Re: [Harp-L] Another Entrance Exam

[Chris Bates <cchrisbates@xxxxxxxxx>]

Congratulations! It is a struggle to get the
established, conservative members of academia to
recognize the harmonica as a serious instrument. I am
glad you persevered. 

Chris

--- Tinus <tinus@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> 
> A year has come and gone since the last time I wrote
> to this list, a
> year in which I have studied hard. One year since I
> did the entrance
> exam, got accepted to and thrown out of the
> conservatory all in one
> afternoon. (Read the full story on my site
> http://www.tenhole.com )
> 
> Last year I wrote that I was going to go to school
> and be free from that
> lingering wish to go to a conservatory and for the
> main part of the year
> this was true. I was learning loads of new stuff. 
> Things like writing and arranging polyphonic pieces.
> Arranging for the
> piano. I had lots of fun and was so swamped with
> homework that the idea
> of any other school being a "real school" was sort
> of ridiculous.
> 
> However as the end of the year drew closer and the
> entrance exams for
> the conservatories were getting nearer I started to
> feel that itch
> again. Friends in school had already signed up for
> the exams and my
> teacher kept pushing me to do the same. When the
> piano player of my
> school combo told me he was going to try I couldn't
> think of any excuses
> why I wouldn't too.
> 
> The conservatory I was going to apply for asked that
> you send in a CD of
> recent work so that a first selection could be made
> from the applicants.
> I got together with a pianist with whom I regularly
> play to record a few
> standards. We did "All of Me", "Softly" and "You
> Don't Know What Love
> Is". I also added a demo I did for EHQ and the EHQ
> track "Tja Tja Plus"
> (available on the site for download
> http://www.overblow.com/ehq ).
> 
> The online application form gave me a bit of a
> problem because the list
> box in which I had to select the instrument I was
> going to play
> obviously didn't include harmonica. Like last year I
> decided to pick
> trumpet and hope for the best, luckily this time
> there was room to put
> notes on the form and seeing that this time the form
> would be
> accompanied by a CD any mistakes like last year were
> unlikely.
> 
> So the long wait began. Would I be invited to play,
> would my piano
> player friend get invited to play? We kept mailing
> back and forth to
> hear if the other had heard anything yet and a month
> passed before the
> piano player got the message that he was invited.
> The next day I got an
> email too.
> 
> "we would hereby like to invite you for your
> entrance exam Harmonica"
> 
> A fear gripped my heart, I was going to play in
> front of a committee
> again. The four weeks I had to prepare flew by and
> before I knew it the
> exams were there. My friend the piano player had his
> exam a couple of
> days before me. He was accepted. This made me even
> more nervous, because
> if he had been rejected it would not be a disgrace
> for me to be rejected
> too. 
> 
> De last day before the exam I didn't play harmonica
> anymore I just did
> breathing exercise in the hope that I could remain
> fairly calm when it
> was time to play.
> 
> The morning of the exam, a beautiful sunny day.
> The first test was taken in a computer room, I
> listening test.
> Intervals, Chords and things like that. I had
> trained on things like
> that the whole year but there and then I didn't do
> too well. Next the
> written test: music theory. No problem what so ever.
> The third test was
> a difficult one; solfege, singing scales, melodies
> and rhythms as they
> are written. I did very bad on that.
> 
> The man who was testing looked at my results and
> said "well, the playing
> is the most important part".
> 
> After 2 hours hanging around in the hallways of the
> conservatory, it was
> my turn. I was introduced to the band I was going to
> play with and we
> talked about the form of the pieces and how I would
> like to play them.
> When I got out my harmonica the drummer said "you're
> not going to play
> that are you?".
> 
> I said "yes I am" and I was glad to see that they
> seemed impressed
> rather than skeptical as I had feared.
> 
> I set up my amplifier (and forgot to check the tone
> settings) and
> counted off. We played "A Felicidade" and all went
> well, except that
> halfway through the piece I suddenly got the idea
> that I had never
> played this number before and didn't actually knew
> what the chords were.
> Apparently all the hours of practicing paid of
> because even though I
> could have sworn I didn't know the song I appeared
> to be playing it
> without any problem. The only thing that went wrong
> was that instead of
> playing through the whole theme after the solo, I
> somehow stopped right
> in the middle of the theme instead of going to the C
> part I had mistaken
> the end of the B part for end of the tune. The next
> song was my favorite
> ballad; "You Don't Know What Love Is". I have played
> it a thousand times
> and will play it many more times especially after
> playing it at the
> exam. It went well.
> 
> The last tune was a fast one; "Blues For Alice", a
> terribly difficult
> song to play on the c harp and I didn't feel that I
> did a very good job
> of playing it. No great mistakes though and I
> managed to get some good
> bebop lines in.
> 
> That was it, I had played fairly well and all I
> could do now was hope
> that it was enough. I looked up to the table where
> the committee was
> sitting and was relieved to see, as last year, only
> smiling faces.
> 
> I was asked to wait in the hallway while they
> discussed.
> When I was called back the first thing the director
> said was; "You're
> accepted". It didn't really register, we discussed
> who would teach me
> and talked about the diatonic harmonica and how
> tones are produced on
> it, what I could work on during the summer and when
> I left they told me
> "see you in September". It still didn't register.
> The band members met
> me in the hallway and congratulated me, the people
> that were to play
> after me congratulated me and it still didn't
> register.
> 
> Dazed I found my way out into the street. Outside I
> started calling
> people to tell them I was in. Slowly it started to
> sink in and when I
> got my teacher on the phone I was on the verge of
> crying and while I
> told him all the things that had gone wrong it
> dawned on me that it
> didn't matter anymore what had gone wrong, I had
> been accepted to one of
> the leading jazz schools of my country. And this
> time the director was
> right there and he would not be calling to tell me
> that he really didn't
> want a harmonica player in his school.
> 
> I am so thrilled that I keep on breaking out in
> short yelps of joy and
> do little dances whenever I think nobody is
> watching. I keep on walking
> about town trying to find people I haven't told
> about 
=== message truncated ===



		
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