2015-01-01: So no, I don’t read music

Well, OK, yes, of course I do, but I know only the American system of solfège. (And how is it that I only just discovered that this word is the same in English as it is in French?) It is embarrassing, occasionally humiliating, not to automatically know what note “ré bémoule” is, for example. I end up comparing the do-re-mi vs. ABC scales in my mind, much as innumerate people count on their fingers to calculate. Even with that, I am sometimes wrong (and laugh it off though I may in public, it’s excruciating to me inside). And then I see terms such as “fixed-do” and “movable-do”… and am filled with dread and fear that this will all be too hard and complicated to learn — at least on my own.

— Indeed, it was the fear of being continually embarrassed by my ignorance that greatly contributed to my not having joined any choirs since moving to Europe in late 2001… until this past year in Grenoble, when the need to find some kind of non-work social outlet to keep from going crazy with loneliness and boredom turned out to be stronger than my fear.

So I rediscovered choral singing in early March 2014, and it has brought me a great deal of joy and satisfaction. Since buying my electric piano in October (“physical therapy for a broken wrist!” :-), I have also rediscovered how much I have missed piano accompaniment. I am nowhere near the level of either Roland or Laurène, who have accompanied (in concert) the choirs I now sing with, but with practice, I can be a competent rehearsal accompanist. And I’ve actually been a very good accompanist for soloists — I know how to follow. But I can’t accompany a choir, even in rehearsal, without knowing the French system of solfège with as much automaticity as I know the multiplication tables. If the chef de chorale were to tell me to play a “mi” for the basses, for example, I need to know instantly what note to play.

I had budgeted for ping-pong lessons throughout 2014, but given that (a) I much prefer German training methods to what I’ve seen in Grenoble, and (b) my right wrist is not fully recovered (strange that I didn’t blog about my parapente accident — but I digress), I want instead to take some lessons, to get coached in solfège so I will not feel so embarrassed and hobbled and restricted in what I can (offer to) do musically.

Finally, the theme for the 2014-15 musical season is light, and I’ve composed an entire (short) cantata… in my head. Even were I to miraculously get it all written out at this point, with or without help from notation software, it’s essentially too late for any group to choose to sing it (assuming it would meet with artistic/musical approval). But I ought to write it down anyway, along with all of the other songs and themes & variations that I hear within.

Seems like I should start trying to become a better “European” musician and composer during this first part of the year, given how ghastly busy I was with work and work and work and work during the latter part of 2014 (and that may prove true for the latter part of 2015 as well).

Au travail musical!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2017-07-30: Waiting for “elle nous a quitté”

(Originally published on mofembot.com) I received a note the end of July from the sister of Odile, my grenobloise friend, telling me that Odile’s health had taken a turn for the worse and that she no longer fully recognizes her surroundings. And two months ago, C wrote to say that “parfois elle est consciente de son état, autres fois, elle espère encore” — “sometimes she is conscious of her state, other times, she still hopes” — a sentence I find so poignant that it still brings tears to my eyes.   I have not heard from C since, although she has said that my weekly emails are appreciated. As is so often the case for those suffering from long-term illness, no direct contact with anyone other than a tiny circle of intimate friends and family for many months means that it is easy to be — not forgotten, exactly, but no longer a focus of attention among one’s larger circle of friends and colleagues. This is normal. I feel I owe Odile so much that I want her — or at least her family...
Read more

2009-10-18: Archivist or packrat?

Okay, I know the answer to this one, especially after having spent part of today wallowing in a sea of receipts, museum and movie tickets, birthday and anniversary cards, brochures, maps, photos, and other potential/real memorabilia. Not to mention Papers That Must Be Kept for tax purposes for a minimum of seven or ten years or whatever the current French or American statute requires. (In reality, of course, such papers may abide with me eternally.) I have a respectable box full of papers that will go to the recycling bin tomorrow. But the box barely makes a dent, as certain Family Detractors will no doubt point out with a mix of glee and exasperation. Andy Warhol kept a lot of papers as well, with each year’s worth of invitations and programs and suchlike deposited into its very own large drawer. It is the stuff of dreams from a researcher’s point of view, or at least a biographer’s, I suppose. I don’t know if Warhol’s collection includes anything quite so pedestrian as receipts from ...
Read more

2009-02-27: Cutting-edge adventures

“Adventure” is a bit strong. This post is about cutting. No, not self-mutilation (although I had to deal with that god-awful phenomenon when I was a school principal), but more like cutting out paper dolls. Only what I’m cutting out (endlessly, endlessly) are the zillions of doodles I’ve drawn over the years (nearly always during interminable meetings of one sort or another). First of all, the doodles: I figured out that doodling is not a distraction: rather, it helps me focus. It is the manual equivalent of something I seem to do subconsciously when driving: humming/singing the same tune over and over again (but in a “theme-and-variations” kind of way). I have not been formally diagnosed with ADD (attention deficit disorder), but I sure have all the classic signs, and yes, the “extra activity” (be it humming or doodling) takes up enough of that part of my brain that is distractible to allow the rest of my brain to focus on the meeting at hand (to listen and actively participate). My ...
Read more