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On a less convoluted and rhetorical note, Salad's back tomorrow, and I can discuss the Huxley book with him. Oh, and the rehearsal will include the stuff for the Christmas recording (not Madrigals, that's in March). Speaking of rehearsals...
Today at Rice was nearly as enlightening as that day months ago when my encounter with a musically ignorant girl showed me how much I really do know, and how uselessly specialized my knowledge is. Today, Tom took the voice majors out of Chorale to work on Madame Butterfly with them, and left us non-music majors in the room to rehearse with Dr. Farwell. It's amazing how awful we sounded. It was like Lanier, except horrendously out of tune and with no blend. Middle-school level voices. Out of college students. Are we trained singers really that special? Mama and I drowned out the rest of the alto section, and the sopranos sounded like 8-year-olds. And all the references Dr. Farwell was making, to vowel names and the chord progressions and the note names, were totally over their heads. They couldn't pronounce any of the German (which, as a language person, really irked me; we've had three rehearsals, where have these people been?), and they couldn't "read" the music (as I've said, it wasn't the first, or even second, time we'd sung these things). I nearly wept at the butchering poor Brahms's glorious work received. I hope Tom never inflicts that upon us again.
Today at Rice was nearly as enlightening as that day months ago when my encounter with a musically ignorant girl showed me how much I really do know, and how uselessly specialized my knowledge is. Today, Tom took the voice majors out of Chorale to work on Madame Butterfly with them, and left us non-music majors in the room to rehearse with Dr. Farwell. It's amazing how awful we sounded. It was like Lanier, except horrendously out of tune and with no blend. Middle-school level voices. Out of college students. Are we trained singers really that special? Mama and I drowned out the rest of the alto section, and the sopranos sounded like 8-year-olds. And all the references Dr. Farwell was making, to vowel names and the chord progressions and the note names, were totally over their heads. They couldn't pronounce any of the German (which, as a language person, really irked me; we've had three rehearsals, where have these people been?), and they couldn't "read" the music (as I've said, it wasn't the first, or even second, time we'd sung these things). I nearly wept at the butchering poor Brahms's glorious work received. I hope Tom never inflicts that upon us again.
