In A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle deals with these kinds of hard-wired personality traits through the character of her protagonist, Meg Murry, who is in the throes of pubescent angst, and is very unhappy, even downright ill-tempered, for much of the book. However, at the moment of crisis, it is Meg's temper and stubbornness that actually winds up saving the world. L'Engle still refers to these traits in Meg's personality as "faults," but it makes me wonder: can the traits that save us truly be considered faults?
To look at the same idea from a different angle, consider a group exercise/pep talk my dear guest blogger, Ted, likes to have with his choirs sometimes:
"Ok, will everyone in this room who is perfect please raise your hand?"
[no one moves, nervous giggles ensue]
"Well, I have news for you. You're all wrong. Each of you is exactly who you need to be. Do you always do perfect? No. But, you all are perfect, right now, today, at this very moment."
So, no matter what we do -- all of us, any of us, even the jerk who stole your parking spot, or the moron who screwed up your account at the bank, or the nasty lady who yelled at you for cutting in line at the coffee shop even though you apologized and said you didn't see her -- we are operating from a good place. We're doing the best we can under the circumstances. It is not easy to believe, and it isn't a release from responsibility or a license to do whatever we want, but...
We're perfect.
And there's nothing that can be done to change that. You can't screw up.
Pretty liberating...and when you get to thinking about it, extremely scary. Sometimes we all feel like freaks/jerks/morons/nasty people...but this is what we've got to work with. And, speaking of work:
Rising Level 2's
Take a look at this piece:
http://www3.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/han-mf10.pdf
Many of you will recognize it -- you're probably used to hearing a soloist sing essentially the same material before the chorus comes in....
For our purposes, use this scheme for the key changes:
in m. 5-6, all parts will move into A Major
at the pickup to m. 19, all parts will return to D Major
in m. 26 and 29, the G-sharp and C-natural are just chromatic inflections
So, you may do as you wish with this piece, but in the spirit of today's blog theme, consider this: what comes the most naturally to you in solfa class? Singing? Analysis? Memory? Sight-singing? Dictation? Whatever your strengths are, design some activities for yourself with this piece that give you a chance to delight in what you already know you do well.
Then, ask yourself about your weaknesses in the solfa classroom. Whatever these might be, design some other activities that will help you build your skills in these areas.
Rising Level 3's
For you, a setting by William Byrd of the same text, but in Latin:
http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/9a/BYRD-SUR.pdf
You're on your own for key area choices (though I will tell you that the opening signature is a little deceptive....perhaps even a little Dorian....), but follow the same procedure as the rising level 2's -- seek out your own strengths and weaknesses, and use this piece as a tool to work with both.
Rising Level 4's
And for you, a polychoral setting by Palestrina of the same text, also in Latin:
http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/pal-surg.pdf
You, too, are on your own tonally, and should follow the same procedure as the others -- use what you know best and do best to access what is harder for you. After all, this is what it's all about.
Notice that the text of all three pieces has everything to do with the theme, too:
Arise, shine, for your light has come!
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Building Memories
Greetings, dear students!
Here we are, already up to the third Sunday of Advent! How did 2011 go by so very quickly?
I'm guessing that many of you are headed into a week full of concerts, and almost all of you will be dealing with stir-crazy students hopped up on too much sugar and the promise of the imminent winter break. This being the case, I'll try to keep things extra short and simple.
So, I was sitting in a church service this morning and we sang a hymn tune I particularly like (I've included it below for the rising level 4's), and I decided to see how much of it I thought I could sing from memory in letter names (and by sing, I mean audiate -- I think the person giving the sermon wouldn't have appreciated my little game very much if it had happened out loud). It only took a few minutes, and I was able to do it in a moment when I had to be sitting someplace quietly, but where I could divide my aural attention -- this would be a great bus-riding activity, or possibly driving, but be judicious on that one...I don't want to be responsible for anyone getting into an audiation-related car wreck. It's also nice to have a lovely new tune committed to memory, and that way you can share it with a friend or loved one.
The procedure will be basically the same for all levels. Take a couple days with each of the steps below:
Step 1: Listen to the tune a few times until you have it memorized (words are optional for my purposes, but you will probably want to learn them for your own use). Determine the form of the piece and start to think of it in phrases as you memorize, since that will help you with the steps below.
Step 2: Start to solmize the tune phrase-by-phrase. The rising 2's and 3's will keep the same solfa all the way through, but the 4's may choose to modulate if they wish. If you opt to modulate (which you could do more than one time, as it turns out...), be sure to keep track of where you've gone by remembering your original "do" -- otherwise, you'll be a little sunk for the next step.
Step 3: Once you can fluently sing the piece by memory in solfa, try singing it in rhythm names. Then, find a comfortable key for your voice, and start singing the tune in letter names. If things get muddled in the middle (especially for you 4's!), try for the first and last phrase and work inward. Once you're pretty sure you've got it right, write it down and check your notation (I'll leave the tracking down of a notational source to you so as to reduce the temptation to give up too soon).
What tripped you up? What was easy? Did you find it easier to commit the notes or the words (if you used them) to memory? Did you find that your memory of the tune was tied to your memory of the text? My hunch is that they will go together, simply because of the kinds of tunes being used.
Rising Level 2's
Take a listen to this lovely tune from Annie Lennox's new album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7s_zaF74gc
Rising Level 3's
I'm not crazy about the long pauses at the end of each phrase, but I think the voice on this old LP is quite sweet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_u07i1YdGY
Rising Level 4's
Again, there are some funny phrase things happening here -- if you find a recording of the tune "Jerusalem" (which is the same tune) that's more straightforward, feel free to bring it to my attention:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lpUk3UTJ14
I apologize for being so churchy...if you'd prefer to substitute something a bit more secular, but of a comparable level of difficulty, please feel free!
Enjoy!
Here we are, already up to the third Sunday of Advent! How did 2011 go by so very quickly?
I'm guessing that many of you are headed into a week full of concerts, and almost all of you will be dealing with stir-crazy students hopped up on too much sugar and the promise of the imminent winter break. This being the case, I'll try to keep things extra short and simple.
So, I was sitting in a church service this morning and we sang a hymn tune I particularly like (I've included it below for the rising level 4's), and I decided to see how much of it I thought I could sing from memory in letter names (and by sing, I mean audiate -- I think the person giving the sermon wouldn't have appreciated my little game very much if it had happened out loud). It only took a few minutes, and I was able to do it in a moment when I had to be sitting someplace quietly, but where I could divide my aural attention -- this would be a great bus-riding activity, or possibly driving, but be judicious on that one...I don't want to be responsible for anyone getting into an audiation-related car wreck. It's also nice to have a lovely new tune committed to memory, and that way you can share it with a friend or loved one.
The procedure will be basically the same for all levels. Take a couple days with each of the steps below:
Step 1: Listen to the tune a few times until you have it memorized (words are optional for my purposes, but you will probably want to learn them for your own use). Determine the form of the piece and start to think of it in phrases as you memorize, since that will help you with the steps below.
Step 2: Start to solmize the tune phrase-by-phrase. The rising 2's and 3's will keep the same solfa all the way through, but the 4's may choose to modulate if they wish. If you opt to modulate (which you could do more than one time, as it turns out...), be sure to keep track of where you've gone by remembering your original "do" -- otherwise, you'll be a little sunk for the next step.
Step 3: Once you can fluently sing the piece by memory in solfa, try singing it in rhythm names. Then, find a comfortable key for your voice, and start singing the tune in letter names. If things get muddled in the middle (especially for you 4's!), try for the first and last phrase and work inward. Once you're pretty sure you've got it right, write it down and check your notation (I'll leave the tracking down of a notational source to you so as to reduce the temptation to give up too soon).
What tripped you up? What was easy? Did you find it easier to commit the notes or the words (if you used them) to memory? Did you find that your memory of the tune was tied to your memory of the text? My hunch is that they will go together, simply because of the kinds of tunes being used.
Rising Level 2's
Take a listen to this lovely tune from Annie Lennox's new album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7s_zaF74gc
Rising Level 3's
I'm not crazy about the long pauses at the end of each phrase, but I think the voice on this old LP is quite sweet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_u07i1YdGY
Rising Level 4's
Again, there are some funny phrase things happening here -- if you find a recording of the tune "Jerusalem" (which is the same tune) that's more straightforward, feel free to bring it to my attention:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lpUk3UTJ14
I apologize for being so churchy...if you'd prefer to substitute something a bit more secular, but of a comparable level of difficulty, please feel free!
Enjoy!
Monday, December 5, 2011
Beginner's Mind...and Deeper Magic
Greetings, solfa sojourners!
I apologize for the lateness of this post....it was quite the week in my little world.
First, I am now officially (drumroll....)......A.B.D. (all but dissertation)! This means that the comprehensive exam process is now completely behind me, and there's just a collection of projects and papers standing between me and a shiny new set of letters to follow my name: DMA. I'm currently curled up on my couch with a glass of Spanish wine and a variegated collection of dark chocolate (courtesy of a much-loved colleague), but The Josquin Companion is glaring at me a little from my bookshelf, and I well know that I'll have to get cracking if I really want to get 'er done in time for a May 2012 graduation.
However, the four concerts and two church services I sang this weekend have earned me an evening of moderate slovenliness (and a breakfast tomorrow morning of these...), and also a moment of reflection -- courtesy of, in part, the aforementioned church services.
The orals portion of the comps process is more than a little nerve-wracking, although I was incredibly fortunate to have an extremely gracious and supportive committee of professors who I believe to be truly invested in my success. Still, though, the prospect of two hours in a room with five extremely smart people tasked with finding out what you know is pretty sobering. I definitely felt the pinch (especially over the "game" one professor decided to play: he told me to study choral music from 1000 CE to 2010, and he had planned to pick four years at random from that millennial span, whereupon it was my job to talk about what happened in those years. In the actual exam, he picked 1190, 1757, and 1910...if you're looking for something musicological to do, do a little digging on these years and see what you come up with...). Interestingly, however, there was a moment in the middle of the exam when I was feeling at a loss for one thing or another, and this thought occurred to me:
"Thank goodness for having more questions to ask."
Not that I'd started to wonder whether or not I know everything....I harbor no delusions on that front. However, there's an unavoidable jadedness that comes with all these years of post-graduate education and the rigors of study and practice and working too hard. Familiarity just breeds contempt, no matter what one does. So, this is analogous to what the preacher on Sunday called "Deep Magic" (in the Narnian sense)...sowing and reaping, the inevitability of a pattern based on natural law. But there is, as Aslan said, a magic deeper still. Sometimes, through the grace of something unforseeable, we are shaken out of the pattern, and we see something new. It isn't the pattern that has changed, as it turns out. It's us. We look at something well-worn and well-known and our perspective is reborn. We are able to be present in a different way, and we are beginners again. A well-known Zen teacher spoke about this phenomenon, too -- he calls it "beginner's mind," and he claims it is always with us. This kind of shift (a move towards enlightenment, if you will) is always about to happen.
So, in this spirit:
Rising Level 2's
See if you can find these in your handouts from Level I:
Canon 109
Canon 106
Canon 75
Sing through each one, remembering the twists and turns of each. Are the things that tripped you up once still troublesome, or have they changed? Do you perceive the phrase structures the same way you once did? Do you hear or see anything new? Sing through one of the other canons on the same xeroxed page and compare the experience of singing something familiar (if distantly so!) with singing something new. How has your musicianship evolved? How has your approach changed, if at all?
Rising Level 3's
Break out your Classical Canons book and track these down:
Canon 115
Canon 117
Canon 179
Follow the same instructions as the rising 2's.
Rising Level 4's
Track down your Kodaly 15 2-part Exercises, please....
Look at exercise number 12 and sing through both lines.
How well do you remember them? Which parts are the easiest to remember? What makes them memorable? How has your experience of this piece changed since July? Now look at number 15 (which I think we looked at only in passing, if at all). How will you approach it? How does it differ from number 12, both in terms of difficulty and in terms of its construction? Does the appearance of accidentals elicit a different intellectual/vocal response from you now than it did in July? How have you changed since then?
It is my hope that you'll be pleasantly surprised by what you discover through these activities -- and even if you're not, my money's on the fact that you've all grown and changed and improved since I saw you last, even if it doesn't seem obvious at the moment. The hard part of this musical journey we're all taking is that we don't always get to enjoy our own progress. However, it's still there. The moment of revelation is always at hand. The deeper magic is never not at work.
I apologize for the lateness of this post....it was quite the week in my little world.
First, I am now officially (drumroll....)......A.B.D. (all but dissertation)! This means that the comprehensive exam process is now completely behind me, and there's just a collection of projects and papers standing between me and a shiny new set of letters to follow my name: DMA. I'm currently curled up on my couch with a glass of Spanish wine and a variegated collection of dark chocolate (courtesy of a much-loved colleague), but The Josquin Companion is glaring at me a little from my bookshelf, and I well know that I'll have to get cracking if I really want to get 'er done in time for a May 2012 graduation.
However, the four concerts and two church services I sang this weekend have earned me an evening of moderate slovenliness (and a breakfast tomorrow morning of these...), and also a moment of reflection -- courtesy of, in part, the aforementioned church services.
