WARNING: will be talking about music

1140 Boylston St.

I just finished week four of this fantastic five-week experience.  This was the last week of my normal class schedule, next week I will continue to have some classes, but they will be interspersed with my final performances.  Almost all my classes have a final concert.  My ear training class will sing “Take on Me” (A-Ha) with all the parts in solfege syllables:  La la fa re re so so so te te do re... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914).  I also have performances in orchestra and from my various other ensembles. 

Currently, I am most anxious about my jazz ensemble performance.  I volunteered to solo on a song called Ornithology, which is notoriously difficult, partly because it is played at tempos that make the speed of light look relaxed.  It is also one of those jazz songs that changes keys every couple of bars.  If one tends to get lost (ahem) then there is very high chance the note that sounded perfectly fine half a second ago just became the worst possible note to be playing.  I am expending so much energy on learning this song that it is starting to crop up in my dreams. 

Strand Theatre, where we heard some Jazz

People from home keep asking me if I’ve improved.  I truly can’t tell, I think partly because everyone else here is so amazing.  Yesterday before my orchestra performance, I sat and watched all the other string players cavort around me.  Most people had congregated in groups and were trying to out play each other.  People played impressive presto classical pieces from memory, or laid down a groove and traded solos.  I watched and listened and thought, “There is such incredible talent in this room”.  All that being said, I do know that I can play songs now that I would never have attempted 4 weeks ago, ornithology being a great example of that.  I also know that when I go back and play songs that I knew really well before the Five Week, I can barely recognize my playing.  But I can’t tell if I’m different better, or different weird. 

Another example of my skillset shifting is how I think of playing scales.  I used to think that playing all 12 major scales was too many scales to practice in one day, partly because it was time consuming and too difficult for me.  Now, the first thing I do when I take out my violin is to play through my major scales.  I start in the key of F and continue through the cycle of fourths, extending the scale to encompass all the relevant notes in the first position fingerboard.  The funny thing is that this only takes a couple of minutes, if that.  I don’t know why I thought it was so difficult. 

Hallway in the 1140 Building

I recently learned that the Berklee level one proficiency test requires the ability to be able to play all the modes of the major scale, in all of the 12 keys.  Non-musicians can think of modes as weird derivations of the major scale that can sometimes sound really strange.  There are seven modes per key, each mode based off a note in the major scale.  This level one proficiency test requires students to know, and therefore practice, 84 different patterns. 

The level two proficiency test is to play all the modes of the three minor scales… in all 12 minor keys.  So that’s 3 x 12 x 7 different things to play through.  I can’t even contemplate learning all of those, let alone practicing them every day.  I do practice my modes diligently, but I can only do my mode exercises in three keys.  Only 9 more to go!

Last night, I found the musical jam I’ve been looking for since I got here.  I was hanging out in a friend’s room when I heard some music wafting down the stairwell.  Two guitarists, perched on stairs, were playing a beautiful gypsy jazz style duet from the film Midnight in Paris.  After listening in awe, I ran to get my violin.  After I pulled out my fiddle, a bass player and a couple more guitarists joined us.  We played some jazz standards, some original compositions, and a little Stevie Wonder just because he’s awesome.  And I had an epiphany.  Jams like this must occur about 5 hours later than I’ve been searching for them.  I need to become nocturnal and then I will find jams like this every night.