The Experiment Continues

I wake up in morning and sing a pitch that I think is smack dab in the middle of my range. It is usually a G3 or a half or whole step off from that. Today I tried is a different way: in the shower of thought of One-Note Samba, which starts on F3. I then sang the first note into my tuner, and it was an F3. The tuner didn't even tell me to tune it up or down. It helps that that note is only a whole step down from the G, and that I often hit that G when I think of the magical middle note. If I think of the first note of All the Things You Are that will be Ab. The first note of Bemsha Swing will be G.

So the experiment is this. For someone who doesn't have perfect pitch, can you train yourself to come up with pitches like this out of the blue? Most people will start to sing a song they have heard many times on or about the pitch where it actually starts, because it is simply more likely than any other pitch, if they don't think about it too much.

If I could reliably hit the G, then I could sing up the G scale to C, etc....

3 degrees of canonicity

1. Inclusion on reading lists and academic curricula.

2. The existence of a critical industry devoted to this figure. Is there a Wallace Stevens society? If so, then he is probably a canonical writer. This critical industry will document everything about the writer, life and works.

3. The third modality is creative afterlife. includes performances, translations, and adaptations. A canonical playwright is one whose works are staged. A canonical composer is performed by musicians. Canonical authors are parodied or translated into other languages. And, what concerns me in my present work, some of them inspire music settings

A lot of the secondary literature on the canon only talks about (1). [!]. I think (2) and (3) are more significant, because they are the mark of writers who aren't merely included in a canon nominally but are hypercanonical.

This distinction also helps me clarify my own relation to Lorca. I am interested in (3) but have little wish to be part of (2) in its documentary aspects.

Seinfeldeando

I've realized that the Seinfeld chain only works with a physical calendar. You have to have that physical object to keep yourself accountable. It doesn't work just to say that you will work most days. So I am starting a new chain now. I am on my second day, looking forward to keeping it going through the end of the semester and the sabbatical, etc...

A normal person would wait until the end of the semester, and perhaps after the New Year.  But I am not a normal person.

Dream of Nonnos

In my dream I saw Stan at the Merc. I asked him if he liked my contribution to the Nonnos translation, and he said "Not very much." I said "We'll talk later." When I woke up I realized that it was a dream and felt relieved. Maybe Stan will not dislike my translation.

I get good stuff in the mail

The other part of the routine

The other part of the practice routine is to stop once the timer rings. You can finish the musical phrase or even the piece if you are close to the end, but don't keep working on it once the time is up.

The reason is to keep the practice segments ultra-concentrated. The idea is to see gradual learning over the course of weeks or months.

Routine

Here's a practice routine I have. I set the timer for 10 minutes, and practice one tune. I have a list of 9 tunes and I play all of them  Then for another 10 minutes I play another, random tune, a different one every day. This is 100 minutes. I can also halve it and have a 50 minute day. It doesn't have to be all at once, I can return to the piano throughout the day. What is important is that concentration must remain on the same tune for the entire five or ten minutes.

The tunes vary in difficulty and also in how well I know them. I figure that I could be doing some combination of three types of learning:  learning (for the first time), solidifying, or deepening knowledge. Thus it doesn't matter where on the spectrum a given tune is. If I don't know it well, then I am learning it; if I do, then I am deepening my knowledge of it. I have to be careful that I don't get stuck playing something the same way every time, solidifying when I should be deepening instead.  

5 or 10 minutes is enough to learn, better, one part of a tune, to develop some new improv ideas about it, or to solidify some parts of it. If I don't know the tune at all, it is enough time to play through the melody several times, or to get down a four-bar phrase with the chords.

If this works correctly, then I will have repertory of 9 standards. I could modify the routine by subbing out a tune for another one. The tenth tune is actually the most important part of this, because that allows me to avoid boredom, practice sight-reading, and to gradually expand my knowledge.

The tunes are these

One note samba
Rhythm changes in Bb
All of me
Mr. PC
Giant Steps
Autumn Leaves
Bemsha Swing
All the things you are
Satin Doll