Homework Assignment #1: Monday September 10th, 2018
I was very pleasantly surprised by how I was able to tackle this assignment. At first, I was skeptical with how I well I would be able to find my first pitch and stay in tune. I doubted my abilities to conquer this project without using a piano because last year I relied heavily on the piano when practicing for sight singing. I found that after a few practices I was able to use my knowledge of theory and my ear training to find the first pitch relatively easily. I found that it helped to sing the tonicization exercise from sight singing class last year before I began singing the patterns. One interval that I found I need to practice is going from do to so (a perfect fifth) without stepping to mi in between. I found that I needed to think of what mi sounded like in my head before I was able to hit so. Often, I underestimated how high the pitch so was in relation to do. Also, I need to practice going from do to la. I tried to do this in one of my practices of the two minute pattern video at the end and got very confused so I had to start again and leave that interval out. This is one interval I would like to work on and be able to hit every time. I found ascending intervals much easier than descending ones as well, and I think that this is because I can more easily hear intervals ascend in my head. Other things I need to work on are the hand signals. I find I’m thinking so much about the solfege that I get distracted and forget about the hand signals. I think that the hand signals will become more fluid with time. Another struggle I faced was being very sick while I did this video. I was losing my voice and this made it more difficult to get the pitches correct. Overall, I’m really proud of how I did in this homework assignment.
I was very pleasantly surprised by how I was able to tackle this assignment. At first, I was skeptical with how I well I would be able to find my first pitch and stay in tune. I doubted my abilities to conquer this project without using a piano because last year I relied heavily on the piano when practicing for sight singing. I found that after a few practices I was able to use my knowledge of theory and my ear training to find the first pitch relatively easily. I found that it helped to sing the tonicization exercise from sight singing class last year before I began singing the patterns. One interval that I found I need to practice is going from do to so (a perfect fifth) without stepping to mi in between. I found that I needed to think of what mi sounded like in my head before I was able to hit so. Often, I underestimated how high the pitch so was in relation to do. Also, I need to practice going from do to la. I tried to do this in one of my practices of the two minute pattern video at the end and got very confused so I had to start again and leave that interval out. This is one interval I would like to work on and be able to hit every time. I found ascending intervals much easier than descending ones as well, and I think that this is because I can more easily hear intervals ascend in my head. Other things I need to work on are the hand signals. I find I’m thinking so much about the solfege that I get distracted and forget about the hand signals. I think that the hand signals will become more fluid with time. Another struggle I faced was being very sick while I did this video. I was losing my voice and this made it more difficult to get the pitches correct. Overall, I’m really proud of how I did in this homework assignment.
Homework Assignment #2: Sunday September 15th, 2018
For #18, I found that it was really difficult to get in the correct key because A is re in G major. By starting on re, I had to find do by going down a whole step but I found myself always wanting to go only a half step and therefore making it so I was out of the key for the whole exercise. It took quit a few tries to get a video that wasn't terribly out of tune. I will need to work on this descending major 2nd interval more so that it comes more naturally to me. When I did the overlapping second line of this exercise, I actually found it a lot easier because I was listening to the previous recording while singing this one over top. I could hear what key I was in and match the pitches, especially because it was a round, so I basically just echoed what I had already sang.
I found #19 a lot more difficult than #18. I still had difficulty finding do again because of the descending major 2nd interval and then had trouble staying in the key while singing. Also, now that the second line of the exercise wasn't the same as the first line, as it was in #18, I found it difficult to sing the second line while listening to the recording of myself singing the first line. I struggled to start the second line in time with the recording of the first line and it took a few tries before I didn't come in too late. I easily became distracted by the recording of myself singing and it threw me off! Again though, I found that it was easier to stay in tune while singing the second line because I listened to the recording of myself singing the first line and was able to match my pitch fairly well based on that. Overall, I found this a challenging assignment.
Homework Assignment #3: Sunday September 23rd, 2018
While singing On the Moor, I found that I struggled to not speed up. I wasn't expecting to have troubles with keeping the tempo, so this surprised me. I think that I had trouble not speeding up because I was focusing on matching my pitches with the previous recordings. I also found with this assignment that I didn't have to think as much about the solfege and that this is becoming more natural for me to sing in solfege. I also found it difficult to focus on the pitches I was singing and not lose where I was in the song whole listening to the previous recordings. I found that because it was a round by myself I had trouble figuring out where I was in the piece because it all sounded the same. When I sing a round with other people, their voices are different so I can differentiate my voice from theirs and that helps me keep track of where I am in the piece . I tried really hard to flip the r on re, but I'm finding it difficult to do this. I knew that it would be a challenge for me to flip the r in re because I've had trouble previously in French class with rolling my r. It doesn't seem to come very naturally to me and I find it very awkward and uncomfortable to try to pronounce r's this way, but I'm working on it. I'm finding it easier to find my starting pitch using the tuning fork and I'm feeling much more confident with finding the first pitch. This time, I chose to sing in D Major because I know that A is so in D Major, so the starting pitch is a perfect fifth below the tuning fork. Overall, I was happy with how this assignment turned out.