The orals portion of the comps process is more than a little nerve-wracking, although I was incredibly fortunate to have an extremely gracious and supportive committee of professors who I believe to be truly invested in my success. Still, though, the prospect of two hours in a room with five extremely smart people tasked with finding out what you know is pretty sobering. I definitely felt the pinch (especially over the "game" one professor decided to play: he told me to study choral music from 1000 CE to 2010, and he had planned to pick four years at random from that millennial span, whereupon it was my job to talk about what happened in those years. In the actual exam, he picked 1190, 1757, and 1910...if you're looking for something musicological to do, do a little digging on these years and see what you come up with...). Interestingly, however, there was a moment in the middle of the exam when I was feeling at a loss for one thing or another, and this thought occurred to me:
"Thank goodness for having more questions to ask."
Not that I'd started to wonder whether or not I know everything....I harbor no delusions on that front. However, there's an unavoidable jadedness that comes with all these years of post-graduate education and the rigors of study and practice and working too hard. Familiarity just breeds contempt, no matter what one does. So, this is analogous to what the preacher on Sunday called "Deep Magic" (in the Narnian sense)...sowing and reaping, the inevitability of a pattern based on natural law. But there is, as Aslan said, a magic deeper still. Sometimes, through the grace of something unforseeable, we are shaken out of the pattern, and we see something new. It isn't the pattern that has changed, as it turns out. It's us. We look at something well-worn and well-known and our perspective is reborn. We are able to be present in a different way, and we are beginners again. A well-known Zen teacher spoke about this phenomenon, too -- he calls it "beginner's mind," and he claims it is always with us. This kind of shift (a move towards enlightenment, if you will) is always about to happen.
So, in this spirit:
Rising Level 2's
See if you can find these in your handouts from Level I:
Canon 109
Canon 106
Canon 75
Sing through each one, remembering the twists and turns of each. Are the things that tripped you up once still troublesome, or have they changed? Do you perceive the phrase structures the same way you once did? Do you hear or see anything new? Sing through one of the other canons on the same xeroxed page and compare the experience of singing something familiar (if distantly so!) with singing something new. How has your musicianship evolved? How has your approach changed, if at all?
Rising Level 3's
Break out your Classical Canons book and track these down:
Canon 115
Canon 117
Canon 179
Follow the same instructions as the rising 2's.
Rising Level 4's
Track down your Kodaly 15 2-part Exercises, please....
Look at exercise number 12 and sing through both lines.
How well do you remember them? Which parts are the easiest to remember? What makes them memorable? How has your experience of this piece changed since July? Now look at number 15 (which I think we looked at only in passing, if at all). How will you approach it? How does it differ from number 12, both in terms of difficulty and in terms of its construction? Does the appearance of accidentals elicit a different intellectual/vocal response from you now than it did in July? How have you changed since then?
It is my hope that you'll be pleasantly surprised by what you discover through these activities -- and even if you're not, my money's on the fact that you've all grown and changed and improved since I saw you last, even if it doesn't seem obvious at the moment. The hard part of this musical journey we're all taking is that we don't always get to enjoy our own progress. However, it's still there. The moment of revelation is always at hand. The deeper magic is never not at work.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
The Way It's Supposed to Be
Hello, my dear readers!
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday this past Thursday and are still basking in the glory of leftovers, loved ones, and a glut of sleep (for a change!). I had the privilege of spending my holiday with a dear friend, and we decided to get our celebration started a day early by doing ceremonial day-before-Thanksgiving grocery shopping (which is quite the people-watching opportunity), followed by a viewing of the new Muppet Movie (which I unabashedly adored -- truly, I felt like someone had just defibrillated my childhood....if you're afraid you'll be disappointed, cast your worries aside and go see it!). All was well, and we decided to go get a bite to eat afterward at a favorite sushi restaurant, and shortly thereafter, disaster struck. Food poisoning, but only affecting me (which was lucky, as it turns out). 'Nuff said.
Several hours into the unpleasantness of all that, I was reminded of a mantra I learned earlier this fall and have used periodically:
"Oh. So that's the way it's supposed to be."
Those of you who know me also know this kind of sentiment does not come naturally to me. Diagnosing and correcting problems is a choral conductor and teacher and administrative assistant's bread-and-butter, and just letting things be is not usually a part of that recipe. I find it especially strange that this thought came to me in a moment when there were some very clear things I would have preferred to change about my state of affairs. It helped....not physically, but it helped my little mind, which was oh-so-upset about the dinner preparations I wasn't doing, the inconvenience I was creating, the church service the next morning I was afraid I couldn't sing, etc., etc., etc. Maybe it was because I was too exhausted to fight it anymore, and my habitual pattern of "preventative worry" (because that always works, right?) was just plain unsustainable.
In any case, I had a somewhat extraordinary experience the next morning at the church service to which I did manage to drag myself. The choir sang two pieces, and normally those particular pieces require a fair amount of mental energy for me to stay focused and accurate throughout, and to my surprise, I found them considerably easier to sing when my brain wasn't working quite as well as usual. Isn't that strange? It was as if there were no distractions, just the task at hand, and I could do it without a problem. Again, this leads me to believe that the "preventative worry" gears in my head that always seem to be turning are a manifestation of energy that could be more effectively spent elsewhere.
With the oral follow-up to the written exams of a month or so ago happening on Monday, the worry gears are definitely grinding away again, but I'm trying to be patient with them, and patient with me as I get ready to cross this turnstile into the last phase of the degree. I am grateful that I had these glimmers of realization, even through the lens of something so very undesirable. Sometimes, it's important to be reminded that "the way it's supposed to be" exists in advance only in our imaginations, and when we form an attachment to that image, regardless of how nice it might be, we are setting ourselves up in a bad way. "The way it's supposed to be" in advance of "the way it is" is a trap. So:
All Levels
As we enter a very busy and crazy-making part of the year, when many of us feel obligated to make magic for other people and spend so much time planning towards an image of "the way it's supposed to be," I challenge you (and myself!) to stop anytime it occurs to you, take a breath, and remind yourself in that moment:
"Oh. So that's the way it's supposed to be."
No matter what it is.
Courage!
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday this past Thursday and are still basking in the glory of leftovers, loved ones, and a glut of sleep (for a change!). I had the privilege of spending my holiday with a dear friend, and we decided to get our celebration started a day early by doing ceremonial day-before-Thanksgiving grocery shopping (which is quite the people-watching opportunity), followed by a viewing of the new Muppet Movie (which I unabashedly adored -- truly, I felt like someone had just defibrillated my childhood....if you're afraid you'll be disappointed, cast your worries aside and go see it!). All was well, and we decided to go get a bite to eat afterward at a favorite sushi restaurant, and shortly thereafter, disaster struck. Food poisoning, but only affecting me (which was lucky, as it turns out). 'Nuff said.
Several hours into the unpleasantness of all that, I was reminded of a mantra I learned earlier this fall and have used periodically:
"Oh. So that's the way it's supposed to be."
Those of you who know me also know this kind of sentiment does not come naturally to me. Diagnosing and correcting problems is a choral conductor and teacher and administrative assistant's bread-and-butter, and just letting things be is not usually a part of that recipe. I find it especially strange that this thought came to me in a moment when there were some very clear things I would have preferred to change about my state of affairs. It helped....not physically, but it helped my little mind, which was oh-so-upset about the dinner preparations I wasn't doing, the inconvenience I was creating, the church service the next morning I was afraid I couldn't sing, etc., etc., etc. Maybe it was because I was too exhausted to fight it anymore, and my habitual pattern of "preventative worry" (because that always works, right?) was just plain unsustainable.
In any case, I had a somewhat extraordinary experience the next morning at the church service to which I did manage to drag myself. The choir sang two pieces, and normally those particular pieces require a fair amount of mental energy for me to stay focused and accurate throughout, and to my surprise, I found them considerably easier to sing when my brain wasn't working quite as well as usual. Isn't that strange? It was as if there were no distractions, just the task at hand, and I could do it without a problem. Again, this leads me to believe that the "preventative worry" gears in my head that always seem to be turning are a manifestation of energy that could be more effectively spent elsewhere.
With the oral follow-up to the written exams of a month or so ago happening on Monday, the worry gears are definitely grinding away again, but I'm trying to be patient with them, and patient with me as I get ready to cross this turnstile into the last phase of the degree. I am grateful that I had these glimmers of realization, even through the lens of something so very undesirable. Sometimes, it's important to be reminded that "the way it's supposed to be" exists in advance only in our imaginations, and when we form an attachment to that image, regardless of how nice it might be, we are setting ourselves up in a bad way. "The way it's supposed to be" in advance of "the way it is" is a trap. So:
All Levels
As we enter a very busy and crazy-making part of the year, when many of us feel obligated to make magic for other people and spend so much time planning towards an image of "the way it's supposed to be," I challenge you (and myself!) to stop anytime it occurs to you, take a breath, and remind yourself in that moment:
"Oh. So that's the way it's supposed to be."
No matter what it is.
Courage!
Saturday, November 19, 2011
St. Cecilia's Day
Greetings, my dear Cecilians!
I'm about three days early, but I'm calling it close enough for a little tribute to my favorite saint: Cecilia, patron saint of music.
She's really my favorite because of this poem by W.H. Auden, which he wrote for my beloved Benjamin Britten, who was born on Nov. 22, St. Cecilia's Day. Britten turned around and composed a three-movement choral setting for the poem called "Hymn to St. Cecilia" -- you can listen to a recording here. Normally I might say something critical about the recording (and I'm definitely keeping my own counsel about tempi....particularly in mvt. 3), but this piece is SO difficult that it seems hopelessly uncharitable to find fault.
The story of St. Cecilia is referenced in Auden's poem, but not related in any readily identifiable form, so I'll give you all the concise version:
First, there's Cecilia, a first-century (C.E.) Roman convert to Christianity, daughter of member of the Roman aristocracy. Her pagan father decides to marry her off to Valerian, another pagan nobleman. Well, this is a big problem for Cecilia, since she's made a vow of chastity (sort of like how I've made a vow of solfa....ok, maybe it's not the same...), so at her wedding, she's pretty upset. She's so upset, in fact, that the fervency of her silent prayer for deliverance from this situation became audible to other people as music. It is from this part of the story that her connection with music is made -- our Cecilia was evidently so good at audiation that she could make other people hear it, too (Kidding...kind of....)! Later depictions of St. Cecilia with an organ (like this famous one) actually result from a mistranslation of the original Latin telling of the story -- the word "organis" was used in the story to indicate that Cecilia was praying in her heart, but later, people decided that it meant she was using a musical instrument, and even credited her with the invention of the organ.
Anyhow, after the wedding, she and Valerian had a very serious talk about what was and was not going to be happening that night, and Valerian went out to get some air along the Via Appia, and ran into this guy Urban (later to become Pope Urban) who sent him home. When he got home, he saw the angel who Cecilia had said was there to guard her and her virtue, and Valerian converted on the spot (I mean, wouldn't you?). So, then Valerian tells his brother about all this, and his brother also converts, and then they start spending their days burying the bodies of Christian martyrs. Now, burying the bodies of martyrs was illegal, and Valerian and his brother eventually got caught and martyred themselves. Well, Cecilia went out and found their bodies, buried them, and was also caught and condemned to death. However, it wasn't considered genteel to execute women in quite the same way, so they did what any civilized society would do -- they decided to suffocate Cecilia to death in her bathroom by closing it up and stoking up the furnace until she asphyxiated. Well, Cecilia didn't die for three days, so the Romans thought to themselves, "To heck with the genteel way!" They sent a guy in with an axe to behead poor Cecilia, but there was a law that a beheader could only strike the beheadee three times, and evidently this axe guy didn't eat his spinach, because that didn't kill Cecilia either. The poor thing lived three MORE days, preaching and healing people, and bequeathing all her belongings to the church, and then she finally died. According to tradition, her remains have never decomposed.
Now, what does all of this have to do with solfa, you ask? Not a whole lot, to be honest with you, except that Cecilia was the patron saint of music, and as such, a lot of music has been written in her honor -- the Britten is only one example. These settings have taken on some very interesting forms, and since you all have a bit of a breather coming up this week courtesy of Thanksgiving, I thought you might like to take a very brief tour:
Orlando di Lasso
http://www.mab.jpn.org/musictex/score_lib/ol_cantantibus.pdf
This text is essentially a retelling of the musical part of the story (before all the bloody stuff) -- you see the appearance of the word "organis," and you also see an interesting instruction for the two tenor parts and the bass, who lack pitches for the words "cantantibus organis" - "singing in her heart". The two parts that sing in the octave of a woman's voice (though the piece would have surely been performed only by men and boys at the time of its composition) do sing those words, and the men are basically told to "sing in their hearts" until it is time for them to enter. Notice how particular melodic gestures are matched with particular words and how imitation is used -- these are marks of Renaissance polyphony after Josquin -- folks like Ockeghem and Busnoys weren't doing that yet.
