|
fiddlefaddle
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Rebecca
Birthday: 5/10/1988
Gender: Female
Interests: Art, violin, reading, eating cheese, chocolate, pickles, reeses peanutbutter cups, Chinese food, Gardettos, apples, cheese from a can, and shopping
Expertise: making cool-whip dollups
Occupation: Student
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
AIM:  rebecca09
Member Since:
3/6/2003
|
|
| Hey ya'll!
Ok, well in the last couple of blogs I was kind of down or annoyed with the room mate, etc. So, I thought I would write a blog where I wasn't either. So here you go!
Well, here at college it's quite a bit different than when I was in high school. I think the biggest difference is how much I am really having work on all my music. At Wash, I had at the most three music classes I would need to practice for, and some I wouldn't even need to practice that much if I had already gotten the music down alright. We would have a few very hard pieces to work on in class, like our big pieces in orchestra we would play for the Jefferson Invitational, or jazz band tunes for the next concert or competition. Those were what everyone worked on, and usually we would work on these pieces for at least a month, if not a few of them before playing them in a concert. I would go home after school and practice for an hour at the most, and on some nights up to an hour and a half. This practicing included not only the pieces from school, but my own repitiore for my lesson. So then I went to college....
The minute I realized that college would be a bit different was when I tried out for scholarships at the U of I. I played, they said they really enjoyed my performance, blah blah blah, and then said, "So, do you have any questions about the University before you leave?" So I asked, "Just wondering, since I'd be a music major, how much is a music major expected to practice each day?" and my asnwer was first 12 hours a day, but then after a some nervous laughter from myself along with the laughter from the professors, Prof. Wolf answered in all seriousness, "Well, I think about 6 hours is a very good amount, but that's more of a graduate's amount of practicing to work up to, so as a freshmen, 4 hours would probably be the ideal amount." "do you mean practicing outside of orchestra and other music class practices?" "Yes, this would be practicing on your own time." "Oh... ok" :-o That's a lot of practicing each day...
Now I actually get to college, and the thoughts in my head are- how will I even be able to practice four hours day? What will I have to practice? There's no way I'll have enough music to fill up four hours.... guess again. You know how at Washington we would usually work at least a month on a more challenging piece? Well, I went to my first Symphony orchestra rehearsal, and get the list of all the concerts. When is our first concert? Three weeks. Three weeks! This would have been fine had we been playing musical tunes or easy orchestra music, but no- We were playing the 1812 Overature and a Sympony by Bernstein in three weeks. Yep... It was like someone was saying- welcome to college, where you realize what hard core practicing actually is. So, I didn't have to ask what could fill up four hours of practicing time each day- orchestra music already took up at least a fourth of it. And I'm not complaining- I think it's really awsome I get this opportunity to play music that's this challeging. It was just a humongous shock. Do you know how many flats the 1812 has? 6 flats along with ltos of 16th and 32th notes that are very fast. Oh, and also the very first day of orchestra we had to sight read it up to tempo. Our conductor doesn't do the whole starting off slow thing with pieces. He wants us to learn how to sight read well- so we sight read pieces to tempo. Also, we don't practice every day with this orchestra. It's Mon, Wed, Fri for one and a half hours. That's a total of four and a half hours each week for orchestra practice. So, it is only a half hour less than how much Washington's orchestra practiced, but it's still different to only have it three days a week instead of five. So, that's what Symphony Orchestra looks like. Now, my other classes are Philharmonic Orchestra, Musicianship and Theory III, Latin Jazz Ensemble, Quartet coaching and seminar, Violin lesson and seminar, Group Piano I, and my one Gen. Ed- Rhetoric. In Phil. orchestra we have 4 harder pieces we're working on, one of which is the hippo and alligator ballet from the first phantasia. I always see the alligator chasing the hippo the whole time while playing that one... In my Latin Jazz class we have five or six songs we're working up, and he just told us that the hard stuff is coming... This is the first time I've played true latin style jazz, really. So I've been kind of nervous in the class, wondering if I sound too classical, or swing-ish, etc. In theory we have two assignments each week to do- my first assignment took me two and a half hours. It takes a while to do those theory assignments.. but I still like theory never the less! and we have a Mozart piece we're doing in quartet. We are trying to get together at least an hour each week to practice. In my violin lessons we're working out of the Dont violin etudes, a couple Bach movements, and I'm starting the last movement of the Mendelssohn concerto (yes!!). It's one of my favorites. I never finished it with my teacher, so I'm happy to be working on it here. It has this crazy different bow technique I've never done, though. So that's been interesting trying to get that figured out. Group Piano is pretty easy. I almost tested out of it, but because I couldn't remeber how to do fingering for scales, I'm still in the class. So, that's my one easy class. Rhetoric is hard..... I feel like a terrible writer/ speech giver in that class. My first speech we did was awful. We had to give a speech about something that had played a big part in our lives. So, I did mine on violin. Well, I thought, why not start out the speech by just playing a little of my favorite piece, the second movt. from the Mendelssohn concerto? It'll only take at the most a minute... well a minute came and went, and so did two, and so did three, and by the end I had accidentally used up 3 out of my 4 minutes to give my speech and only had one minute to give the entire speech. So, I'm pretty sure everyone in that class can obviously tell I'm a music major now when I use up almost all my time to give a speech by playing my violin.