Kodaly #132 From Canon Book: Thursday September 27th, 2018
I struggled with this assignment, it took me a lot of tries to get a video that I was happy with to submit. I found it very difficult to stay in time and on track with the previously recorded voices as I sang the canon. I slow had trouble singing the ti, re, fa in the fourth measure, I found that the fa often ended up out of tune. Overall, I found fa was out of tune throughout the canon as I sang. When I tried the canon the first time, I sang it very slowly thinking that this would make it easier to follow along once I recorded the other parts over top, but actually I thought it made it more difficult. After a few tries, I sped the canon up a bit and found it easier to follow along once I began singing the other parts. I think that when I was singing extremely slow, I was thinking too much about the pitches, once I went faster, I starting singing more lightly and it was a lot more fun. I was also really proud of myself for how quickly I found my first pitch, I think that I'm getting better at doing that!
Trying to Sightsing #75: Thursday September 27th, 2018
I enjoy sight singing a lot, so I didn't mind doing this exercise. I found it a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be. I found my first pitch easily and for the first line I didn't have too many issues, but as soon as I reached the low fa in the first measure of the second line, I ran into some problems. I tried to imagine so in my head before singing fa, and this seemed to help a little but the second time around singing it. I was able to keep going and I was proud of that, rather than just giving up and starting over. I've always struggled to not get frustrated and just start over again after I make a mistake and I find it difficult to jump back in the middle of a piece and keep going so I was happy that I was able to keep going this time. The third line threw me off rhythm wise. I struggled with conducting while I sang and then lost the beat for a little bit. I was happy that I ended up on do at the end though, this means I've improved since last years sight singing because last year I always struggled to get back into the right key after I had made a mistake or sang a wrong note.
8 Part Canon: Friday September 28th, 2018
This homework I found significantly more challenging than anything we've done in the class before. Honestly, I wasn't too happy with my final product, but I spent a very long time on it and I recorded it many times and this was the best out of all of the recordings. It was extremely difficult to get the parts to match up and to feel the beat of the song. I think that this was due to all of the ties in the piece that crossed over measures. I conducted as I sang or tapped the beats on my hand and this seemed to help a bit but I still struggled. I found that my intonation was ok at first but as I progressed through the recordings it started slipping. I struggled to hear the key I was in by the end of the piece and it was a challenge to try and stay in tune. After a while I started to get frustrated and I think this just made it more difficult to get the results that I wanted. Overall, I wish that this homework went better and I wish that I was happier with the final product, but I did try my absolute best and I did record all of the parts so I am proud of myself for not giving up on it.
Homework #85: Wednesday October 3rd, 2018
"I found that I enjoyed singing this canon. It took me quite a few tries to get the endings to line up correctly. I recorded all the first two parts and they lined up well but then I couldn’t get the third part to line up. I listened back at the first two recordings and then realized I had made a mistake counting and missed a rest, so I had to start all over. I was proud that I was able to listen and identify the problem. I was most happy with the intonation on my first recording of the canon. I found the most difficult part of this canon was keeping track of the rhythm while singing the second two parts because of all the rests. When a previous part was singing while the part I was singing at the time had a rest, it messed up my counting. I’m still working on being able to listen to other parts while still focusing on the one I am singing, but I think I am getting better at it. (also I'm not quite sure why the youtube video says "Title Text Here" because I did put a title, I'm sorry!)
Minor Homework
I really liked how the minor mode sounded in solfege, I tried it first in a minor but found that this key didn't work well with my range so I changed to singing in d minor. I also found that I stuck mostly to la-do-mi especially when I felt unsure about my pitches, I thought that la-ti-do was difficult too, I kept singing ti out of tune, so I do need to work on this. La based solfege for the minor key was new to me, because last year in sight singing we used moveable do, but I think with a bit more practice I'll find the la based minor more useful and less confusing.
Annie Homework - Tuesday October 23rd, 2018
I was really proud of myself for how I used my ear for this exercise. The first time I sang the song in minor and then put it into major, I could hear there was something wrong with my so-do, so-do when I compared it to how I sang the second voice in the canon. I then went back to the minor and listened to what I had recorded for that again and noticed that that sounded weird too so I took out my tuning fork and found my key again (d minor) and figured out (it took me a while but eventually I did it) that my la-mi, la-mi in the minor was actually so-mi, so-mi and that this caused me to also sing it wrong in major when I transposed it. After I found this out, I rerecorded the minor canon and then tried the major one again and it sounded much, much, MUCH better. I was really happy with how I could identify this because I think that if this had happened at the beginning of the semester, I wouldn't have been able to diagnose the problem and solve it. My ear has gotten noticeably better and I find I can pick out the solfege when listening to songs on the radio too which is something that I hadn't ever done before. I've always struggled with ear training so I'm really happy with how I'm improving.
Bonjour Homework - Tuesday October 23rd, 2018
I really liked how this song sounded in minor. I thought that I did a good job with finding the minor from the major. The problem I have is that I'm so used to doing a little tonicization in the major key before starting to sing the solfege of a piece when I record it to orient myself in the key and find the pitches I need. I usually find my key, tonicize by singing do-mi-do-la-fa-re-so-fa-ti-do-mi-so-mi-do-so,-do, and then start to record the canon. I found that, because I wasn't used to using la based minor and using the solfege in this way, I struggled to do my tonicization exercise before singing in minor. I found that I ended up back in major by the end of the tonicization exercise. I'm not sure if it's just take time to get used to the minor or if this tonicization exercise is hindering me more than helping me now. Overall though, I found that I enjoyed singing in the minor for this exercise.
