Well, it’s official. Conducting is the Best Class Ever.
Apparently none of us suck at fermatas, so we’ve jumped ahead to the constantly-changing-meter craziness that is “Carmina Burana.” We all survived it quite well, actually.
On the minus side, we were supposed to do a harmonic analysis of a Bach chorale for today. I tried, I really did. Unfortunately, my one semester of “theory for non-majors” does not hold up that well. For one thing, secondary dominants were vaguely mentioned toward the end of class, and modulation was one of those “you will learn this several semesters from now” things. Unfortunately both modulation and secondary dominant chords feature rather heavily in Bach chorales. As another point that is decidedly not in my favor, the non-major class incorporates neither part-writing practice nor any sort of aural skills. I can name all the intervals after that class, and that’s about it. Yeah. I gave my homework to a organ-major friend (who shall henceforth be known as James Bond the Fugue Master) who rightly declared my attempt a complete fail. Professor Adorkable got in on it as well, which resulted in him and the Fugue Master leaning over the piano arguing about leading tones. I think that one or both of them will teach me some theory if I ask nicely and/or bring them cookies. Fugue Master has previously stated that it is nigh impossible to learn theory in the modern era without a teacher, and the Wise Man has neither the time nor the Skype skills to teach me (and I think it amuses him a little bit to see how frustrated I get trying to teach myself things. But mostly the time thing).
Back to conducting class, though. British Conducting Teacher was in a great mood today, which resulted in BCT telling stories about his British Conducting Teachers Many Years Ago, And Also Trains, and the entire class giggling constantly. We had fun yelling “Bam!” and jumping up and down when the bass drum was supposed to come in, what can I say. After the Chorale debacle, I’m just glad to have a class where everyone really cares about the music.
It’s also fun because BCT is a really good teacher who is actually proud of what we’ve accomplished so far. He’s picky and very snarky (dude, he’s British, duh) but he does genuinely care about making us all better conductors. And he's hilarious, so we love him.
And, I've got people asking me for help now! It makes for a nice confidence boost in a class where I know that everyone has much more background knowledge than I do. Although, to be fair, this particular piece is all about meter changes. Sweeney Todd is the ultimate background reference.
It's just a fun piece to play, fun to conduct, great teacher and a great class. I'm not sure if this qualifies as Best Monday Ever, but it certainly came pretty close. And " :D " does no justice to the massive grin I had on my face all day.
