For this weeks blog post let’s talk a little bit about the exam first off.  I had no trouble listening to the song and being able to identify it that way, but I did have some trouble memorizing the years.  That is probably because my brain doesn’t like to think in numbers, which must be why I hate math so much.  I feel that putting them up into separate play lists on Spotify was very smart rather than just putting them all into one big playlist.  The way they were really helped me remember the genre and the general time period each was from.  I also really liked the set up of the exam.  The format was really easy to follow and reflected the study material well.  I’m hoping that studying for these types of exams will come easier with the next one, just because I’ll have a feel on what to expect.

On another note I’ve started rehearsing all of my pieces for my jury this semester.  My adviser, Dr. Lo, is one of the professors going on the trip to China in May so I have to have my jury a week early.  I’m working on one French piece, one Italian piece, and one English musical theater piece. The French piece I’m working on is called “Clair de Lune.”  It’s composed by Debussy and means “light of the moon” or “moonlight.”  My Italian piece is “Vergin, tutto amor.”  By Francesco Durante, it is a prayer to the virgin Mary.  My last piece is “Diamond’s are a Girl’s Best Friend” from the musical Gentlemen prefer Blondes.  It’s a really fun piece to preform and sing.  All of these pieces explore a different part of my vocal range.  The English piece is meant to help me bring out my “belting” range, the French piece is to help my with more of my middle range, and the Italian is to work my middle-high range.  My vocal ranges is quiet strange actually.  I can comfortable sing anywhere from Alto one to a high Soprano two.  In my Vocal Rep class I am singing Soprano one for a piece called, Suscepit Israel (Magnificat by J.S.Bach).  That part is more of a higher Soprano two, than a Soprano one so  it isn’t too harsh on my voice.  Also the performance I am in this weekend “The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace” I sing a mixture of Sop two and Alto one.  “The Armed Man” is a Mass by a Welsh composer Karl Jenkins. The piece was commissioned by the Royal Armories Museum for the Millennium celebrations, to mark the museum’s move from London to Leeds, and it was dedicated to victims of the Kosovo crisis.  It was written for SATB chorus with soloists and a symphonic orchestra. Guy Wilson, then master of the museum, selected the texts for the mass.  All of IUP’s choirs will be performing in this mass along with most of the music professors either on their instruments or singing solos within the piece.  The performance is on Sunday the 26th from 3-5 at Fisher Auditorium.  It should be a great performance. 

I really really enjoy this class so far.  I love learning about the roots of different styles and genres of music.  I also feel that this class, which is talking about popular music, is going to be very helpful to me in the long run.  All of this information from the notes and from the reader and textbook is something that I can take with me into the real world.  Wanting to be a music educator and have a knack for playing an instrument or having a decent enough voice isn’t enough to really land you the dream job that you are hoping for someday.  Most of the classes I am taking now are about exploring what you have to offer the world and really finding my voice so I am able to  use to help other students who enjoy music as much as I do.  I really appreciate that this class is giving me information that I can bring into the classroom and share with my students.  It will help me to explore different genres for my students to sing and actually have an understanding of where they came from and then pass that knowledge along to them.  I know not all students are going to care about the roots of R&B or how country music was build from the roots of jigs from the British Isles, but the few that are going to find this information interesting and amazing are going to want to share it with their future students some day.  The fact that I will be able to pass this information on to students who are going to appreciate and create an assembly line of information is an amazing thing.  Just being able to shape young lives with music is everything that I want to accomplish and more.

Speaking more about what I want to do as a music educator,  I would really like to be a Choral director in a high school or university.  I debated for a while back and forth between high school and elementary.  My high school had a preschool program in it and I was a teacher there for all four years of high school.  I love their enthusiasm about everything and how much they believe in the good in everything.  My senior year I was asked if I would be willing to come and incorporate more music into their school day and I was thrilled at the opportunity to do what I love while working with such a great group of kids.  I did everything from an instrument petting zoo to nursery rhymes to having the kids play various percussion instruments at volumes that were too loud for most normal people to deal with.  I really loved how much fun they had with everything I threw at them, but I feel that older kids appreciate it more and realize how different their lives would be if they weren’t involved in music.  That is why I feel I would want to work with older kids.  They know what they will be losing if there was no longer a music program, so I want to be there to ensure them that there are people out there willing to teach them anything and everything they want to know.  I really just want to be that person that will help make dreams happen and help them with anything they may need along the way.

I really enjoyed this week learning about how all the types of music that we had been discussing, The Blues, Country Music, etc, build upon each other and have their roots from certain parts of each other.   I also really enjoyed coming up with our own blues lyrics.  It definitely made me think about the pattern and how I could rhyme words together to fit that pattern.  My blues lyric that I came up with was,

“8am class on Monday, 9:30’s just as bad. No sleeping in in the morning, makes me very very sad.”

This fits the AAB form that Blues tends to follow.  It also fits with the rhyming requirement and it does talk about the “misfortunes” in my life.

I really do enjoy blues music and learning a little bit more background on it was very interesting to me.  The first bit of “blues” music that I remember listening to would be Soul Man by The Blues Brothers.  I just remember my day blasting this music and definitely jamming out a little bit too hard.  I feel the fact that him liking that song so much is what peaked my interest in the song and genre, because I obviously wanted to be exactly like him.  My favorite lyrics from that song would have to be,

Listen
I was brought up on a side street
I learned how to love before I could eat
I was educated from good stock
When I start lovin’ I just can’t stop

I really just like those lyrics and I always have.

Speaking of my dad, I tend to get most of my taste in music from him because he was also jamming out to something new while cooking dinner or working on his cars.  I really like anything from like Billy Joel to ACDC to more modern stuff like Panic! at the Disco and Fall out Boy.  Some of my favorite Billy Joel songs would have to be, New York State of Mind, The Longest Time, and the very cliche Piano Man.  I can rock out to any ACDC song that you could put on and as for Panic! at the Disco adn Fall out Boy I like a wide variety of there music.  It depends on my mood at the time really for which album I’ll put on.  I’ve been liking more of there recent stuff as of late.

Something that I really enjoy listening to on repeat is Musicals.  My two favorite would The Producers and Something Rotten.  I saw Something Rotten on Broadway last April and that experience completely changed the way I view musicals and my love for them grew even greater.  My dad was actually the one that introduced me to musical theater and that is one of the many things musically that we are able to bond over and share.

Well there is just a little background information on my music tastes and on me I guess.  I really do enjoy what we are learning about in class and find it quite interesting.