#38 Homework - Tuesday October 23rd, 2018
I found this exercise difficult. I think what I struggle the most with when singing canons myself is making the right pitches match up in the different voices of the canon. I think I must have not held a note long enough somewhere in the first two recordings of my canon because I found it difficult to get the third voice to match up with the correct pitches. This is a problem that I've had before and I need to work on because it effects my ability to stay on pitch and confuses me while I'm singing.
#41 Homework: Saturday October 27th, 2018
I was really happy with how I did on this assignment. I really tried hard to work on keeping a steady beat and feeling the rhythm and it really worked. I found it a lot easier to line the parts of the canon up. I also found that I was able to be a bit more musical on this exercise too. I think that feeling the rhythm a bit more helped with finding more musicality to put into my singing. Rather than conducting while I sang, I tapped the beat out and I found this a better method of keeping time for me than conducting because when I mess up conducting (and I usually do) that confuses me as to where I am in the canon because I could mistakenly conduct beat 3 when I'm actually on beat 2. Also, I tried to pay more attention to making sure the key felt minor and that I stayed on tune throughout the exercise. I was proud with how this canon turned out, usually I cringe when I listen back to the canon before I post it but this time I actually enjoyed it and I think that's because I feel like I'm hearing improvement. :-)
Minor With Pedal: Thursday November 1st, 2018
I found that the pedal helped a lot with staying in tune. I consciously chose to record the La pedal first because I had a hunch that it would help me when singing the song to stay in tune and doing so proved to pay off. I had some technical difficulties with putting the pedal in the recording. I tried to put it in like we talked about in class, singing the pedal on La for four beats and then copying and pasting that, but it kept skipping when I did that, so I'm sorry if you can notice a bit of a skip in the pedal every couple of beats.
#49 Homework: Thursday November 1st, 2018
I found the step from ci-fi-ci in measures 14-15 to be more challenging than expected in this piece and it took quite a bit of practicing to get it. Also, when the minor iv chord is outlined in measures 5-6, I at first had trouble getting the re in tune. Eventually, after having to find my key again with the tuning fork multiple times, I realized that re in e minor is the note A, which is the pitch we get from our tuning fork. After I made this connection, I was able to hear the pitch better and sing it more correctly in tune. I was proud of myself for being able to use my ear and notice this. I was also happy with how I ended the piece with the voices together. I didn't really notice that I did this at first when I recorded the second voice, I wasn't looking at the little bracket markings above that show where to stop, instead it just felt right to stop there and I think this is my ear telling me something. After listening back to my recording before posting it, I did notice that the high La in the first voice is a bit out of tune when I sing the octave in measure 11. I wish that I could have done better at recognizing this while I was singing and I will work on this for next time. Another challenge I faced during this exercise was being sick, I found it very difficult to sing the piece all the way through without coughing and I started to get frustrated after a while and my voice started to hurt. Nevertheless, I powered through and I am content with the final project, even though there are some aspects to keep in mind to improve upon for next week's homework.
The Christ Child's Lullaby: Tuesday November 6th, 2018
Singing this piece was a challenge, but I actually had a lot of fun with it. I really like how it sounds. It felt awkward at first starting on sol, but after I practiced it a lot, it began to feel more natural. I was able to feel more oriented in a key and I started to find "anchor" pitches to hang onto when I felt myself becoming lost. I found sol to be an anchor pitch as well as do, as I kept reminding myself to think this was in the key of A Major. It still didn't seem right to end on ti in the lower voice and it bothered my ear that this ti didn't resolve to do. After I sang the first part and was happy with how it sounded, I found it a lot easier to sing the second part because having the first part to listen to as I sang became a good reference point and reminded me of the key. Also, it especially helped in the fourth line of music because the second voice simply imitated the first voice in succession so I was able to listen and copy what I had already done. I found it difficult to add musicality to this piece because I was concentrating so much on the pitch and staying in the mixolydian mode. Musicality is still something I need to work on throughout the exercises.
The Alphabet: Friday November 9th, 2018
I found the rhythm of this exercise to be easier than some of the other ones that we've done. The challenge was keeping up the pace when it got to the sequence in the middle of the piece. This was difficult in the soprano voice because I had trouble keeping up, it was also difficult in the middle voice because I expected it to be the same as the soprano voice but it was slightly altered. I found that after singing the fa-fi-sol part in the bottom voice a few times, I was able to hear it better and it helped me to sing it in tune more. I felt like it wanted to go to sol and once I thought of this, it became easier to sing it. I struggled to get the la-sol part in the bottom voice in the 5th measure (it also comes back later in the piece), I think this was because before that la-sol happens, the notes are descending chromatically, so I felt the need to continue to descend chromatically when its actually a whole step between la and sol. Once I thought about adding more space between la-sol and reminded myself that they're not as close together as the notes I was previously singing, I was better able to sing it in tune and this became my favourite part of the piece. Another struggle I had was singing high G in tune, but I think this could also be because I'm still getting over a cold and this made it more difficult to sing the higher notes.