So, to give you an idea of what my day is like, I go to theory every day at 9:30 am, then i either go to lunch, or to my latin jazz class, then go to the practice rooms to practice maybe on scales and etudes, depending on the day go to group piano, practice some more, maybe this time on my piece I'm working on, go to quartet seminar, or violin seminar, or practice with quartet (depends on the day, once again), go to the computer lab and check email, then practice orchestra music, go to orchestra, eat dinner after orchestra, go to rhetoric after dinner on tues, and thurs, back to the music building to either practice some more or do theory homework, because it's just about impossible to do theory without a piano around. So, the earliest I get back to my dorm room is about 7:30 pm. One time I was at the music building till 10:30... it was insane. I keep saying that they should just build a dorm ontop of the music building... that's where we practically live anyway.... My total amount of practice time outside of music classes is about 3 hours, I haven't gotten up to the 4 hour mark yet, though a couple of days I was able to do this. Now, if you count in the time I play in the music classes along with my own practicing, that means I am playing violin for at least 5 1/2 hours each day. On the busier days it can be up to 8 hours. This is a lot more than the three, maybe 4 hours at most I had everyday with the music classes at Wash. So, this is just a little tidbit of what school is like for me here.
But don't worry- I haven't let music be the only thing I think about. I've met some really cool people here that I'm becoming friends with. Verve, one of the Christian groups I'm involved with, has really fun and insiteful meetings every Sunday night. One of the ones I'll always remember is where we played the game "bigger bettter" afterward. we all got in groups of fours and each group got a fly swatter. We had 45 minutes to go around the town and come back with the biggest or best thing we could come up with. So, our group went to a coffee shop and asked them if they had anything that they were going to throw away/ didn't need that we could trade for the fly swatter. So, we got a tea pot, which after getting it one guy in our group accidentally broke it. So, they gave us a lamp instead. And we won the contest with our lamp! woo!
Well, if you got through this entire blog, good for you! I'll be back with more tales from Iowa City later.
| | |
| my room mate is being really hard to live with right now..... errrggghhh
| | |
| Ok, it's not 19 semester hours, just 17. 
| | |
| Hmm.... should I really go up to 19 semester hours???
| | |
| Ok... so I was really homesick in my last blog. I think i'm ok now, though... I'm getting used to things and getting along better with my room mates... things weren't so great at first. I've also met some new people and made some friends. sooo that's always a good thing.
I think my orchestra audition went well, so I'm excited about that. My theory class is going to be really hard, though.... eghh.... and I think rhetoric will, too. But as for Group Piano I and online at iowa, those shouldn't be so hard. The food here isn't too bad. Much better than the food at high school. the only thing I don't like is I've had to do sooo much walking. My dorm is out there a little ways, so the nearest cambus is at the music building. So even if I take the bus to a class, I have to walk all the way over to the music building. And, since most of my classes are in the music building, I really don't have a reason to take the cambus and just have to walk. But, I've been told it's good heart pumping excersize... which is "good for you"... but sometimes the things that are "good for you" just don't seem so fun to do... especially when you're really sore from walking so much! Oh well... I'm sure I"ll get used to it. Next time you see me, you can call me Becca, the Walking Girl of Freedom.
Well, my first class starts and 9:30 and I think I'll get there early so I can practice violin first. woo!
| | |
|