Hitting the Groove

Today is the beginning of the fourth week of classes and I have a routine that enables me to get my schoolwork done in a way that takes time, but is not stressful.  I had my first test in Ear Training last week and it covered four-part dictation and identification of chord progressions.  I am glad that the Ear Training class is teaching us in small steps so that the work is not overwhelming.  I feel like I am making gradual progress, and I have to keep refreshing my knowledge of intervals.  I am learning to listen better to music in the bass clef.  Since I am a singer who sings in the treble clef, I hear the treble clef much clearer than the bass clef.  There are online computer programs that I can use to practice identifying intervals.  One of the best for me is http://www.teoria.com/ which was created in Puerto Rico.

In my piano lessons, I am “unlearning” some of my muscle memory, especially with my left hand and the smallest finger of my left hand.  My piano teacher, Dr. Phillip Silver, chooses music for me to learn that exercises the areas that I need to work on.  I am learning a Mozart Sonata and a Czerny Etude right now.

In my piano jazz class, I am composing piano jazz accompaniments, so I am learning a lot about the harmony of the chords that are used in jazz:  seventh chords, chords with flat or sharp ninths (the same note as the second degree of the scale), chords with sharp elevenths (the same note as a sharped fourth degree of the scale), and chords with flat thirteenths (the same note as a flatted sixth degree of the scale).  We are moving quickly.  We turned in one arrangement last week, and another one is due tomorrow.  We will be composing one a week for most of the course.  Through this application, I am learning more about the harmonic structure of chords and how to structure bass lines for jazz arrangements.

In the Chamber Jazz Ensemble, we are learning to compose melodies for improvisation.  This is based on the same harmonic structures we are learning in the piano jazz class, and applying that knowledge to a melody line, instead of an accompaniment.  I play the piano in this group.  I have never done anything like this before and it is both terrifying and exhilarating.  Our concert will be on April 1 at 7:30 pm in Minsky Hall at the University of Maine.

Since I don’t have any classes on Fridays, I have the luxury of spending most of the day practicing the organ and the piano.  In addition to the classics I am learning on organ and piano, I am learning to play some of the service music for Catholic Mass, and I played the organ for part of the service on Sunday, January 26, at St. Teresa’s Church in Brewer.  My organ teacher, Dr. Kevin Birch, is very supportive and played the parts of the service that I was not yet ready for.  I still get nervous when I play for other people, and I think the only way to get over that is to play in public more often.  On February 23, I will play all the music for the Mass on the organ.  We chose the Entrance and Communion hymns and I will choose a hymn for the Presentation of the Gifts.  All of this puts me one step closer to my goal of being a music minister at church.