Three Part In Class Dictation Exercise: Friday November 9th, 2018
I've always really really really struggled with dictation, so being able to complete this exercise in class and feeling confident in what I thought I was hearing was a huge sense of accomplishment to me. I'm very happy with how my ear is improving and I'm excited to see how much more it can improve throughout the course. I liked how this exercise sounded and I think that it helped me sing octaves better, because I sometimes tend to sing them as fifths for some reason. The re at the end is.a bit out of tune and slides into the pitch a bit but other than that I was really happy with how it sounded.
We Wish You a Merry Christmas: Friday November 9th, 2018
I had a lot of fun with this exercise. I love Christmas songs so I really enjoyed singing a Christmas carol and being able to add to it was a lot of fun. At first, I was really hesitant to add notes into the song, but once I realized that I just need to add a note that can be heard in the chord that's there for it to sound good, I had fun with it and I stopped overthinking it so much. I think that, in my experience, as the majority of us are classically trained musicians, we have been taught to not add new notes to the music and just to play what's there. This is why I was hesitant at first. When I am a teacher I am going to do lots of exercises like this so that my students can feel comfortable being creative with music and going past what's already written.
Once In Royal David's City: Wednesday, November 14th, 2018
I think that this is the longest that I have spent so far on an exercise trying to make it sound good and have correct pitches, and I am proud of the results. There are still places that could use improvements, such as the last two measures, I messed up the timing in one of the voices and then this messed up the harmonies. I spent a very long time figuring out how to sing the bass voice. I had to lower some of the notes to be able to reach them. This caused there to be some awkward leaps so I had to alter other notes to fit with what I had changed. I found that leaps from la-mi were very difficult and took me a lot of repetition and long time to get, as well as the leap from do to the low fa. The stepwise passages in the bass voice were also more difficult than I expected them to be. Also, I thought that I would experiment using the metronome on garage band for this exercise and I found it wasn't as helpful as I thought it was going to be. Overall, I was happy with how I sounded and I think that I'm starting to finally hear more musicality in my voice.
Lo How A Rose: Friday November 16th, 2018
I found that recording the tenor voice first was very helpful when I went to sing the rest of the voices. First I sang the tenor part, followed by the soprano, then I tried to sing the bass part but found this very difficult so I decided to sing the alto part first. I noticed how I was able to use the tenor and the soprano to stay on pitch in with the alto voice. I had trouble with the fi at first in the alto voice but after looping it a few times to practice, it became easy. After I was finished with the alto voice, I revisited the bass voice to see what I could do differently to sing it. I found I had to move some of the notes up an octave, mostly the low F, in order to reach them, and I also needed to practice going from do-fa-do-sol, in the first measure. I kept singing fa as sol. I still messed up a little bit at the end and if you listen closely you can hear the wrong solfege in the bass of the last few measures but I think I got the pitches right and that matters more to me than perfect solfege.
Friends Theme Song: Friday November 16th, 2018
I had soooo much fun with this exercise! I decided to sing the theme song from the show Friends (even thought it's not technically a "pop" song). I was able to find do easily after listening to the song. The first solfege that I recognized was the skip from low sol to do in the opening notes, and from here it was mostly stepwise. I noticed that I was able to pick out the sound of fa in the part that repeats fa over and over again. I was really impressed with myself that I was able to hear that this was fa resolving to mi!!! The trickiest part was right after the repeating fa line, the part that goes re-mi-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-mi-re ("when it hasn't been your day, your week, your, month"), because I mistook the first re-mi as a do-re and nothing after sounded right. This was because I was missing the half step from mi-fa. I solved this by singing the solfege that I thought I was hearing in time out loud with the song playing on youtube and quickly realized that this was a half step, and therefore must be mi-fa rather than the whole step I was trying to sing. Overall I was really proud of myself for figuring this out and not giving up and I'm very proud of the results. :-)
What Child Is This: Wednesday November 21st, 2018
I enjoy this Christmas carol so I liked singing this song in solfege. I found it easiest to sing the soprano first and then follow with the alto, tenor, and then the bass. On my first attempt, I tried to sing the bass line first and found that was very difficult. Once I had the other voices recorded, it was much easier to sing the bass line. I found the alto line to be difficult with the ti-so-ti, but eventually after realizing this was a perfect fifth I was able to hear it better as I sang it, though this took quite a few tries. I surprisingly found it difficult to sing the soprano line at first because I could easily get the pitches but I kept messing up the solfege. I would sing the correct pitch but with the wrong solfege. I think this was because I already knew the melody of the piece prior to the exercise. I had to slow the song down and sing it carefully with the solfege before I recorded it so that I was able to think about what solfege matched the pitch I was already singing. Overall I was happy with the work I did.
Carol of the Bells: Saturday November 24th, 2018
I found this assignment to be the most difficult one yet. I'm not happy with how it turned out. Please I really hope that you don't think I didn't try because I really really did, I spent hours (I'm not exaggerating, it was most of the afternoon) on this and it still didn't turn out well. I have trouble reaching the high G, which means that this note sounds very screechy in the recording. I had a lot of trouble keeping in time, even with the metronome on, the measures repeated so much with the same patterns that I would lost track of what measure I was on and have to start over. I found the fi quite difficult at first but after practice I was able to hear it better as I was singing it. I also has trouble getting the fa right in the very first measure that the bass voice came in and then moving to la from that fa was very difficult. After I realized this was a major third between these two notes, I could hear the interval better, especially after I started relating it to how I would hear a do to mi in a major key. I think doing the soprano voice first was the right call because it gave me some of the notes for the other voices. Overall this assignment was really difficult and I became fairly frustrated with it. I'm proud of myself for finishing it but not happy with the end result.
