Subject: Adventures in Creative Futility:
Organ Lessons 28 and 29, my Piano 2 final, and two concerts
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 21:06:33 -0700
To: {The Adventures in Creative Futility Network}

Ladies and Gentlemen, Maestras and Maestros:

    I've been more than a tad busy, lately, with my dad's retirement,
the editing of his retirement party videotape, and preparations for my
Piano 2 final, and lots of very busy weekends, but things are finally
winding down.
    My Piano 2 final exam is in three parts: theory (three weeks ago
this past Wednesday evening), Skills (this past Wednesday evening), and
Repertoire (this coming Wednesday evening). The theory test went
extremely well, considering as how I mis-interpreted a 4-measure
fragment we were asked (on a multiple-guess ScanTron) to harmonize. It
seems I failed to notice that the fragment was in a-minor, instead of
C-Major (the dead giveaway should have been that the first three notes
formed a descending a-minor triad! Oops!) Even so, I somehow managed to
only miss two of the four questions on that fragment. After the test, we
worked on the pieces for the rest of the final, and Dr. Gould was
impressed enough with our progress on the Bach that he decided that
those of us doing the Bach for the final could skip the harmonization
exercise, if we wanted to tackle the Bach in its entirety (instead of
just the first theme). That suited me fine!
    My 28th organ lesson was two weeks ago, and the circumstances
surrounding it were more interesting than the lesson itself: First,
Maestro York set it for the afternoon, to make way for an event (I can't
recall whether it was a wedding or a funeral) in the morning; then, he
had to move it to the early morning, because he had a last-minute call
for another event (whichever the other event wasn't). And so while I was
working on the Bach Minuet (which is now not only the repertoire piece
for my Piano 2 final, but also for my first student recital), I was
having to put up with gardeners outside, providing an accompaniment on
instruments that had only a "Leafblower Stentoris" stop. At any rate,
because of the dual importance of the Bach, we worked on it to the
exclusion of all else.
    The day after that lesson, one of the two church services I attended
was the Noon Mass at St. Anne's Roman Catholic. After the service,
Maestra Puhl informed me of the May 16th concert at Garden Grove United
Methodist (which I announced to PIPORG-L). At first, I thought it might
conflict with another concert I was already committed to attending that
weekend, but happily, that wasn't the case.
    This past weekend, the 16th and 17th there was no organ lesson, and
I was unable to attend any services, because of a videotape crew
commitment at a skating competition. Thankfully, though, the competition
ended both days in the early afternoon, and so I was able to attend what
turned out to be a lovely recital Saturday Evening, by four of Orange
County's finest organists (two of whom, Melody Armstrong and Norberto
Guinaldo, performed their own compositions). Sunday Evening was an
orchestral concert, featuring the Orange Coast College Philharmonic,
Alan Remington, cond., with my Dr. Gould, my piano teacher, as featured
soloist in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
    This past Wednesday evening was the "skills" part of my Piano 2
final. I spent so much time preparing my scales, primary chords, and
inversions, that (with the time I was spending editing my father's
retirement video) I had no time at all to work on the Bach. Fortunately,
none of my goofs in were severe enough to cost me much, and I finished
the "skills" portion of the final with 91 out of 100 points.
    This morning was Organ Lesson 29. Once again, we worked on the Bach,
to the exclusion of all else. My having concentrated almost all of what
little practice time I could scrape together on the skills section of
the final definitely showed, but not to the point where we couldn't
accomplish *anything* useful; indeed, we did make some progress, and I
now have an actual FREE WEEKEND to devote to the Bach.
    Please wish me luck on the remainder (i.e. the lion's share) of my
Piano 2 final.
--
James H. H. Lampert
http://www.hb.quik.com/jamesl