Charles Gounod
And you thought he only wrote that "Ave Maria" setting...
http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/95/Cecilia6.pdf
This piece comes from Gounod's "St. Cecilia Mass," which is a setting of the mass ordinary. Notice the texture of the choral parts -- obviously, intelligibility seems to be important to our composer, and this brings up yet another Cecilia connection. In the 19th century, some Catholic musicians began to be concerned that Gregorian chant was disappearing from masses, and that church music was becoming too complicated, and more concerned with show than with intelligibility and reverence. So, some composers began dialing back their textural and harmonic palettes in liturgical music and making use of actual chant or chant-like melodies. This movement is known as the Cecilian Movement -- Anton Bruckner is probably the composer most commonly identified with this movement. In this "Benedictus," does Gounod use any chromatic pitches? If so, how do they resolve? Are there any cadences outside of the home key? How would you characterize the soprano solo at the beginning of the movement? Do you think there is something depictive going on there? Is there possibly more than one interpretation, knowing what you know about chant and St. Cecilia?
Charles Hubert Hastings Parry
http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/8/8c/Descend-Ye_Nine.pdf
So, Auden was not the first poet to re-tell or reference the Cecilia story in a more secular light. In the same way that Auden referenced Aphrodite, Alexander Pope (of 18th-century Enlightenment-era fame) connected Cecilia with the nine Muses of Greek mythology. Parry scores his setting for chorus and organ, which effectively indicates a nod to the Cecilia-organ connection, but also suggests a church venue for performance of the piece, though probably not as part of a liturgy. Notice what kinds of choral textures Parry uses. What keys does he visit? How is the text set? Does intelligibility seem to be of central concern?
There are many more pieces to discover on this theme -- keep an eye out particularly for Purcell and Dello Joio, and feel free to share your findings!
I'm about three days early, but I'm calling it close enough for a little tribute to my favorite saint: Cecilia, patron saint of music.
She's really my favorite because of this poem by W.H. Auden, which he wrote for my beloved Benjamin Britten, who was born on Nov. 22, St. Cecilia's Day. Britten turned around and composed a three-movement choral setting for the poem called "Hymn to St. Cecilia" -- you can listen to a recording here. Normally I might say something critical about the recording (and I'm definitely keeping my own counsel about tempi....particularly in mvt. 3), but this piece is SO difficult that it seems hopelessly uncharitable to find fault.
The story of St. Cecilia is referenced in Auden's poem, but not related in any readily identifiable form, so I'll give you all the concise version:
First, there's Cecilia, a first-century (C.E.) Roman convert to Christianity, daughter of member of the Roman aristocracy. Her pagan father decides to marry her off to Valerian, another pagan nobleman. Well, this is a big problem for Cecilia, since she's made a vow of chastity (sort of like how I've made a vow of solfa....ok, maybe it's not the same...), so at her wedding, she's pretty upset. She's so upset, in fact, that the fervency of her silent prayer for deliverance from this situation became audible to other people as music. It is from this part of the story that her connection with music is made -- our Cecilia was evidently so good at audiation that she could make other people hear it, too (Kidding...kind of....)! Later depictions of St. Cecilia with an organ (like this famous one) actually result from a mistranslation of the original Latin telling of the story -- the word "organis" was used in the story to indicate that Cecilia was praying in her heart, but later, people decided that it meant she was using a musical instrument, and even credited her with the invention of the organ.
Anyhow, after the wedding, she and Valerian had a very serious talk about what was and was not going to be happening that night, and Valerian went out to get some air along the Via Appia, and ran into this guy Urban (later to become Pope Urban) who sent him home. When he got home, he saw the angel who Cecilia had said was there to guard her and her virtue, and Valerian converted on the spot (I mean, wouldn't you?). So, then Valerian tells his brother about all this, and his brother also converts, and then they start spending their days burying the bodies of Christian martyrs. Now, burying the bodies of martyrs was illegal, and Valerian and his brother eventually got caught and martyred themselves. Well, Cecilia went out and found their bodies, buried them, and was also caught and condemned to death. However, it wasn't considered genteel to execute women in quite the same way, so they did what any civilized society would do -- they decided to suffocate Cecilia to death in her bathroom by closing it up and stoking up the furnace until she asphyxiated. Well, Cecilia didn't die for three days, so the Romans thought to themselves, "To heck with the genteel way!" They sent a guy in with an axe to behead poor Cecilia, but there was a law that a beheader could only strike the beheadee three times, and evidently this axe guy didn't eat his spinach, because that didn't kill Cecilia either. The poor thing lived three MORE days, preaching and healing people, and bequeathing all her belongings to the church, and then she finally died. According to tradition, her remains have never decomposed.
Now, what does all of this have to do with solfa, you ask? Not a whole lot, to be honest with you, except that Cecilia was the patron saint of music, and as such, a lot of music has been written in her honor -- the Britten is only one example. These settings have taken on some very interesting forms, and since you all have a bit of a breather coming up this week courtesy of Thanksgiving, I thought you might like to take a very brief tour:
Orlando di Lasso
http://www.mab.jpn.org/musictex/score_lib/ol_cantantibus.pdf
This text is essentially a retelling of the musical part of the story (before all the bloody stuff) -- you see the appearance of the word "organis," and you also see an interesting instruction for the two tenor parts and the bass, who lack pitches for the words "cantantibus organis" - "singing in her heart". The two parts that sing in the octave of a woman's voice (though the piece would have surely been performed only by men and boys at the time of its composition) do sing those words, and the men are basically told to "sing in their hearts" until it is time for them to enter. Notice how particular melodic gestures are matched with particular words and how imitation is used -- these are marks of Renaissance polyphony after Josquin -- folks like Ockeghem and Busnoys weren't doing that yet.
Charles Gounod
And you thought he only wrote that "Ave Maria" setting...
http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/95/Cecilia6.pdf
This piece comes from Gounod's "St. Cecilia Mass," which is a setting of the mass ordinary. Notice the texture of the choral parts -- obviously, intelligibility seems to be important to our composer, and this brings up yet another Cecilia connection. In the 19th century, some Catholic musicians began to be concerned that Gregorian chant was disappearing from masses, and that church music was becoming too complicated, and more concerned with show than with intelligibility and reverence. So, some composers began dialing back their textural and harmonic palettes in liturgical music and making use of actual chant or chant-like melodies. This movement is known as the Cecilian Movement -- Anton Bruckner is probably the composer most commonly identified with this movement. In this "Benedictus," does Gounod use any chromatic pitches? If so, how do they resolve? Are there any cadences outside of the home key? How would you characterize the soprano solo at the beginning of the movement? Do you think there is something depictive going on there? Is there possibly more than one interpretation, knowing what you know about chant and St. Cecilia?
Charles Hubert Hastings Parry
http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/8/8c/Descend-Ye_Nine.pdf
So, Auden was not the first poet to re-tell or reference the Cecilia story in a more secular light. In the same way that Auden referenced Aphrodite, Alexander Pope (of 18th-century Enlightenment-era fame) connected Cecilia with the nine Muses of Greek mythology. Parry scores his setting for chorus and organ, which effectively indicates a nod to the Cecilia-organ connection, but also suggests a church venue for performance of the piece, though probably not as part of a liturgy. Notice what kinds of choral textures Parry uses. What keys does he visit? How is the text set? Does intelligibility seem to be of central concern?
There are many more pieces to discover on this theme -- keep an eye out particularly for Purcell and Dello Joio, and feel free to share your findings!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Da capo...
Greetings, dear students!
Well, the Grinch is already undergoing his heart-size transformation on TBS (and seeing the Whos come out to sing in the town square after he'd stolen all of their presents totally made me cry this year...that's a first for me...I must be getting even more sentimental, which is saying something for a choral conductor), there is general growling about people's decorations going up too early, and I taught the world's highest Silent Night descant to my graduate choir this afternoon...yes, I believe the holidays may be coming, like it or not.
I've been a little out of touch with the passing of time lately, so the typical post-halloween retail rush into things Christmas-y didn't get my attention like usual...it took something else, something more iconic, something melismatic....
Yes, that's right -- it took the first rehearsal of the choral numbers from Part the First of Messiah for me to realize that Christmas isn't too far away. I hadn't sung them in quite awhile...in fact, I'm reasonably certain the last time I interacted with them closely was way back in my undergraduate days with my pals from the Pacific Conservatory music fraternities. I still have an orange Novello score from the experience that is marked up within an inch of its well-loved life, as I used all of my brain power to digest and understand this music that so many before me have known, sung, played, and loved. It was a nice experience...I felt like I was meeting an old friend. The vocal lines never seem to have left that settled place in my voice, the imitation still makes good sense to my ears, the dance allusions still make my feet itch to move. It made me miss that time in my life, true to the predictions of my dear teacher who heard me do a lot of complaining at that time about how busy I was and how irresponsible my colleagues were being in rehearsal, and how I just wanted the whole darn thing to be over, etc., etc. So, while I feel a little ashamed of the me of a decade past because she couldn't be patient enough to enjoy the process, I am also grateful for one of the things about life that also has a way of driving me (and probably most people) nuts:
For better or worse, things have a way of coming around again.
Perhaps this is the reason why composers dreamt up musical forms like rondo, sonata-allegro, theme and variations, and da capo, where material returns, giving the listener a feeling of closure. A professor told me way back when that humans find repetition psychologically comforting, and that's why the return of A material is such a prevalent practice in music -- I thought he was a little nuts. And now, being the person who gets teary over Dr. Seuss movies and only knows it's almost Christmastime because Handel showed up in my choir folder, I think I believe it. I'm far from the first to notice this, I'm sure, but it seems to be worth saying, just the same.
So, I have some da capo (or at least, repetitive) examples for your analytical, musical, and psychological enjoyment:
Rising Level 2's
Take a look here:
http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/4/49/IMSLP11350-
Handel_Messiah_No.18_Rejoice_Greatly_O_Daughter_Of_Zion.pdf
And a listen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1xlYIoekE8&feature=fvsr
You've likely heard it before, but listen with the score anyhow. You'll likely be able to pick out the big sections right away. What distinguishes them from one another? Tonality? Tempo? Character? All of the above? What seems to motivate these changes?
Now, there are modulations within each big section, too. Listen again with the score, and at each cadence you hear, circle the home tone. Do the accidentals leading up to each cadence reflect that change? How would you sing the melody in solfa in light of this information? How would you sing the bass (continuo) line? Where is the easiest place to change keys?
Rising Level 3's
Take a look at this:
http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/3/3d/IMSLP11111-Handel_Messiah_No.6_But_Who_May_Abide_The_Day.pdf
And a listen to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlB3E_OmpT4
(NOTE: I personally like my soloists on this one to sound a little more freaked out -- this guy's calm is impressive and his voice is lovely, but it's all somehow emotionally unsatisfying to me...call me a drama queen, but is it a refiner's fire or a space heater?)
Now, the form of this one is a bit different, yes? The repeated material is marked in even more obvious ways than the rising 2's example. Why do you think that is?
What keys do you go through in order to sing the vocal line of this little ditty? When the surface material gets extremely active in the fast section, what is happening in the bass line?
Rising Level 4's
Here is your wickedly chromatic selection:
http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/3/3d/IMSLP11111-Handel_Messiah_No.6_But_Who_May_Abide_The_Day.pdf
And a recording to match (with the recitative that precedes it...the aria begins at about 3:00....and this guy's face totally makes up for the placidity of the rising 3's guy...maybe a little too much, as it turns out...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rukah9okGs
So, perhaps at this point, you're saying to yourself: um....where's the da capo? Good question.
What was the problem with the da capo aria from a plot-line standpoint? If the singer has to go back and sing the music from the beginning of the aria over again, has the plot progressed? Has his/her mind changed? Nope. That's right, da capo = static, at least to some extent. So, if you look here:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Messiah,_HWV_56_(Handel,_George_Frideric)
at the context of the other movements and the text they contain, can you think of a reason why Handel might have chosen not to bring material back? In terms of the Christmas story, was something important about to happen in, say, the very next movement?
Anyway, see if you can dream up some clever chromatic solfa solutions to this rather tricky melody line. Feel free to email them to me if you come up with something you'd like to share!
Well, the Grinch is already undergoing his heart-size transformation on TBS (and seeing the Whos come out to sing in the town square after he'd stolen all of their presents totally made me cry this year...that's a first for me...I must be getting even more sentimental, which is saying something for a choral conductor), there is general growling about people's decorations going up too early, and I taught the world's highest Silent Night descant to my graduate choir this afternoon...yes, I believe the holidays may be coming, like it or not.
I've been a little out of touch with the passing of time lately, so the typical post-halloween retail rush into things Christmas-y didn't get my attention like usual...it took something else, something more iconic, something melismatic....
Yes, that's right -- it took the first rehearsal of the choral numbers from Part the First of Messiah for me to realize that Christmas isn't too far away. I hadn't sung them in quite awhile...in fact, I'm reasonably certain the last time I interacted with them closely was way back in my undergraduate days with my pals from the Pacific Conservatory music fraternities. I still have an orange Novello score from the experience that is marked up within an inch of its well-loved life, as I used all of my brain power to digest and understand this music that so many before me have known, sung, played, and loved. It was a nice experience...I felt like I was meeting an old friend. The vocal lines never seem to have left that settled place in my voice, the imitation still makes good sense to my ears, the dance allusions still make my feet itch to move. It made me miss that time in my life, true to the predictions of my dear teacher who heard me do a lot of complaining at that time about how busy I was and how irresponsible my colleagues were being in rehearsal, and how I just wanted the whole darn thing to be over, etc., etc. So, while I feel a little ashamed of the me of a decade past because she couldn't be patient enough to enjoy the process, I am also grateful for one of the things about life that also has a way of driving me (and probably most people) nuts:
For better or worse, things have a way of coming around again.
