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.

Part I: Elements of Rhythm; 2-1

I was finally able to get past the first portion of Part I and get to the elements of rhythm. The beginning portion of the section is mostly review. It asked how many eighth notes where in a half note, how many half resets are in a whole rest, etc. That may not mean much to most people but it is pretty much musical math. 

The amount in each note or rest counts for a certain number of beats in a measure. The cool part about musical math is when it creates syncopation in the music. The off beat rhythms add so much to the music and creates a cool effect. It's half the fun of singing sometimes; trying to feel the off beat and interpreting it into the song. Music wouldn't be as fun if it was always on beat, you have to mix it up sometimes. 

Part I: Elements of Pitch; 1-5

The whole point of 1-5 is aural training. It tests the ear's ability to detect different intervals in music. Thankfully I have been exposed to this since freshman year thanks to choir.

It helped me a lot on the theory testing at western and should really help me at my audition for u of m flint.

If you want to try some music and ear training games click here

Western Audition

The whole reason I've been so worried about the music theory is so I will do well on the entrance exam at my college auditions coming up. Well my first one is coming up on Friday and I'm slightly nervous. I still have not been able to finish chapter one and I only have a few days. I'm still going to try to get through as much as I can, but I'm not exactly sure how much that's going to help.

I guess I have to go in and do my best, but I am very uneasy about it.