Away In A Manger: Saturday November 24th, 2018
I enjoy this Christmas carol because it was the first the song I played for my first ever piano recital when I was 7! I found this one fairly easy to hear in my head because it was familiar. I recorded the soprano and the alto voices first and I'm very happy I did because at the end of the first line the soprano voice gives me the fa for the tenor line and the alto gives me the re for the bass line. When I was practicing all the voices separately before I recorded it, I had trouble getting these pitches right away, but after hearing them in the other two voices, it was easy! Other than that, the only thing that I struggled on was going from la to re in the bass line in the second line of music. When I have trouble with an interval, I usually try to relate it to what it would be in another key and that helps me think of what it's supposed to sound like better. D to G is also like so to do in the key of g major. When I thought of it as if it was a so to do, I was able to sing it. This might be a weird way to learn how to sing intervals but I find it works most of the time for me.
Angels We Have Heard On High - Tuesday November 27th, 2018
I really enjoyed singing this carol and I was very happy with how it turned out. There were a few solfege that I missed but I am confident that I had the pitches correct and I definitely prioritize that in my learning over the solfege because, as we talk about in class, the solfege are only meant to be a tool. The solfege, in my opinion, do not make the music, it is the pitches and the expression. That being said, I really tried hard to put more dynamics and phrasing in this exercise and I'm not sure if that came across in the recording or not. I even marked in some crescendos and decrescendos in my music while I was practicing it so that I would remember to include them in my recording, I thought that I did these well while I was recording but when I listened back to the piece I was disappointed with how they did not come through as much as I thought they were going to. The part that I enjoyed singing the most in the song was the refrain, especially in the alto voice. I really love the f natural as a ta in the alto in this part. This was probably the most difficult part to get while practicing and took some time and a lot of repetition to get this even close to being in tune. In the end, I think that I did a good job.
God Rest You Merry Gentlemen - Tuesday November 27th, 2018
This is one of my favourite Christmas carols and brings back some happy memories of singing with my cousins at Bible School! I love the harmonies in this and it was really a lot of fun to sing. I think that I struggled the most with the bass line, which was a surprise to me because I thought that it was going to be easier. In my opinion, it almost felt major at some points with a few sol-do leaps and I think this is what messed me up when singing. Also, there were several leaps to re and I found these to be very challenging. It took me a long time to get this pitch correct and when I finally did I was really proud of myself. Again, I found I messed up with the solfege a bit in the tenor voice at the triplet but I think I had the pitches correct. I'm not sure why I had trouble with singing the right solfege in this week's exercises, maybe because I was tired or maybe I just got confused with switching from singing a major piece to a minor one, because I practiced both before I recorded either so I was going back and forth between the major and the minor. Either way, I will have to pay more attention to this for the next assignment.
Bach Cantata - Saturday January 12th, 2019!!
I enjoyed this Bach Cantata, though some parts of it were challenging. I was really proud of myself that I got the fi correct pretty quickly, as I expected to have some troubles with that. I found getting it up to a good (meaning quick) speed was difficult because of the eighth notes. I had trouble keeping up with the tempo when I got to that section. Also, I found the la in the first measure of the last line difficult at first. After some practice I got it though. Another challenge was going back to fa after singing fi for several measures. I found that I couldn't hear what the fa sounded like and I struggled to not sing fi. I notice now when listening back to the recording that that measure was out of tune and I'm disappointed I didn't notice this while I was recording it. But I am really happy that after that measure I was able to recover and get back in tune!!! This is something I think I struggled with last semester. Also, I tried to add musicality by increasing the dynamic in the notes that you could hear wanted to resolve, such as ti and fa. I'mm not sure if this came through as much as I wanted it to in the recording, but I also think that my laptop doesn't pick up changes in dynamic very well because I find my dynamics are never very noticeable even though I try to exaggerate them a lot while singing. In the higher voice, I had a bit of trouble hitting the high me, but overall I was proud of how I did on the first assignment back!
Yonder Sun - Saturday January 12th, 2019
I really really liked this song!!! It was so much fun to sing!! I found it much easier to put in noticeable musicality when the song had words instead of solfege. But I also surprisingly found it more difficult to stay in tune without singing the solfege. I didn't expect this. I thought that because we were not singing the solfege, there would be less to concentrate on and it would maybe be easier. It took me several tries to get a recording in tune and I really had to think of what the solfege would be first in order to sing the pitch correctly with words. I think this means my ear is getting better because I was able to hear this and notice how solfege could be used to help! I'm realizing more that solfege is much more of a tool than a burden when learning a piece. I'm also very excited to use this cute song in my classroom someday!!
Two Part Rhythm - Friday January 18th, 2019
I had a lot of fun with this exercise! I really enjoy doing rhythms (not that I don't enjoy the other activities we do though!! I like everything we do in Kodaly class!) because I find its always more difficult than it looks like its going to be. I think people really underestimate the job of a percussionist, what they do is really difficult and takes a lot of coordination and focus. I had fun trying to find a creative way to do this assignment. At first I was using my drum sticks and just tapping the rhythms out on different surfaces, but I found that easy and I wanted to challenge myself a but more with it. I found it a lot more difficult to stomp the bottom rhythm and clap the top rhythm. I kept getting confused and stomping the top and clapping the bottom and switching in between measures. I also found it more difficult because I was alternating my right and left feet. This took more focus I think because I would have to think more on what foot I needed to stomp next. I think that this would be a really good activity to do with an elementary music class when they're learning rhythms because you could start out with really easy rhythms and they could learn note values and such with this exercise. It's an active way to get the class moving and to get rid of some of the energy little kids have. I will definitely remember to do an activity like this with my classroom someday.
