Balance

Welcome, dear readers!

Spring-like weather is tentatively continuing here in Denver...I am attempting to remain skeptical, but all these sunny days have my hopes running sky-high for real spring!  My journey to Phoenix later this week will probably only make it harder to keep my spring fever at bay, since they're expecting high 70's and 80's.  I plan to bask unapologetically the entire time I'm there -- will any of you be joining the big OAKE party?  If so, let me know, and let's catch up!

Thinking about the weather is an extremely pleasant distraction from the rigors of degree-finishing and future-forging that occupy most of my head-space at the moment.  It's an interesting time, and my hopes are high -- I'm lucky to have good support from my faculty, and I believe that good things are on their way, employment-wise.  Keeping the sense of urgency at bay is hard, sometimes too hard, and panic kicks me around the schoolyard and steals my sleep (like so much lunch money) and makes me feel like I'd better get my hands on a refrigerator box ASAP.  And then, I'm lucky again...my dear friends help me piece my sense of well-being back together and remind me that sometimes I just need a good night's sleep and maybe an afternoon off...and having those things will not prevent me from getting everything done.

I'm sure I am not at all alone in this.  The middle path is difficult to keep track of, and I'm not really sure why.  It's just too easy to run to extremes -- enough somehow usually doesn't seem like enough.  It's too big an issue for one little blog, really.  But, a funny thing I caught myself doing two times today is sort of the inspiration for this week's assignment.  Immediately upon both church services finishing, I made for the out-of-doors and immediately did something extremely silly -- skipping in my choir robe, quoting this movie, maniacal giggling, you get the idea.  Why?  Not because I disliked the services (I actually like the services and the music quite a bit), but because I had to behave myself just so for a certain period of time, causing a backlog of silliness that demanded to be set free the moment such a thing became possible.  It felt good (like the proper resolution of a V7 or a 4-3 suspension), no one seemed to be the worse for wear, and balance was restored to my little corner of the universe.  So, in that vein...

Rising Level 2's


Here's a little gem for you:

http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/5/53/Praetorius_-_Wie_schoen_leuchtet.pdf

We've dealt with this tune before, so hopefully it sounds a little familiar to you, though the rhythmic language of this setting is a bit more complex than what we've worked on before.

Therefore, start with the lowest line (extra points if you can tell me a little something about what "Bassus generalis pro organo si placet" means), just so you're not distracted by melodic material.  Determine what meter you're actually in (hint: the top number in the time signature is NOT an 8, and neither should you count in 8), then tap or clap your way through.  Once that feels comfortable enough, sing that bottom line (note the clef changes -- you may choose whatever octave you want to sing in).

Now, go do something silly for five minutes.

At your next practice session, look at the top line and clap/tap your way through.  Try tapping the rhythm with one hand while you conduct with the other.

Now, go do something silly for five minutes.

Next time, sing through that top line.  Note that the B-naturals are just a little chromatic inflection that you will call "fi" -- they shouldn't pose much of a problem.

Guess what?  Go do something silly for five minutes.

Now, tackle the rhythm of the middle line....it's probably the most rhythmically challenging, and conducting along with your tapping is a good idea.

Done?  Good...time for your five-minute break!

Try singing the middle line...like the top line, it has a "fi" here and there, but no worries.

And one more five-minute break!

If you can, find a friend or two to sing through this with....it'll be fun, and then you can take your silly breaks together!

Rising Level 3's


And here's a piece for you:

http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/scar-exr.pdf

Note that there's a rhythmic error in the next-to-last measure in the alto part -- that last C-sharp should be a whole note, not a half note.

You're going to follow the same general practice-break scheme as the 2's, but your learning procedure will be a little different.

First, look over the piece up to m. 45 and find what material Mr. Scarlatti used imitatively -- basically, you're hunting for motives or themes.  The first one is easy: the opening of the soprano part, which I think you might call Theme A.  Does it happen in other parts?  Is it transposed?  Find and label any repetitions.  Then, find a few more themes like that in between the beginning of the piece and m. 45.

Now, what changes at m. 46 (hint: think texture)?  How are you going to deal with the chromaticism you encounter?  Go back through the whole piece and locate any places you suspect you may need to change keys.

Now, just tackle one vocal line per day.  If you whip through that easily, do a solfa chord analysis of m. 46-end.  Again, singing through the piece with friends could be a lot of fun....

Rising Level 4's


For you guys, something very Lenten and fun:

http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/f/fe/Battishill_o_lord_look_down.pdf

You're also on the alternation-of-work-and-fun plan, like the 2's, and your learning process is going to be rather similar to the 3's.

Begin by looking over the whole piece, noting any divisi and marking any homophonic sections.  Do a cursory examination of the accidentals you encounter, and decide where you might want to change keys.

