Mondays are light days. That’s good because it helps me from being tempted to work on Sundays. I may or may not go to Yoga from 8:30-10. The problem is what to do between 10 and 11. For some inexplicable and heretical reason the library doesn’t open until 11am. It’s hard to find a practice room. So it’s tempting to stay home and work until 10:40 when I have to bike to class. It takes 13 minutes to bike to school and 20 to bike back. Remember the hill. Random mouth off: I bought a printer and wasn’t it nice that it came with ink and I suppose I should be happy it came with a power chord because it didn’t come with a USB chord to plug into the computer. I have extra at home, but not there. What a stupid way to save a few bucks. HP goes a few steps downwards in my books.
From 11:10 to noon I have Satzlehre with MJ. He’s a great friendly fellow who speaks very clear German and has no trouble speaking English, French or probably other languages when needed. Satzlehre is something like ‘theory’ but then I don’t know what “Theorie” is. So far we’ve been studying the church modes in Gregorian chant. We look at how various theorist thought of music at the time, but his bit point is that “Theorie ist immer falsch.” If music doesn’t fit the theory then the theory is wrong, not the music. Every model is incomplete and shouldn’t be used for more than it was meant. As you can guess it’s more of a practical class. In fact, from 2 to 3 I have a smaller group session called the “prakticum” where we put the ideas into practice improvising in various modes and trying to get inside the heads of those who sang and composed chants. He’s very encouraging and I’m beginning to loosen up and just sing as I feel led to. I do well with lots of structure, or no structure, so I hope this will help me build up the rather large gap in the middle.
It is interesting that MJ is a synesthete. He sees very strong colors when he hears sound (among other things). It is interesting that it is not ‘absolute pitch’ synethesia, but rather the color depends on the function of the note. Hence he sees colors with atonal music but it makes no sense. I am not a synesthete but his description of the function of notes resonates with me. I have a hard time picking out intervals out of thin air and I don’t know a C from an E if you sing it out of context, but establish a mode or some sort of relation and each note has such a clear role and sound that writing a dictation is no problem. I don’t think in terms of intervals, but rather relations to the tonic or tonicized note. I very much feel the pull of certain notes toward others and the need to come home. This is one reason why I love modal music of all kinds, and hence folk music of all cultures. The notes are so rich and are a never ending source of tension and resolution.
The homework next week is to improvise on a Latin poem until we find something we like well enough to write it down. There’s enough Latin going around that I decided to see what I could do to help myself. I found this site and the first lesson was good. I can extract much more meaning from all those texts already! Of course doing that means procrastinating on other work . . .
That’s it for Monday classes. Nice, isn’t it? Today I used the space between classes to rehearse with Richard (flute) our trio (the third is in England). It got much better and it’s a nice piece so it’ll be fun to work on. Flute and harp go well together and I assume the lute will fit right in as well.
Before you become jealous of my light schedule, remember I have to practice two instruments and voice for lessons, ensembles, and other classes. The other days are very much worse.
Fascinating synesthete story! Especially the relationship to the function of the notes, and your own experiences of that. I'll be interested in what LC thinks about it.
Unfortunately, the printer problem seems to be common; I wish I'd thought of it earlier. Printers come without cables, refrigerators come with ice makers but without the piping necessary to connect them. I guess they figure usb cables are standard enough...but how very annoying! Have you obtained one yet?
Not yet. I need to get a longer cable for the modem, too. There's no room for shopping during the week . . .
Forgive me, but reading a post about mediaeval music containing the term "power chord" made me chuckle, especially after the "rock concert/electric lute" comments last night.
If you have to look it up: power chord.
That's interesting. In medieval music, apart from the octave, the fifth was the purest and strongest interval. Most pieces end with the fifth (other options are unison, octave, and such combinations). No idea is new under the sun.
Oh, if I had time that Wikipedia link could lead to all sorts of reading and posting. Fascinating. You will find it difficult to believe that I actually knew the term "power chord," and even more difficult to believe that it's because I was reading about heavy metal music the other day. But so it is.
I found this informative but somewhat annoying comment in the section of the article dealing with the "consecutive fifths criticism":
[U]nlike the prohibition against consecutive octaves, the prohibition against consecutive fifths is better viewed as a matter of style. During the common practice period of European classical music, the popular music of Europe made frequent use of consecutive fifths; the avoidance of the consecutive-fifth texture by composers of music for aristocratic, religious, and middle class audiences was at least in part a matter of differentiating "serious" music from that of the peasantry and uneducated lower classes. Given the fact that rock, blues and other music in which power chords are likely to occur tends to ally itself unabashedly with the music of such marginalized groups, the stylistic argument against consecutive fifths becomes irrelevant.
Rock is the music of "marginalized groups"? Give me a break! That may have been true in the very dim past, but hardly so now. Rock and its relatives have become the music of the majority "aristocratic, religious, and middle class audiences," while those of us to whom that genre speaketh not are on the margins of society.
Personally, I like consecutive fifths (no jokes about Jack Daniels, please), as long as they're not distorted and over-amplified. When our choir sang in organum, it was most beautiful and effective.
I think one of the primary interests in power chords, at least for guitarists, is that class of chords are the basically the simplest to play, just two fingers, slide up and down the fret board just thinking about intervals, or memorizing positions - the left hand's fingers don't change position with respect to each other, only your arm moves.
Given that the third is missing, they don't always sound appropriate, and occasionally, I'll run into a "rock" guitarist who generally won't play anything except power chords, unless it sounds really bad, and then they'll resentfully play the "right" chord.
When I read the part about the marginalized groups, I pictured the goth-types or other heavy metal sort of folks, which I think it is at least somewhat reasonable to characterize that way - as opposed to the popular rock that plays at high school dances, and pop radio stations, etc.
As for jokes about fifths, I thought it would be obvious since you would at least partially align yourself with Episcopals - and that was a favorite joke at Ascension - whenever four Episcopals are gathered - there's always a fifth.
I do love Jack Daniels barbecue sauce, does that count?
I'm glad everyone else got to the "power chord" comment before I did. I was just going to say that I was glad I didn't have to deal with power chords with all the printers and computers I had to set up at my old company since I'm not muscially inclined.
