The Longy Ledger - Vol. 2 Issue One
What's up everybody we back! The Longy Ledger. Another week!
Hello! And welcome back to or welcome to the Longy Ledger! I’m so glad to have you all here and to be back in action.
For those of you who are new, my name is Amy Mantis, and I’m a first-year master’s student in the Jazz and Contemporary Music (JCM) Department at the Longy School of Music. The Longy Ledger is about my experiences at school and beyond.
Issue #1 Roundup:
Week One Recap
First Semester Review
Class Highlight
Closing thoughts
Week One Recap
(My favorite sports podcast was R2C2 with newly-elected Hall of Famer CC Sabathia. He would start every show with “What’s everybody we back. R2C2 Another week.)
The first week of classes had strong reunion vibes. I don’t know if I would use the word excited, but people seemed at least pleased to be back. Granted, the first week of school coincided with FRIGID temperatures. I love the cold, but it was tough even for me. So I get why people were a little less excited. Also, a lot of students were still feeling jet-lagged. But nevertheless they persisted.
Opera Creation Lab (OCL) had us pick up right where we left off: performing our selected scenes from memory. It went…It went. It was fine, but a lot of folks were somewhat startled to be hurled back in so fast. The second half of the year with OCL is more of a workshop than a class. Now that we have our operas organized, we have the next seven weeks to finalize our score as we workshop along the way. Then after spring break, we just get everything together: costumes, staging, blocking, memorizing. All of it. Our performance is May 13th, which will be here before we know it so it’s all-hands-on-deck all the time.
In August, I reached out to a teacher about joining her vocal class as a guitarist. Why? Because Longy now has a class dedicated to singing the 80s. And on the list of the rhythm section, there was no guitar listed. I couldn’t have that. So I emailed Sara, my only new teacher this semester, and basically begged to join. We had our first meeting this week and it’s going to be a very fun class. The title is “Wave Rock Punk Pop: Singing the 80s,” but I’m going to call it 80s Ensemble or 80s Class because the full title is too long.
This semester, in addition to private lessons with Eric Hofbauer, I also have him as a teacher for a class! It’s called Sound and Styles. We’re studying the music of Bessie Smith, Abbey Lincoln, Joni Mitchell, and Erykah Badu. An awesome and seemingly eclectic group of musicians, but they all have one thing in common: pushing boundaries. They were all, as Eric (and the French) would say, provocateurs. Our final project has each of us choosing an artist we think is a provocateur. I’m leaning towards Jimi (Hendrix) right now because, come on. It’s Jimi!
I have another class with Ben Schwendener. He was my Lydian Chromatic Concepts (LCC) teacher, and his course this semester, Applied Modal Analysis (AMA) is basically a continuation of LCC. Our first assignment? Compose a piece and analyze it using LCC lingo. Composition Corner will resume next week.
My ensemble meets this Thursday for the first time. It’s an originals ensemble so each student will bring in a piece they wrote. So stoked! The lineup for the class is stacked too so it’ll be wicked fun to play the music of these students with them.
JCM Seminar is now helmed by Eric again. He took last semester off. It’ll be cool to see what he has to say. And I get to do a presentation this semester. Woo! And I have my First Year Recital in a month. A month! Crazy. I need to figure out what I’m going to play…
And then to round it off, we have Musicians Portfolio (MP) with Hayley Thompson-King. It’s basically a get-your-online-sh*t-together class. And your resume. And learn how to apply for jobs and grants and whatnot. It’ll be fun to go over this stuff for the umpteenth time. It’s always good to have fresh eyes on these sorts of things.
So yeah. That’s what we’ve got going on this semester. It’s good to be back. Both at school and here with you, my lovely loyal readers!
First Semester Review
I’m going to keep this brief:
All in all, I had a wonderful first semester. The highlights were:
Lydian Chromatic Concepts. That class opened my ears in a way they haven’t been in a while. Plus Ben is such a good teacher and so encouraging.
My lessons with Eric. See above.
The people I met. I’ve met some wonderful, wonderful people who are so supportive and delightful. I can’t wait to hear more of their music.
That’s it. The end. Moving right along.
Class Highlight: 80s Class
The first week is tough. It’s a lot of syllabi reading and introductions.
That said, I got to play in my 80s Class. And I went in wearing one of my Duran Duran shirts and a matching bandana. Leg warmers and spandex will come out to play too.
We did “Every Breath You Take,” which has a tricky-ish guitar part that I hadn’t played in AGES. It took me a second, but once we got it, we were groovin’.
(The other highlight was just seeing all these people I’ve grown very fond of after six weeks apart. <3)
Composition Corner
Each week, I'll discuss what I'm working on and/or what I just finished working on in my classes with composition assignments. I'll update the playlist accordingly.
Nothing to see here, folks! I'll have a bunch of stuff in the coming weeks
Closing Thoughts
I’m still playing with the format, but if there’s anything you specifically would like to see here, please reply or post a comment. Similar to Longy, this is a dynamic endeavor.
This is going to be a much busier semester than my first. I’m already playing on two Graduating Student Recitals (GSRs), I have all the OCL stuff to do along with my little recital, plus figuring out what I want to do for my originals ensemble. And 80s Class has a final concert.
With that said, I should get back to it.
Thank you for being here!
Yours in music,
Amy