Week 4

This week I had my first two assignments due. I'm usually a last minute, late night essay writer, but I've been trying to stay more on top of things and use my time better, and hopefully this will result in a higher quality of work as well. I've been keeping up with my weekly blogs and class readings pretty well, but this week I've been struggling with my mental health and feeling really burnt out. I found it harder to engage during lectures, and getting the work done feels a lot harder, but I'm still going!

Gamelan | VSAO3601 | CDIME

Gamelan

Week three of Gamelan was interesting, and we built on the techniques and songs we learned in the first two weeks.

Gilak Dung (which I thought we had finished learning!) had a coda section in the same style of Kotekan as the first kotekan. The two sections used the same rhythm, but it was reversed in the sangsih. I actually didn't get to play this part much because I was moved onto the gongs to fill out the texture. Obviously this was incredibly exciting to me, but I also got to learn a whole new instrument and technique. This was much easier than the smaller instruments like the pemade or the kantilans, mainly because its a much slower part and I only had 3 notes to worry about. The technique was mostly easy and involved striking the centre of the gong in a downwards motion, however the smallest gong required me to flip the pungal over in my hand and strike it with the handle, which I found difficult.

Next we spent some time learning about the Reong, which looks a lot like the Trompong, but has more notes/gongs and can be played by up to four people at one. We played a Kotekan between four people, and we learned a few different techniques to create different sounds. The four players have to cover both the polos and sangsih, and the parts move up and down the instrument together.

Finally we played our new piece, which I still keep forgetting the name of. I couldn't remember the lagu at all until Anthony sang the start of it, but then it came right back and I found it easier to play than last week. I found the Kotekan easier to remember as the rhythm was quite distinct and has a very syncopated section near the end. I find it much harder to play this one as it moves a lot faster and has bigger jumps in it, but I think I like this one a lot and I like the way the sangsih and polos interact.

Next week is our final week of Gamelan, and I look forwards to looking back through the videos and reflections I've done on here and seeing my progress. And as much as I've enjoyed learning without being preoccupied by note taking, I'm looking forwards to having things on paper and having Peter's notes from the class.

VSAO3601

This week we did a lot of work on movement and dance with Lorina who choreographed the dance break in amanti costanti. I’ve never been much of a dancer so this was a step outside of my comfort zone but I was excited to give it a shot and try something new.

I found the fandango easy enough to follow, in theory, but practically I found it difficult to put it all together. Each step made sense separately, but I struggled with the counting a bit, especially in the beginning as the starting point wasn’t clear at all. I found it really easy to copy her movements in the moment so I think some practice at home to practice the transitions between moves will really help me.

The Minuet was more difficult for me to grasp — I felt it was a bit rushed and we didn’t have as much time to ask questions and I missed steps. For example, I didn’t understand the second step when the foot sweeps through to the front and then you step onto it before step three — I took the sweep through and the step to be two different beats which messed me up. I think I’ll be ready to work on this again next week, now that I have a better understanding of the movements.

Minuet: Video Tutorial (from 1:51)

I searched up this video for a better understanding and its almost the same as what we did in class (less sweep though) — I’ve had a bit of a practice and feel a little more confident.

CDIME

This week I've been working to complete my rationale for Share the Song and put together my Share the Song performance with Alicia. We decided to perform Sui Ja Re, an Indian lullaby her mother used to sing for her.

We transcribed it separately and brought it together today to figure out how our parts would work together. We wanted to perform it with as my integrity as possible, but we struggled to find authentic instruments -- ideally I would have performed the accompanying chords on an instrument like a guitar, but I'm not very strong on guitar so we're going to use a keyboard with a harmonium effect to recreate the sounds used in the recording. Alicia wanted to borrow a wooden flute from her aunt to play the flute solo on, however it was in the wrong key, so we tried to transfer the melody on to a recorder, which also didn't work because its a very old plastic record which we couldn't seem to get in tune, so we decided to put it onto clarinet.

We discussed concerns about having 'westernised' the song through this process, but decided we could maintain the integrity of the piece by using similar pitch bends on the clarinet that would be used in the flute part, and by singing the lyrics together in their original language.

I'm really excited to perform this song with Alicia and I think it'll be nice to share this beautiful piece with our peers.

Week 3

Things are picking up! With 2 assignments due next week (including a group performance project) I've been getting busier and a little more frantic -- I think its time to get organised and start getting things done.

I'm finding these blog posts really useful for reflecting and keeping myself from going into autopilot as I usually do when things get stressful. I'm actually engaging more with my coursework at the moment, and thinking more deeply about how I can incorporate it into my teaching.

