Precious little time to blog...

The past week has been crazy. If I had known things would get THIS hectic, I would  have taken the Kodaly Summer Course for audit instead. When they called it an "intensive 10-day course," they really meant it! Here's our schedule:

8:00 -- 9:30: Musicianship: My solfege/ dictation skills are so rusty! The shame, the shame... though I'm learning heaps from our excellent Hungarian professor, Dr. Laszlo Nemes. What a great musician, and an even greater soul! We ADORE him.

He starts us off everyday sightreading Gregorian chant pieces, written in ancient church modes (they were composed long before absolute tuning and the major/minor scales were developed, you see).

Then he gives us exercises in solfege, deciphering harmonies, part-work (he'll give you a piece of music and ask you to play the melody on the piano, then sing the same melody WHILE playing the piano... only you have to come in singing one measure AFTER, so you're doing it in canon with your piano playing ... AAAAAA!! Talk about splitting the brain in half! Or he'll give you a three-part chorale and ask you to sing the middle line while playing the top and bottom parts on the piano.), and some dictation and harmonic analysis thrown in.

9:30 -- 9:45: Break (This is barely enough time to go to the loo and get a sip of water from the canteen)

9:45 -- 11:15: Methods, where we are taught very specific steps on how to design our lesson plans and teach effectively.

11:15 -- 12:15: Chorus Class, my favorite time of the day. :) His knowledge of choral rehearsal technique is amazing! Even our warm-ups have a bit of theory in application thrown in.

12:15 -- 1:15: Lunch

1:15 -- 2:15: Elective (we had Philippine Music under Ma'am Franco the first week, I understand next week we have Recorder Class)

2:15 -- 3:15: Conducting: My classmates in the advanced conducting class are mostly experienced conductors (Ate Joyce was a Conducting MAJOR), so inexperienced I stick out like a sore thumb. Still, I'm learning a lot :) No symphonies for me in the near future, though, that's for sure.

3:15 -- 4:30: Materials for the 1st week (where we learned 50 songs and games), and next week we have Practicum (we'll do peer teaching. Lesson planning, here we come!)

I feel so frustrated because I am unable to focus on the requirements of the course (daily assignments and even tests to prepare for!), thanks to grad.requirements (our college graduation is on the 24th, our university graduation on the 27th). The past several days saw me running to and fro, here there and everywhere. I still don't know when I'll find the time to do my clearance... probably after graduation na. *sigh*

Petty ranting aside, I am very grateful and humbled by the events of the past week. Blessings upon blessings!! Truth be told, I am overwhelmed by the enormity of it all, by His boundless generosity. And I am also very much pressured, hehe, but I am confident that He will help me get through the difficult week ahead.

      "Who among the gods is like you, O LORD ?
       Who is like you—
       majestic in holiness,
       awesome in glory,
       working wonders?"

The sunflowers are in bloom. :)