Well, the semester is officially over.  The plan for the break is to keep drilling this stuff into my head.  Obviously, I need much work with my AP skills.  I proved that quite thoroughly at my jury.  Does everybody suck at sight singing as bad as I do?  No you don't.  I want to learn from this semester, and actually come prepared next semester.  I'd like to get the fundamentals memorized so that I can keep up with what is being said in class for one thing.  Anyway,  it's been a great semester overall.  I really enjoyed working with everyone.  Have a great summer!

Okay, we're winding down to the end of the semester.  I've continued using finale to practice my AP skills.  It's really handy for chords because I don't have to worry that I'm playing the chord wrong.  Just plug in the notes and I know it will be right.  I've also spent a lot of time (especially in the last two weeks) running scales and seventh chord progressions because I need to know them for the piano final.  I recorded Dr. Kalm's interval exercise when he came to our class, so I've been listening to that and singing along every couple of days.

I apologize for the gap.  My practice time has been sort of scattered recently.  I've spent a lot of time working through my solos and the pieces for U choir with a piano.  I'm also practicing scales and chord progressions for piano a few minutes every other night.  I basically just run through them once.  Since I discovered finale has sound playback, I've been getting a lot of use out of it.  I spent a lot of time with it working on my chorale, and I've been messing around with it for 10 or 15 minutes every night since.  I've been trying out different chord progressions to see how they sound.  It's much easier than doing it on a piano, because it takes me too long to build the chords.  I apologize for not having this in the usual journal format, but I hadn't been keeping track.  I just wanted to get caught up to the present.

March 10          ear trainers                    15 min.

 

March 10          skipping around scale degrees           15 min.

 

 

By the way, there will be albums available within the next week or two from my band.  We are called "Dead Me Downs", which really doesn't mean anything.  They will be five dollars apiece just to pay for the cost of making them.  The quality may be low enough to offend the ear of music majors.  Just try not to openly mock me.