Mark's Music School Diary.

Dogsinotpalc said:
I hear you. However, I went to music school with a few folks that literally couldn't sing, but had amazing ears...near perfect pitch. They could sight read like motherfuckers and pick up on everything around (even calling out horn players for being a little sharp or flat because their mouthpiece wasn't sitting correctly, or bassists for poor intonation on the upright). I can hear things pretty well, like I know my singing is for shit...always was, but when I was younger I wasn't as horrible as I am today (not an instrument I use or practice).

That said, I understand it's higher level application for a professional popular/commercial musician as opposed to my lame ass that relegated itself to hobbyist decades ago. Do they still use the lingo of "legit" for classical players and pop/commercial musicians for jazz and other "inferior" genres?
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I haven't heard anyone say "legit" since my first one in school. I haven't experienced any snobbery like that at all.

I think I did well on my history final. She dropped a piece of music on us to analyze which is something we haven't done at all. I'm not sure if I have her the answer she was looking for. We'll see.

Now I have a couple of weeks off and then I have a couple of online GE classes to take for the summer. Musically I have to work in certain things to have a rolling start for the fall. Musicianship is going to be a daily study and I need to work on my piano skills ahead of me taking Jazz Piano and then my final piano requirement next spring. Guitar-wise I have a list of everything I was given but didn't have time to fully work on this year. It'll be a busy summer.
 
Well, now that I've had a weekend to decompress its on to my "summer program".

I have a list of things from the past year that I need to actually internalize. I know that I have to step up my game for the third and last semester of musicianship (which is chromatic) and I am taking a Jazz piano class in the fall that I need to be up to speed for. Today I'm going to make a "practice punch list" of things I need to work on and then add some time for me to put together a solo acoustic act. Homeboy needs to earn some more ducats this year.
 
I'm pretty sure this is the text for the piano class:

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I think that if I sharpen my scale and arpeggio fingerings and learn some of the chord voicing conventions well enough I'll be in a good place to take the class. That will also get me ready for the 282b piano class that I'll be taking in the fall which I have to pass for my piano proficiency. In that class not only are you continuing to progress as a pianist but you are also learning to accompany a singer or or other soloist for your final project.

After a year of school at CSUF and seeing how every instructor not only plays piano at a decent level regardless of primary instrument and how much they use it in the classroom I am taking the piano portion of this very seriously.
 
Mark Wein said:
I'm pretty sure this is the text for the piano class:

31r2vbMoNOL._SX355_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg


I think that if I sharpen my scale and arpeggio fingerings and learn some of the chord voicing conventions well enough I'll be in a good place to take the class. That will also get me ready for the 282b piano class that I'll be taking in the fall which I have to pass for my piano proficiency. In that class not only are you continuing to progress as a pianist but you are also learning to accompany a singer or or other soloist for your final project.

After a year of school at CSUF and seeing how every instructor not only plays piano at a decent level regardless of primary instrument and how much they use it in the classroom I am taking the piano portion of this very seriously.
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Since Piano was my first instrument, I can see why that is the case, and what an advantage it is, since it is one of the few instruments that covers the entire range of musical notes. As such it makes it very nice for composing complex pieces of music.
 
I love Poeme Electronique. I haven't listened to Varese in forever though.

Glad you get some "time off" this summer, Mark. It's not really time off and kids complicate things. But at least you won't feel the pressure of the daily grind.
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
I love Poeme Electronique. I haven't listened to Varese in forever though.

Glad you get some "time off" this summer, Mark. It's not really time off and kids complicate things. But at least you won't feel the pressure of the daily grind.
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Yeah. It was one of those "don't realize how stressed you were until it was over" kinds of things.
 
Flamencology said:
And then you want to sleep for 14 hours a day?
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Kinda. I napped a bunch yesterday, fell asleep on Mrs W while we were watching TV around 9:30 and woke up around 5am this morning. Still kinda beat but the most rested I've been in months. And I didn't even have a recital to do this semester. Next spring I'll have a junior recital, juries, much harder finals and even the piano final.
 
