Nostalgic Before Leaving

The Entrance to 133 Beacon St

Let me paint a picture for you.  The four flights of stairs leading up to my dorm room are so old that they have been broken in by the countless inhabitants of 133 Beacon St.  The stairs are slope gently inward giving the whole staircase the slight feeling that it is peeling away from the wall and listing inwards.  White faux Corinthian columns provide support at the corners each landing and dark wooden banisters contrast with the pale walls.  There is an old fashioned mirror on the ceiling above the fifth floor of the type that normally graces expensive hotel lobby’s, but ours looks like it has black mould growing on it. 

As I climb the flight to my room, I get a musical snapshot of each floor and its inhabitants.  Funky electric guitar pours out of the door on the first floor as well as gales of girly laughter (only of note because it’s a guys room).  A woman sings on the second, there is flute wafting out

Where I Can Spy on my Peers

from the room across the landing.  The next floor up the door is always open, letting me steal a glance at room that looks like it has a resident tornado.  Then there’s my floor.  Above me, there is a Brazilian bass player who I can hear playing groovy lines late into the night as I lay on my bed. 

 

Music just floats around here.  Everywhere I go I am either hearing or imagining music.  If I go out into the real world, I analyze chord

progressions in restaurants or figure out the melody in solfege while walking to the T.  Today I decided that the elevator chime was an F#, based on its relationship to the song that was playing in my head. 

Today I was talking to someone about my probable university degree (biology and English, if you don’t know).  I was saying that it is hard for me to juggle my three loves, music, science, and English.  My friend sympathized, but only to a point.  He’s one of those enviable people who has always known that he wanted to play music. He had taken AP Chemistry and Physics in high school and really enjoyed it, but now he said he was “happy it was over so that he could focus on music”.  When I expressed my envy, he asked why I couldn’t just pick one thing and do only that.  I said I would probably go crazy.  Then I thought, would I?  I haven’t these past four weeks...

It Don't Mean a Thing

I’ve been thinking about elusive concept of "swing".  The best music textbooks skirt around directly defining “swing”, yet “swing” is an integral part of jazz*.  It is a rhythm and a musical era—which both have concrete definitions.  It is when swing is used as a verb that is becomes so difficult to define, as in “that person really swings”.  For me, “swing” is the feel in music that makes me want to tap my foot, lean forward in my chair, and grin like a maniac.  “Swinging” is feel and a way of playing.  When I listen to one of the jazz greats, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker or Cannonball Adderley, I can instantly say that they swing. 

The other night I met a bunch of fellow Five-Weekers at a pizza parlour down the street.  I had a fantastic philosophical conversation about jazz harmony with a couple of guys.  One of the guys was complaining about how the jazz he listens to gets repetitive.  A guy from New Orleans and I verbally jumped on him and said that he was listening to “bad” jazz if it ever got boring, or sounded the same way twice.  We kept trying to describe various ways that one could tell if the jazz was worth listening to when I said, “you have to listen to jazz that swings, or else it’s not real jazz”.  The other guy agreed with me, and then we launched into a conversation about which jazz cats swing the most.

 As an aside, I love being here, I can talk to people and get misty eyed about the beauty of jazz and then we can have a 45-minute conversation about how awesome jazz theory is.

We’ve also been talking about “swing” in some of my classes.  In my “Survey of String Styles” class we've been listening to great pioneers of jazz violin and describing their individual styles.  One descriptive verb that always comes up is whether or not they “swing”.  We said yes to Joe Venuti, no to Eddie South, and Stuff Smith got the ultimate compliment, “he swings really hard”.  Modern violin players “swing” too, any jazz musician that I want to listen to “swings”. 

After this class, I was listening to some of my fellow string classmates improvise. Some of the most technically advanced players don’t/can’t swing at all.  While they play good notes while soloing, there is no swing and they sound like classical musicians playing notes from a blues scale.  Some who are novice players swing so hard that I want to simultaneously get up and dance and go cry in a corner.  So clearly, how much someone swings is not necessarily correlated to skill level. 

