Innovation

Lately in theory class we've been looking at Steve Reich's influence on rhythm. A group of profs performed one of Reich's newer pieces, 2x5, at concert credit today, and it really made me stop and think.*

As someone who is planning to/beginning to specialize in music that was written hundreds of years ago (but which, I hasten to add, still has so much to teach us!) it is refreshing to be a student at a school which forces me to engage with what music currently is. What is currently happening in western art music? What are the current innovations, what is currently being composed - and why is this specific kind of music happening at this particular time?

Another thought: I feel truly, truly lucky to be learning about music at a school which so widely seems to believe in making the creative and artistic processes as transparent as possible. It's inspiring to be surrounded by people who are so excited about music, and who are so excited about sharing their processes with us, so we in turn can learn, and create.

I am lucky to be here.

*I might add that the performance was fantastic, and my head is still reeling from the rhythmic complexity and general all-around awesomeness!

The Best Plagiarism Analogy I've Heard in a Long Time

My Musicology professor, lecturing on citing sources when paraphrasing:

"If someone has a boat, and you really, really like that boat, and you take the boat and paint it blue, people are still going to think that YOU STOLE that boat!!"

To Study Music

Tonight, instead of dutifully completing my homework (which was tonight's original plan) I am thinking about music, song, and creativity.

Because I chose a route that leads to an academic career as opposed to a strictly creative one - though I think the two are far from separate - I sometimes feel that I need to practice my abilities to remain impersonal and objective.

Sometimes (I'll admit this in the spirit of being candid) I even feel like taking too much time to function as a creative person/musician will deter from my scholarship.

But right now, that seems so unbelievably ridiculous.
I'm studying to be a Musicologist. Music in words. MUSIC in words. Sometimes I think/act like I'm somehow separate from other music students. Certainly not better than them, or worse than them - but different.

But, really, I'm not.
Music is ultimately the study of people (composers or performers), their creative ideas (programmatic/absolute), and how those ideas take hold in sound (music). It's so human. And, really, I'm finding more than ever, it requires creativity.

Music is not impersonal and objective. It's an ongoing list of commentary - upon music/sound itself, upon politics, upon art, upon people and cultures and ideas and life itself.

If I'm going to add anything of value to the words that come after and about the music in "Musicology", I need to be engaged. In life, in the world, in creativity, in music.

This, I suppose, is where balance comes in.
There needs to be time to write the papers, read the books, memorize the facts. And let me be clear: I love the books, the papers, the facts, (to an extent) the Canon, footnotes, and academic writing. I love comprehending and exploring the conversations which surround music.

But there also needs to be time to live. To create. Time to play the piano and listen to music and create and connect. To engage with the world, and what is present in it.


[Clearly, I lean towards the programmatic side of things.]

Infatuation vs. Lasting Love

For whatever reason, a whole bunch of my academic mojo was late coming back from BC this semester. A really deep part of me has been yearning for this time last year, when I was just deciding to become a musicology major and everything was bright and new and exciting, and I would spend every single spare moment reading about Haydn and Mozart and Beethoven, or listening to new pieces of repertoire I'd never heard before, or reading about writing techniques or musicological research methodology.

When musicology was my infatuation, it was easy to be in love with it.

Some infatuations fade and die away, like a summer fling that was never meant to last. You look back on it with fond memories, knowing that while it was pleasant, it isn't something that ultimately changed or defined you.

This is not that way.

Some infatuations grow beyond themselves into love. Lasting love; the kind that weathers storms and bad days and sickness and tragedy and all that stuff of life. A sense of this person or thing that has created and shaped you, and, though not holding all of your identity, somehow, somewhere, became inextricable from who you are.

Love is complicated. It requires give and take, and making room for imperfections, and rough patches, and pain...all those day-in, day-out, long-term things. Eventually (so I'm told), it falls into a routine, and feels more like companionship, with a distant memory of what was once fiery passion.

That's kind of where I'm at with musicology right now. I'm in the routine, the slightly mundane, the companionship. Musicology has settled from something new and exciting...into part of my identity. It's a defining factor as much so as "Rena, 21, Canadian, female." Most everyone that knows me knows that I'm studying music history; it's an assumed part of my identity. That has pros and cons. Every now and then it gets boring, or I feel stuck in a rut, or like I'm not really meant for this. Was this really where I wanted my life to be or go? Is this really something I want to be defined by and mediated through, to some extent? When you're getting past infatuation and into love, it's not always easy. It's really hard.

Like those days when I feel like I'll never learn all the necessary information. Or when I'd really, really rather play the piano than go to German class so I can learn to read German research. Or when I'm so tired of core classes (the classes I have to take before research seminars) that I could scream. Or the days when I really wish I had some other musicology majors around, cause every now and then being the ONLY historical musicology major in an entire music school gets a little isolating.

Except then - and this is where the lasting part comes in - I have a memory of some point of my early infatuation, or I create a new memory, or I see something that's always been there, only in a new light. Or I see something altogether new...

And I fall in love all over again.

