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.