However, most of the horn players who can play their instrument swing, regardless of their level.  Are horns more conducive to swinging?  Or is swing beaten (metaphorically) out of violinists in the classical tradition?  I love classical music, but it is undeniable that many classically trained violinists can’t swing. 

I hope I fall into the classically trained but still swinging category.  I think I do... in my first private lesson here my teacher said, "You swing pretty hard for not knowing the correct bowing pattern".  !!!!  Thank you?  I think?  

While I am totally enamoured with jazz, there is one thing that really bothers me about the genre. When I’m playing jazz, I’m never allowed to sound like a violin.  I’m always mimicking the sound of a guitar pick strumming a guitar, or trying to phrase like a vocalist.  And I am always supposed to be recreating the staccato punches of a trumpet, or the ornaments that come so easily to saxophones.  When do I get to sound like a violin?  When do I get to play long gooey bows with lots of vibrato in the key of G or D?  Please don’t tell me I can only find that in the orchestra! 

*Interestingly, some non-jazz swings as well, blues, some bluegrass and fusion all come immediately to mind. 

International Students

I love how international this program is.  I love meeting all the American students with their different American accents, slang, and mannerisms.  I love watching the ways the South Americans greet each other.  I love hearing French, Portuguese, and Danish flying around the halls at school. 

I think my favourite new slang is the greeting “s’up”.  As you probably all know, it’s a shortening of the phrase “what’s up?” which can then be translated anywhere from “How are you” to “I see you but I don’t really want to have a whole conversation with you right now”.  My brother says “s’up” to me all the time, but he says it ironically, so the first time someone said “s’up” to me here, I nearly fell over; I had never heard it used in everyday conversation before.  I thought my brother pulled it from some tv or internet thing and I didn’t know people actually said it.  (I realize this says something about how sheltered my life is perched at the far western edge of North America.)

I have a personal space bubble (perhaps it’s a Canadian thing?), but when I hang out with my friends from Brazil and Mexico, my bubble collapses.  They rub shoulders standing closer together than I ever would, lean across each other, and give random high fives.  The lack of space is very weird for me and I constantly have to watch myself so I don’t edge away.  I have given more high fives in the last couple weeks than I have since I was about five years old.  Every time I see one of these guys they want to give me a high five.  I truly don’t understand it; what is so compelling about hands touching?  Guy, girl, it doesn’t seem to matter.  No se.  I don’t know if this is a type of modified more “modern” handshake that is common in South America, or if they do it because they think this is how Americans greet each other.  

This same group of people is a lot warmer and friendlier than I am used to among my peers in Canada.  Whenever I sit alone at breakfast someone always wanders over and asks why I’m sitting alone.  I think they think I’m weird.  I think I’m shy.  Maybe I have that famous reserve for which Canadians are infamous. Today I was talking with saxophone player from Toronto and he has noticed the same lack of reserve here that I am.  We both think its strange and nicely refreshing to be in a world where strangers notice us.  I think I like how friendly people are here, although it still takes me by surprise.

I also have made some friends from Europe and they bring their own culture to the Five Week Program.  First of all, they mostly have the nicest clothes (naturally).  But my favourite cultural difference is the greeting—the kiss/cheek touch.  I love it and I’ve even been included in that greeting ritual.  Do I have honorary Italian status because I room with one?  Also, and I think I like this even better than “s’up”, is the hat tip.  Now twice I’ve seen friends tip their hat to me in passing.  It makes me giggle. 

I am still, in my third week here, surprised by all the culture differences.  These observations and surprises are ongoing, some happened today.  I think I get lulled into a fall sense of the mundane because I hear English around me, but then I have another conversation with my peers.  Being here is like simultaneously traveling in multiple countries at once and having global culture shock.  I love it. 

Music Theory 101

Handy Chart of Tritone Subs

One of my homework assignments this past week was to determine the tritone substitutions in all 12 keys for the V⁷/V, V⁷/IV, and V⁷/VI and their related IImin⁷.  Was that gibberish to you?  It’s Martian to most people.  This type of music theory is pure fun for me and I don’t have a way to share it with 90% of my family and friends.  I would like to explain in detail all the theory that I’m learning, but most people don’t understand it and don’t want to.  I would love to explain how cool it is, but from experience, I know eyes will glaze over.  Instead I’m going to try and explain why music theory is like math.   Then those who enjoy math, or any logical thought process, will have a closer understanding of why music theory is so awesome. 