Three Part Rhythm - Friday January 18th, 2019
I found the most difficult part of this assignment was getting the names for the different rhythms correct. I had never used tah, ti, ti-ri-ti-ri, and teem-ri before so I found it a challenge to remember to sing the correct rhythm name in correspondence with the rhythm. I also found it difficult to switch between triplets and eighth notes because I really had to think how long the eighth note would be. I found it a lot easier when I started to think ahead in the meter. So as I sang the triplet, I would look ahead and think in my head what the value of the eighth note was in comparison to what I was singing. The switch between sixteenth note triplets to eight note triplets also make me mess up at first too. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong and when I realized that I hadn't read the eighth note triplets properly I was a bit annoyed with myself because that's something I'm usually fairly good at catching. Overall I enjoyed the exercise!!
Three Part Syncopated Rhythm - Friday January 25th, 2019
I found that the biggest struggle with this assignment were the ties, which I expected because I've always struggled with ties in rhythms. I have trouble feeling the syncopated beat sometimes, even with a metronome playing and me tapping along with the beat. After a few unsuccessful tries with recording the first line, I decided to go about it a bit differently. I surprised myself in thinking "how would I approach playing this rhythm on the piano?", which is something I don't think I've ever really related to kodaly class before. Piano has always been separate from singing (in kodaly class, GIM last year, and choir, etc.) and I've taken separate approaches to them because that always seemed to work. But, this time I found it useful to look at this as if it was a rhythm I was struggling with on the piano. So, I broke it down by subdividing and, rather than using rhythm names, I counted out loud using 1 e and ah, 2 e and ah. I had my metronome and first clapped straight quarter notes, then eighth notes, then triplets, and then sixteenth notes with it each for a bar, which is something I like to do when practicing piano because I find then I can hear how each of these rhythms fit with the timing correctly. I went really slow and practiced it in sections that related to where the ties were rather than in measures. If there was one specific part that gave me trouble, I looped that over and over again. After this, I was able to record it no problem! I tried to make it sound more musical by making the tendency tones feel like they needed to resolve and tried to use dynamics but I found this difficult when I was concentrating on thinking about the beat so much. I think that next time I struggle with a rhythm on piano, I might try using the rhythm names to figure it out, which is how I usually approach singing rhythms, and see how that changes things!
Bach Menuet - Friday February 1st, 2019
I had a lot of fun playing around with different ways to interpret the solfege of this piece. I found it difficult to find a strategy that worked for me. First, I tried just staying in G major throughout the entire piece but this did not seem to work for me. I struggled with the solfege in the fourth line when I used the solfege of G major all the way through. So, I decided to interpret measures 20-24 as an extended tonicization of the dominant of G major, which is D major. This makes sense for me because there are c sharps in this passage. I knew it wasn't a modulation because it wasn't really long enough and it didn't cadence in the new key. It seemed to me that the extended tonicization ended in measure 20 and the piece went back to G major. The next struggle was switching between the solfege of G major to that of D major and then back again without becoming confused. I noticed that in measure 20, the first beat (A) is a re in G major and a so in D major in the second voice. This pitch is reiterated at the end of the bar, so for the first A, I sang re as if I was in G major and for the second A I decided to sing so as if I was in D major. This helped me transition smoothly to the solfege of D major because I just had to remind myself I was singing the same pitch, just an octave lower and with a new solfege name. In the top voice at this part, it goes from a so in G major (D) to a ti in D major (C sharp), and this was just a semi tone apart. I could easily hear this semi tone so I was able to sing it in tune. I found that in order to switch to a new key with new solfege, I had to disregard what solfege I was singing for the moment in which I switched it. Everything in my mind and ears was telling me "no that's the wrong solfege, you're singing this wrong!" and I had to ignore this little intuition and instead think "NO I'm singing it right, it's just a new interpretation of it". It was really difficult to stop myself from overthinking what I was singing.
Also, I tried really hard to get that low G at the end of measure 16 and at the end of the piece but I kept sliding into the pitch!!!! I was getting really frustrated with myself because I did it fine when I was practicing it but then every time I was recording it, that pitch didn't sound very good! Sorry about that!
Overall, I liked this piece a lot, I found the extended tonicization easier to sing in the top voice than the bottom, which was surprising because I thought the top voice looked more difficult when I first saw it.
Also, I tried really hard to get that low G at the end of measure 16 and at the end of the piece but I kept sliding into the pitch!!!! I was getting really frustrated with myself because I did it fine when I was practicing it but then every time I was recording it, that pitch didn't sound very good! Sorry about that!
Overall, I liked this piece a lot, I found the extended tonicization easier to sing in the top voice than the bottom, which was surprising because I thought the top voice looked more difficult when I first saw it.
