IrishOboe

Oct 17-19, Wed-Fri

I’ve been busy enough to forget a thousand woes, not that I have that many, but it’s a pace of life that I haven’t had in a long time.  Happily, for now at least, it is energizing as I’m hopping from thing to thing that is interesting, challenging and of course my favorite thing: new.

Wednesdays are going to be the most exhausting with two lessons and classes back to back for nearly eight hours.  Before you think that’s like a normal job remember I still have a few hours of practicing to fit in and I’m not smart enough to not have to study.  If you want to discount the 1 ½ of Yoga since that takes muscle but not brain.  I figured since it’s free and I want to be sure to spend time taking care of my body anyway, I might as well get to school early to benefit from live instruction.  I was only able to go on Wednesday this week, but the class is small and the teacher is gentle and is doing lots of upper body work tailored to musicians, which is marvelous.

Most classes so far have been organizational.  I’m taking secondary voice lessons with Kate Dineen, an Irish lady who sings medieval and Irish music and also plays Irish harp.  It’s been determined that it’s ‘allowed’ to work on some Irish stuff in my lessons as well. :)  I’m excited.  I’ve only had a few voice lessons and it will be fun to take it more seriously.

I’m in an ensemble with Richard, who I met last year and who has switched to the medieval department from the Baroque department this year.  We enjoy imitating each other’s accents badly (he’s English) and I do get a kick out of his impression of what Americans sound like.  Anyway, he plays flute and CY will be playing lute for us until we find another lute player.  I thought it was nice of CY not to put me in a large ensemble where I might drag everyone down.  This way only Richard has to put up with me.  Actually, I read through the piece on harp today and it wasn’t so bad.  Believe it or not, I’ve been doing well at not making excuses for myself.  Of course, I haven’t played with anyone yet, but first steps first.

I went to Gregorian chant class but I think I’ll take it another year.  I’ve heard good things about his class from people who can understand German well and those who don’t are usually quite lost.  I followed along well enough, but I don’t do everything and it will take a fair amount of work to keep up, so here’s at least one hour a week that I’ve freed up.  Um, not really since that’s now my voice lesson time, but hey . . .

I met with Heidi and set up a lesson time and she gave me some advice about a harp I’m thinking of buying.  It’s funny how I think about money when it comes to instruments.  It’s almost in the abstract for some number of reasons.  It doesn’t quite dawn on my that it would take half my savings or a few year’s rent to pay for.  Anyone looking for a Loree oboe?  If I sold my old one I could buy this harp . . .

Well these are details I need not worry you about as I am sure God will work out something as he always has.  I’m growing attached to this harp, though, which is rather dangerous, but once again I’m ahead of myself.

It’s not on the usual schedule to take Ken’s instrumental workshop class the first year, but working with him before was so helpful I want more of it and most of the work is done in class rather than out.  It’s just so helpful to learn to play by ear and memorize long phrases and pieces and he also gives great exercises for training the fingers and the brain.  Of course if I dropped it then I’d have time between my voice and harp lessons, but . . .

I met with the head of the medieval department that morning as part of the mandatory introductory meetings.  He once again emphasized the importance of getting very good at one instrument but said I could take the year to see how things went and then decide if I wanted to just focus on one.  I’m basically free to take what I want but he was happy to hear I’m jumping in with both feet.  I almost feel like I have to because I don’t know anything!  It does take some of the pressure off to know I’m not desperate for a degree and have to pass everything.

Diana was able to get me a ticket at the last minute for the Switzerland verses America soccer game in Basel.  I’ve never watched pro soccer and I’ve only seen the small games played during the sports festival at my school in Japan.  I found it interesting then, so I thought I’d better not pass up this golden opportunity for a number of firsts.  It turns out the tickets were not too expensive (about 15 dollers) and the stadium is close by, so I met up with the group and had a great time.  Josh was kind enough to patiently answer all my questions about the game and I was only bored a little in the first half because nothing was happening.  Security was bazzar, they took my empty water bottle (brought all the way from America!) and the fork that I’d packed for my dinner.  They said we could get the stuff back at the end, but they lost the fork.  I’m stolen from Veronika.  What a nice thing to do the sweet lady who’s welcomed me into her home!!  I should mention they did not take my Swiss army knife . . . 

We sat amongst a large group of Americans, but since a number of them grew up in Switzerland there was a friendly, but strong division between Switzerland supporters shouting “Hopp Schwitz!” and USA supporters shouting “U-S-A.”  Once a group behind us shouted “Go Africa!”  Hey, you’ve got to keep your national identity.

Richard the Brit trying to keep his national identity flanked by two beaming Americans: Diana and Josh.

The Swiss seemed to have much better footwork and team coordination.  They seemed to dance around the Americans and whenever the Swiss had the ball an American would be running after him, but when the ball came to an American there were often two or three Swiss already there.  Somehow the American’s managed to score a point relatively late in the second half, and I’d been into the game enough to really get excited about it.  It was an ideal way to experience a match: Switzerland vs. the USA, someone nice to answer my questions, a US win, good friends and nice weather (it rained but we were under cover).  In the end I gave in a bought a scarf since it had both Swiss and US colors and the date of the match.  Sure I can remember the match without it, but it might be fun conversation starter and it never hurts to have a second winter scarf.

