Certificate of Performance and Other Adventures

Hello lovely blog readers,

I apologize for not updating in so long! One of the reasons blogging has failed to come to my mind is because I have been studying and preparing for my Certificate of Performance on clarinet.

Backtracking to end of last year. I didn't, unfortunately, get into university. One of the reasons was that TAFE did a massive system upgrade, which also resulted in a massive system crash. Because I don't have a High School Certificate, I needed my Diploma I received at TAFE last year to get in to university, as an alternative proof of study. Unfortunately, the system crash meant that my results weren't processed properly. I received my certificate finally at the end of July, and my transcript just last week. Now I am in the process of applying, once again, for universities.

Due to the confusion of whether I was moving or not, I stopped taking lessons at the local conservatorium until a few weeks into the first term. I began lessons again at the end of February. At this point I decided I would take the plunge and attempt to prepare for my Certificate of Performance. My exam was held at the end of July.

I received a B!

I was over the moon with happiness, a B was a higher grade than I expected. I thought that I had taken on more than I could handle with this exam, but I managed to step up to the plate and perform as well as I could.

I also have started another course at TAFE - Certificate IV in Business. It's certainly out of my comfort zone, but I think I will learn many important skills from it. I am certainly looking forward to seeing what this course can offer me!

Daybook - No. 6

Outside my window...
I hear busy sounds of the highway. It's late at night, so not so busy, though!

I am thankful...
That over the past few weeks, I was able to go to Sydney to play with the London Symphony Orchestra, audition for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Elder Conservatorium of Music (in Adelaide) (Bachelor of Music Performance - Classical), and see all my close friends while I was doing it! I'm also thankful for a feature in the local Newspaper! One more thing to be thankful for: I received the 'Student Of The Year' award at my local conservatorium!

I am thinking...
About how I will spend tomorrow - my birthday.

Learning all the time...
I have learnt this week a little bit about baking - I haven't done too much in the past, but tonight and last night had me in the kitchen baking doughnuts and cupcakes!

From the kitchen...
Not too much now, but I did cook some 'Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes' - I'll post the recipe up after this post!

I am creating...
Lately, just wonderful memories.

I am working on...
Trying to stay relaxed more often!

I am going...
To see friends, also to our local Ice Cream store's 5th birthday this week!

I am hoping...
That next year will go smoothly and fantastically!

I am praying...
For the victims of the Sydney Siege - and for the person responsible for it.

I am pondering....
What is meant to be for my future?

I am reading...
Nothing at the moment

I am listening to......
Just the sound of my fan and the highway.

I am hearing...
^ Ditto!

I am struggling...
Not really struggling at the moment: that's something new!

Around the house...
People are asleep

One of my favourite things...
My friends and family!

A few plans for this week...
I have my birthday tomorrow (well.. today, Wednesday) - will visit some friends! Later in the week we will head off to our local ice cream store, as it's their 5th birthday. I also need to finish my Christmas shopping this week!

A little peek at my day...
Today I woke up quite late, and lazed around a little because I didn't feel too well. Then I cooked dinner, washed up dishes, and cooked cupcakes! 

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Things Have Been Happening!

I'm afraid I have become very slack about my blogging over the past month! How lazy of me!

Admittedly, though, I have been doing a lot of things. I'll give you a quick rundown of my past couple of months!

In July, I went down to South Australia. To Adelaide! I went down for South Australian Music Camp, which went really well. I loved going down, as well, because I saw some of my best friends. It was disappointing that I could only be down for a week, but that's life sometimes!

My next big trip was in August. I went down to Sydney for a workshop with the AOBO (Australian Opera & Ballet Orchestra). That was a lot of fun, we had a tour around the opera centre, and played in the Opera House! I learnt quite a lot about the process of putting on an opera, it's quite fascinating!

I also saw some of my close friends, and made more friends while I was there! It was amazing! Again, I was only down for a week, but it seemed like longer, and I saw more people, as I stayed at Campion College, where all my friends are. Also, in Adelaide I only had one full free day, in Sydney I had two, and the workshop days were only half-days.

Last Sunday, I had a big thing happen. I performed a solo-duet, with a soprano, and with an orchestra behind me! We played 'Totem in Corde Langueo' by Franz Schubert.

It went really well, and everybody loved hearing myself and my fellow soloist play/sing!

I also wore a bowtie!

Another thing that happened was that I played in a concert at my local conservatorium. The Sinfonia ensemble, which I am in, played with a guitarist by the name of Bruce Mathiske. It was an awesome, and very educational, experience!

Last thing, I received my result for my Grade 8 AMEB Clarinet exam. I received a B, which I am quite happy with! That's a good result, considering I was sitting the highest numbered grade!

