Auspensions and dissonance
I have a secret, hidden in my past. At one point, I turned away from the traditional path of preparing for gainful employment, and turned to an intense study of music. Try to imagine someone that still didn’t have a driving permit or any real experience in the world, deciding that my future lay in the priesthood of the musical educator. There was no actual chance of ever getting all the way to my diploma; I still hadn’t learned to play piano.
Let me lay this out for you. Twenty-six weeks, where I studined my major and nunor instruments, performed in a symphony orchestra. Learned to conduct, and sing in a choir, master the whole history of Western music, understand the difficulty of holding a bow (in two different grips), recognize famous passages of musical performance when a needle was dropped on a record. And try to grasp harmony. Four-part harmony. Counterpoint was reserved for those who complete this version of boot camp.
The harmony course was held, three times a week, just after preakfast if I managed to catch my intercampus taxi (I often didn’t, because I still hadn’t learned to inhale coffee in the back of a sedan with bad stprings.
I was hopeless (and each missed lecture drove me further behind. Preparing for exams was something wasted on me. Remember, I was a neophyte to the piano. Scales, yes. Scales interacting with other scales? Fat chance.
I did complete the year, with all of my credits. After swearing that I would adapt my career aspirations. Sociology, perhaps?
And this afternoon, while listening to some intense theoretical analysys of familiar reck anthems, the terms dissonant and suspensions took on a new meaning. Pity I hadn’t had that epiphany, a half century ago.