Obviously the busy week was not all hard work, which is part of made it energizing, I think.  I’ve managed to get a decent amount of sleep each night for the most part, too.

Thursday also has quite a few class, but two hours of Renaissance dance hardly counts since it is so much fun to do.  This time I’m trying to remember how she teaches and write down all the names of the dances and memorize the music as we dance.  I can often sing along while we dance, but when we go on to the next dance I then forget the old tune.  I’m sure I’ll get better.  It’s hard to find recordings of the dances so if I can remember it long enough to record the tune myself I’ll at least have something to work with when I teach myself.  I also must say that university students pick things up a bit faster than my dear friends in the Allgemeine Schule, but I still miss them.

Dance class wraps up a long morning with CY.  We have Gehörbildung (which sounds better than ‘aural skills’) and I’m not so strong at it, so I think it will be good for me.  I can take dictations alright, but for some reason I have a hard time identifying intervals and chords.  It just seems that depending on context the same chord or interval can have a very different color to it and that confuses me.

Right after that we have Musicus and Cantor, which is basically an overview to medieval music, which I need of course since I know about nothing.  I remember learning about Guido d’Arezzo in music history at Eastman, and we saw a picture of his famous hand, but in this class we’ll actually learn to sing with the Guidonian hand.  If you see my walking down the street pointing to my left palm uttering “gamut, Are, Bmi, Cfaut, Dsolre, Elami, Ffaut, gesolreut” I’m just learning how to sing the way they did in 1000.  Cool, huh?  If you don’t think so I’ll have to come up with a better way to sell it when I want to teach back in the states . . .

In class CY mentioned an Irish concert that night so my German friend Lu and I decided to go together.  It was a fantastic evening, though after so many hours of speaking and listening to German, my head literally hurts (though not like a headache).  Pure Irish Drops lives up to its name by playing pure Irish tunes in various instrumentations.  It was amazing how exactly they played together, though I’m not sure I prefer it that way.  It had been a long time since I’d been in an Irish concert, so it was lovely to hear again, and this time I watched the fiddle player hoping to learn some tricks.  I learned a lot from watching whistle and bodhran players in Rochester.

With every evening taking up it’s been hard to keep myself organized and get anything else done.  Add to that a rather difficult sequence of communication with the construction workers near the house and I’ve hardly had any time at home.  I suppose Swiss construction workers have little need of high German so I found it difficult to understand them.  They seemed nice enough, but it didn’t help that I just couldn’t get the main point most of the time.  I knew they had to do something on the road and so something about the car had to be done, but that doesn’t say much.  I ended up calling Veronika’s sister to come help out and it worked out, but only after a number of rather uncomfortable encounters.  Just when I get excited about surviving some German adventure I get knocked back down again and realize how little I know.  Oh, I was proud that Lu (Chinese name but 100% German) said I don’t have an American accent at all.  I’ve given up hope of speaking like a native if people can tell there’s something different in such people as Stephan and other people I know who grew up bi-lingual.  I’ll content myself with not sounding like an American.  It was funny to hear Lu imitating an American accent in German.  I have to work hard at it, too.  I suppose however you first learn something it’s hard to change.

Today I went to the local market and they had unpasturized apple juice.  What a treat!  Most weeks it will be a hard choice between going to Yoga and going to the market.  Last week we got a loaf of bread baked in a wood oven that was out of this world!

Today was music history class – the official one as opposed to the introductory ones.  I haven’t sorted out yet why there are so many, but this is from 800 to 1300.  It’s taught by an Englishman but is in German.  My conversational German helps about not at all in a history class.  It felt like I had to look up every other word I wasn’t comfortable stopping him every time I didn’t understand.  After class I talked to him about it and he encouraged me to ask as many questions as I wanted and I could speak whatever language I wanted but he would continue to use German.  It’s probably the best way for me to learn, but I have to admit it’s a little intimidating.  At the end of class we visited the University library and the archives of medieval manuscripts – the largest collection in Europe (on microfilm).  It seems like it will be a good course, but since it’s not even a subject I’m familiar with I can’t use that to help me figure out the German.  At one point I asked the English name for whatever bit of history he was talking about and I didn’t even recognize it.  What doesn’t kill us makes a stronger, right?

There’s a German class on Fridays as well, but I’m not sure it’s the best use of my time.  I’ll try it out, but I might be better off using the time to study the words I learn in music classes.  Ha, so many of the classes have just been organizational, so if I’m tired out from this week what will happen when each class has content?  If I boil it down I have 20 hours of class, and I think given the classes it might be manageable, but we’ll see.  It’s always much easier to work hard at something interesting.

I woke up with a bit of a sore throat and by the afternoon when I returned I was not feeling well at all.  I lay down at 4:30 and almost instantly fell asleep, which is rare for me, and didn’t wake up until 7.  I decided that was God’s way of telling me to go to the sing at church and the Baroque orchestra concert at the Schola.  Both were well worth it and the nap left me feeling much better.  Just the minimal amount of housework and writing this update as brought the time to midnight and despite the nap I am ready for bed.  You know, if I had a week between weeks I’d be able to do this school thing no problem!

BTW, I’ve discovered that it’s free to receive calls and text messages on my cell phone whenever I am in Switzerland.  Mom has sent me a few texts, and it does help to close the distance a bit.  What a world we live in.

Hope you have a great weekend!