Augmented 6th Chord Progressions and Arpeggios - Saturday February 9th, 2018
Just in case the titles and the chords don't match up (iMovie was being really annoying this week), all of the progressions are in order of how they appear on the worksheet, and all of the arpeggios are at the end, also in order of how they appear on the worksheet.
I found that, probably because we sang them in class in groups a lot, that the Italian and the German progressions were fairly easy to get into my ear. Also, I think it was easier for my to hear where these progressions were going to go because each note is only a step or two away from each other, so there weren't any really big leaps to do, which for me made the progressions more natural to sing. I could hear the chords wanting to resolve as well and I think this helped me to sing more in pitch. One thing that I did notice after recording the first two progressions was that, because these were chord progressions, not canons or songs, I let go of the musicality. I definitely think this is something I need to be more conscious of because even though they are chord progressions, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be musical.
I found the arpeggios much much more difficult than the progressions, which was expected. I approached singing these by building them from the bottom up gradually and a lot of repetition. For example with the Italian, once I got the low fa (I did this by first going to low mi, then going up a half step), I practiced going just from fa to la over and over again. Then I practiced going from la to ri (which I got by going to mi and then going down a half step) and then did this back and forth over and over again. And then I would go from ri to the high la over and over again until I felt comfortable with it. Then I put it all together and practiced singing up and down the arpeggio on repeat. I isolated the leaps that I struggled with and did these on a loop again. This process, though time consuming, seemed to be effective for me. I did this for each of the augmented chord arpeggios. The one I had the most trouble with was the French. I struggled a lot with the ti in it and getting this in tune. Listening back to the recording, I still don't think that it was completely in tune, but I was happy with the progress I made with it! Overall, this was a challenge, but I think it helped me to be more comfortable singing weird leaps and that even though it's difficult, it is possible if I take the time to work it out!
I found that, probably because we sang them in class in groups a lot, that the Italian and the German progressions were fairly easy to get into my ear. Also, I think it was easier for my to hear where these progressions were going to go because each note is only a step or two away from each other, so there weren't any really big leaps to do, which for me made the progressions more natural to sing. I could hear the chords wanting to resolve as well and I think this helped me to sing more in pitch. One thing that I did notice after recording the first two progressions was that, because these were chord progressions, not canons or songs, I let go of the musicality. I definitely think this is something I need to be more conscious of because even though they are chord progressions, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be musical.
I found the arpeggios much much more difficult than the progressions, which was expected. I approached singing these by building them from the bottom up gradually and a lot of repetition. For example with the Italian, once I got the low fa (I did this by first going to low mi, then going up a half step), I practiced going just from fa to la over and over again. Then I practiced going from la to ri (which I got by going to mi and then going down a half step) and then did this back and forth over and over again. And then I would go from ri to the high la over and over again until I felt comfortable with it. Then I put it all together and practiced singing up and down the arpeggio on repeat. I isolated the leaps that I struggled with and did these on a loop again. This process, though time consuming, seemed to be effective for me. I did this for each of the augmented chord arpeggios. The one I had the most trouble with was the French. I struggled a lot with the ti in it and getting this in tune. Listening back to the recording, I still don't think that it was completely in tune, but I was happy with the progress I made with it! Overall, this was a challenge, but I think it helped me to be more comfortable singing weird leaps and that even though it's difficult, it is possible if I take the time to work it out!
Bartók - Sunday March 2nd, 2019
I struggled with this assignment a lot, not only with singing it but also with recording it because my laptop (for some reason) kept crashing and I would lose my progress. It took me a really long time to get through the whole piece, and, being honest, with the third voice I decided to record it in sections, bit by bit, which I know is not the goal of the assignment and I feel really bad about it but it was the only way I was able to produce something I was somewhat happy with. Doing the assignment this way made me feel like I failed it and failing has been something that I've been really scared of this year and it's kind of led to me being obsessed with school work, having absolutely no balance in my life, and being really hard on myself. Coming back after reading week, I'm really trying hard to be more gentle with myself and let go of some things, because honestly, I really need to calm down with school (not specifically this course, just in general with everything regarding school). So I think, even though I didn't reach the goal of this assignment, this is a small step towards staying calm with school. I really did try my hardest and put the time and effort in, I did sing all the voices and practice them all by singing all the way through, I just struggled with the third voice a lot and after being really hard on myself about it at first, I decided that this didn't need to be the "end of the world" and that even if this seemed like a failure to me, I didn't need to panic about it and I need to remind myself I won't fail a course if I do badly (in my opinion) on one assignment. I think that I struggled with the third voice and not so much the others because it was lower and maybe that made it difficult for my range? I'm not quite sure. I will continue to work on what I struggled with in the third voice, and will eventually try to rerecord the third voice singing it all the way through in one go. I just got really frustrated and upset with it after a lot of tries and didn't know how else to go about it to get it done while not beating myself up about it.
The modulation did not seem to cause me any problems, so I don't think this was the source of my struggle. I easily decided where modulating made sense to me and I was able to do it without a problem. I simply used the long note before the modulation and the modulation back to think of what the next solfege was going to be in the new key. I found the meter change more challenging, I kept messing up because I kept singing the 3/4 time in 2/4 I had to work on the transition to the different meter many times in order to get the beat in my head.
