Maybe better luck next time

I had my entrance exam at the Conservatory of Ghent. We got stuck in the traffic so we arrived late. My dad was very stressed about it. The first part in the entrance exam was something that didn't have anything to do with music. You had to write a philosophical essay and write the explanation of words that didn't have anything to with music like parliament and city hall.

The second part was divided into two and it was the written part of the theory exam. First there was a part where you had to write down melodies, chords, intervals, scales or rhythms the teacher played. The second half was just general music knowledge.

The third part was the singing a capella and prima vista of a piece. As I am not a singer, I did my best and the teaches saw it very well, they don't expect you to be as good as a singer as my instruments are the percussions.

The fourth part was then when I had to play infront of teachers and other members of the conservatory. I was asked to play the timpani piece, the marimba piece, the snare-drum piece and the set-up piece. I played really well the marimba piece and the timpani piece. As for the set-up I started off too quickly and I was stressed so I couldn't keep it up. The snare-drum was fine. I then had to talk with the jury and they asked me a few questions about my musical career and so on and I handed in a motivation paper. They said to me that I was very talented, musical and that I had a sense of rhythm.

I got the bad news the following day. They announced all the ones that got throgh and I wasn't one of them. I was quite sad of not being taken but on the other hand I understand that I need to improve a lot in my snare-drumming. What I mean by this is that I have the academy level in playing but not like conservatory level, could be improved. I've heard now from quite a few conservatories that I have the talent and that I should maybe change teacher because he is not good enough (I have to agree with this).

Impress the jury at the academy might still not be enough to get into a conservatory

I had my percussion exam at my academy. As I'm the one with the highest level in the academy, I played last. I tried to be as calm as possible but my knees were shacking when I played the vibraphone and the marimba. I played the six pieces I had played in the class concert few months ago. This time I played them very much better than then. I tried to calm down and I barely made any mistaked. There is something I don't like about the academy's marimba, it has small bars and so I think it's easier to hit the wrong notes. I think the best piece was probably the piece I played on the drums even though at one point I played the wrong thing but I managed not to make it seem like a mistake. There were two headmasters and the teacher giving points of the exam and I scored 94% which is a pretty high mark. The jury was apparently impressed of what I played and susprided of my high level. This was nice to hear but this might still not be enough to get into a conservatory and I'm very stressed about that.

I have my accordion exam in the middle of my exam week and my harpsichord exam in between the written and the oral exams.

Composing using different styles and performances using different instruments

I created a SoundCloud account to put in my compositions of this school year and the ones from last year. All in all there are 5 compositions (two from last year and three from this year).

https://soundcloud.com/serafina95

I also created a myspace account to put in my performances. One of the performances wouldn't load onto myspace so I put into SoundCloud. There are all in all 2 performances from last year and 4 from this year. As instruments I've used the accordion, the drums, the marimba and the Vibraphone.

https://new.myspace.com/adamariash

Going to the “Médiathèque” and Review of The Killers album Hot Fuss

http://www.lamediatheque.be

As I got a card for the “Médiathèque” here in Belgium, I could rent old and new Cds and different genres to then eventually download on my computer. I rented a bunch of albums of different styles from reggae (eg. Musical Youth, Bob Marley, UB40) to rock (eg. The Killers, The Offspring, Sex Pistol, Biffy Clyro), DJ music (eg. Swedish House Mafia, Example)and pop (eg. Noah and the Whale, Carly Ray Jepsen).

I came across this 2004 album “Hot Fuss” by The Killers which I remember listening to a few songs from that album when I was younger: “Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside”. I used to really like them, and I still really enjoy them but having listened to the album for quite a few times, I now have a new favourite: “Jenny was a friend of mine”. I has just the catchiest bass riff ever that really stays on your mind. I like the fact that for ones the bass plays a big role in the piece as very often the bass is just something that is important but is usually one doesn't really pay a lot of attention to it. The keyboards add an interesting layer to this piece as it has an “outer space” sound to it. What I mean by this it's that it uses high notes and keeps them held. Also the use of the syntetic sound makes me thinks this way. I really like the voice of the singer in general and I especially like the use of his voice in this song, it's very pleasent to listen to and makes you want to sing along. About the drumming, I like the fast snare-drum hits he does and how he uses his hi-hat is very cool. All in all the whole piece is great and actually the whole album is great as I never get bored my it, honestly I think I've listened to it about 50 times. I would give a 10/10 for this wonderful art-work. Everyone should listen to this album because every song is special in its own way.

Christmas church event

On the 23^rd of December I went to an event organised by the church. All people gather in church to sing together the prettiest Christmas songs. So I went there to sing along with the others both because it's a finnish tradition and because I wanted to go and sing. It's a very popular event all around Finland and throughout this event money is collected for charity. Last year 600 000 € were made thanks to this nice and pleasant event. Doing music to gain money for charity is also a very good reason to go to this happening. It was a nice event as all people gathered to celebrate together an important time of the year, Christmas, to do something that a lot of people enjoy, singing! About 18 songs were sang. Some of the songs were very familiar as I've sang them since a young age others were a positive discovery. The women playing the organ wasn't one of my favourites. I think she played oddly, using different registers in a weird way, and I noticed quite a few mistakes.

You always learn a lot in music camps

I took part in a music summer camp in Finland. I have been there before and I love it. It's a pop/rock course where for one week one practices songs in different bands and at the end perform them like real rock stars. The teachers that teach at this course are themselves professional musicians that have played for a number of famous singers/bands such as Kirka. In total this year there were five bands, I was in four of them. In three I played the keyboards and in one I played the drums. 

On the drums I played Supermassive black hole by Muse and Show must go on by Queen. That band was called: Sensuroitu (Finnish word that means cencored). Both songs were fun to play even though they weren't very difficult. It's not always about how difficult a piece is but also how the whole band makes it sound. In that band there were all the ones that had most experience in music. In one of the bands (Riikosen Juusonaksut that mean the cheese balls of Riikonen, might soung wierd as a band name but it was kind of a joke during the music camp) I was the only keyboard player and we played Over you by Honor Society, This Love by Maroon 5 and It's my life by Bon Jovi. In the third band (Fengot) I was a second keyboard and we played White Shadows by Coldplay, Home by Micheal Bublé and Resistance by Muse. I joined the last band last minute because it seemed that the keyboard player wasn't playing enough so I helped her out. This band called Banaanit which mean Bananas, played 21 Guns by Greenday and Pahalta Piilossa by Suvi Teräsniska.

I had a week to learn all those songs well so that they could be performed in a funny place. It was a wooden building kind of in the middle of nowhere. I managed to learn all of them very well as one played hours and hours a day.

Improvising is always fun

I missed one earlier performance at the Flagey of my improvisation group. This time the concert took place at the Music Academy of Auderghem. So it was the two schools performing together. It was an interesting experience as it's improvisation one doesn't need to practice and not having seen the other musicians before doesn't matter at all. There were a wide range of instruments but even though I play a lot of instruments I decided to play the piano, because it's the instrument on which I like most to improvise. As it is a large group playing and for about 15 minutes one is not supposed to play the whole time but maybe only on tenth of the whole duration. A recording of the concert was made.