O tell me the truth about love

Greetings, much-loved solfeggists!

First, in honor of Valentine's Day, please indulge me in reading the following by one of my all-time favorite poets, W.H. Auden.  Benjamin Britten set it and three of Auden's other poems about love in his "Cabaret Songs" -- you can follow this link to hear a performance of all four songs (the audio quality isn't the best....sorry!).

Some say that love's a little boy, and some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round, and some say that's absurd:
But when I asked the man next door who looked as if he knew,
His wife grew very cross indeed and said it wouldn't do.


Does it look like a pair of pyjamas or the ham in a temperance hotel?
O tell me the truth about love.
Does its odour remind one of llamas, or has it a comforting smell?
O tell me the truth about love.
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is, or soft as an eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.


I looked inside the summerhouse, it wasn't ever there,
I've tried the Thames at Maidenhead and Brighton's bracing air;
I don't know what the blackbird sang or what the roses said,
But it wasn't in the chicken run or underneath the bed.


Can it pull extraordinary faces?  Is it usually sick on a swing?
O tell me the truth about love.
Does it spend all its time at the races, or fiddling with pieces of string?
O tell me the truth about love.
Has it views of its own about money? Does it think patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar, but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.


Your feelings when you meet it, I am told, you can't forget,
I've sought it since I was a child but haven't found it yet;
I'm getting on for thirty-five, and still I do not know
What kind of creature it can be that bothers people so.


When it comes, will it come without warning, just as I'm picking my nose?
O tell me the truth about love.
Will it knock on my door in the morning, or tread in the bus on my toes?
O tell me the truth about love.
Will it come like a change in the weather?  Will its greeting be courteous or bluff?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.


Clearly, Auden isn't being too serious about all this (ergo the allusion to nose-picking), but his request is well-taken.  We've all been enculturated into the rosiest of illusions about love, courtesy of the Disney princesses, Hallmark, eHarmony, etc.  We've also seen the reality of our own and others' relationships, and the cognitive dissonance between the illusory and the real can be hard to take.  In particular, I've been noticing that this concept of the ideal often prevents people from having the guts to talk about what's real (and what's really bothering us) because we feel guilty that we haven't managed somehow to magick fantasy into reality.  Then, we get resentful because things drift ever further away from the way we want them to be, and it becomes harder and harder to salvage whatever's gone wrong.  Luckily, no one has a perfect memory, and we all forget many of our disappointments, which turns into a kind of accidental forgiveness....but it's clear that this isn't a real solution, and sometimes it isn't so easy to wait until the feelings pass.

My rising level 3's will remember me saying several times this summer:

Solfa is like therapy.  When you talk about your problems, it becomes a lot easier to solve them.

I'd like to add to that:

Your relationship to your own ideal musical self is like any other relationship.  It doesn't thrive because you feel fuzzy about it.  It thrives because you work on it.

This is not to say that you shouldn't enjoy the work.  Lucky for us, there's a lot to love about being a musician, and we should strive to immerse ourselves in the most satisfying parts of that as often as we can, whether that's performing, listening, composing, whatever.  But, there's also spinach to be eaten...and we can't expect to be virtuosi if we shy away from the aspects of our musicianship that fall short.  We have to be honest about them.  We have to talk about them.  We have to give them some attention, and be ok with the fact that it might be intellectually and emotionally difficult in the short run. But, if we believe it's worth it, we have to try.

All Levels:


Take a look at this love song by Hans Leo Hassler:

http://www3.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/hassler/hass-gmu.pdf

The gist of the text is, "Woe is me, I'm in love with someone too good for me..."

Sing through the melody first, and then as many of the harmony parts as you care to tackle.

Memorize the melody


Do a chordal analysis (rising 2's, do as much as you dare) -- you can take your pick of solfa chords (meaning that you start with a Do major) or Roman numerals.

Then, look at this setting of essentially the same melody:

http://www.saengerkreis-bamberg.de/noten/geistlich/passion/Bach_WennIchEinmalSollScheiden.pdf

Sing through the parts, and do a Roman numeral analysis (again, as you are able).

The text of this verse of the chorale (taken from Bach's St. Matthew Passion, and this harmonization is sung just after Christ dies) is:

When I must once and for all depart,
then do not depart from me;
when I must suffer death,
then stand by me;
when my heart will be
most fearful,
then snatch me from the terrors
by the virtue of your own fear and pain!