Anywho, that's the major things that have been happening in my musical life!


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Concert!

Symphonic Wind Orchestra - Photo from the SYO Website.

I was lucky to have the opportunity recently to go and see the Peter Seymour Orchestra and the and the Symphonic Wind Orchestra (two of the Sydney Youth Orchestra's programs) live in concert the other day!

It was a thoroughly enjoyable concert, full of great music! It can be hard to believe that the members of the Orchestra were all highschool age!

The conductors were highly entertaining, as well. I loved how they talked about the pieces they were about to play, giving us a little bit of background for each one. When people do this, it helps me to connect with the piece of music.

I also noticed that the members of the orchestra, themselves, were enjoying themselves. Acting professionally, yes, but enjoying themselves, nonetheless. That, in itself, creates a nice performance.

This was possibly a once-off opportunity, getting tickets for so cheap to see an orchestra! I loved every minute, and I'm hoping I'll be able to see more orchestral performances in the future!

Eisteddfod

Exactly 1 week ago, I was at my friends house, waiting for another friend to arrive. We had the eisteddfod that night, to perform with the clarinet group, which we are in! We were having a lot of fun, sitting at her kitchen table, eating Tim Tams, and talking.

The clocks began to strike. 4 O'Clock. These clocks were entertaining, there's a lot of clocks in that house, and they all seemed to be set to go off approximately 30 seconds after one another.

At 4.30, our other friend arrived. After grabbing our clarinets, we all headed out to the car. We were about to go! But first, we had to pick up the sister of the friend who had picked us up. Off to the netball courts we went! By the time she was finished her game, it was nearly 5 O'clock. On the way down, we were hoping we weren't on first, since it's an hour's drive, and the session started at 6.

We were nearly there, it was around 5:45pm, when one of my friends received a text. It was from another girl in our clarinet group. "Where are you?", the text said.

Because my friend had no credit, I pulled out my phone to reply. "We'll be there in about ten minutes," I typed. Around five minutes later, I received a reply. "Okay, we're on first." At this point, we all started worrying. We had to get there, set up, warm up (if we had time!), and tune before we could start, and it was nearly 6!

We arrived at the Eisteddfod at 5:58pm. We hurried up the stairs, and headed over to our group. They had rehearsed the piece earlier, since the three of them (and our teacher) had arrived with plenty of time.

We set up our clarinets, but had no time to warm up. After jumping right up on the stage, we tuned. We started a few minutes after 6pm, but we couldn't help that. Fortunately, all of our clarinets were pretty much in tune right from the start!

Our teacher was conducting us. We began to play the piece we had prepared. It is called 'Evil Doctor Craw' by John Barrett.

After we finished, we hopped down. I know I made a couple of mistakes that made me cringe slightly, but nobody else seemed to notice. Or, if they did notice, they didn't mind. I didn't notice many mistakes in the other 4 parts, which was comforting. Our teacher gave us a big thumbs up after we left the stage, and, at that point, I knew we had done well. We won our section.

Three of the members of our group went up later to play a Rondo Trio. And, I must add, they did extremely well.

All in all, it was a brilliant night, full of music and smiles. I wasn't nervous that day, because our previous rehearsal had gone fairly well.

Have you ever entered an Eisteddfod? Were you nervous? How did it go for you?

Concerts!

Over the past weekend, I had two concerts over two days. One in Grafton, and one in Bellingen. These concerts were with the orchestra that I am a part of: The North Coast Performing Art's Association.

The program was:
G.F. Handel - Ouverture from 'An Occasional Oratorio'
J.S. Bach - Keyboard Concerto in DM, BWV 1052 - Soloist: Jenessa Mok
G.F. Handel - "Be Wise", "Ye Sons of Israel", "From the East unto the West"
Antonio Vivaldi - 'Autumn' from The Four Seasons - Soloist: Lachlan Wilkins
Vaughan Williams - 'Toward The Unknown Region'
Benjamin Britten - 'Matinees Musicales', an orchestral suite, after Rossini

Clarinets were only playing in the last two items on the program (The ones by Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten). They were both thoroughly enjoying to play, and my part was interesting! The second clarinet part (which is what I played) had quite a few key parts, and a couple of solo / soli with other instruments bits.

It was heaps of fun, and I can hardly wait for the next set of concerts, in the second half of the year!

For now.. time to concentrate on preparing for my Grade 8 AMEB practical exam!

Thoughts on Fully Diminished 7ths..

It's amazing what one realises late at night.

I was thinking about diminished 7ths. I don't know what it is about them, but I love them. This is probably because you can shift key with them, or just modulate to a different key, but a dominant 7th chord has become more popular to do so. As a result, fully diminished 7ths have become less popular in modern music. In fact, I also like them because there are more ways that a diminished seventh can lead to various keys than a dominant seventh.


