ohhh... i am sorry, Miss Kitara. i didn't know. i hope all goes well.

chuckles

Hey, you.

I am just wondering who you think I am stranger than...

How is your day doing?

voda is in surgery

Nice one, so sexy.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F17fazafnud0d1.jpeg

good afternoon, Miss Kitara

Hello joseph

Rule

slips quietly in

Law

smiling

hey stranger

https://cdn5-images.motherlessmedia.com/images/F57B862.jpg

mona…. Crown … just the bottle

drifts through

looks in for a few

High

Disorder

ERA

Effective Rump Allocation

The last year of my job was made kind of stupid in the aftermath of COVID. I wasn't going to get fired, but at my age there was no point in searching for a new job. I could do my job in about an hour or two a day, so I decided to start my "retirement plan" a year early. So Erellant's typist is back at school at the local community college studying music theory.

I'm now a week away from taking my last final exam in the two-year, lower-division music majors theory and harmony sequence. My teacher is INCREDIBLE....I am so very lucky to get to study with her. My core class has been a really great group of students to hang with. For one thing, most of them are 19-14 years old and it's good for this old man to spend time with young people. Around the department there are a number of us 50+ (I'm 50 ++++++) adults and the kids basically just accept us as peers. There are a few who seem to think that all people older than they are have some mysterious disease, but most of them are great. My "cohort" is one 19 year old kid (crazy, wicked smart!), a 20 year old, two 22 year olds, a 40-year old mom who is going back to school to study multi-media production and discovered that she loved music theory (wow!) and a guy who is taking a couple of years off from his fast-track business administration-type career to get a solid foundation in music, especially electronic music. We all have our strong points, mine being that I've played chamber music and orchestral music for longer than most of them have been alive, but I'm also the slowest guy in class. If someone asks a fundamentally dumb question, it'll be me, but nobody cares.

Classes taken during the past two years?

Four semesters of Theory and Harmony
--A semester of musicianship
--A semester of "small jazz ensembles"
--Voice I and II ('cause I've never been a singer...puch me out of my comfort zone!)
--three semesters of Class Piano. (I suck at it!)

My goal is twofold....1.) to be able to compose primarily "classical" music to play with my friends and 2.) to be able to competently serve as an assistant conductor for the Chamber Orchestra that I formed and currently serve as orchestra manager for.

On April 25th I did a recital at the college. all my young friends are taking lessons on their instruments while they're in the program, of course. They have to put on short studio recitals and play for juries. I'm NOT taking instrument lessons, yet, so haven't had to do that. That didn't seem fair, so I did a full-on recital on April 25th. This is what we performed.

1.) I talked my Harmony professor into playing piano, so she and I and a singing friend from the jazz ensembles class, who is a kickass classical soprano, did a Franz Schuber "lieder" (song) to open the first half.
2. Friends Brenda and "Amy the Cellist" did the first movement of the Brahms Trio for clarinet, cello and piano.
3. We finished the first half with a jazz quartet made up of the drummer and bassist from my jazz ensemble class, teamed up with my friend Bill who is an absolutely killer jazz pianist.

Second Half...
1.) friends formed a woodwind quintet and played my adaption of the Ukrainian folk song "Plyve Kacha". So, traditional song, my very "20th century" arrangement of the piece.
2.) then a string quartet of friends played two Tangos that I composed/arranged for string quartet and clarinet.
3.) The string orchestra that I manage agreed to play three things on the show. Q.) An original tune for strings, oboe and flute that I named "Anastasia" because the singer that I started it for (who bailed on the project) said it gave her "Anastasia vibes". I actually think of the tune as Gioia's piece. B.) an arrangement of "Plyve Kacha" that I did for string orchestra, clarinet and french horn. C.) then I conducted the whole gang in a nice run-through of the "Pavane" by French composer, Gabriel Faure.

You can hear the orchestra that I manage, write for, and sometimes conduct, here"
https://soi-gabrieli.hyperchat.com/Bloch4Web.mp3

That's a llive recording of a piece by American composer, Ernest Bloch (not me!)

This is my Final Project for Harmony IV...a piece for three hands piano (three pianos, three players, one-hand-each-player) that's supposed to use a bunch of 20th century compositional techniques...things used by the likes of Debussy, Ravel, Copland, Stravinsky

https://soi-gabrieli.hyperchat.com/HarmonyIV-FinalProject-audio.mp3

This is one of the Tangos I did for String Quartet and Clarinet...which we're actually playing on a chamber music concert on May 18th.

https://soi-gabrieli.hyperchat.com/TangoconVeraaMedianoche.mp3

This is my arrangement of the Ukrainian song "Plyve Kacha" for strings, clarinet and french horn.

https://soi-gabrieli.hyperchat.com/Plyve-Kacha-str-bass-frHrn-clar-FINAL.mp3

And finally, here's "Anastasia". (aka "Gioia's")

https://soi-gabrieli.hyperchat.com/Anastasiacorrectedparts.mp3

So, this is where I'm "at" right now.

Next year I'm going to audit the third and fourth semesters of lower dividion Harmony again, because this shit is HARD. I'm going up to the State college up the road and taking Counterpoint and Orchestration. I might take a conducting class and really tempting....take the "Composing Music for Movies and Television" course. I'll also take a year of class lessons on viola (I bought a student level viola) and I'll take a recording technology class. I also should take one more semester of musicianship, and I might take a songwriting class.

After that, I will have completed essentially a bachelors degree in music with an emphasis in composition and I guess I'm ready to be let loose on the world!

Anyway, that's what's been going on for the past two years, with three more semesters to go.

I miss RP'ing, miss my old "Erellant" character but y'know....LIFE, right? I hope you're all doing well, and keeping Gor alive and kicking!