You know it's been far too long when......
You know it’s been far too long when…
(Note: Some parts for musicians only. Boring to everyone else. Actually, annoying to musicians, too. But further in, there are some funny parts - if you think I’m ever funny.)
I’ve been stagnating in musicianship for far too long. You know it’s been “forever” when you finally pick up the guitar and find your fingers no longer go where they’re supposed to just by muscle memory, and you actually have to look at the left hand and frown (like the frown helps). And you no longer remember the V7th, only the V form of a common chord.
Oh, it got worse. Far worse - far beyond embarrassment, right through humiliation, and down the road of despair !
I was trying to write the guitar chords to the hymn above into my hymnbook. There were two sharps, and it wasn’t “mysterious”, but happy, so I knew it was in “D major”. At least I remembered the silly mnemonic my little group came up with in college for figuring out the key signature by the rotation of sharps and flats. But ahh…. Traditional hymns are not the STUPID songs of today - composed by stoners who only know 3-4 chords per song and only ten words that repeat ad nauseum. That’s why I like the old hymns. But now I was faced with the task of figuring out the chords, and “dumbing them down” to the guitar level. Sure, it’s fine for the organist to change chords every eighth note, but you’d set the strings on fire if you did that with a guitar, or at least break a nail. It would also sound really pedantic strumming all those downbeats to change chords that fast. Much better to just go with every measure or more - whatever you HAVE to change.
Passing tones, leading tones, accidentals, and what the heck was an “appoggiatura” again? (I can’t believe my WORD program knows how to spell “appoggiatura”. But then, I’m on my old dinosaur desktop, and I may have “taught” it this word previously. After all, it didn’t even know “changest”, as in “Thou changest not”. Apparently not programmed for Shakespearean type English. Funny that it knew “hath”, or did I teach it that, too?) You have to realize that I’m functioning under a great handicap. Stupid Idiot here managed to get a B.A. in music without ever really learning to read Bass Clef ! There never seemed to be enough time. (Sounds like a song lyric. What’s that tune?) How annoying it is, though, to have to pseudo-transpose the tenor and bass all the time.
“Hindsight is 20/20.” - So you can see clearly Where To Kick.
I managed to grate out the D’s and the A’s (I and V, of course), and a couple of G’s. But there were still some measures with extra sharps or naturals. Oy! I had already had to abandon the “brain” and tromp over to the dusty guitar case and try to ferret it out “by ear”. Anything to do with making music “by ear” has always been totally beyond me, frankly. Perhaps this should have been my first clue that I shouldn’t major in music, hmm? I wrote all my Harmony assignments using my brain, and because I couldn’t play four-part harmony on the piano to save my life (and can’t read bass clef), I never even knew what most of them sounded like when I turned them IN ! Always got a good grade on these though. Hey, any “good” musical Baptist who can’t churn out a bit of traditional four-part harmony should just take their hymn book and slink ashamedly out of that front row (where all the “good” Baptists vie to sit, even to coming early to snag that coveted position, thereby proving to any other jealous Pharisees that they are the holiest ones there), and go snore way in the back, under the clock, next to their father.
I even got stuck on what chords are IN the key of D, besides 1,4,and 5. I managed “Em” (2 or ii), but struggled even when I had to revert to said numbers instead of letters. We had to memorize several different types - for major keys. (Major, minor, minor, Major, Major7, minor, diminished - I think. Or known as I, ii, iii, IV, V7, vi, vii - with a little hanging circle, for that “diminished” business, just like degrees of temperature), and minor keys, and something worse (Some drivel about diminished and augmented. Blocked that totally out of my memory, and with gratitude, I think. And you thought music majors could only count to four. More math or numbers than you thought.)
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I think, growing up, that kids should only learn ONE type of thing, and not conflicting things. Or maybe I’m just a moron.
