Song To The Moon (La Luna)- Z. Randall Stroope

Background: The lyrics to this song are a free paraphrase of a small portion of the original written by Jaroslov Kvapil. It was originally in Czech and was later used by Antonin Dvorak for his opera "Rusalka". This song is never meant to be an exact translation of Kvapil's text, but it captures the essence of the original. Kvapil's plot in the text centers around a water nymph that wants to be a human so she can fall in love with a prince that has been coming to her pond. The text used is from the beginning of the story when the nymph is asking the moon to find her lover (the prince) and tell him that she loves him. 

Progress on the song: This was one of the first songs I started learning and it isn't too terrible. There are some interesting rhythms that can throw me off if I'm not keeping the beat and there are double flats which are never fun when you're trying to learn a piece. I really like it overall. It is a very calming piece and it's very easy to get lost in a song like this which will make the performance that much better.

Spring Break

Over the next week or so I'm going to try to post videos of the songs that I am learning with a brief history and how well it is going on my end when it comes to learning it.

Since it's Spring Break and I took the week off from work I will have pleanty of time to practice. Hopfully this week will help me feel more comfortable about my music so I'm not panicing for the next month.

Wish me luck!

Topic Change!

So there is going to be a slight change in the theme of my blog.

Instead of learning music theory I will be learning my music for the Michigan Youth Arts Festival (MYAF) and tracking my progress. I already changed my title and description (as you can see), but I thought I would at least give you a bit of a reason. The song titles are:

Song To The Moon- Z. Randall Stroope
El Vito- Mack Wilberg
Os Justi meditabitur sapientiam- Anton Bruckner
The King Shall Rejoice!- G.F. Handel
Song of Democracy- Howard Hanson

These all have to be memorized by May 8th. Wish me luck!

Music Therapist Visit

Today in choir we had a music therapist named Jamie visit and she gave a presentation on what kind of work she does.

You might be wondering if this has anything to do with music theory and the answer is yes! To be a music therapist you have to take several semesters of music theory to get your degree. Since this is the field I want to get my degree in, I really enjoyed the presentation as a whole.

I am hoping that I could possibly volunteer at her practice to get a feel for the actual work that goes into being a music therapist. Part of me knows that this is going to be difficult since the field is still growing, but I really want to use my musical talents to help others. Hopefully the education I get from U of M and the master's I plan to get from Western will prepare me enough to handle this kind of work.

If you'd like to take a look at Jamie's website and get some more information on her practice click here.

Music Theory Website

I was looking around on the internet and I stumbled upon this website that is all about music theory. They have lessons, practice exercises, and even tools like a note calculator.

It's pretty cool... so I thought I'd share.

Audition results

I got my results back from my audition from University of Michigan- Flint this past week. I was very please to learn that I was accepted into their music program there and I actually tested out of Music Theory 1.

I personally thought that I would not get that far because the actual test was pencil and paper which I wasn't expecting. I was stressing about it the whole time and it made taking the actual test more difficult. The singing portion of the audition went fairly smoothly.

The whole experience altogether was fairly pleasing and I can't wait to start school in the fall.