Perhaps this is the reason why composers dreamt up musical forms like rondo, sonata-allegro, theme and variations, and da capo, where material returns, giving the listener a feeling of closure. A professor told me way back when that humans find repetition psychologically comforting, and that's why the return of A material is such a prevalent practice in music -- I thought he was a little nuts. And now, being the person who gets teary over Dr. Seuss movies and only knows it's almost Christmastime because Handel showed up in my choir folder, I think I believe it. I'm far from the first to notice this, I'm sure, but it seems to be worth saying, just the same.
So, I have some da capo (or at least, repetitive) examples for your analytical, musical, and psychological enjoyment:
Rising Level 2's
Take a look here:
http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/4/49/IMSLP11350-
Handel_Messiah_No.18_Rejoice_Greatly_O_Daughter_Of_Zion.pdf
And a listen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1xlYIoekE8&feature=fvsr
You've likely heard it before, but listen with the score anyhow. You'll likely be able to pick out the big sections right away. What distinguishes them from one another? Tonality? Tempo? Character? All of the above? What seems to motivate these changes?
Now, there are modulations within each big section, too. Listen again with the score, and at each cadence you hear, circle the home tone. Do the accidentals leading up to each cadence reflect that change? How would you sing the melody in solfa in light of this information? How would you sing the bass (continuo) line? Where is the easiest place to change keys?
Rising Level 3's
Take a look at this:
http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/3/3d/IMSLP11111-Handel_Messiah_No.6_But_Who_May_Abide_The_Day.pdf
And a listen to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlB3E_OmpT4
(NOTE: I personally like my soloists on this one to sound a little more freaked out -- this guy's calm is impressive and his voice is lovely, but it's all somehow emotionally unsatisfying to me...call me a drama queen, but is it a refiner's fire or a space heater?)
Now, the form of this one is a bit different, yes? The repeated material is marked in even more obvious ways than the rising 2's example. Why do you think that is?
What keys do you go through in order to sing the vocal line of this little ditty? When the surface material gets extremely active in the fast section, what is happening in the bass line?
Rising Level 4's
Here is your wickedly chromatic selection:
http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/3/3d/IMSLP11111-Handel_Messiah_No.6_But_Who_May_Abide_The_Day.pdf
And a recording to match (with the recitative that precedes it...the aria begins at about 3:00....and this guy's face totally makes up for the placidity of the rising 3's guy...maybe a little too much, as it turns out...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rukah9okGs
So, perhaps at this point, you're saying to yourself: um....where's the da capo? Good question.
What was the problem with the da capo aria from a plot-line standpoint? If the singer has to go back and sing the music from the beginning of the aria over again, has the plot progressed? Has his/her mind changed? Nope. That's right, da capo = static, at least to some extent. So, if you look here:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Messiah,_HWV_56_(Handel,_George_Frideric)
at the context of the other movements and the text they contain, can you think of a reason why Handel might have chosen not to bring material back? In terms of the Christmas story, was something important about to happen in, say, the very next movement?
Anyway, see if you can dream up some clever chromatic solfa solutions to this rather tricky melody line. Feel free to email them to me if you come up with something you'd like to share!
Monday, November 7, 2011
Spellbound
Hello, long-lost solfeggists!!
I've missed you all!
So, the long-dreaded written exams are behind, and the oral exam lies ahead, but I can't start studying up for it just yet because I'm still waiting for the written exam to be read and evaluated. Part of me is inclined to be extremely anxious about that, but...well, to be honest, I'm just too darn exhausted to work up the energy for a real academic tizzy. Which, by the by, does not preclude other kinds of tizzies, it seems...
This afternoon, I had the decidedly less-than-pleasant dental experience of my first crown (or as I've euphemistically called it, "tooth tiara"). In the abstract, I am one of those people who really, REALLY dislikes the dentist, but I actually like my current dentist a lot because she takes the time to explain what's going on, and this helps with my generalized anxiety. So, today, shortly after she numbed me up, my whole body started to tingle and my heart started to race and I had that weird panicky feeling that comes with really bad stage fright or getting caught speeding or using an albuterol inhaler....
And then I realized what it was. Dental anesthetic contains epinephrine (they use it as a vasoconstrictor to minimize bleeding), and my dentist had told me about it the last time I was there, but only after the shot had caused me to freak out to the point of nausea and to mistake my reaction for my own emotions about the situation. But, it wasn't my emotions that started the reaction -- I just couldn't rescue myself once I'd already gone over that edge. And it wasn't my emotions this time either, and I remembered before the physical sensations hijacked my higher processing skills. I consciously told myself what it was, and was able to ride it out by taking some deep breaths and listening to my iPod. I caught it before I lost my marbles. I broke the spell.
A deep satisfaction came over me with that realization, and I got to thinking about how we get ourselves all worked up about things because we forget that our problem might actually be caused by something external or easily fixable or temporary, and we invest so much in the freakout that we can't even use the solution when we see it. We're afraid to confront it, afraid to take control, because the emotion of the situation has tied our hands, and we can't see that if we simply chose to be present, the power to change things would be ours. So, for me (and maybe I'm just slow on the uptake for this one), today was a little victory -- Panic may still have a lot more points on the scoreboard, but I know I chalked one up for Team Me today.
Now, like I said above, I might just be a slow learner, but I suspect that most of us struggle with these kinds of emotional spellbindings. In the world of solfa, one of my goofy classroom quotes is:
"Solfa is just like therapy. When you talk about your problems, it makes them a lot easier to solve."
I know that's a little silly, but I think it's also a lot true. How often do we plow over and over and over the same musical ground, refusing to stop, step back, and analyze what's really going on? It takes discipline to do this, but more than that, it requires presentness. Your whole brain and heart and body need to be in it together, in the moment. This is an unusual level of focus -- we don't require it of ourselves very often, and to do so may seem extravagant, wasteful, unnecessary, or at least that's what your rebellious ego might tell you, as it often prefers to be off someplace else, diverting your attention to how you look in your pants today, whether or not you are smart enough, who might think you're talented, blahblahblahblahblah.
So, this week's assignment is a little abstract, which might be a little annoying, but I have a feeling that this might be very worthwhile...
All Levels
In your musical tasks this week, whatever they may be:
Be present.
If you have trouble, stop to assess early, before frustration rears its ugly head.
Rest in the knowledge that you have what you need to be successful.
If you need help, reach out.
Recognize the judgmental voices in your head for what they are. Listen to them when it's appropriate (in the moment of performance or teaching is probably not the time), but be in charge of what you do about them.
If you need to freak out, freak out. That's ok, too.
I've missed you all!
So, the long-dreaded written exams are behind, and the oral exam lies ahead, but I can't start studying up for it just yet because I'm still waiting for the written exam to be read and evaluated. Part of me is inclined to be extremely anxious about that, but...well, to be honest, I'm just too darn exhausted to work up the energy for a real academic tizzy. Which, by the by, does not preclude other kinds of tizzies, it seems...
This afternoon, I had the decidedly less-than-pleasant dental experience of my first crown (or as I've euphemistically called it, "tooth tiara"). In the abstract, I am one of those people who really, REALLY dislikes the dentist, but I actually like my current dentist a lot because she takes the time to explain what's going on, and this helps with my generalized anxiety. So, today, shortly after she numbed me up, my whole body started to tingle and my heart started to race and I had that weird panicky feeling that comes with really bad stage fright or getting caught speeding or using an albuterol inhaler....
And then I realized what it was. Dental anesthetic contains epinephrine (they use it as a vasoconstrictor to minimize bleeding), and my dentist had told me about it the last time I was there, but only after the shot had caused me to freak out to the point of nausea and to mistake my reaction for my own emotions about the situation. But, it wasn't my emotions that started the reaction -- I just couldn't rescue myself once I'd already gone over that edge. And it wasn't my emotions this time either, and I remembered before the physical sensations hijacked my higher processing skills. I consciously told myself what it was, and was able to ride it out by taking some deep breaths and listening to my iPod. I caught it before I lost my marbles. I broke the spell.
A deep satisfaction came over me with that realization, and I got to thinking about how we get ourselves all worked up about things because we forget that our problem might actually be caused by something external or easily fixable or temporary, and we invest so much in the freakout that we can't even use the solution when we see it. We're afraid to confront it, afraid to take control, because the emotion of the situation has tied our hands, and we can't see that if we simply chose to be present, the power to change things would be ours. So, for me (and maybe I'm just slow on the uptake for this one), today was a little victory -- Panic may still have a lot more points on the scoreboard, but I know I chalked one up for Team Me today.
Now, like I said above, I might just be a slow learner, but I suspect that most of us struggle with these kinds of emotional spellbindings. In the world of solfa, one of my goofy classroom quotes is:
"Solfa is just like therapy. When you talk about your problems, it makes them a lot easier to solve."
I know that's a little silly, but I think it's also a lot true. How often do we plow over and over and over the same musical ground, refusing to stop, step back, and analyze what's really going on? It takes discipline to do this, but more than that, it requires presentness. Your whole brain and heart and body need to be in it together, in the moment. This is an unusual level of focus -- we don't require it of ourselves very often, and to do so may seem extravagant, wasteful, unnecessary, or at least that's what your rebellious ego might tell you, as it often prefers to be off someplace else, diverting your attention to how you look in your pants today, whether or not you are smart enough, who might think you're talented, blahblahblahblahblah.
So, this week's assignment is a little abstract, which might be a little annoying, but I have a feeling that this might be very worthwhile...
All Levels
In your musical tasks this week, whatever they may be:
Be present.
If you have trouble, stop to assess early, before frustration rears its ugly head.
Rest in the knowledge that you have what you need to be successful.
If you need help, reach out.
Recognize the judgmental voices in your head for what they are. Listen to them when it's appropriate (in the moment of performance or teaching is probably not the time), but be in charge of what you do about them.
If you need to freak out, freak out. That's ok, too.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Pilgrim's Progress
My dear fellow travelers:
First, an exciting announcement! Next week, The Other 49 Weeks of Solfa will host its first appearance of a guest blogger! Our guest is none other than my own much-loved and revered teacher, Dr. Cetto, who has graciously agreed to cover for me during the week of my dreaded exams. We're in for a treat, and I'm so grateful for his help!
Over the course of this week, I've continued to immerse myself in exam materials, working with all my might to permeate my poor little brain with everything there is to know about the things I'm supposed to know. And, I can already tell that it's going to be a tremendous relief in some ways to just finally sit down at that computer in the music library and start typing....I'm sure it'll be a relief to all of you when I finally stop talking about it (insert sheepish grin here). In the meantime, I'll keep walking my path and doing my work for a few more days until it's Wednesday, and the only thing to do is open the floodgates and see what comes out. It's sort of like a five-day performance, I guess. I'm on the spot, I know what I know, and I just have to do it.
This is the nature of a test, and this is the nature of performance. Perhaps this is why some of what we do as musicians makes us seem so insane to the non-musician world. We lock ourselves in little rooms and play/sing scales and arpeggios for hours. We go over the same 4 measures 97 times. We go over those same 4 measures 97 more times in our private lesson with a person we pay a lot of money to tell us how those 4 measures really ought to sound...97 times! The outside world has a point: this behavior is pretty darn crazy, but it's for a purpose. We are on a journey unlike that of a lot of other people. We live by what our minds and bodies can do to pay homage to the past, create beauty, and evoke emotions in other people, and often we must do it from memory, all alone on a big stage with only our instrument and our wits while a crowd of people sits across from us, waiting to hear and see what we will do. This is extreme. This makes Survivor look like a piece of cake. This is our pilgrim way.
In order to be successful on our journey, we not only have to learn how to do something (for example, play a scale) once, we must learn how to accomplish that task in an infinite sea of musical variables (tempo, key, articulation, fragmentation, ornamentation, dynamics, register, etc.) as we swim in the infinite sea of extra-musical variables (room temperature, crying babies, head colds, low humidity, cell phones, performance anxiety, newspaper reviewers, bad lighting, etc.). Knowing this makes us the neurotic people that many of us are, and it also means that over-practicing the basics is almost never a bad idea. It's just part of our pilgrim's progress -- sometimes we're on the Hill of Difficulty, scrambling over boulders and scraping our knees. Sometimes we're in the Palace Beautiful, putting up our feet. Sometimes we're in the Slough of Despond, and we have to get a friend to come pull us onto dry land. But all the while, we know where we're going. We must keep to the narrow way, the pilgrim way, and trust that we got on the path for a reason.
All of that being said, I want to keep the workload simple and fairly light this week.
Rising Level 2's
Dig up your copy of "Our Tuning Forks, Our Selves" (if you can't find it, you can print yourself a shiny new one from the link on the right side of your screen), and locate your tuning fork.
Take a day to re-acquaint yourself with the methods for finding each key -- if something doesn't make sense, shoot me an email.
Then, on a daily basis, check yourself and your key-finding ability. Sing songs in your classroom in odd keys that are more difficult to find. When you're listening to music, get out your fork and see if you can figure out what key it's in (sort of the inverse of the key-finding process). Ask a friend to randomly test you throughout the week (over the phone works just fine for this task). Immerse yourself in the world of tonality, and make A440 your mantra for the week...just for fun!