Now, look over the text and see if you can associate particular themes or motives with textual sections.  Label these motives if you discover them.

Sing through the lines one at a time, paying special attention to intonation in any minor seconds or augmented seconds you encounter.

For fun, using the keyboard score (which is essentially a simplified reduction of the vocal lines), do a Roman numeral analysis of this piece.  Or, if you don't have time for the whole piece, focus on these spots:

mm. 71-86 (in C minor)
m. 107-end (trust the key signature)

Enjoy!

The Power of Suggestion

Greetings from snow-blanketed Denver!

The Universe gave me the unexpected gift of a snow day yesterday -- despite my disappointment in the cancellation/delay of conference events at my British Studies gig, I must confess how badly I'd needed a real day off.

A little time to think and gather myself, plus a few conversations with my graduate colleagues and some of my private students, have brought the article below back to my mind:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/12/07/143265882/vowels-control-your-brain?sc=fb&cc=fp

The gist of the article is this: front vowels ([i], [I], [e], [E]) tend to imply smallness or lightness, and back vowels ([u], [o], [a]) tend to imply heaviness or largeness.  Obviously, this isn't completely universal, but there are definitely some pretty convincing examples in the article.

What does this have to do with solfa, you ask?  Well...I have a bit of a pet theory that I can't exactly prove yet that Guido's choice of syllables (and the later evolution of our modern syllables, including chromatics) wasn't merely coincidental with the beginning of each line of the chant Ut queant laxis.  I believe the syllables were chosen intuitively and intentionally to phonetically represent both the tendencies and the relative placement of each tone.  Furthermore, I believe these vowel choices had some impact on the evolution from a modal to a tonal system.

Here's what I mean -- the original six syllables were ut, re, mi, fa, so, & la.  If we go strictly by the rubric above, ut, fa, so, and la fall into the category of back vowels, and re & mi belong to the front vowel category.  I would argue that Guido's Italianate [a] would have been more toward the bright (front) side, especially in the case of la, since the dental [l] pulls the tongue forward (resulting in a more fronted vowel).  Let's leave fa in the back vowel camp for now, and assume that we now have this situation:

ut (heavy)
re (light)
mi (light)
fa  (heavy)
so (heavy)
la  (light)

or in the more modern system:

do (heavy) 

re (light) 

mi (light)

fa  (heavy)

so (heavy)

la  (light)

ti  (light)

Now, as speakers of American-accented English, we pronounce these syllables differently, so they feel a little different to us, and our pronunciation idiosyncrasies create intonation issues different from the ones likely encountered in 11th-century Italy.  If we think carefully about our pronunciation, however, the tendencies of these vowels reflect the proper intonation for a major scale, especially if we designate the vowel [o] as "stable" rather than "heavy" (which seems an allowable substitution to me):

do (stable) 

re (light)             (note that the resulting do-re-mi 3rd should be wide)

mi (light)

fa  (heavy)

so (stable)

la  (light)

ti  (light)

If this theory holds water, it casts some significant doubts on the pedagogical wisdom of both fixed-do solfege (where the vowels are at least partly contradictory of correct intonation in all keys except C) and do-based minor (where the syllables me, le, & te are used to denote the lowered 3rd, 6th, and 7th scale degrees in minor, and each has a vowel that still implies "highness" -- la to le being particularly egregious).  In my earlier years, I felt much more absolute about all this.  These days, I'm more willing to acknowledge that vowel influence is probably much stronger for some people than it is for others.  However, from an acoustical standpoint, this all seems to hold up, too, and if physical fact gives one system even a small advantage over another, I think that's worth acknowledging.  If vowels can suggest to ear and voice that two notes have a certain relationship to one another, why not use the power of suggestion to our students' advantage?

I'm curious to know what you all think about this, and I'd like you to try it out and let me know:

All Levels

Read the NPR article and all my verbiage above.

Track down your Ottman book and read some examples that come easily for you (ch. 2-9, as appropriate).  The first time through, sing without thinking much about the syllables -- just sing as you normally would.  The second time through, be extremely sensitive to your pronunciation of each syllable.  Does your intonation improve?  Do you feel an increased sensitivity to the proper intonation of each syllable/interval?  If you like, choose a few examples in minor and try singing them once in do-based minor and once in la-based minor, both times with a strong focus on pronunciation.  Was it hard to get the intonation of the lowered scale degrees correct in do-based minor?  Try singing an example or two in fixed-do (no chromatic inflections, meaning that F-flat, F, and F-sharp are all called fa), still with an eye towards pronunciation.  What happens to your intonation?  

I'm really quite curious to hear what you discover...