I have a piano program on my computer - so pretty much an interactive piano keyboard on my screen.

I began by playing a C fully diminished 7th. I then played an F# fully diminished 7th.

I frowned. And played them again. I double and triple checked that I was playing the right notes.

My discovery? When you play the C fully diminished seventh in it's 2nd inversion, you are playing the exact same keys as an F# fully diminished 7th. Call me crazy, but I never realised this before. Maybe it's because I haven't really played around with diminished sevenths.

But then I thought: What makes the difference between an F# fully diminished 7th, and a C fully diminished 7th in it's second inversion? The answer was rather obvious to me, but I have heard people complain about this sort of thing
.
'There isn't a difference!', they cry out, as they rack their brains trying to figure it out. Their souls weary of the complexity of music, they just want it to be simple. So they say the easiest answer. 'There isn't one.'

But in reality, there is. It's the spelling of the chord.

I mean, as an analogy: 'joyful

F# fully diminished 7 has these notes:

F#, A, C, F double flat

C fully diminished 7 has these notes:

C, Eb, Gb, B double flat (the second inversion has the notes in this order: Gb, B double flat, Eb, Gb )

If you look at them - on a keyboard, F# has the same pitch as Gb, A has the same pitch as B double flat, C has the same pitching as C, and F double flat has the same pitching as Eb.

But it's the way the notes are written on the page that make a difference.

B double flat and A may have the same pitching on a piano, but by no means does that make them the same note. They are two different notes. Same pitching. Different notes. That's why we have keys like C# major and Db major. When you play them, they sound exactly the same - the technique is the same. But the way they are written on paper is what makes a difference between the two.

Types of triads..

This post is pretty much a sum-up of the triads that I have learnt so far through TAFE and my other musical studies, so I can quickly refer to this if I need to. The descriptions I've given are the ones that I learnt in TAFE.



Major triad
1, 3, 5 from it's major scale.






Minor triad
1, flat 3, 5 from the root note's major scale (or 1, 3, 5 from the root note's natural minor scale (ie., in the example, 1, 3, 5 from C Minor).
In chords, you can generally look at the third of the chord to determine whether it's a primarily major or minor - the third kind of voices it. If it's a regular third from the major scale, it's a major chord. If it's a flattened third (from the major scale), or a regular third from the natural minor: it's primarily a minor chord.

Diminished triad
1, flat 3, flat 5, from the root note's major scale
'Diminish' means 'make or become less', and that is what we're doing with this chord. We are taking the minor chord, and making it even smaller by flattening the 5th.

Augmented triad
1, 3, sharp 5 from the root note's  major scale
The definiton of 'augment' is 'make (something) greater by adding to it; increase'.
That's is literally what we're doing, we're making the chord 'bigger' by sharpening the fifth.
(Your fingers stretch further on the keyboard).


Ok so I don't actually know if these two Suspended Chords are counted as triads or not.. I was told they were at TAFE but I'm not entirely sure if it's right. I've read some places that they are and other places don't say that they are. If anyone knows, please comment and let me know if they are or not! :)

Sus2

1, 2, 5 from the root note's  major scale
A Sus chord (suspended chord) is where the third is 'suspended' from it's usual place. In a Sus2, the third is 'suspended' and moved down to the second.




Sus4

1, 4, 5 from the root note's major scale
The same concept as a Sus2 chord is used, except the third is 'suspended' to the fourth place.

Happy New Year!!!

Hello, Blogger land! I have returned from a very long absense!

Since we are not long in to the new year of 2014, I think I might give a brief review of the many things that has happened this year!

JANUARY
I began lessons again at the conservatorium, preparing for my 6th Grade Clarinet exam. I also joined the Chamber Ensemble, Wind Ensemble, Stage band, and Clarinza (a clarinet ensemble)
I enrolled and began to prepare for TAFE

FEBRUARY
I began my TAFE course! Met some pretty amazing people there, too!

MARCH
I think it was March when I auditioned for my first ever play Rockin' Robin, and received a chorus part.

APRIL
Headed back to South Australia for a holiday! Got to catch and meet a heap of the awesome people down there! We had my sister's 21st birthday party, and a homescooling camp.

MAY
I competed, with a clarinet ensemble, in my first ever eisteddfod, and, I'm proud to say, we won our section!
It was also in May that Rockin' Robin had it's performances. I ended up with a few small lines, nothing much, but it was heaps of fun doing it! Unfortunately, the last night of the play clashed with the eisteddfod, and so I couldn't be there for that one, but my sister filled in for me, so it was all good.

JUNE
I continued TAFE and preparing for my exam.

