Another Ordinary Day

School was normal....German, Classical Symphony, and Vocal Performance Workshop.....at least I was awake for German today, and between classes I checked e-mail and finished my reading for Classical Symphony....we had another interesting discussion today, albeit a bit more cerebral and hardly practical to what we're actually studying....so it was intellectually interesting, but not too much about the classical symphony and all.....basically we talked about the problems associated with the term "classical" and it's use in musicology to define a period and a style form....it was all ridiculous, since of course the term cannot be all-inclusive and representative and at the same time generalize....that's the whole point! Whatever...it was still interesting and all.....and we did talk a little more about sonata form and such....after that I went grocery shopping with Mike (it's our thing...we're Hofer whores....) and had a declicious tuna sandwich at home before returning to the institute for the performance workshop. Thank God I didn't sing tonight...that would have been awful. It was fun to hear everyone else, though....they started with the 4 people that didn't get to sing last week, and then we heard some people sing Schubert (he asked everyone to bring in Schubert that they had worked on). It was interesting....always good to hear these people's voices again and again....my initial awe at the overall quality of the vocalists is starting to diminish ever so slightly as I see their technical (and musical) flaws become more apparent. A lot of them have great voices, but can't phrase things well (or, have good phrasing that was given to them, but clearly have no idea what it means....this one person when they sang their song a second time did it exactly the same way.....even the hand clasp on the two modulations to the parallel major...it was as if she was operating on a given set of commands for each phrase which could not vary) and some people have some technical issues that I didn't notice before. Now, I still maintain that they're all better singers than me (a lot better, in most cases) but it's still really helpful to see the kind of work that needs to be done on that level. It was fun, and Russell is so great...I really like him a lot, and I like watching him work with other people...I'm picking up a lot about rehearsal technique even in these workshop situations!

Anyway, after the workshop I came home, had a simple dinner of pasta, and was presently invited to go out briefly with Jess and Rebecca to 1516, a quasi-American bar in the 1st district. People have mentioned it many many times, but I'd never been there before...it was OK. I had a decent vodka orange which set me back about €6, but they had some good beer and the atmosphere was pretty neat. I'd never been to a bar here before, so it was fun to see what they were like....it was kind of weird to hear american songs on the speakers and the waitresses only spoke to us in English.....it wasn't an american bar specifically (not like the sports bar that shows American football and baseball and stuff....) and it was definitely filled with Austrians, but it was certainly anglo-friendly, probably just by nature of being in the 1st district. After that I came home, and now I'm off to bed to sleep in! (and tomorrow morning I go to the Museum der Stadt Wien with AA&A!! YAY!!!!)