the seven-word cabbage game
Update #2--
Because I never did go into too much detail about music school, did I?? Funny that it's been almost a year. I might just go back and finish everything providing circumstances are permitting...
As I might've mentioned before, the main incentive for enrolling at the Professional Music Program was because in order to be eligible for any financial aid, I had to enroll as a full-time student and all of my requirements had to be taken in sequence. Conveniently, this allowed me to continue as finished the second-language requirements and the awful year of Statistics which is thankfully over and done with. Initially, I was looking forward to the chance to perhaps break away from the usual scenes and meet people who might feel similarly disengaged from them. I did, granted it was mostly limited to chavtasticjinx.
Now upon entering the program, I figured that according to the punk and indie rock ethos that one of the worst things one could do would be to study music formally. I'm going to add that to yet another one of the list of hypocrisies and inconsistencies I tend to find whenever any of those types dare to explain themselves and certainly, you can tell they've been reading the same magazines and watching the same programs and idolizing the same idols. With that being said, it didn't surprise me that I was in a room with a bunch of punk and indie rock guitarists (in name only), all wearing the same brand of sneakers, and me developing a very quick reputation for being something of a "pretentious prick" because I had the audacity to utter the word "synthesizer" when it came time to do introductions and mention what instruments we mostly played. This didn't bother me so much because much of the judgments probably revealed more about their characters than my own. Portlanders, after all, have no place calling ANYONE pretentious and it didn't help that I'd remind them in various ways that people with glass egos ought not to throw stones. Being a fan of Big Black and Shellac, I must admit that I've grown quite sick of hearing Steve Albini's name because of how many times it was uttered within that year. Honestly, if we were playing a drinking game, exponents would be needed to calculate how many times over we would've died from alcohol poisioning, it was that bad. I still wonder which book or magazine or idol they were all quoting (insisting it was their original opinion and words). It confused me that they would even argue and have disputes with one another because they were essentially just saying the same things to one another. Though at times, it was very amusing to watch and after a while, I stopped worrying and would laugh out loud when arguments would break out during lectures. Even better, and I think this was when I knew chavtasticjinx and I would get along, was that chavtasticjinx had identified everyone by very special nicknames. I remember mine was "Blue Hair Doc Hammer" and the rest turned into in-jokes. I still want to bludgeon Emo Caveman's head in with a hammer and when it came down to working with very frustrating people in particular assignments, I took to venting my frustrations by swearing in Russian and Polish (as I was afarid they'd know the Spanish and German swear words) mostly because I didn't want to get thrown out for saying openly even though they did frequently drive me to that point. Indeed, they remain as some of the most annoying and infuriating people I've ever had to deal with.
I think to start, we'll go into the Music Theory lectures, which were conducted by Clifford Watts of the Kingsmen fame. A very sharp and biting wit but as an instructor I found him... kind of sub-par. This was mostly because I found him too jaded even though I understand completely where the jadedness of the music instructors come from. I know very well that the people that dominated by class during my time in the program were not unique and I'm sure dealing with those same kinds of personalities year after year would quickly start having that effect. That being said, I don't think I could ever become a music instructor and not wind up in the chair later on for mass murder. Granted that there were some very annoying fellows who would ask rather obtuse questions about obscure bits of music theory unnecessary at the level we were studying at that he would not hesitate to shoot down, he had the nasty tendency to shoot down ANY question barring particular "right" questions that I found impossible in determining. This would make it very frustrating when it showed you might be having trouble and early on, me and chavtasticjinx would study together. When we DID actually approach him with questions, he would actually say that he didn't believe us at all that we were having trouble because, as he revealed (and I forget the details on how) we were some of the top students in the class.
This was also the case in the Recording classes, which, and not to be too self-deprecating, I'm going to attribute to us as being some of the ten (out of thirty) who were actually trying and putting forth the effort. This is also not to say that we weren't good, because when it came down to our final Recording project, we were damn good, as in that were told that our project was one of the best they had seen and to my understanding is still being used as an example for subsequent lectures. And the reactions to that were interestingly mixed as we discovered.
Perhaps the most useful bits were the seminars with former major-label signed musicians and business managers who would allow us to grill them with various questions on how the music industry, on a general level worked. Considering how it's presented to us and in dealing with an indie crowd that supposedly knows their way around it but, out of pretention, won't actually engage with it (out of supposed priniciples), the seminars were actually very useful granted it triggered a lot of soul-searching about how feasbile certain things were going to be. The most important thing was that independence is truly the way to go and that while self-promotion/networking/connections are undoubtedly useful, they only go so far when you don't have any product behind them.
There's a lot more I can on about this, from the other folks I did actually get to know and work with to the reactions afterwards when everyone realized that if they so wanted a strong scene, it would require some actual business management and a heavy bit of more diverse thinking than anyone was willing to really invest in. Which is funny because of all the talk about Portland's supposed reputation, it certainly COULD be the hotspot everyone makes it out to be, but that would require a good deal more than what these people are willing to invest in. For me, I wanted to walk away with notions and illusions dispelled and that certainly happened. It actually only reinforced me to continue on, shifting my energies back towards finishing my psych degree, and encouraging me to go on independently since relying on scenes, at least from my experiences, is and has been rather detrimental. There's also no point in someone like me who does what I do in doing so either. The other road lay open but it required me to be more self-sufficient, hence the focus on other studies to get the more secure, better-paying dayjob. And here we are...
