Whew . . . sorta

September 8, 2007 at 9:56 PM

Well, after a brief hiatus, I'm returning to report that I have officially survived the first three weeks of college! And I'm still alive to tell about it. :) I have to admit, I may have been a little naive going into the start of classes. Life is definitely busier than I anticipated. Oh, I'm only taking 16 hours, perfectly normal, this shouldn't be too bad . . .

Ha.

First off, I have to say that thankfully, I like all my teachers pretty well, and really, most of my classes just fine. I'm taking pretty much standard freshman classes for a violin performance major: theory, orchestra, lessons, piano, violin studio class, English, a computer/synthesizer class, recitals, and an honors tutorial. Theory is a lot of work sometimes, since I don't know solfege yet and have never taken piano lessons, but at least I know what's going on so far. My English is through the honors program, so it's kind of challenging. We've only had a few weeks of classes and are already finished with the Odyssey. And the teacher, while interesting, is just a bit unpredictable. One day he's throwing us a pop quiz at us about some random chapter in the book, and the next day we're watching the Wishbone version of the Odyssey. Not that I have anything against Wishbone of course . . .

Ahhh, and then that lovely class known as orchestra. Our conductor pretty good. The music he picked for us, on the other hand . . . well, let's just say that for about the first week after I was handed the part for Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, all I could do was stare paralyzed at the music thinking oh, @#$%. And unfortunately since I'm principal second, I kind of have to keep faking at a minimum. We're also doing Dvorak's 8th Symphony and Bernstein's Overture to Candide, which aren't too bad, but will still take a lot of work. Our repertoire really isn't more difficult than any standard college orchestra would do . . . but when you take into account that only four of the seventeen violins are actually performance majors . . . yeah, you get the idea.

As a side note . . . is it just me, or do conductors always choose music that is too difficult for student orchestras? It seems like in nearly every orchestra I've played in so far, we've always done music so technically beyond our range that the ensemble unity and finer details of music-making get lost. My youth orchestra did Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition one year . . . insane! Somehow if get the impression that if even I can't play my Firebird part, most of my section probably can't either. Obviously, we should be challenged, but somehow butchering Stravinsky doesn't seem the way to go about it. I wish we could play something just a little simpler, but really play it. Well. That means every person in every section breathing, moving, and playing together seamlessly, keeping right balance with all the other parts and conveying all the nuances of dynamics and phrasing and character. I've gotten a taste for that at summer camp, and it makes me wish I could have that experience elsewhere too.

One thing I've realized about being a performance major is that, even though technically have an average class load, the actual work comes out to more than you'd expect. Orchestra, for instance, is just 1 credit hour, but we have three 2-hr rehearsals a week, and the music requires a lot of attention outside rehearsal. Then there's this recital attendance class that is required for my major, but counts for 0 hours. Yep, that's right. I have to go to about 2 or 3 concerts a week to fulfill the requirements, which takes up valuable time but gives me no credit. Sometimes it's frustrating that I can't practice more. If I'm not physically in class, I always seem to have homework or reading or a paper that can't wait. Sometimes I wish there was a little less work and little more learning going on, if that makes sense. Obviously, it takes work and study to learn, but there's also a certain amount of wasted time involved it seems. Take piano class for instance: I could learn the same material in 15 minutes of concentrated practice that we waste an hour on. Grrr.

I suppose that's college for you. :)

Well, I promise to stop griping about classes and share something more cheerful next time. I actually have some exciting news, I just need a little more time to ruminate on it . . .

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted on September 8, 2007 at 11:55 PM

My youth orchestra sight-read Scheherazade one year--thank goodness we didn't actually perform it. I felt similar to what you describe. The conductor said to us before we started that "your sight reading will really improve" by doing this and I'm not sure he was right. I love Scheherazade. I think it is a *wonderful* piece, but faking through it and getting lost a bunch of times with my youth orchestra was not the highlight of my relationship with that piece. I also felt that way about "Tristan and Isolde" in college--it just wasn't very much fun because the piece was too difficult for the group.

But in contrast, my youth orchestra also played Beethoven's Eroica, and we also butchered that at the beginning, but by the end, for me it was one of my most sublime violin experiences ever. It was what I thought of when I answered Laurie's poll last week. In that case we really rose to the occasion. It can happen, even with a less-than-promising start.

For some reason I think it would be easier for a student orchestra to rise to the occasion with Beethoven, though, than with Stravinsky. I remember playing a kind of shaky performance of Petrouchka with a regional all-state orchestra in high school. It basically worked anyway, though; Stravinsky has rougher edges than Beethoven even when played perfectly.

From Tommy Atkinson
Posted on September 9, 2007 at 3:45 AM

i definitely can sympathize with having a tough load freshman year of college. especially when you're not only a good musician, but a reasonably intelligent person, you're put at a much higher standard of scholastic work in addition to being a PERFORMANCE MAJOR!

my first year of undergrad i took entirely too many credits. i was in three orchestras (symphony, chamber, and pit orchestra), chamber music, theory, piano, music history, lessons plus i took english, philosophy, and math. on top of that, i had an academic scholarship that required me to take a certain number of credits each semester AND maintain a high GPA. although i somehow managed to still practice an average of 4 hours a day (and more on weekends), i basically went crazy and wasn't able to have the typical college experience (make a ton of friends, go to parties, stay up all night) until my junior year, when i finally was finished many of my required courses and had a lot more free time in my schedule.

so, if i were to do it all again, i'd take as many "gen ed" classes as possible during your first year, and take summer sessions at the local community college (cheap, usually easier, and smaller classes than at the university), to knock all of that junk out by sophomore year. That makes focusing one's efforts on the upper-level music classes and practicing SO much easier. the higher music classes (at like the 300-level and above) are extremely important, especially if you plan on continuing your studies at the graduate level, too (I had known since freshman year that i wanted to go to grad school).

anyway, just my two cents (plus a good opportunity to reminisce on the last 4 years of my life....)

From Corwin Slack
Posted on September 9, 2007 at 7:59 PM

It seems to happen at a lot of levels. There is a highly reputed music school nearby. The orchestra ,whose members are all hopeful of professional careers, plays well and they play everything (La Valse, Rite of Spring, Don Juan, Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances etc.) but they rarely play the basics (Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Haydn) and it shows.

There is something to be said for playing musically within one's technical reach.

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on September 9, 2007 at 10:54 PM

Greetings,
I agree with Corwin. I do not belive for amoment that the Scheherzade type episode described above does anything for the orchestra in question. On the contrary, it tends to damage fledgeling techniques in the interests of , what?
When I wnet to the Royal College we had orchestral training once a week and the pieces were chosen very carefully, begninng with standard classicl era stuff with attention paid to musical details and orchestral tehcnique.
Cheers,
Buri

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Whew . . . sorta

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