The Nature of Hemispheres, part 2

(I'm trying, really trying to keep this shorter than the last one)

So college: college was kinda weird starting out. Toward the end of my high school days I had positively no idea of what I wanted to do with myself. I've always been interested in scholarship in one form or another so (since I was still very involved in religion), the thought came to me to study religion and philosophy. I went so far as to apply and be accepted to the School of Religion and Philosophy at the Western Kentucky Unversity at Bowling Green. During the summer I had a bit of an epiphany. Which was: I didn't really want to be a philosopher or religious scholar.

This was, of course, something like a month before classes began. In a bit of a panic, and to my mama's relief I'm sure, I applied to the University of North Alabama (TUNA). I attended TUNAs summer orientation and met with the advisors of the music dept. My background in rock music was, actually, not a huge surprise to them. They have a program tailored to musicians who are interested in a carreer in music business as opposed to education or performance. They called it their Commercial Music degree, or option I as it was tagged. It wasn't a full-on degree. It was a general degree in music with a concentration in commercial music, or some crap. I didn't finish that degree so I'm not sure. To keep this from dragging on (more) endlessly, let me sum up by saying I joined the school, learned to read (music), and was essentially trained as a classical musician. I auditioned for and got into the Collegiate Singers, the school's auditioned choir. In another bit of cosmic kismet, my first major choral undertaking was the Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, the choral music cognate to heavy metal.

Over the course of the next year I formed a deep appreciation for classical music, particularly organ and choral. I remained in choir for all but one semester of the 5 years of my undergraduate degree (I took my time). I sang in every choral ensemble the university offered. I even played bad jazz guitar for the vocal jazz ensemble. I sang everything from 15th century madrigals, to really fucked up 20th century choral pieces with taped electronics, and pretty much everything in between. I actually still remember the concert when I decided that someday I wanted to play the pipe organ. We were singing for the school's convocation and Dr. Tom Ed Moore was playing the organ as per usual. You must understand, I grew up in a baptist church. I'd never even really heard a pipe organ before. He played a couple of majestic and showy pieces (pretty sure he played the Widor, Toccata). The choir was situated right under the pipe chamber and I remember thinking, "Holy shit, what else have I missed out on?" I talked to the professor afterward about the organ fairly extensively and so began a relationship which absolutely shaped me as a musician. Dr. Moore and I developed and almost old-world kind of apprenship. I began studying organ with him during my sophomore year. I'm sorry to say I was a terrible organ student. I didn't practice nearly enough and by and large probably only managed to shorten his life by a few years. Fortunately, a lot of good came of these lessons, I began traveling with Tom Ed to his weekly gigs as a page turner. I learned a ton about organ registration and met a lot of great people during all that. It was also during this time that I became interested in composing music. Tom Ed is a composer himself (M.M. in Composition) and was glad to devote part of my hopeless organ lesson to the equally hopeless compositions I began bringing him.

My time at TUNA was sort of crowned by my senior recital. I wrote, organized, rehearsed, and produced a full hour-long concert of original compositions, the only of it's kind before or since. I don't actually remember a lot about the process other than that it was a ton of work. I also remember also very nearly getting fired from my night job as a grocery store manager. I would come into work after a full day of classes, composing, rehearsing, planning, etc. and sit in my little office and read fantasy books. I still have a few programs from the performance. I'll have to see if I can get one scanned or something and put up an image of it sometime. It also featured a performance by the incomperable Ms. Hill.

From my undergrad, I wanted to continue my studies in composition in a more concetrated way. I courted UMKC a little bit but in the end they turned me down for admission. This kind of came a blow to me. Up until then I was used to being a rather large fish in something akin to a gold fish bowl. I eventually applied to and was accepted to the University of South Carolina. To this day, looking back, I'm still amazed that they allowed me into their program. Around my second year of my masters degree, my audition portfolio of compositions was returned to me. I thumbed through it nostalgically and was positively horrified at what I found. I won't bore you with all the details but one in particular has always stuck in my mind. First a little setup: a common musical practice is to slow down at the end of a phrase or piece to emphasize its finality. The musical direction for this practice is called ritardando (abbreviated rit., verbally abbreviated ritard.) It's Italian, lots of music stuff is. Above the system, I had actually written slight retard. "Watch out for the slight retard," I almost certainly said in a rehearsal. Someday, when I have an office at a respectable college I plan on having that page, framed and my slight retard highlighted, hang right next to my doctorate.

Luckily Drs. Rogers and Bain forgave my ritardedness and let me into their fine school. Shortly after my arrival at USC I realized I knew virtually nothing, and set about relieving this trouble as best I could. An incredible amount of growth as a person and as a musician and composer came to pass while I was at USC (try to keep the shock off your faces, it's only polite). I continued to sing occasionally at USC but mainly focused on honing my craft as a composer. The rock n' roll and blues I had cut my musical teeth on had gone to the back burner.

After USC, I decided to move to Boston to become the next big thing in the world of contemporary classical music. The move was punctuated by a lack of preparation on my part and ended with me living in an apartment that smelled like terror. It was also during this time that I met the Lady Rebecca. Soon after, it became apparent that Boston was not where I needed to stay. It was a great town but not for me. Save writing and recording a couple of goofy geek songs with a friend, not much musical happened to me while I was in Boston.

Which brings me to the last year (in 3500 words or less), I moved to just outside of Motown a little under a year ago. I began teaching music (guitar, bass, and theory) privately about six months ago and I wish to God I had thought to try this sooner. I have Rebecca to thank for that. I really enjoy teaching and it has shown me that it's possible to make a living as a musician without having to teach in a college. Before my move here, I had diluted myself into thinking that.

Musically today I'm still wrestling with the same dualisms I have been for years. Am I classical composer or a bluesman? The short answer is "yes". I'm still working out how that's going to play out. Since I started teaching I really began honing my bass chops again. I've started studying with a teacher and am studying jazz. I would love to start/join a band and be able to play out. I also intend to keep composing. I haven't written anything major since my thesis. (I'm currently working on my wedding music, it'll happen Rebecca/Serena, I promise.) I'm taking organ lessons again and this time around I'm actually practicing. It's amazing what that does for your playing. I think of my hiatus from composing that I'm learning to be a musician, finally. By honing my bass and organ playing, I'm able to go inside someone else's music on a level that I never had to do as chorister and never knew how to do as a composer. This never-ending oscillation between my rock roots and my classical sensibilities is something that I've been working on for several years now. I suspect I'll never fully get it wrapped up but it helps to know that I'm, by far, not the only musician dealing with that sort of duality.

Ok jebus, now if you've read all that, firstly, you deserve a treat, and, secondly, you should have some inkling as to what informs my opinions on music. Which I will, undoubtedly, unload on you in the coming days/weeks. I may give it a rest for a fews before I dive back into all that again. All this serious talk is a drag.

-Kroy has gone offline


My friend Fats he's a hell of a guy