Wow, what a day (but, I've said this about so many other days). No seriously, today was crazy! First of all, I had my first composition lesson with Joel Bons. Oh my dear Lord. Nothing in my musical life could have prepared me for this lesson. What started off as a simple "let me get to know you better" session, we got into a deep philosophical debate about the role of music and music education today. Apparently, I may have been spending too much time and energy focusing on doing "what I am supposed to do" (no that anyone has been telling me what to do, just what I thought I should do because of the influence of institutionalized music education, if that makes sense?), rather than what I really find stimulating. I mean, I write the music I want to, but not necessarily in a way that I really find interesting. Therefore I usually hate writing. But clearly, that is not how it is supposed to work, right? So, the goal is to now write something just crazy, that really reflects me, and how my mind works. I am really hard on myself for bouncing around all the time and being, what I call, "high stimulation". So, naturally, I should write something that is really interesting TO ME! Music for me? Really? Yea...Anyway! I am so excited to write something really crazy and potentially unmusical that I can get completely lost in, and pick up the pieces later. This kind of creative play is something I don't think I have ever experienced, at least in my compositional life. This is all just a completely different way of looking at music altogether! Don't worry about what a grad school wants to see, or what you think the audience will want to hear. Write something that is fun to write. Write something that will be interesting to ME! AAH!
After that semi-life-changing lesson, we have composers' forum. Today, two composers presented pieces they wrote for brand new instruments designed by high school students as part of a competition. One was this bike with overtone tubes as helicopter blades, and the other was an octagonal drum set with cardboard heads. The first composer, a grad of the masters program at CvA, had a very similar view on composition to my teacher (makes sense right?). But the side effect of that was, he really enjoyed his work! You don't see that every day! The other composer was...not so much. He was really into pure intervals and microtonal stuff and had a very inefficient way of dealing with it, but thats that.
After THAT (long day, hu?) I had my Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky theory class. I can tell that this class is going to be a lot of work, but hopefully, since I really love all of these composers, it won't be too hard to get motivated. There are only 9 of us in the class, and the prof is nothing short of a genius, so there is no room to hide. In all honest, after I get my credits figured out I might have to drop this class, especially if I decide to go through with an orchestra piece like Joel was talking about (gulp)!
After class, this really nice Italian girl came over and helped a friend and I make a real Italian dinner. So good! So nice! I love people. I love Amsterdam!
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