Some First Impressions

A rose blooming in Elizabeth Park, in West Hartford... Or, a metaphor for my musical intellect blossoming.

A fortnight has now passed since the first day of classes, and I now have a more substantial response for those who have asked how everything is going.  I am in the middle of my first official full week, and now is the time to establish a sense of routine for myself.  In one of my classes this morning, the professor reminded us, as the Rollings Stones sing, "Time Waits for No One."

It's funny how seemingly endless free time can whittle away.  Right now I have fewer than 9 hours of scheduled class time; my "class week" begins at 9:30 am on Monday and ends promptly at 10:40 am Thursday morning.  Technically, my work week is shorter than my weekend.  (And by the way, this analysis is the more technical side of my MIT education that is not allowing itself to be repressed.)

I am taking the following classes this semester—I'll write about some of them now, and leave others for another time:

• Music Technology I - A class mostly focusing on using the computer for music notation, specifically a program called Finale.  I've used this program a lot before, but it's a program where you can always learn more.
• Advanced Composition - This is my weekly composition lesson with a professor on the composition faculty (the same person every week, at least for this semester).  I've only had one meeting so far, but it went well.  He also teaches...
• Graduate Score Reading - Has anyone ever placed an orchestral score in front of you at the piano and asked you to sight read the music?  Were all those different instruments in different keys too much to handle?  If so, this is the class for you!  I'm in this class with a few other composition majors; most of us didn't pass out of the class.  It is going to be an intense class, but a worthwhile skill to develop.
• Graduate Music History Review - Later in the semester, I'll be taking this history review class based on the placement test I took a couple weeks ago.  I placed out of some of the history (i.e., the earlier parts), so this class won't start for me until sometime in October.
• Graduate Ear Training Review - A class to develop sight-singing and other musicianship skills, such as transcribing melodies as they are played.  The professor for this course is quite the character.
• Composers' Seminar - A weekly zero-credit-but-required meeting of all (undergrad, grad) composition students.  Most weeks there will be a guest speaker to talk about his or her work, or to share some other knowledge relevant to composition.  For example, today the professor of the Music Technology class listed above spoke to all the composers about good notation and engraving techniques.

All this only adds up to about 500 minutes of class each week (excluding the music history class which has yet to start for me).  And yet, there's plenty to be done.  First and foremost, I'm here to study composition.  Subsequently my primary task is to write music, which I hope to do each and every day of the semester (and every day when school is not in session), even if it's just a little bit.  Like practicing instruments and studying in general, composing for two hours every day is unmistakably a more productive an successful endeavor than composing for fourteen hours a day once a week.  The "sleep on it" expression didn't come from nowhere…

But I'm getting sidetracked (as usual)…

In addition to spending time at the quasi-proverbial composer's block, there is also plenty of practicing to be done.  Tonight I attended my first Capitol Winds rehearsal.  Capitol Winds is more of a community ensemble (as opposed to most groups at the Hartt School that are specifically for performance majors), and it seems like most of the people in the band are (older-than-I-am) adults, many of whom are teachers.  We sight-read a bunch of music tonight, the details of which I'll save for another entry.  But I will say that the concert program should be a lot of fun to play.

There are also two classes that entail outside practicing.  The first is the aforementioned ear training class.  Like everything else in life, the only way to improve one's sight-singing skills is to work at it every day.  The second class is the score reading class, undoubtedly the course that will require more work than any other class, except perhaps all the time I will spend composing.  Even then, though, it's a close call.  To be able to sight-read scores with several instruments, you have to know how to read music written on any clef.  The Clef is the funny-looking symbol at the beginning of a line of music that indicates which lines and spaces represent which notes.  Most people are familiar with treble clef (you would know one if you saw one), but it turns out that there are seven possible clefs.  (There are more than seven clefs out there, but with only seven note names, only seven clefs are unique.  If you're still reading this paragraph and are confused, there's always Wikipedia.)

In any case, the class moves at a quick pace.  Below is the assignment for next Monday (the letters represent books we're working out of):

1. D: p. 53 - Work up to eighth = 120 (Graduation Day will be 9/22)
2. D: pp. 10 and 22 - Alternating . . . 2 notes . . . and then . . . 1 note (speaking AND speaking and playing) - tempo needs to be steady, but it is up to you . . . always feel a little uncomfortable in order to make the most progress.  Mix treble, alto and bass clefs.  Switch order.
3. M&F: All of Chapter A (play through and also do some work on harmonic interval identification)
4. B: 3 + 4 - Speak and play up through the chords . . . substituting clefs, including the following exciting combinations: Alto & Bass, Alto & Treble, Bass & Alto, Bass & Treble

As you can see, it's enough to keep me busy.  And busy I am being kept…but not too busy; the other day I walked over to nearby Elizabeth Park.  The photo attached to this entry is from that excursion.  That's all for now…My plan is to write at least every couple of weeks, even if the entries are somewhat shorter, though clearly I had plenty to talk about.