oberlin & singing & not being double-degree
I am finally getting used to Oberlin again. It took a few months (October through January, I think), but I think I've found my way. And it's silly, because I'm going to be here only another three & a half months. It's hard to meet excellent people just before you move away from a place. Although I've been waiting to get out of Oberlin, now that the end is in sight, I'm realizing that there are some people that will probably just cease to have a place in my life.
The other major improvement besides some new quality humans to hang out with is the re-addition of singing into my daily life. I agreed to sing two piece by Oberlin student composers—one by a good friends and one by a good acquaintance, a piece for string quartet & soprano and a piece for two sopranos, two horns, & percussion, respectively—and the former requires me to be in excellent shape vocally. It's hard in that the melodies are pretty angular and he favors sixths, sevenths, and tritones (which for me can be pretty hard to hear), but vocally it gives me some opportunities to soar and (regardless of his intentions) is quite beautiful.
The other piece (2 sopranos, 2 horns, percussion) requires much more willingness to make sounds and not really sing. I'm not sure how to approach it right now; re-learning to sing feels so good, and this piece requires a lot of effort for something that doesn't capitalize on my strengths at all. But I agreed to do it, so I will figure out how to make it work.
I'm sad to be leaving some of the folks in Oberlin, but I'm thrilled to find my place in the music scene in the Bay area. While I was interviewing the Oberlin harpsichord prof for the Source (who I worked with on Poppea), he asked about my plans, and made suggestions for folks to contact about doing baroque stuff in the Bay area. I'm going to figure out how to find composers I like, and learn their works, and I'm going to sing lieder with Solon. Maybe I'll find some nice second Viennese school songs to sing.
Having the mental space to think about music is incredibly refreshing. Although I was totally pro-double-degree while I was a student, I've found that working a full-time job gives me much more time to think about music than being a double-degree student did. The degrees are certainly handy for my arts administration ambitions, but if I were going to be a singer, I would have been better off quitting the college, just to give me the time and energy to think about music 100%. I understand how academic studies can improve an artist immensely, but I think the two programs cripple each other when smushed together in five years.
My suggestion: all double-degree students should have to write a paper justifying the program to the double-degree deans during their second year. (That way it's early enough to quit one and finish in four years. And if they have to say something that "I don't want to be a singer but love singing and don't want to quit yet," the private teacher isn't reading it and giving up on the student.) We should be looking critically each year at whether or not the program is still a good fit; rather than completing both being a challenge/triumph, it should just be a choice. Because you do compromise both the BA and BM by spending so much of your energy juggling the two.
The other major improvement besides some new quality humans to hang out with is the re-addition of singing into my daily life. I agreed to sing two piece by Oberlin student composers—one by a good friends and one by a good acquaintance, a piece for string quartet & soprano and a piece for two sopranos, two horns, & percussion, respectively—and the former requires me to be in excellent shape vocally. It's hard in that the melodies are pretty angular and he favors sixths, sevenths, and tritones (which for me can be pretty hard to hear), but vocally it gives me some opportunities to soar and (regardless of his intentions) is quite beautiful.
The other piece (2 sopranos, 2 horns, percussion) requires much more willingness to make sounds and not really sing. I'm not sure how to approach it right now; re-learning to sing feels so good, and this piece requires a lot of effort for something that doesn't capitalize on my strengths at all. But I agreed to do it, so I will figure out how to make it work.
I'm sad to be leaving some of the folks in Oberlin, but I'm thrilled to find my place in the music scene in the Bay area. While I was interviewing the Oberlin harpsichord prof for the Source (who I worked with on Poppea), he asked about my plans, and made suggestions for folks to contact about doing baroque stuff in the Bay area. I'm going to figure out how to find composers I like, and learn their works, and I'm going to sing lieder with Solon. Maybe I'll find some nice second Viennese school songs to sing.
Having the mental space to think about music is incredibly refreshing. Although I was totally pro-double-degree while I was a student, I've found that working a full-time job gives me much more time to think about music than being a double-degree student did. The degrees are certainly handy for my arts administration ambitions, but if I were going to be a singer, I would have been better off quitting the college, just to give me the time and energy to think about music 100%. I understand how academic studies can improve an artist immensely, but I think the two programs cripple each other when smushed together in five years.
My suggestion: all double-degree students should have to write a paper justifying the program to the double-degree deans during their second year. (That way it's early enough to quit one and finish in four years. And if they have to say something that "I don't want to be a singer but love singing and don't want to quit yet," the private teacher isn't reading it and giving up on the student.) We should be looking critically each year at whether or not the program is still a good fit; rather than completing both being a challenge/triumph, it should just be a choice. Because you do compromise both the BA and BM by spending so much of your energy juggling the two.
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