Rising Level 3's
If you know that you have troubles finding keys in a logical, consistent fashion when you're put on the spot, use the same assignment as the rising 2's this week.
However, if you're completely confident in your tuning fork skills, check this out:
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/9c/Moza-intr-kyr.pdf
Most of you will recognize this piece by reputation, if not by having sung/played/heard it lots of times. What you may not know, however, is that the soprano solo (starting in m. 21) and the choral soprano line that immediately follows (mm. 27-32) have everything to do with pilgrimage: they are each a statement of the tonus peregrinus, or the pilgrim tone. Tonus peregrinus is a psalm tone, used in Christian churches since the middle ages for chanting biblical psalms (a Google search will get you lots of interesting information, I'm certain). This psalm tone differs from others because the reciting tone (the note used to articulate most of the words in a psalm, usually the same note in both halves of a psalm tone) changes from the first half of the tone to the second half, so those fanciful medieval types gave it a name (peregrinus, the Latin word for "pilgrim") describing that very characteristic. So, sing through these two passages in a comfortable octave (I recommend B-flat do for that section), then tackle the remainder of the Introit movement (notice that it's a sloooooow movement). What keys do you expect to visit? Does the journey in fact take you there? If you're feeling ambitious, feel free to check out the Kyrie that follows -- it's SO cool, and that way you can try your hand at something a little zippier.
Rising Level 4's
If you have any doubts on the tuning fork front, please avail yourselves of the rising 2's assignment. However, I have another pilgrim-y treat for you:
http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/0/0e/Bach-suscepit.pdf
If you don't know the Bach Magnificat already, I recommend that you stop whatever you might be doing and go listen to it right, RIGHT now. I like the John Eliot Gardner recording (though his tempo on this movement is soooooo sloooooow and his "Omnes generationes" might singe your eyebrows if you stand too close to the speakers....though it's really fun at that tempo!). Anyhow, this piece provides plenty of fodder for sight-singing and key analysis fun. It's not terribly straightforward, to be honest, and you'll probably find yourself moving within some odd key relationships. Definitely take the time to listen to at least this movement, as it does all sound beautiful and make sense at the end of the day. Now, how does this relate to the pilgrim theme? Well, check out that oboe line. Compare it to the soprano solos in the link listed for the rising 3's. Any correlation? Yup, this, too, is a tonus peregrinus sighting....isn't that neat?
All right, my little pilgrims...good luck to you, and I'll be back in the blogosphere in two weeks! Cheers, and wish me luck!
First, an exciting announcement! Next week, The Other 49 Weeks of Solfa will host its first appearance of a guest blogger! Our guest is none other than my own much-loved and revered teacher, Dr. Cetto, who has graciously agreed to cover for me during the week of my dreaded exams. We're in for a treat, and I'm so grateful for his help!
Over the course of this week, I've continued to immerse myself in exam materials, working with all my might to permeate my poor little brain with everything there is to know about the things I'm supposed to know. And, I can already tell that it's going to be a tremendous relief in some ways to just finally sit down at that computer in the music library and start typing....I'm sure it'll be a relief to all of you when I finally stop talking about it (insert sheepish grin here). In the meantime, I'll keep walking my path and doing my work for a few more days until it's Wednesday, and the only thing to do is open the floodgates and see what comes out. It's sort of like a five-day performance, I guess. I'm on the spot, I know what I know, and I just have to do it.
This is the nature of a test, and this is the nature of performance. Perhaps this is why some of what we do as musicians makes us seem so insane to the non-musician world. We lock ourselves in little rooms and play/sing scales and arpeggios for hours. We go over the same 4 measures 97 times. We go over those same 4 measures 97 more times in our private lesson with a person we pay a lot of money to tell us how those 4 measures really ought to sound...97 times! The outside world has a point: this behavior is pretty darn crazy, but it's for a purpose. We are on a journey unlike that of a lot of other people. We live by what our minds and bodies can do to pay homage to the past, create beauty, and evoke emotions in other people, and often we must do it from memory, all alone on a big stage with only our instrument and our wits while a crowd of people sits across from us, waiting to hear and see what we will do. This is extreme. This makes Survivor look like a piece of cake. This is our pilgrim way.
In order to be successful on our journey, we not only have to learn how to do something (for example, play a scale) once, we must learn how to accomplish that task in an infinite sea of musical variables (tempo, key, articulation, fragmentation, ornamentation, dynamics, register, etc.) as we swim in the infinite sea of extra-musical variables (room temperature, crying babies, head colds, low humidity, cell phones, performance anxiety, newspaper reviewers, bad lighting, etc.). Knowing this makes us the neurotic people that many of us are, and it also means that over-practicing the basics is almost never a bad idea. It's just part of our pilgrim's progress -- sometimes we're on the Hill of Difficulty, scrambling over boulders and scraping our knees. Sometimes we're in the Palace Beautiful, putting up our feet. Sometimes we're in the Slough of Despond, and we have to get a friend to come pull us onto dry land. But all the while, we know where we're going. We must keep to the narrow way, the pilgrim way, and trust that we got on the path for a reason.
All of that being said, I want to keep the workload simple and fairly light this week.
Rising Level 2's
Dig up your copy of "Our Tuning Forks, Our Selves" (if you can't find it, you can print yourself a shiny new one from the link on the right side of your screen), and locate your tuning fork.
Take a day to re-acquaint yourself with the methods for finding each key -- if something doesn't make sense, shoot me an email.
Then, on a daily basis, check yourself and your key-finding ability. Sing songs in your classroom in odd keys that are more difficult to find. When you're listening to music, get out your fork and see if you can figure out what key it's in (sort of the inverse of the key-finding process). Ask a friend to randomly test you throughout the week (over the phone works just fine for this task). Immerse yourself in the world of tonality, and make A440 your mantra for the week...just for fun!
Rising Level 3's
If you know that you have troubles finding keys in a logical, consistent fashion when you're put on the spot, use the same assignment as the rising 2's this week.
However, if you're completely confident in your tuning fork skills, check this out:
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/9/9c/Moza-intr-kyr.pdf
Most of you will recognize this piece by reputation, if not by having sung/played/heard it lots of times. What you may not know, however, is that the soprano solo (starting in m. 21) and the choral soprano line that immediately follows (mm. 27-32) have everything to do with pilgrimage: they are each a statement of the tonus peregrinus, or the pilgrim tone. Tonus peregrinus is a psalm tone, used in Christian churches since the middle ages for chanting biblical psalms (a Google search will get you lots of interesting information, I'm certain). This psalm tone differs from others because the reciting tone (the note used to articulate most of the words in a psalm, usually the same note in both halves of a psalm tone) changes from the first half of the tone to the second half, so those fanciful medieval types gave it a name (peregrinus, the Latin word for "pilgrim") describing that very characteristic. So, sing through these two passages in a comfortable octave (I recommend B-flat do for that section), then tackle the remainder of the Introit movement (notice that it's a sloooooow movement). What keys do you expect to visit? Does the journey in fact take you there? If you're feeling ambitious, feel free to check out the Kyrie that follows -- it's SO cool, and that way you can try your hand at something a little zippier.
Rising Level 4's
If you have any doubts on the tuning fork front, please avail yourselves of the rising 2's assignment. However, I have another pilgrim-y treat for you:
http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/0/0e/Bach-suscepit.pdf
If you don't know the Bach Magnificat already, I recommend that you stop whatever you might be doing and go listen to it right, RIGHT now. I like the John Eliot Gardner recording (though his tempo on this movement is soooooo sloooooow and his "Omnes generationes" might singe your eyebrows if you stand too close to the speakers....though it's really fun at that tempo!). Anyhow, this piece provides plenty of fodder for sight-singing and key analysis fun. It's not terribly straightforward, to be honest, and you'll probably find yourself moving within some odd key relationships. Definitely take the time to listen to at least this movement, as it does all sound beautiful and make sense at the end of the day. Now, how does this relate to the pilgrim theme? Well, check out that oboe line. Compare it to the soprano solos in the link listed for the rising 3's. Any correlation? Yup, this, too, is a tonus peregrinus sighting....isn't that neat?
All right, my little pilgrims...good luck to you, and I'll be back in the blogosphere in two weeks! Cheers, and wish me luck!
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Going Through the Motions
Welcome, Solfa Slayers!
Many of you may already know that I have tremendous appreciation for all things Joss Whedon (and I am not particularly concerned with outside judgments of this appreciation, so if you need to roll your eyes, know that it doesn't bother me -- I am, after all, a graduate of K-12 homeschooling AND a person who blogs about solfege on a weekly basis, so coolness is obviously not a central part of my life), and in particular, I LOVE Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV series, naturally...I've actually never seen the movie). Many of you also know (because of my running commentary here and elsewhere) that I'm in the midst of preparing for my written comprehensive exams, which are now 10 days away. If you've been through this process, you can probably make a good guess about my head-space at the moment, and if you haven't...well, I am in no place to have great perspective right now, but I can tell you this:
I'm doing a lot of stuff right now that feels like it's not accomplishing much. I'm looking at pieces of information, reading a lot, typing a lot, trying to make sense out of many things, and feeling like I have a skull full of Malt-o-meal rather than a functioning brain. In fact, I feel like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO7J2knk4Ew
[For the uninitiated, here's the backdrop. Buffy (the singing woman...she doesn't usually sing, this is just a special musical episode, for which someone has diligently taught her Julie Andrews' approach to internal r's in English diction) is a vampire slayer, meaning that she was born with super-human strength and fighting ability and it is her sole responsibility to save the world...a lot. Well, a few months before the time of this episode, Buffy saved the world and died in the process, but then her friends used a powerful spell to resurrect her, because they thought she was trapped in a place of unspeakable torment. However, Buffy was not where they think she was when she was dead, but instead in a state of bliss and rest, and now she's been yanked back into her daily grind of world-saving and demon-fighting and isn't too pleased. She hasn't told her friends any of this, though, and none of them can figure out why she seems so disengaged from life.]
My point is that I feel like I'm going through the motions, too. Unlike Buffy, however, I am not a once-in-a-generation chosen one. I have the advantage of knowing lots of people who have gone down this road before me. So, I already know the moral of the story, even though it pains me to admit it:
Just keep going.
Work doesn't always feel satisfying. Pushing through is sometimes lacking in any kind of immediate reward. The point is to have faith that the reason you set out down this road is still there someplace, just beyond where you can see.
And, while this is all particularly applicable for my specific situation at the moment, I suspect everyone has been through this kind of thing before. It can be a real drag...I mean, none of us became artists because we cope well with the feeling that we're just slogging through. Probably we all hear a lot from folks who work outside the arts that we're lucky, and I agree that we are. However, that luck does NOT exempt us from this kind of trial-by-sweat-without-much-satisfaction. Inspiration can be flighty. Rewards and reinforcement can come too infrequently. And in those times, sometimes you have to go through the motions, let your body and your discipline take over when your spirit and your emotions are dragging, and trust that your mind and heart will ultimately work themselves out. What's inside is always changing. What's outside is always changing. Even when it doesn't seem like it, what you do in the meantime still always matters.
Rising Level 2's
Begin with a little set-up exercise:
Using your tuning fork, find the key of F major and sing a tonic triad.
Then, sing a V7.
Then, sing the resolution of everything in that V7 that needs to go someplace:
f-m
t,-d
s,-d
Repeat this process in F minor, still remembering to resolve your tendency tones:
r-d
si-l
m,-l
Now, go to Ottman, Chapter 11 and sing through one major (section 1) and one minor (section 2) per day, setting up each example you choose with the exercise above, first in solfa and then in letter names. Believe me, this will make these exercises seem like a piece of cake, and it'll go a long way towards helping you think in fifths, which will come in very handy when we start talking about chromaticism next summer.
Rising Level 3's
Begin with our favorite chromatic scalar exercise:
d d t, d r r di r m m ri m f....etc.,
Sing both the ascending and descending versions, with "wringing" motions at the half steps if you have any trouble with intonation. If you have lots of trouble, find a friend and get him/her to sing a major scale in long notes along with you to help you stabilize your chromatics. If you don't have a singing friend handy, as a last resort, you may play the tonic in octaves along with yourself.
Now, try singing the exercise from la instead of do...shazzam! It's a minor chromatic exercise!
Look at the following Ottman examples:
15.86
15.90
15.92
15.94
15.95
Before you begin singing each example, set it up with the appropriate incarnation (from la or from do) of the chromatic exercise in the key of the example you're singing (if you want, you may use letter names, but that might be more trouble than it's worth). Scan each melody ahead of time and pay attention to what chromatic syllables you'll need and how they resolve. Remember to anchor yourself in the diatonic, because (after all) chromaticism is just a splash of color!
Rising Level 4's
Use the set-up exercises outlined for BOTH the rising 2's and 3's, but use these more challenging Ottman examples:
16.39
16.41
16.42
16.44
16.51 (look at the end so you're not tempted to pick too fast a tempo!)
Go through the motions, my friends...sometimes it's the only way to get to the end.