Chord Analysis!

For me, music and math are similar in the way I think about the questions.  When I am working through musical mind puzzles, I use the same mental techniques that I would to solve a calculus question.  When I am doing a math question, I need to approach it in a systematic way that allows me to think of all the different variations possible to solve the question.  Figuring out a chord substitution uses a very similar mental process.  I see the chord, and if I can’t “solve” it in a glance, I figure out all the possibilities of where it’s going, where it came from, and why might it be there.  To do this, I need to keep all the different possibilities in my mind until I select the right version.  It’s like doing a Sudoku puzzle, but better, because then I can play the song and hear what I’ve just worked through conceptually. 

My Notes from Class

Even the method of being tested on this type of chord analysis is like writing a calculus exam.  My teacher was telling us how fussy the marking of these assignments would be in the normal school semester.  Everything he was saying seemed totally reasonable to me, it was like he was describing the picky marking of a calculus exam.  The prof kept saying that a systematic approach to this type of chord analysis is the only way to do it without missing details.  It sounded to me like he was quoting my math profs from this past year at SFU. 

Music theory is also a bit like physics.  It explains how music works they same ways that the kinematic equations describe how objects accelerate.  This also means that music theory and physics are cool in the same way, they both explain how different aspects of the universe work. 

The biggest difference to me between the math and music theory is that math happens on paper, but I can hear the music theory any time I listen to a piece of music.  Math is individual and happens in rooms, but music theory comes alive any time I play or listen to a piece of music.  If I were a better mathematician, perhaps math would jump off the page for me as well, but I’m content with math remaining paperbound.

Venturing Outside the Music

Anahita. Flight of the Night. By William Morris Hunt

This last week has flown by.  It seems like I blinked and the week happened without my knowledge or permission.  I have been so busy with Berklee stuff I have had hardly time to sleep.  All my classes started getting difficult this week, its like they’re trying to project our learning curve onto an exponential growth model.  It has gotten so intense.  I am eating, sleeping, and dreaming music. 

The Jukebox

On Wednesday evening I took a rare break from practicing and a group of us went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.  The museum was pretty nice, but I wandered around in a daze trying to ground myself in an evening without music.  I was happiest in the music exhibit looking at period instruments (a violin with frets was the my favourite).  But other than that, I almost felt like I was in a new country where everyone spoke a different language.  A language where people did not care about scales, or how to play polyrhythms.  I was singing solfege under my breath and thinking about chords while other tourists and locals walked past oblivious.  I couldn’t stay in the moment, I wanted to get back home so I could play some more violin. 

One exhibit snapped me out of my musical reverie.  The “hippie chic” exhibit displayed a jukebox in one corner of the gallery.  I raced over to it and read the song selection avidly and listened to some of the tunes.  I promptly started singing along, switching between the base line, chords and melody.  Oddly, I didn’t catch anyone staring.

VW Vans, a Part of the Hippie Chic Exhibit

Earlier this week I was walking past the café’s lining the street outside Berklee and I heard someone say, “Is there a music school around here, or something”?  I presume he was saying this in reference to all people walking past carrying instruments.  But my initial reaction was one of intense sadness.  I felt so sorry for him that he didn’t know Berklee was there.  Not the physical actuality of the buildings, but the intense musical world they represent.  A world in which I am totally immersed.  And a world that I love. 

Redefining "Good"

 

Being at Berklee seems to be about redefining my horizons.  Before I came here I thought that I had a pretty good command of the jazz language (for my age anyway).  I knew how I sounded and I knew who I wanted to sound like.  I was curious to see what other players my age were doing, as I’ve never really had a chance to interact with jazz musicians my own age. 

The Sunset View of Boston

The second night I was here, I attended a jazz jam that was more like a jazz open mic.  Small ensembles signed up and then they performed their songs.  Throughout the night, I was alternately elated by the spectacular music that was being created on stage and crushed by how astoundingly good they were.  Totally fulfilling the jazz stereotype, the amazing kids were mostly African-American, male, and horn players (with the exception of one Asian girl).  They were playing songs like Cherokee, Blue Monk, and Anthropology at astronomical speeds.  Their note choices were to die for.  And they had beautiful phrasing.  Their songs sounded like they had come right from the Bluenote label. 