Because I never did go into too much detail about music school, did I?? Funny that it's been almost a year. I might just go back and finish everything providing circumstances are permitting...
As I might've mentioned before, the main incentive for enrolling at the Professional Music Program was because in order to be eligible for any financial aid, I had to enroll as a full-time student and all of my requirements had to be taken in sequence. Conveniently, this allowed me to continue as finished the second-language requirements and the awful year of Statistics which is thankfully over and done with. Initially, I was looking forward to the chance to perhaps break away from the usual scenes and meet people who might feel similarly disengaged from them. I did, granted it was mostly limited to chavtasticjinx.
Now upon entering the program, I figured that according to the punk and indie rock ethos that one of the worst things one could do would be to study music formally. I'm going to add that to yet another one of the list of hypocrisies and inconsistencies I tend to find whenever any of those types dare to explain themselves and certainly, you can tell they've been reading the same magazines and watching the same programs and idolizing the same idols. With that being said, it didn't surprise me that I was in a room with a bunch of punk and indie rock guitarists (in name only), all wearing the same brand of sneakers, and me developing a very quick reputation for being something of a "pretentious prick" because I had the audacity to utter the word "synthesizer" when it came time to do introductions and mention what instruments we mostly played. This didn't bother me so much because much of the judgments probably revealed more about their characters than my own. Portlanders, after all, have no place calling ANYONE pretentious and it didn't help that I'd remind them in various ways that people with glass egos ought not to throw stones. Being a fan of Big Black and Shellac, I must admit that I've grown quite sick of hearing Steve Albini's name because of how many times it was uttered within that year. Honestly, if we were playing a drinking game, exponents would be needed to calculate how many times over we would've died from alcohol poisioning, it was that bad. I still wonder which book or magazine or idol they were all quoting (insisting it was their original opinion and words). It confused me that they would even argue and have disputes with one another because they were essentially just saying the same things to one another. Though at times, it was very amusing to watch and after a while, I stopped worrying and would laugh out loud when arguments would break out during lectures. Even better, and I think this was when I knew chavtasticjinx and I would get along, was that chavtasticjinx had identified everyone by very special nicknames. I remember mine was "Blue Hair Doc Hammer" and the rest turned into in-jokes. I still want to bludgeon Emo Caveman's head in with a hammer and when it came down to working with very frustrating people in particular assignments, I took to venting my frustrations by swearing in Russian and Polish (as I was afarid they'd know the Spanish and German swear words) mostly because I didn't want to get thrown out for saying openly even though they did frequently drive me to that point. Indeed, they remain as some of the most annoying and infuriating people I've ever had to deal with.
I think to start, we'll go into the Music Theory lectures, which were conducted by Clifford Watts of the Kingsmen fame. A very sharp and biting wit but as an instructor I found him... kind of sub-par. This was mostly because I found him too jaded even though I understand completely where the jadedness of the music instructors come from. I know very well that the people that dominated by class during my time in the program were not unique and I'm sure dealing with those same kinds of personalities year after year would quickly start having that effect. That being said, I don't think I could ever become a music instructor and not wind up in the chair later on for mass murder. Granted that there were some very annoying fellows who would ask rather obtuse questions about obscure bits of music theory unnecessary at the level we were studying at that he would not hesitate to shoot down, he had the nasty tendency to shoot down ANY question barring particular "right" questions that I found impossible in determining. This would make it very frustrating when it showed you might be having trouble and early on, me and chavtasticjinx would study together. When we DID actually approach him with questions, he would actually say that he didn't believe us at all that we were having trouble because, as he revealed (and I forget the details on how) we were some of the top students in the class.
This was also the case in the Recording classes, which, and not to be too self-deprecating, I'm going to attribute to us as being some of the ten (out of thirty) who were actually trying and putting forth the effort. This is also not to say that we weren't good, because when it came down to our final Recording project, we were damn good, as in that were told that our project was one of the best they had seen and to my understanding is still being used as an example for subsequent lectures. And the reactions to that were interestingly mixed as we discovered.
Perhaps the most useful bits were the seminars with former major-label signed musicians and business managers who would allow us to grill them with various questions on how the music industry, on a general level worked. Considering how it's presented to us and in dealing with an indie crowd that supposedly knows their way around it but, out of pretention, won't actually engage with it (out of supposed priniciples), the seminars were actually very useful granted it triggered a lot of soul-searching about how feasbile certain things were going to be. The most important thing was that independence is truly the way to go and that while self-promotion/networking/connections are undoubtedly useful, they only go so far when you don't have any product behind them.
There's a lot more I can on about this, from the other folks I did actually get to know and work with to the reactions afterwards when everyone realized that if they so wanted a strong scene, it would require some actual business management and a heavy bit of more diverse thinking than anyone was willing to really invest in. Which is funny because of all the talk about Portland's supposed reputation, it certainly COULD be the hotspot everyone makes it out to be, but that would require a good deal more than what these people are willing to invest in. For me, I wanted to walk away with notions and illusions dispelled and that certainly happened. It actually only reinforced me to continue on, shifting my energies back towards finishing my psych degree, and encouraging me to go on independently since relying on scenes, at least from my experiences, is and has been rather detrimental. There's also no point in someone like me who does what I do in doing so either. The other road lay open but it required me to be more self-sufficient, hence the focus on other studies to get the more secure, better-paying dayjob. And here we are...