Many of you may already know that I have tremendous appreciation for all things Joss Whedon (and I am not particularly concerned with outside judgments of this appreciation, so if you need to roll your eyes, know that it doesn't bother me -- I am, after all, a graduate of K-12 homeschooling AND a person who blogs about solfege on a weekly basis, so coolness is obviously not a central part of my life), and in particular, I LOVE Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV series, naturally...I've actually never seen the movie). Many of you also know (because of my running commentary here and elsewhere) that I'm in the midst of preparing for my written comprehensive exams, which are now 10 days away. If you've been through this process, you can probably make a good guess about my head-space at the moment, and if you haven't...well, I am in no place to have great perspective right now, but I can tell you this:
I'm doing a lot of stuff right now that feels like it's not accomplishing much. I'm looking at pieces of information, reading a lot, typing a lot, trying to make sense out of many things, and feeling like I have a skull full of Malt-o-meal rather than a functioning brain. In fact, I feel like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO7J2knk4Ew
[For the uninitiated, here's the backdrop. Buffy (the singing woman...she doesn't usually sing, this is just a special musical episode, for which someone has diligently taught her Julie Andrews' approach to internal r's in English diction) is a vampire slayer, meaning that she was born with super-human strength and fighting ability and it is her sole responsibility to save the world...a lot. Well, a few months before the time of this episode, Buffy saved the world and died in the process, but then her friends used a powerful spell to resurrect her, because they thought she was trapped in a place of unspeakable torment. However, Buffy was not where they think she was when she was dead, but instead in a state of bliss and rest, and now she's been yanked back into her daily grind of world-saving and demon-fighting and isn't too pleased. She hasn't told her friends any of this, though, and none of them can figure out why she seems so disengaged from life.]
My point is that I feel like I'm going through the motions, too. Unlike Buffy, however, I am not a once-in-a-generation chosen one. I have the advantage of knowing lots of people who have gone down this road before me. So, I already know the moral of the story, even though it pains me to admit it:
Just keep going.
Work doesn't always feel satisfying. Pushing through is sometimes lacking in any kind of immediate reward. The point is to have faith that the reason you set out down this road is still there someplace, just beyond where you can see.
And, while this is all particularly applicable for my specific situation at the moment, I suspect everyone has been through this kind of thing before. It can be a real drag...I mean, none of us became artists because we cope well with the feeling that we're just slogging through. Probably we all hear a lot from folks who work outside the arts that we're lucky, and I agree that we are. However, that luck does NOT exempt us from this kind of trial-by-sweat-without-much-satisfaction. Inspiration can be flighty. Rewards and reinforcement can come too infrequently. And in those times, sometimes you have to go through the motions, let your body and your discipline take over when your spirit and your emotions are dragging, and trust that your mind and heart will ultimately work themselves out. What's inside is always changing. What's outside is always changing. Even when it doesn't seem like it, what you do in the meantime still always matters.
Rising Level 2's
Begin with a little set-up exercise:
Using your tuning fork, find the key of F major and sing a tonic triad.
Then, sing a V7.
Then, sing the resolution of everything in that V7 that needs to go someplace:
f-m
t,-d
s,-d
Repeat this process in F minor, still remembering to resolve your tendency tones:
r-d
si-l
m,-l
Now, go to Ottman, Chapter 11 and sing through one major (section 1) and one minor (section 2) per day, setting up each example you choose with the exercise above, first in solfa and then in letter names. Believe me, this will make these exercises seem like a piece of cake, and it'll go a long way towards helping you think in fifths, which will come in very handy when we start talking about chromaticism next summer.
Rising Level 3's
Begin with our favorite chromatic scalar exercise:
d d t, d r r di r m m ri m f....etc.,
Sing both the ascending and descending versions, with "wringing" motions at the half steps if you have any trouble with intonation. If you have lots of trouble, find a friend and get him/her to sing a major scale in long notes along with you to help you stabilize your chromatics. If you don't have a singing friend handy, as a last resort, you may play the tonic in octaves along with yourself.
Now, try singing the exercise from la instead of do...shazzam! It's a minor chromatic exercise!
Look at the following Ottman examples:
15.86
15.90
15.92
15.94
15.95
Before you begin singing each example, set it up with the appropriate incarnation (from la or from do) of the chromatic exercise in the key of the example you're singing (if you want, you may use letter names, but that might be more trouble than it's worth). Scan each melody ahead of time and pay attention to what chromatic syllables you'll need and how they resolve. Remember to anchor yourself in the diatonic, because (after all) chromaticism is just a splash of color!
Rising Level 4's
Use the set-up exercises outlined for BOTH the rising 2's and 3's, but use these more challenging Ottman examples:
16.39
16.41
16.42
16.44
16.51 (look at the end so you're not tempted to pick too fast a tempo!)
Go through the motions, my friends...sometimes it's the only way to get to the end.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Leadership
Hello, solfa sentinels!
Shorts and sandals begone! I looked out my window this morning and saw...
the first snow of the season.
No kidding. The switch has flipped.
So, my mug of mint tea and I got to thinking about this week's blog, and this is what came up:
Leadership. I find this topic interesting, maybe because so much of my time is spent not being the boss, but definitely being in a position where I feel responsible for the way things go. I'm the TA, the big sister, the assistant conductor, the section leader, the Girl Friday. I have come to believe that there is quite an art to this, and while I've spent a good number of years in this kind of role, it's only more recently that I find myself able to comfortably analyze it and cope with everything it means. At the moment, I count myself very lucky to be spending the majority of my professional time in situations where the person in charge really is in charge, both in name and in the way s/he chooses to behave. In this kind of model, it's easy to be a supportive sub-leader -- I just get to do what is asked of me...no fussing, no mind-reading, no power struggles, no secret compensating. And, it's probably quite obvious from the list at the end of that last sentence that I've definitely been in situations that were less copacetic. There are many ways of getting around in such environments, and sometimes those getting-around behaviors stay with us unawares, even when things are better and we don't need them anymore. The upside is that having a whole palette of sub-leader behaviors should theoretically give a person a lot of options in any given situation....and options are powerful when we are able to recognize them as such.
And, since I've grown up in a world where computers have always been present, I tend to think of behavioral choices in terms of a Control Panel -- meaning that there are choices we make actively on a case-by-case basis, but there are also "default settings"...presets that make certain functions automatic. Over time, I think we become more acquainted with our own default settings, we realize that we have the power to change them, and through experimentation and blind luck, sometimes we come upon what works best for us. For me, that has had a lot to do with patience, slowing down, and realizing that consistency and small bites are usually the best way to go. As it turns out, the way I am slowly learning to treat myself is also the best way to lead and to treat other people.
This is perhaps one of the biggest themes of my own pedagogical philosophy, though I don't know if I've ever stated it in so many words before: the best thing I can do for you is convince you that you are your own best teacher. Or, stated another way: I can only make a series of guesses about how any person learns and set up contexts that get at them, but if you know how you learn, you hold the keys to limitlessness. It's just a matter of becoming conscious and then taking the time. In this sense, every student must be a leader. Hopefully, the teacher is capable and the activities and instruction are sound, and just following directions will get you close to where you want to be. However, the last step is always for the student to take -- translating what is outside into what lives inside. That takes guts and patience and knowledge. It takes leadership.
All of that being said:
Rising Level 2's
Take a look at this lovely piece...only as far as the first measure of p. 3, unless you're feeling more adventurous:
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/2/24/Pergolesi_09_Sancta_mater.pdf
You can take a listen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zw4GfuclCc
If you only look at the solo parts (up to the top of p. 3, as indicated), you can use the key of E-flat for the entire soprano solo and B-flat for the entire alto solo. This will mean that you have to cope with one little chromatic syllable (the same one in both parts), but I bet you'll be fine.
I'd advise you to work through the rhythm first, one vocal line at a time - conducting is your friend!
Are there common motives between the soprano and alto lines? What makes them easy? What makes them difficult?
If you do decide to go on to the true duet section, be advised that you'll be traveling in the flat direction around the circle of fifths, and that you'll need to watch out for excursions to minor keys.
Rising Level 3's
Look at this little gem:
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/7/79/Pergolesi_08_Fac_ut_ardeat.pdf
I know it looks long, but I bet you can work your way through it little by little...
You can listen to it here (at ramming speed, but with a wicked countertenor!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnOmk_wAo8c
And here (with a boys' choir, at a much more moderate clip)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afPj4dSuR1Y&feature=related
I'd advise you to print out the score and listen first, then mark the places where the material is repeated.
Once you've set up a little form scheme for yourself, check out the key centers....it does travel a little , but never very far afield. I bet you can puzzle it out.
From there, use your tonal and form schemes to guide your study of the piece. How will you break it up? Would working backwards be a good approach? Are the voice parts roughly equal? Will you count in 4 or in 2? Will going slow actually be helpful or not? You're in charge!
Rising Level 4's
For you, something a little different:
http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/9/9e/IMSLP42945-PMLP33670-Strauss--Op_37_6_Lieder.pdf
Check out the first song in the set. You can read the incredibly sweet translation of the text here:
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=10228
And you can listen to a recording here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRNbjDzBBGw
Once you've had a listen, try your hand at figuring out key areas for the vocal line. If you get stuck, looking at the piano line might be somewhat helpful. There's definitely some enharmonic and remote stuff going on -- and isn't it magic how it all works out in the end?
Make some decisions about the solfa, and try to sing through sections unaccompanied. Once individual key areas feel reasonably secure, try stringing them together. See if you can make it through the whole piece unaccompanied, but in the right keys -- it's a bit of a feat, I must say!
Enjoy!
Shorts and sandals begone! I looked out my window this morning and saw...
the first snow of the season.
No kidding. The switch has flipped.
So, my mug of mint tea and I got to thinking about this week's blog, and this is what came up:
Leadership. I find this topic interesting, maybe because so much of my time is spent not being the boss, but definitely being in a position where I feel responsible for the way things go. I'm the TA, the big sister, the assistant conductor, the section leader, the Girl Friday. I have come to believe that there is quite an art to this, and while I've spent a good number of years in this kind of role, it's only more recently that I find myself able to comfortably analyze it and cope with everything it means. At the moment, I count myself very lucky to be spending the majority of my professional time in situations where the person in charge really is in charge, both in name and in the way s/he chooses to behave. In this kind of model, it's easy to be a supportive sub-leader -- I just get to do what is asked of me...no fussing, no mind-reading, no power struggles, no secret compensating. And, it's probably quite obvious from the list at the end of that last sentence that I've definitely been in situations that were less copacetic. There are many ways of getting around in such environments, and sometimes those getting-around behaviors stay with us unawares, even when things are better and we don't need them anymore. The upside is that having a whole palette of sub-leader behaviors should theoretically give a person a lot of options in any given situation....and options are powerful when we are able to recognize them as such.
And, since I've grown up in a world where computers have always been present, I tend to think of behavioral choices in terms of a Control Panel -- meaning that there are choices we make actively on a case-by-case basis, but there are also "default settings"...presets that make certain functions automatic. Over time, I think we become more acquainted with our own default settings, we realize that we have the power to change them, and through experimentation and blind luck, sometimes we come upon what works best for us. For me, that has had a lot to do with patience, slowing down, and realizing that consistency and small bites are usually the best way to go. As it turns out, the way I am slowly learning to treat myself is also the best way to lead and to treat other people.
This is perhaps one of the biggest themes of my own pedagogical philosophy, though I don't know if I've ever stated it in so many words before: the best thing I can do for you is convince you that you are your own best teacher. Or, stated another way: I can only make a series of guesses about how any person learns and set up contexts that get at them, but if you know how you learn, you hold the keys to limitlessness. It's just a matter of becoming conscious and then taking the time. In this sense, every student must be a leader. Hopefully, the teacher is capable and the activities and instruction are sound, and just following directions will get you close to where you want to be. However, the last step is always for the student to take -- translating what is outside into what lives inside. That takes guts and patience and knowledge. It takes leadership.
All of that being said:
Rising Level 2's
Take a look at this lovely piece...only as far as the first measure of p. 3, unless you're feeling more adventurous:
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/2/24/Pergolesi_09_Sancta_mater.pdf
You can take a listen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zw4GfuclCc
If you only look at the solo parts (up to the top of p. 3, as indicated), you can use the key of E-flat for the entire soprano solo and B-flat for the entire alto solo. This will mean that you have to cope with one little chromatic syllable (the same one in both parts), but I bet you'll be fine.
I'd advise you to work through the rhythm first, one vocal line at a time - conducting is your friend!
Are there common motives between the soprano and alto lines? What makes them easy? What makes them difficult?
If you do decide to go on to the true duet section, be advised that you'll be traveling in the flat direction around the circle of fifths, and that you'll need to watch out for excursions to minor keys.
Rising Level 3's
Look at this little gem:
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/7/79/Pergolesi_08_Fac_ut_ardeat.pdf
I know it looks long, but I bet you can work your way through it little by little...
You can listen to it here (at ramming speed, but with a wicked countertenor!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnOmk_wAo8c
And here (with a boys' choir, at a much more moderate clip)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afPj4dSuR1Y&feature=related
I'd advise you to print out the score and listen first, then mark the places where the material is repeated.
Once you've set up a little form scheme for yourself, check out the key centers....it does travel a little , but never very far afield. I bet you can puzzle it out.
From there, use your tonal and form schemes to guide your study of the piece. How will you break it up? Would working backwards be a good approach? Are the voice parts roughly equal? Will you count in 4 or in 2? Will going slow actually be helpful or not? You're in charge!
