Alas, I have finished all of my exams, and my original predictions may have been astonishingly wrong.
I learned today that I passed the year in solfege. This means a lot to me, as I am awful at solfege, and put minimal effort into the class. Of course, since I started in the 3rd level, and dropped the 2nd level after a few months, that only means that I'm back to where I started. A triumph, if ever there was one.
I also learned that I passed analysis. This means a lot to me as well, since I went to 20% of the classes, at best.
I wrote a few weeks ago that nobody, in the history of music conservatories, has ever failed a music history exam. Although the results come in a week, I'm predicting I may be the first.
Our music history exam worked like the lottery from hell. We would draw a little slip of paper with a subject on it, and then have to discuss the subject for about fifteen minutes in front of a jury.
I drew "symphonic poems." Oh shite.
I remembered Liszt. Liszt was a Hungarian dude with large hands who did a number of things, but also wrote some symphonic poems, one of which is called "Les Preludes."
This was more or less the extent of my speech. The jury gazed at me blankly. Could I name some other composers who wrote symphonic poems?
"Uhh, Schumann. Yeah, Schumann. And Schubert."
No, Schubert did not.
"Uhh, no, you're right, he didn't. Schumann, yeah, he totally did. The names sound similar...you know?"
Silence.
After giving me an absurd amount of hints, they finally got me to pronounce the name "Strauss."
"Right! He wrote 'Death and Transfiguration!'"
Could I name any of his other symphonic poems?
Silence.
End of exam.
That's too bad. This comes only a day after an atrocious sightreading exam.
But hey, who needs sightreading when I've got my good friend Jim Beam by my side?
This marks the end of my exams, except for my huge piano jury on the 23rd. Classes are now over. I can't tell the difference.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Raté
Let's take a look at the bets I placed on my exams a few weeks ago:
ANALYSIS: FAIL
SIGHTREADING: FAIL
SOLFEGE: PASS
CHAMBER MUSIC: PASS
MUSIC HISTORY: PASS
I learned ten minutes ago that I failed my chamber music exam, along with my jovial, female Japanese partner.
That's a sharp left turn--if I could have bet on passing a single one of my exams, it would've been chamber music.
Alas, we played our Mozart sonata for two pianos yesterday, and it was as if some malicious spirit was in the air--there were wrong notes and slips galore (for both of us), and at one point, my hand actually froze and played nothing when I was supposed to play a scale. But still. Failing? That's kind of embarassing, especially since we've been rehearsing that same damn piece, every class, since October (although it probably reached its peak back in December).
This also confirms what I sort of suspected--having a jury at the end of a *semester* makes sense, as opposed to my school's retarded system of having one at the end of every year. This will leave students to practice the same stuff for way too long and get mighty sick of it, and it's just dumb to have a whole year's worth of work hinge on one ten-minute event.
It's a bit of a discouragement, but at the same time, my school works in such a complicated (and bad) fashion, that no one has been able to explain to me why I needed to pass this exam to get a diploma.
I guess it's back to practicing for the second part of my solo piano jury, even if I'm growing slightly apathetic about the results.
On a more positive note, I'm sure I rocked my analysis exam, which (according to my predictions) I originally chalked up as a failure. The music history exam consisted of one completely open-ended question--it was a quote from Lizst, talking about how the inventions of new forms can express new emotions. We were then instructed to write anything we wanted, using this quote as a springboard. I wrote about how the invention of YouPorn has revolutionized the medium of pornography and created a much-needed sense of community in the genre of amateur hardcore.
At least I probably could have, and I may have gotten away with it.
Alright, back to YouPorn. I mean, practicing.
ANALYSIS: FAIL
SIGHTREADING: FAIL
SOLFEGE: PASS
CHAMBER MUSIC: PASS
MUSIC HISTORY: PASS
I learned ten minutes ago that I failed my chamber music exam, along with my jovial, female Japanese partner.
That's a sharp left turn--if I could have bet on passing a single one of my exams, it would've been chamber music.
Alas, we played our Mozart sonata for two pianos yesterday, and it was as if some malicious spirit was in the air--there were wrong notes and slips galore (for both of us), and at one point, my hand actually froze and played nothing when I was supposed to play a scale. But still. Failing? That's kind of embarassing, especially since we've been rehearsing that same damn piece, every class, since October (although it probably reached its peak back in December).
This also confirms what I sort of suspected--having a jury at the end of a *semester* makes sense, as opposed to my school's retarded system of having one at the end of every year. This will leave students to practice the same stuff for way too long and get mighty sick of it, and it's just dumb to have a whole year's worth of work hinge on one ten-minute event.
It's a bit of a discouragement, but at the same time, my school works in such a complicated (and bad) fashion, that no one has been able to explain to me why I needed to pass this exam to get a diploma.
I guess it's back to practicing for the second part of my solo piano jury, even if I'm growing slightly apathetic about the results.
On a more positive note, I'm sure I rocked my analysis exam, which (according to my predictions) I originally chalked up as a failure. The music history exam consisted of one completely open-ended question--it was a quote from Lizst, talking about how the inventions of new forms can express new emotions. We were then instructed to write anything we wanted, using this quote as a springboard. I wrote about how the invention of YouPorn has revolutionized the medium of pornography and created a much-needed sense of community in the genre of amateur hardcore.
At least I probably could have, and I may have gotten away with it.
Alright, back to YouPorn. I mean, practicing.
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