Wednesday was again one of my days off (hurray!). However, it was not without it's colorful events. My day began with yet another trip to the ABC to get a new Moleskine, this one to be dedicated to my "career/life search". So I sat down at a cafe for an hour or so and broke that sucker in. Shortly after that, we had an IES COREgroup Meeting at one of the UvA buildings. While I found this meeting to be on the totally useless side of things, it was a good reminder of how few of our group I see on a daily basis, much less in the last month. I am very much secluded from the group at large, living in a different building and going to a different school than 85% of the other IES students. I can't say I really mind all that much, haha.
Afterwards I went to a bookstore called Boekhandel van Rossum, which is owned by the aunt of a friend of mine from the University of Redlands in Ca. It was nice to speak to someone who had lived here for so long (more than 20 years), yet could sympathise with an American point-of-view. She was very hospitable and gave me the lo-down on her store, the neighborhood, and the city. I can not wait to see her again; such a good local contact to have!
Thursday I had but one class (Prof. Bons is in Hong Kong and I dropped out of my Debussy, Stravinsky, and Ravel class), composers forum. This week we heard from two more masters students, one from Switzerland and the other from Mexico. I still find it quite curious how "direct" everyone is here, especially in forum and masterclass settings. I have heard that "the Dutch people aren't rude, they are just direct", but I did not really know what that meant until forum. For example, a professor asks a student why he chose to reference the three movement classical concerto form in his one movement concerto. I am not sure anyone could really defend a personal artistic decision like that other than by saying "that is what I wanted to do". So this is what the student said. The professor kept insisting that there has to be a better reason for such a limiting decision, since if you were going to write a one movement concerto, you should just write a one movement concerto and do whatever you want with it. I personally do not see the point of this particular argument, but it was just an example of what happens in forum. When these discussions take place, the room often falls silent; you could cut the tension with a knife! I feel very uncomfortable, especially when I try to imagine myself in that situation. No thank you! I have enough trouble convincing myself of why I choose to write what I do, let alone a room full of probing Dutch students!
Later that evening I went to Cable at the Melkweg. This time it was a much smaller crowd in a much smaller room, but the music was just as good. The friend that went and I did not last very long, however, as we had easily talked (or tried to I should say) to all of the women in the club in under an hour. Nonetheless, it was enough to make me sufficiently tired for Friday's classes.
Friday began with my jazz trio at 10am (much too early for jazz, would you not agree?). However, this time we actually had a pianist, as opposed to the professor playing as he had for the past two weeks. Somehow, having a student pianist (even a relatively good one, as this gent was), seemed to really cause some problems that we had not had before. These problems were compounded, as the pianist is a weak reader and the bass player does not know any tunes. Needless to say, we spent much of the rehearsal trying to micromanage some changes and rhythms that I am not used to spending so much time on (at least not here). After returning to my room and trying to nap my way back to normal, I had my second jazz composition/arranging lesson. I was a bit nervous to show my first jazz composition ever, but it went over very well I believe. The professor is quite knowledgeable. To top it off, we spent a large portion of the lesson discussing arranging for horns as done by the masters. I was blown away! I have played and listened to big band jazz for more than half of my life, but I never knew why something sounded the way it did! It was like having the tonic-dominate relationship explained to you for the first time, a real "Ah-HA!" moment. At the time, I had almost decided that this (jazz comp) was the key! This is what I was missing! I have been miserable because I was pursuing the wrong concentration! It was not half an hour after the lesson that this fever died down, and I diagnosed that I was merely excited by the accelerated learning curve of a new discipline, rather than true "love at first sight" (if that exists). As the afternoon turned into evening, I quickly noticed that slight exhaustion and sore throat that comes just before a cold, so I knew this was going to be a slow weekend...
Sure enough, come Saturday morning, I have been hit. Today was spent mostly in bed, watching economics documentaries and Mad Money, with one trip out of doors to research my Eurail Pass for October break. In hindsight, even that was too much. I really need to lie low and get well. Good thing I have Monday off!
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