Challenge

Dear Chromatic Solfege:

We live in a prison which doubles as a music school.
And eventually, you're going to become my b****.
Deal with it.

Love,

Rena

Shedding

Winter has come, unseasonably late, to Nova Scotia. This means, through the combination of my eczema, the cold, and the increase of indoor heating, that my skin is dry, peeling, and shedding.

It's uncomfortable, but in a way, I'm glad for it, because as this new semester starts, it reminds me of all the other things that need to be shed.

One such thing is my tenancy to get caught up in things like marks, image, and appearing talented. I sometimes work against myself, shunning awesome opportunities or challenges because I'm scared of looking foolish, making a mistake, or getting a bad mark. I psych myself out at singing auditions and piano exams and consequently perform nowhere near my standard level of ability. Or I simply don't audition for fear of looking foolish. Turning to music scholarship, I go with the paper topic in my comfort zone (opera, oratorio, and masses, little music analysis, and, for God's sake, no Wagner!)

This shall be, I've decided, the semester of shedding my ego. Music is hard, hard work which requires consistent growth - and that doesn't leave room for ego. It leaves room for mistakes and some humbling moments - and, after that, it leaves room for learning and growth and real musicianship. My craft and my scholarship are good - but there's so much room for both to be better. That's not going to happen if I stay in the nice, safe box I've carved out for myself. 

So I'm auditioning for NSYC, I'm playing my piano exam next week with as much heart and soul as I can muster, and I'm going to bid Haydn scholarship adieu for this semester while I jump into Wagner studies.

We'll see what becomes of it.  

She would have us dance and sing

While I was in BC, Joan, the choir director at my parish and a really close family friend, passed away after a long fight with cancer.

I first met Joan when I was 14. I walked into church after a several-month hiatus, and Joan came half-running over to tell me how happy she was that I was back. We started chatting about converting (I wasn't Catholic yet). A week later, I showed up at choir practice, then I started RCIA, and the next thing I knew, I was seeing Joan two or three nights a week, and she became a really, really big part of my life. 

I can never really think of words which express Joan. What I most remember about her was how she loved people. While I've always been a reasonably good kid, I had some very over-dramatic and highly ungraceful moments throughout adolescence. Sometimes I was cranky, sometimes I was rude, sometimes (lots of the time) I thought I knew everything, and sometimes I was just a brat. While Joan would - gently - suggest from time to time that I shift a thought or a behaviour, never once did I wonder if she stopped loving me. She simply accepted my flaws, and loved me in spite of them. I think she pretty much loved everyone that way -  as they were, without conditions, all of the time. 

Joan was an inspired teacher. She could take the most challenging theological concept, and turn it into a story or an action or a prayer, and everyone in the room (which included children aged 5-12, and both teenaged and adult teachers) would take something meaningful away from it. I learned innumerable lessons from Joan, and the fullness of her influence is still revealing itself to me. I hope there's some of her joy in my smile, some of her peace in my prayers, some of her love in my hugs.

I have so many memories. I remember the whispered jokes we used to share over some of the drier homilies at mass throughout the years. I remember watching her sing a psalm once, and being moved to tears by how much of God's compassion she was able to portray in her singing. Or how she always knew to put out extra kleenex for me at funeral masses, even if I didn't know the deceased. Or how once, when her husband was giving me a guitar lesson and tried to explain to me how a given concept was mathematical, she stopped him and said "Jack, Jack, Jack. You don't tell Rena that something is mathematical. You tell her it's the next logical musical progression. Then she'll get it." I remember her baking and her hugs and her prayers.      

Joan loved Canticle of the Sun, a song which praises nature as something which connects humanity to all the different attributes of God. Really, really loved it. To the point that a bunch of the choir members stopped calling it Canticle of the Sun and just called it "Joan's song." As soon as summer approached, without fail, she would walk into choir practice, beaming, and proclaiming "I get to sing my song!" 

The last verse of the song states "Praise to our death, which makes our life real, the knowledge of loss that helps us to feel, the gift of yourself, your presence revealed to lead us home." It's beautiful, and it's true, and it felt right to sing it at her funeral as a goodbye. But as I sat at her funeral (with tears streaming down my face, and no extra kleenex this time), something else hit me.

The world feels a little darker, and a lot emptier without Joan in it. Of course we who knew her are mourning and grieving. It doesn't seem fair...and yet, if Joan could speak to us, I feel like she'd tell us to rejoice with her, because she's home with her Father. 

A three-song set called Today This Spring by composer Libby Larsen makes me think of Joan. One line reads as "she would have us dance and sing to celebrate the day." And through those moments, together with family and friends and a few strangers, in celebration of Joan's life, and in mourning for her death, I couldn't help but feel that while she wouldn't want us to deny our grief, she would, at the same time, want us to dance and sing in celebration as she goes to the Father.

So, welcome home, Joan. I miss you, and I'd give just about anything for another one of your amazing hugs and beautiful smiles. My mind and heart are all too aware that it hurts to be in this world without you. But the deeper, stiller, quiet part of me - that part of me that benefited from all your great teaching! - rejoices with you.

And I love you forever.