Mark's Music School Diary.

Mark Wein said:
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I'm starting to dig this singing shit. No amps, no pa to schlep. Just dress nice and stand there.


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Thanks for the towel. I'm just going to put on some of this cologne and how much for the gum?

tongue0
 
I haven't been writing much this semester. It's been kind of a slog. We had another combo concert last week at a local bar called the Pint House...here is one of my groups without me:

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I'm in a cycle of test, prepare, test, prepare rinse and repeat right now. My musicianship class has been pretty difficult in terms of the audiation and dictation. I've been bringing my grade up each test by doing well on the singing portions but I may just end up with a B for this semester. Theory is not too hard for me. It feels like we've spent an entire semester reviewing the last semester and then learning secondary dominant and secondary leading tone functions, which is really not all that difficult.

Jazz Harmony and Analysis is not all that hard although I have to remember that the way I am expected to answer questions on a test has nothing to do with how I look at the same material in the real world. I've been getting an A in this class but we had a test where many answers I gave that would be "correct" in the real world were wrong relative to the author of our textbook. Unfortunately I have to learn the textbook.

My performing groups are going fine. We have a small one day choir tour coming up in a few weeks and one big concert at the end of the semester. Most of my combos have performed enough to not need to perform anymore for our grade. I still have shifts to do for ushering for the music production class but I've been getting out of those by doing photography service for the college of the arts social media director.

As far as my jury goes, I'm memorizing tunes and my prepared piece is going to be a bit from Pat Martino's solo on "Just Friends".



I'm trying to make the level jump to the 300 level so I can do my junior recital next year and the senior recital the year after. That means doing all of the first two years worth of jury material in two juries. 40 or so standards memorized, a lot of theory I already know and a couple of prepared pieces. Not too hard :)
 
Working my way towards the end of the semester. This week is musicianship testing week and e have two choir performances and my guitar combo performs on Sunday afternoon. I usually don't boast about test scores but the fact that I got a 99.3% on Dr Baker's test on the Romantic period is pretty damn good. Her tests are notoriously difficult because on top of the book and lecture material (which are not always the same information) you have about an hours' worth of music you need to be able to recognize when she does a "needle drop" and write about. You either study or you don't and quite a few people have to retake this class more than once. And it is the first of five semesters' worth of music history. If you can't cut this class you're fucked. I think they use it to weed out the weak. Tomorrow is a musicianship dictation test, where I will NOT be getting the highest score in the class. I'll be happy to get a B or even a C so that my A on the singing will keep me at a respectable grade.


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Last week of classes. Just got done with a bunch of homework and now I'm back at school to usher for someone's classical guitar recital.
 
The recital I ushered last night was brutal. classical guitar senior recital. The kid had a complete meltdown and had to leave the stage. He eventually came back to finish but I was suprised that they let him do the recital in the first place. He seemed pretty unprepared.
 
Entering finals week. I took the hardest part of my musicianship final thursday and got an 84% which is really good for me on the dictation. I usually do poorly on that part and then get an A on the singing portion. My grade has been hovering at 88% because of that. I'm hoping that between the higher dictation grade and what should be a good grade on the singing and sightsinging portion next thursday (and transcription homework that hasn't been added in yet) that I can squeak an A out of it. This is the only class where this is a question.

Here is my study guide for music history:

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I love how 4'33" is on my listening list :embarrassed:

Monday I have no school. Tuesday is my Music Theory final and my guitar jury. Wednesday is my Jazz Harmony and Analysis final, Thursday is my Musicianship singing final and Friday is my Music History final.
 
Mark Wein said:
Entering finals week. I took the hardest part of my musicianship final thursday and got an 84% which is really good for me on the dictation. I usually do poorly on that part and then get an A on the singing portion. My grade has been hovering at 88% because of that. I'm hoping that between the higher dictation grade and what should be a good grade on the singing and sightsinging portion next thursday (and transcription homework that hasn't been added in yet) that I can squeak an A out of it. This is the only class where this is a question.

Here is my study guide for music history:

View attachment 33543

I love how 4'33" is on my listening list :embarrassed:

Monday I have no school. Tuesday is my Music Theory final and my guitar jury. Wednesday is my Jazz Harmony and Analysis final, Thursday is my Musicianship singing final and Friday is my Music History final.
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I should make a playlist of your classical listening too.

Good luck on your finals!
 
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