I first learned music theory/composition from a Harmony class in high school, and we used a “Movable Do” system, rather than “Fixed Do”. (Any non-musicians still reading: You know, like “Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Do”, in which Do is the “tonic” - the name of the key signature, and also known as number 1 or Roman numeral “I”.) We also sang the corresponding numbers (1234567 and 1) instead of the Solfege syllables. “Solfege”: a fancy word for sight-singing, where the sadist gives you the first note and says, “hit it”, while they sit back with their red pen and your grade book and laugh evilly while cringing at your inaccurate squawking. Therefore most enjoyed by professors who are both sadists AND masochistic. (And don’t try to tell me my Solfege syllables are misspelled, or I'll go all “Ut” on you.) But when I got to college, I had to switch from numbers to syllables and relearn for a Fixed Do system - where “Do” is ALWAYS the middle C, no matter what key you are in. Much easier, once you’ve made the transition, but half a semester was wasted in the weeds.
Another example of childhood conflict: all those years of dancing lessons (from age three, when I was a “Fluffy Duck”, complete with little song, and fluffy yellow feathers on my backside and a silly hat, and a Band-Aid on one knee - extremely cute - But no, I did not save that old Super Eight tape or reel to reel. No way was I risking letting my sons get hold of that! ). Now, Dancing starts out on the right foot Every time. Versus six years of Marching Band, where you always start on the left. So now, whenever I hear music playing, for a little second, I don’t know which side of my body wants to respond first. Which “Negative Reinforcement” was drilled in stronger? The stomping on the wooden dance floor of Mrs. Green’s big wooden staff (and Miss Cheryl, that yelling tyrant) when one of the 8 of us were wrong? So I should start out on my right foot? And risk the bellowing bullhorn on the hill above the football field barking out my particular name, and so to be embarrassed in front of 119 Marching Band musicians, instead of just 7 clutzy “dancers” in toe shoes and cowboy hats? Girlfriend, you KNOW your dance class really ROTS at traditional ballet, when they give you a COWgirl theme for your recital costume ! I guess we were just “too-too” terrible. (Go ahead and groan.)
And actually, if you were off step in high school marching band, one of the Graduate helpers might even sneak up behind you and Step on that wrong foot and give you a “flat tire”. Now THAT was a Negative Enforcer, for sure! Sometimes it hurt, but worse, while you’re trying to Wriggle your shoe back on, with just your foot, you still have to move forward in a desperate attempt to try to keep up with 119 other marchers about to run you over ! And some of them “reach” you earlier than the others…They’re the trombonists, of course. (Also known as “boneheads”, and widely rumored to have zero personality.) Also some of the oncoming horde is marching “blind”, because there’s a huge bass drum or quads in front of them and they can’t see their own feet. (Personally, I don’t know why this was supposedly such a problem, since we weren’t allowed to look down anyway. We were sometimes even required to close our eyes and if you were caught peeking you got a blindfold. And after 9 and a Half months of pregnancy, you get quite used to not seeing your feet - and perhaps never again. Hmmm, I wonder if this is why the Nazis employed that really weird Goose Step while marching. Perhaps they were too stupid to march without seeing their feet every step? “Oh look! There it ist… die left, und now there’s die right, und now my left. Could there be a pattern here?”)
So one of the first “official” marching steps we learned as high school Freshman was that Quasimoto Step - that ungainly limping, dragging step while desperately attempting to keep our property. If you were really unlucky, you actually LOST that shoe, whipped your head around in a vain attempt to remember what “yard” it was on in case you got lucky enough to tramp over it again and scoop it up. They say prayer will never be eradicated from schools until there are no more final exams. I say there are more earnest (and quicker) prayers uttered by off-kilter marchers as they incur whiplash from snapping their heads “back forward” after imploring any and all gods that no one would trample the thing into the mud-oblivion totally, so you’d have to search for it with your hands after the entire practice ends in darkness three hours later.