Rising Level 4's
For you, something a little different:
http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/9/9e/IMSLP42945-PMLP33670-Strauss--Op_37_6_Lieder.pdf
Check out the first song in the set. You can read the incredibly sweet translation of the text here:
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=10228
And you can listen to a recording here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRNbjDzBBGw
Once you've had a listen, try your hand at figuring out key areas for the vocal line. If you get stuck, looking at the piano line might be somewhat helpful. There's definitely some enharmonic and remote stuff going on -- and isn't it magic how it all works out in the end?
Make some decisions about the solfa, and try to sing through sections unaccompanied. Once individual key areas feel reasonably secure, try stringing them together. See if you can make it through the whole piece unaccompanied, but in the right keys -- it's a bit of a feat, I must say!
Enjoy!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
A Way around It
Happy Sunday, Solfa Adventurers!
October is here, but it's still short-and-sandal weather in Colorado, with delightful cardigan mornings and evenings. Autumn is making quite a positive impression on me this year, I must say!
Many of you know that I've embarked on the adventure of a gluten-free diet (until recently, it's been gluten-free pescatarian, but on the advice of my alternative health practitioner, I've now introduced small amounts of super-humanely-raised-you-can-request-a-picture-and-personal-history-of-the-bird-to-confirm-it-had-a-happy-life chicken...quite a change for me), which has necessitated something of a paradigm shift in what it means to put together a meal. However, it's a LOT easier to do this kind of thing now than it used to be, I believe, especially since lots of other people are on similar journeys and talking about it in interesting and helpful ways.
http://www.elanaspantry.com/
http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/fresh-nourishing-salads-for-all-seasons
Tons of information is out there -- you just have to be willing to look for it, and be willing to embrace a different way of going about the procedure of everyday things. Is it convenient? Not really. However, does it give you an opportunity to grow? Undoubtedly. And, the experience of exploration opens you to new delights, treats and treasures that people who walk the path more-traveled-by don't get to see.
As I've been dipping my toes into new dietary waters, I've been fortunate to have a parallel experience, but from the perspective of the guide rather than the tenderfoot explorer. Several intrepid and delightful women have been studying music fundamentals with me over the past few months, and we've been having tons of fun. As I mentioned last week, new information takes time to sink in, and that tends to worry us unnecessarily. Additionally, I have increasingly come to believe the "direct path" is a myth. Sometimes we get lucky, and the first time we explain something, it sinks in for the learner. However, in the world of music, almost nothing works like that. Multiple modes of operation, conflicting vocabulary, redundant synonyms (how many ways can you think of to say/describe "half step"....it's just plain sick to have that many ways to say the same thing), an ancient notational system, all within a culture where many of our most handsomely compensated "musicians" boast of having no formal training and no knowledge of any of the above -- these are some serious learning barriers. Anyone who makes it in the door despite all of that (especially as a grownup) is worthy of a big dollop of respect in my book, and they deserve to have a teacher who can show them more than one way to navigate through the choppy waters of determining the quality of an interval, unraveling the mysteries of the circle of fifths, constructing the three forms of the minor scale, etc. And, while it's a difficult task to do what we're doing, and many people would consider it more trouble than it's worth for a person who is pursuing music as an amateur, the expressions of empowerment and pride and good old-fashioned geekiness I've seen and heard out of these students have convinced me that this is worth it for them. Sometimes it's just a matter of repetition. More often, it's a matter of repetition from a variety of perspectives, taking a whole panoply of routes past one point of interest until it becomes a landmark, and then adding more landmarks, then determining the spatial/conceptual relationship of one landmark to the others, then creating a map of an ever-larger hunk of musical geography incrementally over time. In this way, being a teacher is sort of like being a human GPS device...and sometimes road closures or human error or bad neighborhoods or new developments make us say "recalculating" about 9000 times along the way, which can be annoying, but it's our job. We're the ones who already have a pretty good map (even though we, too, are always learning), good enough that we can find a way around it.
So, this week:
All Levels
Take a look at Ottman, chapter 2. Yes, I'm serious.
Read pp. 12-13. Now, take yourself back to your earliest sight-singing experience and think through what else your teacher would have needed to say in order for all of this prose to make sense to you. Did you know what a major scale was? Did you know what half steps and whole steps were? How would you define them for someone (like your former self) who had been singing them forever, but who didn't know what they were or why they were called that or why they had other names? Would you use a keyboard?
After thinking through these issues (and others that might come up along the same lines), create a procedure for teaching an older beginner basic sight-singing using the material in Ottman, chapter 2. For the purposes of the exercise, you may assume that the imaginary student already has a basic understanding of rhythms and meters.
Now, if you're curious, empirically minded, or if you have a willing victim/captive audience handy, it might be interesting and fun to try out your strategies on a real live person. In fact, I highly recommend it -- that person will inevitably teach you far more than I can. If your handiest student is a bit beyond chapter 2 skills, adapt your strategies and the material to the situation. Notice what surprises you. Delight in your student's successes. Be creative in your descriptions and your problem-solving. As you think on your feet, remember what it's like not to know. Recalculate as needed.
Enjoy!
October is here, but it's still short-and-sandal weather in Colorado, with delightful cardigan mornings and evenings. Autumn is making quite a positive impression on me this year, I must say!
Many of you know that I've embarked on the adventure of a gluten-free diet (until recently, it's been gluten-free pescatarian, but on the advice of my alternative health practitioner, I've now introduced small amounts of super-humanely-raised-you-can-request-a-picture-and-personal-history-of-the-bird-to-confirm-it-had-a-happy-life chicken...quite a change for me), which has necessitated something of a paradigm shift in what it means to put together a meal. However, it's a LOT easier to do this kind of thing now than it used to be, I believe, especially since lots of other people are on similar journeys and talking about it in interesting and helpful ways.
http://www.elanaspantry.com/
http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/fresh-nourishing-salads-for-all-seasons
Tons of information is out there -- you just have to be willing to look for it, and be willing to embrace a different way of going about the procedure of everyday things. Is it convenient? Not really. However, does it give you an opportunity to grow? Undoubtedly. And, the experience of exploration opens you to new delights, treats and treasures that people who walk the path more-traveled-by don't get to see.
As I've been dipping my toes into new dietary waters, I've been fortunate to have a parallel experience, but from the perspective of the guide rather than the tenderfoot explorer. Several intrepid and delightful women have been studying music fundamentals with me over the past few months, and we've been having tons of fun. As I mentioned last week, new information takes time to sink in, and that tends to worry us unnecessarily. Additionally, I have increasingly come to believe the "direct path" is a myth. Sometimes we get lucky, and the first time we explain something, it sinks in for the learner. However, in the world of music, almost nothing works like that. Multiple modes of operation, conflicting vocabulary, redundant synonyms (how many ways can you think of to say/describe "half step"....it's just plain sick to have that many ways to say the same thing), an ancient notational system, all within a culture where many of our most handsomely compensated "musicians" boast of having no formal training and no knowledge of any of the above -- these are some serious learning barriers. Anyone who makes it in the door despite all of that (especially as a grownup) is worthy of a big dollop of respect in my book, and they deserve to have a teacher who can show them more than one way to navigate through the choppy waters of determining the quality of an interval, unraveling the mysteries of the circle of fifths, constructing the three forms of the minor scale, etc. And, while it's a difficult task to do what we're doing, and many people would consider it more trouble than it's worth for a person who is pursuing music as an amateur, the expressions of empowerment and pride and good old-fashioned geekiness I've seen and heard out of these students have convinced me that this is worth it for them. Sometimes it's just a matter of repetition. More often, it's a matter of repetition from a variety of perspectives, taking a whole panoply of routes past one point of interest until it becomes a landmark, and then adding more landmarks, then determining the spatial/conceptual relationship of one landmark to the others, then creating a map of an ever-larger hunk of musical geography incrementally over time. In this way, being a teacher is sort of like being a human GPS device...and sometimes road closures or human error or bad neighborhoods or new developments make us say "recalculating" about 9000 times along the way, which can be annoying, but it's our job. We're the ones who already have a pretty good map (even though we, too, are always learning), good enough that we can find a way around it.
So, this week:
All Levels
Take a look at Ottman, chapter 2. Yes, I'm serious.
Read pp. 12-13. Now, take yourself back to your earliest sight-singing experience and think through what else your teacher would have needed to say in order for all of this prose to make sense to you. Did you know what a major scale was? Did you know what half steps and whole steps were? How would you define them for someone (like your former self) who had been singing them forever, but who didn't know what they were or why they were called that or why they had other names? Would you use a keyboard?
After thinking through these issues (and others that might come up along the same lines), create a procedure for teaching an older beginner basic sight-singing using the material in Ottman, chapter 2. For the purposes of the exercise, you may assume that the imaginary student already has a basic understanding of rhythms and meters.
Now, if you're curious, empirically minded, or if you have a willing victim/captive audience handy, it might be interesting and fun to try out your strategies on a real live person. In fact, I highly recommend it -- that person will inevitably teach you far more than I can. If your handiest student is a bit beyond chapter 2 skills, adapt your strategies and the material to the situation. Notice what surprises you. Delight in your student's successes. Be creative in your descriptions and your problem-solving. As you think on your feet, remember what it's like not to know. Recalculate as needed.
Enjoy!
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Course Corrections or Information Marination
Greetings, solfa navigators!
Well, there's no denying it....the equinox has come and gone, and now it's autumn in earnest. The sky has that impossibly blue Colorado summer look here still, but the leaves are starting to turn, slowly but surely.
In my own everyday academic life, I'm up to my eyeballs in studying -- my big doctoral written exams are exactly a month from tomorrow, and while I always swore I'd remain calm when the time came for me to take part in this particular academic ritual, like so many before me, I am eating those words a bit. Gratefulness for the people who remind me of all the reasons why it'll all be ok continues to run high, but sleeping and maintaining focus has already becoming a challenge. However, as difficult as this process is, there's a part of me that enjoys playing Jane Goodall while the rest of me is a bit more like a troop of riled-up chimpanzees, and she's made the following observations:
1. Looking at information that is new or unfamiliar tends to cause the subject (me) to become anxious. However....
2. Repeated viewings improve both the subject's emotional response and her intellectual understanding and retention.
3. Going over information that was formerly familiar to the subject is typically quite successful immediately.
None of this should be a surprise, most likely, but I have to admit -- I'm a little startled at how true it is. Part of me naively insists that I should be able to force-feed myself as much information as I want (familiar or not), and everything should go into a nice little box inside my head and be readily accessible to me thenceforth just because I say so. And it ain't so. As it turns out, being in a hurry just makes it harder. Patience with others is a virtue I've spent a good amount of time cultivating (to varying degrees of success at any given moment), and as I get older, it bothers me less and less to have to repeat myself to my students or my choristers. However, I find myself unaccustomed to being patient with myself -- so it's time for a personal course correction. It's time to make a change. And I'm willing to bet I'm not the only Type A out there in need of this particular lesson. So:
Rising Level 2's
Check out Ottmans 11.33 and 12.39. By the end of the week, I bet you a dollar you can learn to do both of these as sing-and-plays. No, seriously. Breathe. You can totally do this:
First, sing through one voice part at a time. Do this until completely fluent -- give yourself a couple days. Once you're fluent, aim for memory.
When you're nearly memorized on one voice part in each exercise, try tapping the melody of the opposite part from the one you're singing. Go slow if that helps...it may help less than you think. If you find yourself getting metrically lost, you may find it helpful to "conduct" with a foot or sway back and forth...it's a favorite trick of mine, and pretty easy to do in 2/4.
Slowly, add piano. Figure out a hand position and fingering for the part you play that is consistently successful...take the time to be strategic rather than winging it.
Be sure to let me know if I owe you a dollar!
Rising Level 3's
Track down your Classical Canons book and look at #139-166 (all by Cherubini). Before you freak out, I'm not suggesting you read through all of them (unless you want to, of course!). Instead, choose 3: 1 that's easy for you, 1 that requires a little bit of concentration to get through, and 1 that kicks your behind a little bit. If you like, phone a friend and coordinate one or more of your selections. Work together. Collaborate. Teach one another. Encourage one another. Take the time you need for each example, respectively. Observe your own process, and have patience as you let the music sink in.
Rising Level 4's
The day has come....it's time to look at #15 in the 15 2-part Exercises!
You have enough analytical savvy at this point to figure out your own key areas, however, I'll give you these hints:
I spend a lot of time in E minor and G Major -- the end (as you probably figured) is a Picardy.
I go to B minor a bit and C Major a bit, and maybe to A minor for a teensy minute. You'll see the usual signs pointing to these changes...
Figure out the "head" right away and go hunting for it throughout the piece....it's quite tell-tale, I think.
Don't bite off more than you can chew. If you start to feel like the piece is endless, break it up into smaller sections.
Enjoy, and don't frustrate yourself. Marinate yourself.
Well, there's no denying it....the equinox has come and gone, and now it's autumn in earnest. The sky has that impossibly blue Colorado summer look here still, but the leaves are starting to turn, slowly but surely.