Gamelan | VSAO3601 | CDIME

Gamelan

I was really worried when I saw the Gamelan class pop up on my timetable at the start of the semester - I work Saturdays and thought I'd struggle to keep up with work and rest if I didn't have my full weekend from Sunday-Monday, but I am really enjoying these Gamelan classes and couldn't think of a better way to start my week. Coming into the room with no expectations other than watching, copying and playing is really relaxing, and I was surprised this week by how much of the Gilak Dung I remembered. There were definitely parts of the sangsih I had forgotten, but most of the lagu and pokok I remembered. This really demonstrated to me the value of learning music without notation and I've tried to implement this with my choir, teaching them songs without sheet music. What I've struggled with in this kind of pedagogy is that the memorisation in gamelan is really supported by the clergy defined structure of the piece, while the piece I chose to use doesn't necessarily have that clear of a structure, so my students, while having learned the musical material easily, are struggling to know which order to put it in. But, its a great lesson to have learned and I look forwards to using this pedagogy again, maybe with a more structured piece.

I was very excited to play the Trompong this week, one of the larger instruments in the ensemble. It's made of 10 gongs and tuned to a different scale than the higher instruments and played with a different pungal, wrapped in twine. The sound dampened and doesn't ring as much as the other instruments, and only plays the lagu, while the higher instruments move onto the kotekan. I found the dampening technique really difficult, especially since I had to use the pungal to dampen each note, rather than my hand. I did very much enjoy the experience though.

We performed the Gilak Dung as a class and then learned the second Kotekan. It took me a little longer to get the polos this time because it had a few more jumps in it, but it was very repetitive and played on the beat instead of off beat which really helped.

I was very interested to learn about the different types of Kotekan as well. In Gilak Dung (the first Kotekan), the polos and sangsih occasionally play at the same time to create a chord, while in the second Kotekan, the two parts never play at the same times, and the alternating parts create a melody together. This was really interesting for me, and I loved hearing how the two different groups could play together to create one line.

This video is the second Kotekan (I'm playing the polos) and the sangsih is audible in the background.

We finished off the lesson learning a second piece, which I have to admit I don't remember much of!

VSAO3601

Stage Fundamentals was quite different this week, Nell had to attend to a family matter, so we focused on repertoire with Simon. I really enjoy working with Simon and I find he makes me really think about my vowels and how to alter them to get my best sound. We focused a lot on the ensemble, making the most of double consonants, cut offs and matching our vowels. I'm very confident with my sight reading and I found the Mozart musically very easy to read (I sang Sop 2 and I think we had 3 different notes) but keeping up with the text as well was really difficult, and Simon did not slow down. I actually really enjoyed the challenge and I found that I was able to pick it up reasonably well.

I've been doing a lot more singing lately, preparing for auditions and starting regular singing lessons again, and I've been feeling much more confident with my voice. I'm really enjoying singing in my lower register which has strengthened a lot over the past year, as well as my top notes which are growing more reliable as well. I found singing sop 2 quite enjoyable but had to be careful to not push to out sing the sop 1 group.

We didn't do any stage work this week, but it was nice to focus on the ensemble singing portion for a little while.

CDIME

I said last week in my reflections on CDIME and Gamelan that the pedagogies seemed really similar to Orff Pedagogy we had learned in first year, and I now realise that Orff pedagogy is (of course) derived from the practices that many cultures have used to teach and pass down songs and music.

We had members of the Conservatorium's Chinese Music Ensemble visit us this week to show us their instruments and teach us songs they've learned. They used the same technique we did in Gamelan and Orff pedagogy to teach us a song called Feng Yang -- no sheet music, listening and repeating the melody in small chunks and then performing all together. I understood that Orff Pedagogy was influenced by non-western instruments and teaching styles, but I don't think I realised just how similar it is to teaching styles I've been observing from different culture bearers over the past few weeks.

I've also been really interested by the different tunings and pitch sets used by these different cultures, because it completely changes the way we look at music, moving from 12 notes to an infinite and undefinable number of pitches that can be used. Nicholas taught us that Chinese instruments were each tuned differently before a standardised tuning was introduced by musicians who had studied overseas. It reminded me of Gamelan tuning, adn that we'd been taught that no two gamelan sets were tuned exactly the same.

I'm really enjoying the CDIME course so far and I'm excited that its expanding my idea of music and giving me more ideas about repertoire and ways I can teach my students. I often discuss with my students what I'm studying in class and I was really thrilled to have some of my students suggest songs they wanted to learn and share from their own cultures. I'm really excited to begin this process with my students and diversify my teaching.

2023 Semester One

Week One and Two

(Hello wonderful lecturers who are marking my blog -- please click on the relevant link so you don't have to sort through all my other blogging from this week :)

VSAO3601 | Gamelan | CDIME

Very exciting to be starting back at Sydney Conservatorium for my final year of study. This semester I'm studying Cultural Diversity in Music Education (CDIME) with a short exploration of Gamelan at the start of the semester, which requires a progress diary which I'll be keeping here. To develop my performance and vocal skills I'm also taking a Stage Fundamentals course which I'll also be reflecting on in this blog.