>>As for “Back Forward”? Yes, this is a position. Some fast marching bits during half-time have you spinning around on a sixteenth-note run, full of extra sharps, and possibly in 7/8 time. (Uh… with two feet? How do you manage that? What…. 3.5 eighths per foot? Four lefts and 3 rights? You can’t mean that we have to HOP every measure… There’s going to be a lot of orthodontics after that practice, I can tell you.) You learn to know “back forward” as a position, and be Grateful for it. At least you’re facing the home team now, and likely to stay there for 4 measures to play an important phrase. At least it’s a spot of orientation, which is far preferable to remembering which way is UP. You’re really lost in the new charts if you’re not sure you’re still upright. If this happens, Down is preferable. You’re going to end up there anyway once that trombone player gives you a left to the jaw during his mistaken “About Face”. (Maybe that’s how it got that term? )
As for spots of orientation, or “spotting”, this is first uselessly introduced in dancing lessons, or ice skating for some. The theory is, that as you go whipping around and around in a spin, you keep snapping your head around and visually grabbing that same “spot” you’ve chosen to mark where “Front” is, so you don’t end up facing backwards at the end of the whirlwind. Supposedly also prevents falling down or throwing up. Doesn’t work any better than breathing “Hee, hee, hee, Hoooo, Hoooo”, or whatever, during childbirth. And hey, WHY do they teach some Odd number of breaths in Lamaze anyway? Drove me NUTS ! But why it didn’t occur to me to modify it to fit 4/4 time, or at least a painful waltz, I have no idea. Probably something about being awake for four days straight, with only ice chips for food, and by that 63rd hour of real labor, I was long past caring. I didn’t even know it was TUESDAY night! Good thing no one informed me a bit earlier, since I was wondering if it was still Sunday, or Monday morning. There are some definite instances when a LIE is the kindest choice. Also on ten-hour mountain climbs (which were supposedly 4 hours) and you ask the plodding imbecile up ahead of you (who planned this accursed leisure excursion) if that perceived hilltop was actually THE top, or if there are more hiding behind it, further on.
Marching Band can be a real contact sport sometimes. You could be literally Beheaded by the Color Guard, with their flags or sabers. At band camp, or with each new formation, the only “color” involved was Blood Red. By the time I graduated high school, they had upgraded Marching Band to a Varsity status. I actually earned a Letter for my sweater, just like the football players. Of course, back in the Jurassic era, they didn’t have “cool” band jackets (oxymoron?), only really LAME white button-up sweaters with geeky pockets on the front (on the Front!). Like Richie Cunningham would have worn on Happy Days. This is why NO ONE ever saw who had a letter or not - in any sport. No one would be caught dead in those sweaters!
(Isn’t that a funny saying? Who CARES what I’m wearing when I’m “caught dead”? I’m DEAD! You can’t embarrass me by laughing then. It’s when I’m at the convenience store, picking up flu medicine at 3AM, looking like I need a defibrillator, and a hairdresser - THAT’s when you don’t want to meet anyone you know.)
They say, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” I have years of experience to prove there are no shoeless atheists in marching bands either. And all plague victims at 3AM seem to suddenly remember Who holds the ultimate power in the cosmos, as they spot that really hot guy from work in the chips aisle. You know the prayer… “Oh please, oh Please, Oh PLEAZZZE! Don’t let him see me like this!!” (And that prayer invariably involves three sets of “oh please-es”, since we all know that’s God’s favorite number - and seven sets would be far too many.) If it’s not God Himself you’re sending this urgent missive out to, you fervently hope there’s “Someone” in charge of such things at that hour of the night.
>>I was astounded to learn in RCIA class that there’s actually a patron saint for lost items. You have GOT to be kidding me! My best friend, a cradle Catholic, actually recited some little verse from her childhood about Saint Anthony and lost keys. Hilarious! Let me get this straight…. You live your entire life, so upright and holy that they make you a Saint, but the “job” they give you until the End of the World is to help cluttered Christians frantically find little lost objects? That has GOT to be embarrassing when you all get together at the next Saints’ Pot Luck Supper. Oh right, they’re Catholic. I guess it’s Bingo Night then.