In my own everyday academic life, I'm up to my eyeballs in studying -- my big doctoral written exams are exactly a month from tomorrow, and while I always swore I'd remain calm when the time came for me to take part in this particular academic ritual, like so many before me, I am eating those words a bit. Gratefulness for the people who remind me of all the reasons why it'll all be ok continues to run high, but sleeping and maintaining focus has already becoming a challenge. However, as difficult as this process is, there's a part of me that enjoys playing Jane Goodall while the rest of me is a bit more like a troop of riled-up chimpanzees, and she's made the following observations:
1. Looking at information that is new or unfamiliar tends to cause the subject (me) to become anxious. However....
2. Repeated viewings improve both the subject's emotional response and her intellectual understanding and retention.
3. Going over information that was formerly familiar to the subject is typically quite successful immediately.
None of this should be a surprise, most likely, but I have to admit -- I'm a little startled at how true it is. Part of me naively insists that I should be able to force-feed myself as much information as I want (familiar or not), and everything should go into a nice little box inside my head and be readily accessible to me thenceforth just because I say so. And it ain't so. As it turns out, being in a hurry just makes it harder. Patience with others is a virtue I've spent a good amount of time cultivating (to varying degrees of success at any given moment), and as I get older, it bothers me less and less to have to repeat myself to my students or my choristers. However, I find myself unaccustomed to being patient with myself -- so it's time for a personal course correction. It's time to make a change. And I'm willing to bet I'm not the only Type A out there in need of this particular lesson. So:
Rising Level 2's
Check out Ottmans 11.33 and 12.39. By the end of the week, I bet you a dollar you can learn to do both of these as sing-and-plays. No, seriously. Breathe. You can totally do this:
First, sing through one voice part at a time. Do this until completely fluent -- give yourself a couple days. Once you're fluent, aim for memory.
When you're nearly memorized on one voice part in each exercise, try tapping the melody of the opposite part from the one you're singing. Go slow if that helps...it may help less than you think. If you find yourself getting metrically lost, you may find it helpful to "conduct" with a foot or sway back and forth...it's a favorite trick of mine, and pretty easy to do in 2/4.
Slowly, add piano. Figure out a hand position and fingering for the part you play that is consistently successful...take the time to be strategic rather than winging it.
Be sure to let me know if I owe you a dollar!
Rising Level 3's
Track down your Classical Canons book and look at #139-166 (all by Cherubini). Before you freak out, I'm not suggesting you read through all of them (unless you want to, of course!). Instead, choose 3: 1 that's easy for you, 1 that requires a little bit of concentration to get through, and 1 that kicks your behind a little bit. If you like, phone a friend and coordinate one or more of your selections. Work together. Collaborate. Teach one another. Encourage one another. Take the time you need for each example, respectively. Observe your own process, and have patience as you let the music sink in.
Rising Level 4's
The day has come....it's time to look at #15 in the 15 2-part Exercises!
You have enough analytical savvy at this point to figure out your own key areas, however, I'll give you these hints:
I spend a lot of time in E minor and G Major -- the end (as you probably figured) is a Picardy.
I go to B minor a bit and C Major a bit, and maybe to A minor for a teensy minute. You'll see the usual signs pointing to these changes...
Figure out the "head" right away and go hunting for it throughout the piece....it's quite tell-tale, I think.
Don't bite off more than you can chew. If you start to feel like the piece is endless, break it up into smaller sections.
Enjoy, and don't frustrate yourself. Marinate yourself.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Let It Go
Welcome, my dear solfeggists!
I think I've blogged about this general topic before, but I tend to have troubles with hanging onto stuff that doesn't help me. Sometimes it's tangible stuff (why are there paystubs from a job I had in 2006 living in the trunk of my car? Because.), maybe more often it's emotional stuff. Sometimes I blame it on having a weirdly accurate memory about some things, but the truth is that my mind enjoys (???) reliving situations that it can't reconcile to its own satisfaction. It grabs on like gangbustas, refuses all distractions, and really concentrates on being upset. Yeah, I know...healthy, right? I bet I'm not alone...
This afternoon, I had a conversation with a professor who affirmed something related I've begun to suspect about listening to post-tonal music in general. In order to enjoy it, I personally have to consciously choose to let go, be less judgy, and let myself not know exactly what's going on or what's coming next. I have to give up, and in order to do so, I have to on-purpose go find the white flag and run it up the pole. This is tricky -- unraveling a well-established, intentionally-honed skill set and replacing it with calm awareness is definitely not a simple task. I'm starting to see that hyper-analysis musically is very much related to my habit of hyper-analysis of situations, people, etc., and that both have a way of getting in the way of me enjoying my life.
The long-run antidote? I'm not sure. I bet it has to do with both effort towards changing a mental pattern and relaxation towards (if one can relax directionally...maybe that contradicts the whole idea of relaxation) the fact that I have the pattern. After all, I know a lot of neurotic people -- there must be some kind of genetic advantage to being that way, or there wouldn't be so many of us swimming around in the gene pool, right?
In the short term, however, try this exercise for the week:
All Levels:
Select a piece or two from the list below (or a piece by another composer whose work you find a little difficult or intimidating):
Paul Hindemith - When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Bela Bartók - Cantata Profana
Arnold Schoenberg - Gurre-Lieder
Gyorgy Ligeti - Lux Aeterna
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Stimmung
(roughly in order of accessibility)
Track down a recording (you can buy them on iTunes for cheap, or your local university library or a good public library will have them) and set aside some time to listen. Sit someplace comfortable, turn off your ringer, close your laptop. Listen. Exercise your non-judgy muscles. Pay more attention to what happens to the sounds than you do to what the sounds themselves are (a tip stolen fair and square from my aforementioned professor). If your ear needs a break, take one. Try listening to the whole thing more than one time if you can. Observe how your experience changes.
It all sounds a little abstract, I know, but I think we can handle it. Enjoy!
I think I've blogged about this general topic before, but I tend to have troubles with hanging onto stuff that doesn't help me. Sometimes it's tangible stuff (why are there paystubs from a job I had in 2006 living in the trunk of my car? Because.), maybe more often it's emotional stuff. Sometimes I blame it on having a weirdly accurate memory about some things, but the truth is that my mind enjoys (???) reliving situations that it can't reconcile to its own satisfaction. It grabs on like gangbustas, refuses all distractions, and really concentrates on being upset. Yeah, I know...healthy, right? I bet I'm not alone...
This afternoon, I had a conversation with a professor who affirmed something related I've begun to suspect about listening to post-tonal music in general. In order to enjoy it, I personally have to consciously choose to let go, be less judgy, and let myself not know exactly what's going on or what's coming next. I have to give up, and in order to do so, I have to on-purpose go find the white flag and run it up the pole. This is tricky -- unraveling a well-established, intentionally-honed skill set and replacing it with calm awareness is definitely not a simple task. I'm starting to see that hyper-analysis musically is very much related to my habit of hyper-analysis of situations, people, etc., and that both have a way of getting in the way of me enjoying my life.
The long-run antidote? I'm not sure. I bet it has to do with both effort towards changing a mental pattern and relaxation towards (if one can relax directionally...maybe that contradicts the whole idea of relaxation) the fact that I have the pattern. After all, I know a lot of neurotic people -- there must be some kind of genetic advantage to being that way, or there wouldn't be so many of us swimming around in the gene pool, right?
In the short term, however, try this exercise for the week:
All Levels:
Select a piece or two from the list below (or a piece by another composer whose work you find a little difficult or intimidating):
Paul Hindemith - When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Bela Bartók - Cantata Profana
Arnold Schoenberg - Gurre-Lieder
Gyorgy Ligeti - Lux Aeterna
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Stimmung
(roughly in order of accessibility)
Track down a recording (you can buy them on iTunes for cheap, or your local university library or a good public library will have them) and set aside some time to listen. Sit someplace comfortable, turn off your ringer, close your laptop. Listen. Exercise your non-judgy muscles. Pay more attention to what happens to the sounds than you do to what the sounds themselves are (a tip stolen fair and square from my aforementioned professor). If your ear needs a break, take one. Try listening to the whole thing more than one time if you can. Observe how your experience changes.
It all sounds a little abstract, I know, but I think we can handle it. Enjoy!
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Body Remembers
Greetings, Solfa-practitioners!
Today in Colorado, it is the rare, beautiful kind of September day that I've seen almost nowhere else in the country (though occasionally in Portland, OR). Just warm enough, but with a hint of delightful coolness that telegraphs colder weather to come. Please remind me of how I went on and on about how gorgeous Colorado weather is next April when I'm whining about the blizzards.
And, I've had yet another run-in with alternative medicine that ties into our solfa labors. Yesterday I went to an alternative clinic and had a treatment that's based on the idea that our bodies (the gut in particular, as it turns out...go figure) are pretty smart. Their smartness, in fact, is smart enough to circumvent our minds at times, meaning that sometimes, our bodies are holding onto things that have happened to us that our conscious minds may not even remember or recognize as significant. This being the premise, getting the body to release the stress/fear/injury that our minds may not be aware of is the key to unraveling lots of inexplicable problems. Speaking as a person who has had a lifelong struggle with various health problems that don't behave as the typical M.D. expects them to, I find this idea to be a tremendous relief. Speaking as a voice teacher, I'm inclined to say (respectfully, of course): DUH! How much time do we singers spend unraveling the coping mechanisms our muscles/jaws/necks/shoulders/you name it have come up with in order to compensate for other underlying issues? And how difficult is it to re-program those mechanisms, and how often have we said to ourselves, "Ugh! My shoulder/neck/jaw just has a mind of its own!"? I have a feeling most of us can relate to this.
In our own practice of musicianship, how can we best work with/around obstacles like this? In the 2011 summer class, I think this came up a number of times as we talked about how to prepare class assignments most effectively. In general, my advice is to try something one way no more than three times, and if it still isn't working on the third attempt, stop and change your strategy (and/or ask yourself if you've possibly misunderstood the assignment or looked at the wrong example). Why? Because struggling over and over with the same task attempted in the same way is essentially teaching your body that the task is a struggle, and that it will always be difficult and never easy. And even if you eventually get through it, when you get into class the next day and attempt the task there, your body will likely remember the panic and frustration of the process and undermine your attempt. Am I saying that it's always a bad thing to struggle? Not at all. But, if you struggle in only one way and refuse to step back from a problem and come at it from a slightly different perspective, chances are you won't understand it completely. Struggle is worthwhile when it is strategic, when you have gone through a process to determine that your effort is indeed being spent in the best and most efficient fashion, and when you know for a fact that what you're working to learn is actually truly what you want to know.
I sort of liked last week's method for dividing up tasks, so I'm going to follow a similar pattern this week.
Harmonic Analysis Intensive
Look at your Music for Analysis book, examples #186 (p. 126), #193 (p. 132), and #200 (p. 137).
Now, the first two examples have a similar problem, and it can be easily solved if you follow my rule about playing through any example you analyze before attempting the analysis. The question you need to ask yourself as you listen is: "What key is this example really in?" Make sure you really believe in your answer before you start going hog-wild with Roman numerals -- in each case, the key signature is misleading. Once you've made a decision, make sure that your progression makes sense by the numbers -- if something sounds normal, but looks weird, chances are that something is wrong. So, if you find yourself in that situation, immediately stop and re-assess rather than pushing through and finding yourself in a frustrating mess.
The third example is a good candidate for solfa chord analysis, in my opinion. Once that's done, you can easily add Roman numerals where it's appropriate -- meaning in the places where the numbers actually work. If you get into a situation where the numbers move in a strange way, but the harmonies actually sound ok, don't worry about the stupid numbers. This is pre-Mozart stuff, and while Handel's stuff is pretty functional, he still takes a jaunt to the wonderful world of modality every now and again....it's no cause for alarm.
Rhythmic Intensive
In your Ottman, look at chapter 15, section 3 (pp. 252-54). Two part exercises with syncopation...don't panic! I'd recommend doing about 2-3 of these in a sitting, fewer if you find them difficult, more if you find them easy.
First, have a little talk with yourself about how to best take on some of these. I highly recommend learning one part at a time while conducting. I also recommend taking out ties for the sake of practice if necessary and tapping on two different surfaces so you can keep track of both parts. Or, you may choose to speak one part and tap the other...that can also be helpful. I started my musical life by taking piano lessons, so it feels natural to me to treat the two staves as right hand and left hand of a piano piece.
Second, if you do run into problems, be creative. Figure out what it is that's causing a train wreck -- don't just blindly start over from the beginning more than 3 times. Use your noodle. Isolate difficult elements. Work backwards. Use syllables if you need them.
Melodic Intensive
Grab your Ottman and flip toward the back of the book. There are several exercises back there that are much more visually forbidding than they are difficult, once one has made some savvy tonal choices.
19.7 (My initial instinct was not to change solfa at all in this example, but if jumping to a "fi" gives you fits, feel free to do a brief switcheroo. I'm still trying to figure out what this piece is doing in the "remote modulation" chapter since it's a canon, but I'm sure there must be a good reason)
21.16 (You'll notice right away, I'm sure, that the piece begins and ends in E-flat major, and I'd recommend practicing those bits first. Then, starting in the second line, make some decisions about where to shift to new keys...I used a total of three key centers for the whole example...remember to look for enharmonic relationships and let the tritone be your guide).
21.64 (this little devil is entirely E-centric...sometimes major, sometimes minor, with a few dashes of modal inflection here and there. Try playing the lower voice while singing the upper voice...that should actually make it easier)
In the spirit of not creating struggle, I've tried to give a little bit less work this week. Hopefully that means you'll feel like you have time to walk away from something that's frustrating and come back to it later when you feel more energized.
Good luck, and good health!
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