Since then, how I think of my own playing has shifted dramatically.  First, I was pretty blue that there were some young kids who could play stuff that I wouldn’t even attempt.  My self-confidence fell and continued to drop.  Now, however, my feelings have shifted, turning from despair and envy into a sort of, “I want to be a black saxophone player” mentality.  The real world expression of feeling is that those kids have become my role models.  I want to sound like them.  So when I practice, I’m (hopefully) thinking like a saxophone.  I’m trying to recreate their lines.  So far though, I still sound like a violin player, albeit one playing triplets.

The Berklee Gospel Choir (at the same festival)

Tonight though, I attended a music festival held in the Boston Commons.  I heard the Smithsonian Jazz Ensemble performing a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.  Their singer said, “this is a tribute to Ella but we are not trying to imitate her.  This is a love letter to how inspirational she was and is”.  They proceeded to play arrangements of various different songs Ella had made famous.  In other words, they played many of my favourite swing era tunes.  I knew all the songs they played and could sing along with many, like Cheek to Cheek and A-Tisket A-Tasket. 

Of course the horn solos were amazing, right in the groove and stylistically appropriate.  It was a great reminder that solos must match the song.  If their lead sax player had played a fast bebop era solo of like with which I am so infatuated right now, he would have been booed off the stage (probably not literally).  Instead, he played something tasteful and appropriate to the swing era.  The concert, which I very much enjoyed, served as a reminder that there isn’t one jazz style to rule them all.  I am not inherently a worse musician because I can’t/don’t play bebop.  While I still want to learn how to sound like a horn, this evening’s concert was a reminder to relax.  I don’t need to play like 17 year old virtuosos. 

A Day in the Life

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My days here continue to be awesome. At a first cursory glance at my schedule, it appears that I don’t have enough to do.  And I do have large gaps in my schedule, it is true.  The first couple of days of classes, I was quite worried that I wouldn’t be able to fill my time.  This was a really stupid thing to worry about.  Here is a short description of what I did on Friday—a day when I had relatively few classes. 

My Schedule

My classes started at eleven, so I got to sleep in.  Since I got to sleep-in, I knew I could stay up late the previous night.  So I played music until midnight.  Back on Friday morning, I had a leisurely extra hour in bed where I wrote down some thoughts and practiced clapping some rhythms.  Then I realized I was late, and ran to the T at 10:30, so I could get to Berklee by 11:00. 

I had my musicianship class first, which is basically ear training.  I love this class, as it is very interactive and the teacher is fantastic.  She makes the most mundane exercise seem fun.  We sing, clap and write down rhythms.  It is very fun, and often funny.  On Friday we had a short quiz, which meant that each of us sight sang and sight clapped a couple of bars from our workbook.  We went around in a circle, everyone singing/clapping different bars.  Each person got a moment in the spotlight… certainly not my favourite activity. 

From there I raced off to my ensemble class, something for which I was really excited.  All week I had heard other ensembles practicing, the horn players swinging and the drums pounding out an awesome groove.  But alas, my class wasn’t like that. The class was 2 hours long and we didn’t play any music.  The guitar players were nice, hopefully I will get to jam with them later.  Since the group wasn’t a good match for me, I went and talked to the Five-Week office.  The people there were so great.  They were very sympathetic and gave me a new jazz ensemble to replace the bad one and also put me in a funk-fusion band.  Those people are awesome. 

Then that was it for my classes on Friday.  I was done at 2:00pm.  Except then I met two other violin players and we practiced for a little while… one and a half hours.  We worked on the songs we are playing in the Five-Week orchestra.  We practiced chops (the rhythmic way of dropping the bow on the strings to produce sounds like a quiet drum).  Then we jammed on a blues.  It was pretty awesome to play with other fiddle players like this.  I only have experience doing this type of thing with my dad, so it was pretty cool to hear their different playing styles and to be able to trade solos three different ways. 

