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!
Showing posts with label perfectionism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perfectionism. Show all posts
Monday, December 19, 2011
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!
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, 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!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
One-trick ponies
Hello, solfa specialists!
It's good to be back to my home turf....
I've just spent several wonderful, incredibly stressful, highly enlightening days under the thrall of "The Tudors Conference" in my capacity as the grad assistant for the Center for British and Irish Studies. The conference, by all accounts, was a big success -- things were smooth, people showed up, and I felt like I'd gotten really lucky. Our keynote speaker, Michael Hirst, was not only a joy to work and interact with, he proved to be an incredibly engaging and thoughtful speaker. I was also especially impressed with the CU humanities faculty and our collaborators from the Denver Art Museum and the University of Wyoming -- they were so gracious and they, too, treated their presentations as we musicians treat a performance. They brought their A-game. They made it their business to say something relevant and exciting, and to truly communicate with their listeners. I feel extremely grateful to have been a part of the fine group of people who made this conference happen.
In the face of all the multifaceted knowledge and the extremely smart people I spent the last few days with, I definitely started to feel like a dumb musician. These folks not only knew a lot about their own field of expertise, they knew a lot about one another's....and a fair amount about mine, for that matter. Without the comforts of my own people reminding me of everything I know and know how to do, it was easy to begin to feel that I don't really know anything, that I'm not doing everything I can, that I haven't put time into being a cultured and well-informed person. And, to be sure, there are so very many, many things I want to know more about. I want to be a person who can talk intelligently about art, who knows why people compare Hitchcock to Bach, and who has read all the important books that smart people are supposed to have read. It seems like I'll need a lifetime to come close to hitting those marks.
But, now and today, I realize I am just one person. I've chosen a path that is almost bizarre in its specificity, and I am telling the truth when I say I love it with all of my heart. So, while part of me recognizes that I've sacrificed a lot of breadth for the sake of depth and feels sorry not to be able to say I have both, I am also grateful that there is time and opportunity to stretch out and grow more, and to benefit from the knowledge and experience of people whose depth lies in a different place than my own. Though I feel a little stung by humility in saying it, I am forced to believe my own sermonizing: the path from the known to the unknown is respectable in its own right when one chooses to travel on it, regardless of their specific trajectory.
That being said, I'm making this week's assignment a little different -- in loving tribute to this past weekend's subject matter.
All levels:
Find a copy of the 1998 film "Elizabeth" and watch it...it's worth your while and a little bit of cash, I promise. You can rent it on iTunes or Amazon for $2.99.
In the final scenes of the movie, there are two very famous pieces of music that are played -- neither of which are contemporary to the time of the movie itself, but both of which are incredibly evocative and probably readily recognizable to you:
Nimrod from Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar
Introit from Requiem by W.A. Mozart
After listening, proceed to the linked scores and spend a little time each day this week reading through the various voice parts of the Mozart and the familiar melody of the Elgar (note that when the G-sharps start showing up in the Elgar, it's probably a smart idea to use A-do, and when they are canceled out, to switch back to D-do). After spending some time with the scores, spend a little time reflecting on their function in the film. Do the scores alone evoke the same kinds of emotion when you're dealing with them on their own terms as they do when you consider them in the context of the film? Have these pieces changed for you after both studying them and hearing them in this context? Would you have chosen different pieces of music for these parts of the film? If so, which ones?
Enjoy, my friends!
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