Hello all,
So, I find myself at the end of my concert season (just one more show this weekend, and as a just plain choral singer), and it's been a wild ride this year. Good work has been done, obstacles overcome, friendships grown stronger, experience gained. It's been hard, and I imagine many of us feel the same weariness.
Over the past few weeks, my attention has been drawn to a sort of lousy habit of mine...I dwell. I get hung up on something, and I let it become my whole reality. Not only is this exhausting, it's almost always completely counterproductive. Sure, people need to talk about things and process things, but hanging on so, well....it seems....ill-advised. Interestingly (and, as life goes, appropriately), one of the biggest, most consuming projects of the year contains this lyric by Stephen Schwartz:
Now the Age of Gold is dead
And the dreams we've clung to dying to stay young
Have left us parched and old instead…
When my courage crumbles
When I feel confused and frail
When my spirit falters on decaying altars
And my illusions fail,
I go on right then.
I go on again.
I go on to say
I will celebrate another day…
I go on…
If tomorrow tumbles
And everything I love is gone
I will face regret
All my days, and yet
I will still go on…
And everything I love is gone
I will face regret
All my days, and yet
I will still go on…
It's hard to keep going. It's hard to bounce back, especially when the thing that seems like it's going the most wrong is also the thing you wanted and needed most to go right. Loss happens. Injustice happens. Deals are broken. The only thing to do is to go on, look toward the future, take the education of unfortunate events for what it is, and call upon the people in your life who love and support you. And soon, things will look better. Why? Because re-invention happens. New pathways can be found. New relationships will be forged.
A very wise friend of mine once told me years ago when I complained that it felt like people were lining up just to be able to fight with me: "Yes, but if you look around, you'll see that there are just as many people lining up to help you." He's right. And the hardest part is to just convince yourself to take that look, because if we allow trouble and bad situations to become our reality, we'll miss out on the opportunities for resolution.
Rising Level 2's
Take a look at this piece:
Look at the bass line first. Check your key signature and meter, but then try to just forge ahead. You'll encounter a D-flat in the last line -- call it "ta" for now. Next, look at the soprano line. Knowing what you know about the bass line, do you anticipate any modulations? Sing through it. Repeat this procedure for the inner voices. Then, if you're feeling like a little warm-up for the summer, do a quick Roman numeral analysis of the diatonic chords only. Next, look at the chromatic chords, and see if you can find a justification for each of them...meaning: do they resolve? What is their quality? Any idea about how to label them?
Rising Level 3's
Take a look at this piece:
Carefully examine your key signature and meter before you begin, but try to just read through each voice. When you encounter an accidental, see what your instinct tells you to do -- make a snap decision about whether to modulate the first time around, but then go back and see if you think it might have been easier to do things another way.
Rising Level 4's
Take a look at this score:
....while you listen to it here:
What do your ears tell you about the chromaticism, especially the more adventurous bits? Print out the score and listen again, marking the bits where you definitely feel you may be in a different key than indicated by the signature. Next, read through the soprano part, and see if you can change keys at the places you've marked successfully. Repeat with the other voices. If you're feeling adventurous, do a Roman numeral analysis of the score and discover what sorts of modulation Mr. Haydn used.
Enjoy!
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