I had pretty much given up ever figuring out where I put my Popper Studies...it was driving me bonkers...I knew I practiced them 3 years ago...and when I quit my cello lessons I didn't throw them away...I never threw away music unless it was copyrighted music that I was using for my schoolwork which I had a copy of...and then I threw it away (yes, I really am that kind of goody-tu-shoes (sp?)...I BUY all of my music, recording or sheet, I delete any music that I do not own after I am done using it for whatever class I was using it for...unless I liked it and then I bought it...a total ninny)...
During my undergraduate the cello professor at ASU, Thomas Landschoot (great teacher btw, it just kind of threw me that he was so close to my age...and I probably drove him nuts as a student, for which I feel bad about after teaching college students myself) had everyone in his studio buy Popper's 40 Studies: High School of Cello Playing, Opus 73 for cello. We were supposed to come to our lesson the next week having memorized whatever one of the 40 he assigned us. I was pretty much the only one who didn't...
...now give me a bit of a break, I was a Music Education student...being a professional cellist was definitely not on my radar...that is not a great excuse, but it's better than saying I was a Performance student...I did change my degree to a Bachelor of Arts, music being the focus and music theory and composition the specialty...but still...
...and I have a severe difficulty memorizing anything...believe me, it took a great deal of brain power to do any scripture mastery which I quickly forgot after memorizing it, the YW theme only sticks because I did it every Sunday for six years (no good now, it's changed a good bit), and I once did the Proclamation because I would get a free meal out of it...hmm, now there's a thought...
Anyways, guilt has crept it's way into me, and I determined to memorize every single one of those freakishly difficult (for me) studies, even if it killed me. This determination came during the hey day of my masters program.
Problem: after taking a year of lessons at Alabama, I lost my Popper studies book. Hard to memorize when you don't have them.
Seriously, I probably looked through ALL of my stuff, including my music stuff in NM, about 30 times...thoroughly...
So today I am going through my binders looking for my set theory binder to do a refresher course on terminology...I pull out an unmarked binder, open it up (it's my Beethoven Sonata's course binder)...and what is sitting in the middle of the binder???
My Popper Studies...
Why is it there? ................................I am at a loss for words on that one. Can't even fathom why I would have stuck it in there in the first place. Or why I didn't see it when I packed up those binders the last 4 times...
Well...now I have it. I guess I can start taking a crack at them to make my undergrad teacher proud.
1 comment:
Sooo been there and done that one. What kind of an organism is that brain that causes us to put things in places we would never do and then forget that that was where we put them? I really want to know.
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