Home is a Sweet Thing

Today was the first day of classes at the Ecole. Tom and I took the metro over to the school earlier than we had the day before and got to experience "rush hour." It's basically riding the metro with everyone else. Again, no air conditioning and people are crowded together. To be honest, I think it beats California traffic by far. It's more cramped, sure, but I don't think it's as stressful. I like being with all the other people and sort of the communal way of travel. I don't have to worry about getting hit by another car. Just about being robbed. Lots more walking though, which isn't bad. My legs are protesting, but only because they haven't quite healed from the beating I took bodyboarding a few weeks back. Old wounds die hard.

Tom and I made it w/ a few minutes to spare and were the first in our class room for score reading. Before we got to the school, EAMA sent out an e-mail warning us that we would need to be proficient in soprano and tenor clefs. I know how they work but didn't have too much experience. They also said the first day would be placements and I figured if I didn't do that great, I'd move. I just didn't know how the first day was going to go.

The rest of our class ultimately came into the room and Tom and I were selected to read through the score first. Tom sat at one piano and I sat at the other. We were then asked to sight read on teh piano. The only problem is that Soprano was in soprano clef, alto in alto clef, tenor in tenor clef, and bass in bass clef. My brain was doing somersaults trying to get it all figured out fast enough. I didn't do so hot.

The rest of the class time consisted of others being subjected to the same scrutiny. Some had to play lines and sing others in fixed do. We had to read the rhythm on a cello line that alternated between triplets and quintuplets. Any time Shapiro asked us to sing, he wouldn't let us play the note on the piano for a reference pitch. We had to figure it out based on something that came before. Even if it was a few minutes before. He said "We don't play the notes... we reason our way to the note!" He's a nice man though. Won't let us say sorry. And is extremely patient. All in all a great class. I'm gonna be way better after it. Or way broken. Probably a bit of both. Consolation is that the next class will be me with the other "slow" kids.

After that we went into the Musical analysis class. Lasser (the head of the program) taught the course. It's basically a fusion of Schenkerian analysis and Lasser's own concepts. Basically he says that 1) Music consists of lines in contrapuntal movement and 2) notes can only move by step, and never (with a few exceptions) by a leap. As a result melodies and pieces become the fusion and intermingling of lines. We analyzed some basic tunes, but it's gonna keep getting more advanced. Not too hard.

Chorale was alright today. Not that it's a bad class. It just happens at 3 here and that is 6:00 CA time. For whatever reason I ALWAYS have a hard time getting up a 6 am and I usually get a little sleepy around 3 or 4. Today was a double whammy. I'm still tired and lugging my bag through the metro has caused my shoulders to decide to revolt. They decided to stage their revolution during choir. It was that feeling where no matter what happens you just get fidgety. I wanted to lay down and not move again for a while. The pieces we are singing are pretty cool. Stravinsky, Bach, and others. No holds barred though, Shapiro (same guy from earlier class) asked us to sing text right away (Latin, German). He did go easy and had one of the guys that spoke Russian give us a single run through of the text in Russian. So kind.

I have a comp lesson tomorrow. Had a conversation with my comp professor today and I really like him. Hopefully I say that after the lesson. I think that he and I have similar ideas and I think he has a lot to offer.

Oh yeah, and I made it to one of the upper level Keyboard Harmony classes, number 3 to be exact. I'm grateful. I get to study with the guy that gave me my exam the other day and he was a great teacher.

Enough nerd stuff for now. Other things that happened today.

I revisted the Celiac Headquarters. They gave me a gluten free book which happens to be in French, but at least I can start trying to familiarize myself with brands. Which is great. I can start to learn some French food words.

I saw a pretty cool building down the Rue (that's French for road) and kept walking. ended up outside a really cool church, Saint Vincent de Paul. I caught the metro back to the school for afternoon classes. It was a nice break.

Oh yeah, and I promised pictures of our kitchen so here is how the other side lives:



And opened:



And a bonus shot of the view from our dorm window:



More classes and stuff tomorrow. Happy 4th to all of you. I hope that you have a great one! I'll let you know if anything cool happens. I thought about singing "The Star Spangled Banner" on the metro. But I don't know...

P.S. Thanks for commenting. Not saying that so that you feel obliged to comment. But it's nice to know that you are reading this. It lets me feel like I get to share this and I'm glad.