I had my first Worship practice tonight. They keep giving me more music. Apparently I'm actually going to have to become proficient at reading music, and not just memorise it. Oh.
Luckily, Gavin blew it all up on the photocopier for me at the end of practice. I was having a terrible time squinting at little chicken scratch notes on a yellowed pages... it might do for guitar chords, but when it comes to a novice reading the melody line...
I can tell that I'm going to be stretched in so many ways. I feel like I'm on a journey, and I have no map. I have guides though, and have a general idea of where I'm headed. I catch glimpses of the route and destination on hill crests, and through breaks in the trees.
I'd love to describe some of my revelations and struggles, but unless you're about where I'm at on a violin, it'll mean little to you. You have my permission to tune out.
#1: I am so incredibly thankful for the few months I got to study under Trent Freeman. He was teaching me WAY above where I was at at the time (and still am, to be honest), but it's slowly starting to come together now. Maybe the most ongoing useful part of his lessons were the mini theory lessons. I learned about chords, what makes them up, and which three chords in a key go together. I learned about scales, and what a "key" was. I learned how to listen to a scale, and figure out another one by using the same note intervals. I learned that if you play the scale of whatever key you're in, you'll know your fingering for that song, unraveling the mystery of when to play a high or low 2, 3 or *shudder* 1. I learned that there was such a thing as a high 3, and a low 1. All of the above came into play today. I am still picking up snatches of theory here and there, but if feels like I pierced little holes in the knowledge barrier with his lessons, and now it's seeping through, and not quite so brand new and mind blowing.
#2: Off the top of my head, I still don't really know what note I'm playing. However, I can more readily tell you which finger goes down in relation to the little black dot on the paper.
#3: I am also incredibly thankful for people in the Church. When truly seeking God, and trying to walk in Jesus' footsteps, people seem to be more genuinely eager to share their time and knowledge, without looking for a return. It seems to be something that society (in GENERAL) has lost in the current generation, where it tends to be all about what you can get for yourself. Instant gratification, and "me, me, me".
#4: The trumpet player has to transpose all of the music, because his instrument is in the key of B flat. PS. As a violinist, I have decided tonight that I hate Bb (first encounter). ANYWAY, I think I had a revelation this evening! This is the second time I've heard of an instrument being in a different key, and the music looking different. How can a written C sound different on two instruments? I think I've figured it out! It must be like a tin whistle... When a tin whistle is in the key of D, it plays a D when all the holes are covered. So the simplest scale to play would be a D scale.
Now, to continue with my guess work, for some ludicrous reason, when people write music for a trumpet, they must write the first note in the scale where you would usually put a middle C for a piano on sheet music. Would someone who knows about music either confirm or kibosh my hypothesis? If I'm right, it suddenly all makes sense and is so simple. If I'm wrong... well, who am I kidding? I've got to be right. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
OH! THANK you Roxanna. Finally, someone takes the time to explain it to me. I was so wrong, but it made such a good story. Kind of like when you learn about evolution your whole life, and then you go to university and realise that all the proof they taught you about in high school and the first couple years of your science degree is actually bunk, but they don't have anything else to replace it with, so they leave it in the textbooks. After all, evolution makes sense. Yes, I do have a Science degree in Biology.
ReplyDeleteK, so the deal is, instruments are indeed like the tin whistle, where they're built to play certain notes. However, a C is always written as a C, no matter who is reading the music. The piece of the puzzle that I was missing is that there are different CLEFS. I knew about the treble clef and bass clef from my brief encounter with the piano as a child (right hand, left hand). But APPARENTLY there is also an alto clef and tenor clef. So if people don't know how to read the clef you're using, it would be like trying to play the bass clef with your right hand. The other clefs are used for instruments/voices that have a more awkward range to write on a treble clef.
It gets more interesting. I Googled it of course. Pretend that there is an infinite number of those line thing-ies as you like, instead of just 5, and it rotates around a spool so that only 5 are visible at a time. I can even here the click-click-click as it spins. You only know where middle C is because of it's placement in relation to the clef symbol. There's a C clef symbol which makes it easier - the centre of it always points to middle C. Google it.