Atlanta Day 3

It was a tiring but enriching day. I was a little overwhelmed yet there's so much to learn about music culture. Overwhelmed by the "culture shock" of how the lessons were taught, enriched by the new things to learn and how it really pushes one to think.

As a start for the day, I met up with the librarian of the music library for lunch as an informal meeting. Tomorrow morning would be a tour of the library before I am attached to her for Thurs & Friday. After that, it was classes straight from 2-9pm.

Today's first class was the module "Musical Transformation of Asia". It started out with singing Bengawan Solo, followed by the lecture titled "Musical, not Music": The Islamic Call to Prayer. What was different was that it started with us trying to "transcribe" what we heard, in terms of the musical structure. We could use any notations to denote how the length and pitches played out for the adhan and after which the significance of the structure and rules was explained. Not used to it at first, I couldn't notate (tried text), but then I finally figured trying with just dots & strokes. Didn't really get everything, but I got the gist of things. On a side note, my mentor explained that music theory was more than just the classical "beansprouts" that we learn, which is really just pertaining to 1 specific type of music theory. Anyway, we learnt about how important & impactful soundscapes were and learnt a bit more about Singapore's history as my mentor gave an example in Singapore's context.

After the lecture, it was gamelan lesson. It was Central Javanese, so it was a familiar structure.

2nd class for the day was a Freshman module. The lecture today was on Carnatic tradition (South Indian vocals) by a guest lecturer. It was tough! The structure is pretty complex and it was difficult to catch. Then it was gamelan session again.

the 3rd class was a 2-hr workshop on playing the Korean janggu drums. It was the first time I'm playing it and I found some difficulty coordinating both hands. You've really got to memorise the piece and can't concentrate too much on the playing or else you can't play it (with all the actions), but rather go with the "feel".

It was a tiring day. Tomorrow's more free & easy, starting with the tour of the library in the morning, and after that not sure what to do in the afternoon.

Wow, I really don't think I can survive if I took the course/major as it's really totally different the way things are here from Singapore's education system. And ethnomusicology is more or less an untouched domain in Singapore; what we term as ethnomusicology in Singapore is really much less in-depth.