The modulation did not seem to cause me any problems, so I don't think this was the source of my struggle. I easily decided where modulating made sense to me and I was able to do it without a problem. I simply used the long note before the modulation and the modulation back to think of what the next solfege was going to be in the new key. I found the meter change more challenging, I kept messing up because I kept singing the 3/4 time in 2/4 I had to work on the transition to the different meter many times in order to get the beat in my head.
Siyahamba - Friday March 9th, 2019
I really enjoyed doing this recording. I love the catchy little songs that we learn in class, I think these are going to be really useful in my teaching later in life. Even though I'm in the instrumental stream of music education, I know that it's extremely likely that I will conduct a choir in a school someday, especially because my goal is to someday teach primary school. I get nervous thinking about this because, prior to university, I never had any experience being in a choir. My choir in high school was more like a trio because it was me, two other girls, and the teacher so the idea of conducting and choosing material for a bigger group of singers is intimidating. I think that these songs I'm learning in Kodaly class will be really helpful when I start running a choir in a school. It will be a good place to start because it's something I can teach by singing it to the students, just like how we learn it in class, and by using solfege, which of course I have become really familiar with. The songs are not too complicated and I feel like I could put together a good performance of these someday as a starting point for a choir.
I had fun dictating this in solfege as well. At first, I tried to figure out the solfege before I recorded singing the words of the song. This didn't seem to work because every time I sang a part, I would sing it differently or I would change the do by accident and then I'd get confused. So, I decided to record the words first without worrying about singing specific pitched correctly, I just sang what I remembered from class one part after the other. Then I listened back to the recording and figured out each part's solfege while listening to it. This worked really really well because I could play all three parts at once and use the harmonies to figure out what solfege made sense. For example, if I realized there was a do in one part I would try to decide if what I was hearing in the other parts were a mi of so, which would make a tonic chord.
I had a lot of fun singing this song and I know it's going to be stuck in my head all weekend!
I had fun dictating this in solfege as well. At first, I tried to figure out the solfege before I recorded singing the words of the song. This didn't seem to work because every time I sang a part, I would sing it differently or I would change the do by accident and then I'd get confused. So, I decided to record the words first without worrying about singing specific pitched correctly, I just sang what I remembered from class one part after the other. Then I listened back to the recording and figured out each part's solfege while listening to it. This worked really really well because I could play all three parts at once and use the harmonies to figure out what solfege made sense. For example, if I realized there was a do in one part I would try to decide if what I was hearing in the other parts were a mi of so, which would make a tonic chord.
I had a lot of fun singing this song and I know it's going to be stuck in my head all weekend!
Here Comes the Sun Cover - Saturday March 16th, 2019
I really enjoyed this assignment! I chose to cover Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles because this is a song that always makes me happy, and I thought it was appropriate with spring weather (hopefully) coming soon. I had a lot of fun trying to figure out the melody of this song. I realized while trying to figure the solfege out that we can listen to a song a hundred times without actually listening to it, if that makes sense. I've listened to this song for years, over and over again, it's on all my playlists and I performed it in a concert in high school, yet when I went to figure out the solfege, I found that even after feeling like I was so familiar with the song, I still needed to listen to it over and over again while trying to figure out the solfege and it took a lot of trial and error in singing what solfege I thought was correct along with the original tune. I found the chorus and verses fairly easy to figure out but the part "sun, sun, sun here it comes" was really difficult to figure out. I determined that I think there is some sort of tonicization here, or possibly a modulation, but to me at least, I think a tonicization would make more sense. I still used the solfege relative to the key I was in for the whole song, and just sang "may" instead of "mi" because it made sense to me to do this rather than switching to solfege in a different key.
I had fun playing around with what chords could fit where. I decided on what chords to sing by listening to what solfege I used in the melody and then thinking about what chord would make sense with that solfege. Then I would try trial and error by singing that chord (recording three parts to get all of the notes of the chord) and listening to see how that sounded. I'm not sure if all my chords make sense or follow the rules of theory but I liked how it sounded in the end. I decided to leave chords out for the "sun, sun, sun" part because I liked how it sounded when I came in on a tonic chord at the end of the phrase. I also didn't sing chords when there was a guitar part that didn't have lyrics because I thought this sounded cool being a little solo.
I had fun playing around with what chords could fit where. I decided on what chords to sing by listening to what solfege I used in the melody and then thinking about what chord would make sense with that solfege. Then I would try trial and error by singing that chord (recording three parts to get all of the notes of the chord) and listening to see how that sounded. I'm not sure if all my chords make sense or follow the rules of theory but I liked how it sounded in the end. I decided to leave chords out for the "sun, sun, sun" part because I liked how it sounded when I came in on a tonic chord at the end of the phrase. I also didn't sing chords when there was a guitar part that didn't have lyrics because I thought this sounded cool being a little solo.
Clapping Music - Saturday March 30th, 2019
I had fun doing this assignment. Right now, I'm taking the percussion class and it's really made me notice how anything can be considered a percussion instrument. We never think of clapping as a challenging thing but when paired with rhythms it can become a challenge. The most challenging thing I found when doing this assignment was not getting lost where I was in the rhythms. I had the top part looped the whole time and I was listening to it while I recorded the bottom part, I think listening to it while I recorded the other part made it more difficult. I found it interesting how one rhythm could be shifted in so many different ways. I think a fun activity would be to havre a class write their own rhythm like this and try to shift it in this way and see what happens. I'll keep this in mind for when I teach someday!