While we were practicing, I noticed people traipsing past the window in the door to our practice room (more like a practice closet).  Each person would peer inside, staring at the three violins making odd chunking sounds.  Then they would walk on. I presume they were prospective students on a tour.  I felt like I was in a zoo, everyone coming to look at the exotic fiddle players.  This image amused me so much, and then my friends when I told them, that we laughed until we cried.  One of my friends pointed out that we were even displaying like animals in a zoo—which of course made us laugh harder. 

Poly-rhythms in a Pizza Parlour

Afterwards, I took a half hour break to eat some lunch, and then I went back to the practice rooms to practice my own assignments.  I’m mostly working on modes and movable finger patterns based on the mode arpeggios.  Then you can move the finger patterns and play them over different chords to get entirely different sounds.  I can’t describe how much fun it is to learn this stuff.  It’s kind of like learning how to use different spices when you are cooking.  Each spice gives the same dish a really different flavour. 

I was pretty tired at 5:30, so I packed up and went back home, to Fisher College.  Where, after a short rest I did… can you guess?  I practiced some more!  This type of day seems to be what my routine is settling in to, and it is the best thing ever.  I don’t need to do anything but play music, so music is all I’m doing.  If I’m not careful, I’m going to leave Boston without ever having been a normal tourist here. 

Residential Life

I am getting resigned to the heat and humidity here in Boston.  When I leave my dorm, which is a 25-minute walk to Berklee, I expect to be dripping with sweat regardless of whether I walk or take the T.  Even the air-conditioned rooms at Berklee don’t provide total comfort—they tend to heat up when people enter them.  

The Stairwell from the Fourth Floor

Unfortunately, the Fisher College dorms, where I live, are not air-conditioned.  The dorm rooms are in these two lovely 1900’s townhouses close to the public gardens and a short walk from the river.  The rooms are spacious, have private bathrooms, and have big windows.  But there is no air conditioning. 

As I climb the stairs from the first floor, which is hot but cools down at night, to the fourth floor, the temperature rises.  It’s like descending into a volcano by moving going up.  By the time I’ve reached my door, I’m sweaty and either wishing for air-conditioning, a room on the first floor, or a big ice cream cone. 

My roommates and my solutions to this are to keep our three fans running 24/7 and to take numerous cold showers.  I even sleep with my fan right on my bed, so that it can blow the maximum amount of air on me.  Even with the incredible heat, I still once managed to wake up cold!  I don’t quite know how it’s possible. 

The other problematic thing about living at Fisher College is that there is no cooking facility.  There is one fridge and microwave for the whole dorm complex.  This is particularly frustrating for my Italian roommate and me.  We’re both used to cooking and eating nice food.  We’re tired of buying all our food at over priced restaurants. 

Just a couple of days ago I finally discovered a solution.  Microwave food!!  I’ve never bought microwave food before, but now I have a selection of Indian, Chinese, Thai, and Italian instant food.  I also bought some fruit.  Yesterday I was in heaven when I ate two tomatoes and a humus and bread sandwich for lunch. 

Just a word on my roommates—they’re awesome.  One is Italian and she sings jazz (I jammed with her last night until we were kicked out of the ensemble room ‘round midnight).  The other is from Argentina and plays electric guitar.  They’re both really lovely people with whom its fun to hang out.  Before I flew here, I was initially quite worried about spending five weeks with two unknown roommates, but my fears were totally unfounded.  I’m quite lucky, as some others here aren’t totally thrilled with their roomies. 

City Shock

I’m struggling to grok Boston.  There are several key things to living here that are eluding me.  First of all, I can’t figure out the rules of being a pedestrian.  In Vancouver, unless I’m jaywalking, it’s quite simple: cross the street when there is a little white man on the traffic light, or stay on the sidewalk if there’s a big red hand.  In really high tech areas, sometimes the walk signal will chirp at you, indicating the light has turned and it is safe to cross. 

In Boston, I think there are some hidden rules.  At busy intersections cars speed through what I would swear was a red light, judging by what the other traffic light on the road are doing.  I’m still convinced those drivers were breaking the law as I know it, except that I also saw a police car do this.  Was he chasing all the other cars?  Probably not.  It’s more plausible to assume that there are actually different traffic laws here, which makes it treacherous for anyone as clued out as me. 