Last year I really struggled to motivate myself in my studies. While completing my first two placements I discovered that I really struggled to enjoy classroom teaching and motivating myself to finish the degree has been difficult since then. My mental health and personal life were also difficult to manage last year, so I'm hoping that being in a more stable place and being more enthusiastic will help me enjoy my final placement more, and maybe inspire me to do some casual teaching or even take a part time position.

This year I'm also aiming to do more gigging and push myself to take auditions for ensembles and opportunities I'm interested in. This will be difficult with PEX3 coming up, but I'll do what I can.

VSAO3601 - Stage Fundamentals

Coming back into the vocal department of Sydney Con for Week One of Stage Fundamentals was quite confronting to me last week. After spending a few months becoming more comfortable and reacquainted with classical singing and with my voice, I suddenly felt very insecure about singing with other people in the room.

Seeing the familiar faces of my lecturers and some of my peers was reassuring, but I felt that it might take me some time to find where my voice would fit in this new group.

I found myself feeling really proud of my progress in my confidence and understanding of stagecraft since my OperaLab days in 2018/19. I find that I’m less shy and more willing to make mistakes and embarrass myself, though I still have to remind myself to relax, or act least not show discomfort in my body language.

This week I found our opening exercise quite challenging. We were challenged to invent a new sport and act it out, and my partner and I chose our sport to be grave digging, but only with your feet. In hindsight, this was already a difficult subject to act out, and we struggled to make our intentions clear. Nell gave us some great ideas around defining the space using specific actions to give the audience some idea of what we were doing before we started.

Following this, I really enjoyed doing work on forming tableau scenes and how even a scene without movement could tell a story. This drew on a short exercise from last week where we played around with a tableau based around John and Tharushi and it was great to see how the class had already developed in their understanding of levels, in changing their body language slightly to make sure the audience could see them or that their faces weren’t covered.

We also played with some different types of movement and characters through the use of personification. I struggled with this as well, especially in personifying the gorilla which was opposite to the ways I feel comfortable moving.

When we moved onto Cat Like Tread and were able to move around in more of a context I felt more comfortable, I think because I felt I had a reason to be moving that way. I felt a lot more secure in my voice as well this week, and I’m hoping this continues.

MUED4603 - Gamelan

In Cultural Diversity in music education this week we began our unit on Balinese Gamelan. I did a lesson on Gamelan in first year, and I’m really excited to expand on this. I find the texture of Gamelan so excited and pleasing to the ear, especially the ombak-ombak sound — playing in a flute ensemble in high school we would often hear this effect as a result of playing ‘out of tune’, and at that time I hated the sound, but hearing it ring out in the gamelan room is actually quite thrilling! I find that with this effect and the slightly different tunings of each instrument and the sound of the ensemble has more body and fullness as well, and I love the contrast of this with the western tradition that I was raised with.

I found the playing technique to be quite natural, striking each bar and then muting it afterwards, either immediately to produce a shorter note or, for a more legato line, as the next note was played. I did struggle a little bit when we sped up, but I think this is natural when being first introduced to a new technique.

I found the method of teaching very similar to Orff pedagogy in that a melody was ‘chunked’ into small pieces and repeated for us to learn before we put it all together. At first I actually really struggled with this due to the unfamiliar tunings of each note and the siah pitu (7 note scale) used on these instruments. Where I thought I heard a small jump in one of the melodies was actually only a step (to the next bar), but sounds wider because of the tuning. It was really challenging to recalibrate my ear to this new scale, the siah pitu, and patet (pitch set) we were using.

Peter preferred us not to take notes in this class, to make sure we were fully immersed in the hands on learning experience and not absorbed in getting every word down, and I’m pleasantly surprised at how much knowledge I’ve retained while reflecting on the class a few days later. I look forwards to learning more about the Gamelan instruments and the pedagogy balinese people use to learn this kind of music.

MUED4603 - CDIME

I really enjoyed the reading this week from William Coppola and found that it made me think quite deeply about how I can make performing more enjoyable for my students and their audiences.

I love listening to opera and I love performing it in an ensemble but I really struggle to sit and watch it for 3 hours in an opera house. I feel that I can't connect with the music in the same way and I actually don't get that my joy from it, even though I have such a longstanding connection and interest with the art. However, when I play gamelan in class, when I get to jam with my classmates on a completely unfamiliar instrument and interact with them, or when I'm able to go to a pop music concert and dance and sing along with my friends I get much more enjoyment from the experience.

From Coppola's article I found his ideas about how spaces can inform performance and audience engagement really resonating with me -- no wonder my students hate performing their work in a recital style in the school hall - they can't