JULY
In July, I once again headed back to South Australia for South Australian Music Camp. I enjoyed it so much, and I really loved catching up with my friends again!

AUGUST
In August, I sat my grade 6 AMEB practical clarinet exam, which I received an A for.
I also helped backstage for the next theatre performance: Wyrd Sisters. On one night, I ended up being an understudy, as one of the actresses was ill, so I had to take her part! Fortunately, I had been prompt, so I knew all her lines already, and I just whacked on a costume and did it. I enjoyed it, too!

SEPTEMBER
In September, I went to the Lennox Head Catholic Homeschooling camp, and I had a blast, as always!
I also performed with the North Coast Performing Arts Association, at the Bellingen Music Festival. We played The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky, and The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins. I played second clarinet, with my teacher beside me on first.
I was also roped in to another play: The Boyfriend. They needed someone to play the character 'Dulcie' for them, so I did. I enjoyed working with my friends that I had made in Rockin Robin, again, and I made a heap more friends! One of them happens to be my favourite person at the moment. :)

OCTOBER
In October, I, once again, performed with the North Coast Performing Arts Association, in two concerts at Nambucca Heads and Grafton. I enjoyed both concerts, as this was my first experience playing in an orchestra.

NOVEMBER
I prepared nonstop for The Boyfriend, and also for the celebration concerts at The Clarence Valley Conservatorium. On the second last weekend of November, I played in the celebration concerts. On the last weekend of November, I performed in The Boyfriend.
I also passed my Tafe course: Cert IV Music Performance

DECEMBER
The first weekend of December held the final performances of The Boyfriend. I loved this play so much!
Later in the month, I turned 18! I held myself a party, which turned out to be an absolute cracker! It was brilliant!
I went to a homeschooler's Christmas Party, which was great fun! My oldest sister came to visit, as well.
Then, on New Years Eve, we went party hopping. We went to a homeschooler's party, and then to a party with our friends from The Criterion.


I want to thank all of my buddies who helped me out this year! And the thing is, a heap of you didn't even know you helped me. All you may have done is a little thing that people would consider "normal", but I remember and appreciate every single moment.

This year has been a year full of firsts for me... first time in an orchestra, first time on a plane, first proper educational course, first play, first boyfriend, first esteiddfod, and, on a much deeper level, it's the first time I've considered a place as 'home'. Yeah, I'm weird, but I never considered where I used to live as home.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! Last year was great, let's make this one absolutely fan-tas-tic! Allons-y!
GERONIMOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Music Exam Results!

My grade is an...

A !

I'm really pleased about this! The comments included how the examiner was pleased that I played all my pieces from memory (even one which was 'lengthy'), how she was pleased that I played my scales promptly and correctly, everything was up to speed, and generally it was very good!

Yay!

Music Exam

After approximately one year of practice, I have finally completed my exam!
Grade 4 - clarinet.

It has been my first ever exam, so I am really pleased with it.

I will get my results within the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

I know it's random, but...

CLARINETS RULE THE WORLD!!!!!!!

You people just didn't know it ;)

Ah.. Music

Yesterday, I did an odd thing.

Well, odd for my family anyway.

I walked up to our cupboard of CD's, and started looking through the shelf of classical music.

Usually, my family an I listen to Rock and Pop music, but I pulled out classical music, I wanted something different.

To my absolute delight, I found a CD with some Mozart songs on it, and 3 of the tracks were songs written for 'Clarinet and Orchestra' so I can listen to some clarinet playing now. (My family gave me a couple of strange looks when they heard me listening to classical music haha)

Looking again, I was debating what to put on after I finished with my first CD I found.

Maybe I should put on Handel.

Or perhaps Beethoven.

Or maybe I could listen to Vivaldi.

I saw a thin CD cover, and pulled it out, wondering what it was. Tchaikovsky.

I pulled it out, and looked through the names of the tracks. A few familiar names popped up 'Nutcracker', 'Sleeping Beauty', '1812 Overture',

So I decided I'd try out this one.

I knew most of the songs from The Nutcracker, because I saw a Barbie version when I was little (you know, before Barbie went insane and started ruining movies and stuff, the nutcracker one they did is actually rather good) - anyway, I really enjoy this suite of music! It is entertaining, the mood varies, as does the type of music. Some of the time it's exciting, other times it's calm. It's happy, and sad. It's energetic, then soft. Oh and the whole suite goes for half an hour, so that's half an hour of happiness.

I haven't listened to other composers yet, so I can't pick a favourite, but Tchaikovsky was a genius.

Do you like to listen to classical music? Who's your favourite composer? Have you listened to Tchaikovsky before, and if so, what do you think of the Nutcracker Suite?