On less busy streets people tend to cross willy-nilly, totally ignoring the walk, or don’t walk symbols.  My favourite instance of this is at an intersection on the way to the subway (or the T, as locals call it).  It’s quite busy, but people cross both streets in the intersection at the same time, thus totally stopping traffic. 

However, I always wait for the symbols to tell me its safe.  This usually works, but yesterday while I was waiting for a walk symbol (at that same intersection), the car waiting to make a right turn started honking at me, telling me to cross the street.  What was up with that?  They had the right-of-way!  Other right-turners are overly aggressive, especially the ones at the intersection of Mass Ave and Boylston St, the intersection right in front of Berklee’s main building.  These streets are always filled with an international crowd of musicians who all stampede across the streets like a giant group of lemmings.  The aggressive drivers turn right into the midst of this stream.  My conclusion is that there must be different traffic laws here. 

Strangely though, when the locals aren’t in their cars, they are very friendly.  I’ve had more conversations with strangers in the last couple days than I have, since, like, ever.  Yesterday, a businessman approached one of my roommates and told her that her backpack was open and that she should check to see if anything had fallen out.  Today I saw a woman telling another lady that her skirt was caught in her bag and exposing a little more leg than was intended.  I’ve never seen anyone be this spontaneously nice in Vancouver… although that might be because I don’t pay that much attention to people at home. 

Music Camp

The Charles River

Everyone I see is holding an instrument.  People are wheeling bases taller than they are across the street.  Others have a bari sax slung across a shoulder.  Me? I sport a fiddle hanging off one arm and a MEC backpack on the other.  To complete the image, add 75% humidity, dripping sweat, and a map because I spent much of my first day here in Boston wandering up and down the same street, in front of the same cafes.  People weren’t even looking at me oddly—everyone else was doing the same.  

I’m in Boston for the next five weeks, attending the Berklee College of Music’s Five-Week Performance program.  I’m here with about 1000 other people from places like England, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, Mexico, and of course from all across the US.  There seems to a real mix of ages, as well as countries.  I’ve talked to people aged 16-22. 

I found a bench upon which to sit and read. But in the shade. 

I love how multicultural this camp is.  Walking through my dorm I hear Spanish (with several different accents), English from around the globe, and so many other exotic languages.  I love asking people where they are from.  Their answer is invariably more interesting than mine.  One girl I talked to flew 15 hours from Johannesburg to get to JFK—that’s not even including the other flights she had to take.  Incidentally, she also has a spectacular voice, as I discovered Monday afternoon in a stairwell jam in the dorm.  Spontaneous jam y’all!   We played only obscure, to me, top 40 tunes, until I put away my fiddle.  And then it turned out that the guitarists also knew some jazz chords. 

Another pic from my only activity not involving music

And the MUSIC!  I have never heard such spectacular music all in one small area.  Everyone is so good, their phrasing, their note choices, their command of the instrument.  I feel so insignificant compared to all these creative people.  Each person I hear is more… how I want to sound than the last person.  Even the café’s and restaurants have absorbed some of the Berklee atmosphere.  They all play good music!  No standard pop covers, no iffy bands.  They put on real music that I actually want to listen to. 

I met all the other string players here at camp yesterday.  We’re an eclectic group, mostly fiddles, with some cellos, basses and one harpist from Belgium.  Everyone I heard had different strengths.  Some people really flourished through their syncopated rhythms and others through their jazzy note attacks.  But everyone was really amazing.

I attended a welcome concert Sunday night showcasing the music of Motown.  Berklee alumni, students and teachers were featured.  The music was set up as a history session, the songs were performed chronologically so we could hear the musical evolution of pop.  Each song got an introduction so we could learn who wrote it and the political atmosphere that created the lyrics.  The rendition of “Love Child” (The Supremes, 1968) and Superstition (Stevie Wonder, 1972) were some of my favourites.  These two, and many others, sent chills down my spine.  I had entered the concert exhausted by the heat, but I left invigorated by the music and reminded as to why I was in Boston—to be immersed in music.