....and suddenly it's a whole other kind of love song.  You can listen to it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Q6rxdPT7A

And finally, to answer Mr. Auden's question:

Love is little, love is low
Love will make my spirit grow
Grow in peace, grow in light,
Love will do the thing that's right.
(Shaker Hymn)

Happy Valentine's Day!

A new year carol

Hello, my long-lost solfeggists!

So, we are now one week into the 49-week cycle. You will have noticed, perhaps, that I missed week 1 -- sort of intentional on my part, but mostly due to my quick jaunt to Portland, OR for the wedding of the first of my siblings, my older brother. A good time was had by all, I think....in fact, dancing with my younger brother was sort of a cultural education in itself, but I digress...

On the last day of classes, my dear Loyola students were kind enough to collaborate with me in gathering some "solfa aphorisms" -- it brought me back to my days in girls' chorus when we (being the littlest bit dorky) carried around what we called "autograph books" (a la Laura Ingalls Wilder) to collect little sayings from our friends. Don't judge....we were homeschoolers, so we didn't have yearbooks. Anyway, here are some of the sayings that we came up with just a bit over a week ago, many of which transcend solfa and the musical realm:

"Let us take our children seriously! Everything else follows from this...only the best is good enough for a child." (ZK, paraphrased)

Live a little. Music doesn't belong in a china closet.

Modes are messy.

Solfa class is just like therapy....a place to share your troubles. When you talk about your problems, they become easier to solve.

You cannot be a great teacher without giving a little of your heart to every student and in every lesson you teach.

Chromaticism is just a splash of color.

Sometimes anger is just a part of caring.

Solfa is like a workout for your brain.

Listen. It's better than making noise.

We teach people. We teach music. Remember to love both.

Teach your students as if you were teaching your own children.

You choose what you take with you.

You never know for sure what seeds you plant will wind up taking root and flourishing.

Being a good teacher to yourself is a necessary step to becoming a good teacher of others.

The British Invasion would've really taken off if they had used solfa syllables.

Your teacher knows better than you at this moment.

Drinks are better than drama.

Sometimes sitting with failure is more valuable than a thousand successes.

C, D, E.....as easy as ut-re-mi!

You have both your strengths and your weaknesses for a reason. Embrace them. Know them.

Obviously, some of these are more serious than others, some are mostly inside jokes, and some are firmly in my favorite touchy-feely realm. However, I have to say that I think it's valuable to reflect on our recent experiences in the solfa classroom in ways that are both comical and serious, both concrete and hopelessly abstract, and both practical and merely ideal. After all, solfa is a musicianship course, and we all know that our personal experiences and reflections and senses of humor are inextricable from our artistic behavior.

As we ease into this new year, and in the spirit of all of the above, I invite you:

All Levels:

Take a moment sometime this week to write down what you enjoyed about this year's solfa experience, and record the ways in which you know you've grown. Brag. Revel....just a little.

Then, take another moment and write down the things you wish we would have spent more time with in class, the gaps in your own experience that you'd like to have spackled up, and the goals you have for yourself before embarking upon the next phase of your musical training.

If you feel comfortable, please share either or both of the above lists with me. I cannot overstate how important it is to me that each of you feels that this course is supposed to be for YOU, to help YOU grow and succeed. Believe me when I say: if it lies within my power to help you, I want to do that. Also, knowing what you want to work on during the year will really help me guide my posts here on the blog -- at the moment, I sort of follow my nose and try to give you all a nice variety, but if there's something you'd like me to focus on, I'd be glad to do that.

And, just so I don't feel totally soft-core about this week's post:

All Levels:

Each day, select 2 Ottman examples to sight-sing (one in major, one in minor), using the principles we discussed this summer....most importantly, DON'T STOP! If you're wondering what chapter(s) to use, try:

Rising 2's - ch. 6, 8, or 9

Rising 3's - ch. 11, 12, or (if you're feeling frisky) 13

Rising 4's - ch. 13, 7 (if you'd like to practice alto clef), or 20

Enjoy, my friends, and please do consider sending me some feedback -- just like at Burger King, I'd like you to have it YOUR way.