Mark Wein said:
Kinda. I napped a bunch yesterday, fell asleep on Mrs W while we were watching TV around 9:30 and woke up around 5am this morning. Still kinda beat but the most rested I've been in months. And I didn't even have a recital to do this semester. Next spring I'll have a junior recital, juries, much harder finals and even the piano final.
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People don't realize how physically demanding and time-consuming performing arts programs are. I think that many people just assume that they're slackers. My students are in class for about 40 hours a week, and they still have a pretty heavy homework loads.
 
Flamencology said:
People don't realize how physically demanding and time-consuming performing arts programs are. I think that many people just assume that they're slackers. My students are in class for about 40 hours a week, and they still have a pretty heavy homework loads.
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Yep. Plus I'm doing an undergrad program while earning a living and having a full family life. The thing about being an undergrad (besides the general ed) is that you also have production requirements like ushering, stage hand or promotion responsibilities for at least a year and there is also some travel involved. I just did a local tour this year with the men's chorus but next year I'll at least have a trip to Reno for a jazz festival among other things. The major choirs are doing a tour of Scandinavia this summer and they did things like back up Andrea Boccelli at the Honda Center this year. Plus the occasional outside gig the professors throw you.
 
My grades are starting to trickle in. The one class I was expecting the B in he actually gave me an A-. Once he added my attendance grade in it got me to an 89.7 and apprently he rounded up :embarrassed:

I do think that its pretty lame that your attendance has any effect on your grade but as I've been experiencing so many students can barely make it to class on a regular basis that apparently it's a "thing". One girl showed up 40 minutes late to our music history final (where they play the needle drop selections throughout the test for you to recognize and write about) and one kid blew it off altogether. I couldn't even imagine getting all the way to the end and then failing because you couldn't get it together enough to show up one last day.
 
Two more grades came in...Applied music (private lessons and jury) was an A but my history grade came in as an A as well. The history grade is kind of a big deal to me because of the amount of work that went into each test and the fact that the history sequence is probably the hardest academically for my degree at this school. The rest of my grades are performance classes (which should be A's) and my two theory classes. I should have no problem getting an A in Diatonic harmony but the Jazz Harmony and Analysis class makes me nervous. I've gotten nothing but A's in that class but the way the information was presented and how the teacher works made the class a bit more challenging then it had to be IMO. Plus, you can have a correct answer but be wrong on the test if you're not giving the answer he wants.
 
Man this is annoying. All my grades are in but one combo. It is such a childish thing and I know I got an A (it's hard to get a bad grade in a combo unless you just don't show up) but I just want to see them all recorded. I started my World History class last night. It's going to be interesting but a large amount of work since it's crammed into about a third of the time you usually get for a 3 unit class. I read all night about how awful the Spanish and Portuguese were to everyone they came into contact with. Good times.

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The other thing was that I got an email this morning inviting me to apply for graduation since I have 85 units and my GPA is good enough in a degree program. Sadly they are the wrong units for me to actually graduate this year.
 
shoeless said:
An A- in Musicianship?! You disgrace your family!!


Seriously though, nice work! :thu:
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Lol. I really "earned" a B+ but I think I might have mentioned above that my attendance grade actually got me to the A- :embarrassed:

And thanks. It's really meant a lot to me not only to be able to do this at this point in my life but also to do well. I've actually gotten a little shit from my teachers about being too competitive with the grades but fuck 'em. I'd rather care too much than too little at this point in my life.
 
The history class that I'm taking is starting around 1500 or so and a big thing that we are looking at is the rise of global trading, the New World and the rise of Mercantilism.

I won't bore y'all with all of that stuff but this is one of the videos I had to watch this week and it was really touching. Being subject to a "'murrica-centric" education my whole life the idea that the slave trade was mostly driven by the sugar industry (and not cotton and tobacco and whatnot like it was here in the US) was a bit of a revelation. The idea that on 5% of the slaves taken from Africa came here and the rest were just burned through like disposable trashbags in the Caribbean and the rest of Latin America is horrifying.

 
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