Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Solfège des Solfèges, Miracle of Miracles

Well, just had a fight with a blueberry bagel and lost. But I'm eating it anyway.

Annnyway. I've been in a surprisingly good mood today, considering I have NO good reeds and just got back from a two hour dress rehearsal. May have had something to do with the epic progress Caroline and I made musically today!

We rehearsed Baroque stuff together right after my studio class (Caroline plays violin; we're doing Baroque chamber music together and we're the only two students in the Musicianship 7 class). Sitting next to each other without harpsichord, all of the sudden we could actually play in tune! It was miraculous. Something to do with finally having a decent reed, something to do with us having time to practice this week and feeling like we actually had time to prepare, something to do with sitting next to each other so we could actually hear each other and adjust. In Baroque music, I feel like once one thing falls into place, everything else comes and starts to settle along with it. So we made great progress on style as well, feeling larger beats and understanding the rhetoric more and more.

Then, after a luxurious dinner at Quiznos, we sightsang for about 15 minutes from the third book. SO many grace notes and silly little trills. It was so much fun to be extra dramatic about them.

Our chamber coaching went really well, and I wasn't frustrated the entire time and cringing at my intonation through it, which usually happens. Towards the end, I was getting sharp, but my lips were practically falling off, soooo...I forgive myself.

Afterwards, Caroline and I dedicated a solid, very productive chunk of time to rhythm. We're working on ridiculous subdivisions of the beat - 64ths and stuff (you know, hemidemisemiquavers and such things hehehehehe). But we were really getting the tough exercises that have different rhythms tapped and vocalized. And then we did some Bach, naming chords and inversions as Caroline read through, and then singing through again on scale degrees in the soprano. It's so much fun to work on this stuff with another person, especially when she's as nerdy about it as I am. Legitimately fun. I mean, I say it's fun anyway, but I mean fun like crossword puzzles or reading a novel fun. Practicing music exercises with other people is actually board games or charades fun. Okay, I'm babbling now.

I'm glad I could focus on the positive in this post and not just complain about my reeds the entire time.

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