Wednesday, December 7, 2011

That's Life by John P. Sacco


Character Study:
I.  Before
1.)  The events that have occurred prior to this song that have led me to this point is that my love life is not working out.  I probably just had a really bad day/week and nothing seems to be going right.
2.)  Before the song begins, I am feeling angry, agitated, and hopeless.  I am thinking that everything is against me.
II. During
1.)  I am the victim of love gone wrong and on top of that I am having a rotten day.
2.)  I am just a typical young adult, I could be male or female, and I could be from any social class.  I am a little high strung, but that could be as a result of certain circumstances.
3.)  There are no other characters involved.
4.)  N/A
5.)  I am probably in a bar drinking away my sorrows or at home.
6.)  If I was in a bar, I would be talking to the bartender and whoever was around me.  In some parts I am addressing the lover who did me wrong.  They might also be present or it might just be part of my ranting.   If I was at home I would probably be complaining to my mother or maybe yelling at God or if I also live with my lover, they might also be there as well.
7.)  Yes this person is with me now.
8.)  My present concern is that I have lost faith in love and life.  I am feeling really down on people and myself because my pride has been hurt.
9.)  At the beginning of the song I am feeling agitated and angry that nothing is working out for me.  I feel despair that I will experience this misfortune the rest of my life.  By the end of the song, I feel renewed strength and I decide that I must fight on and that love and happiness is worth fighting for.
10.)  In the 1930’s (1934 to be specific) The Great Depression was at an end and unemployment had decreased to only 22%.  America was being born again and many citizens were instilled with a persevering attitude.  I think this has a lot to do with the attitude of the main character.   They seem to have this “Oh Well” kind of fighting spirit.
III. After
1.)  As the song ends I decide my moping around is a waste of time and I decide to fight on for my love and happiness.
2.)  As a result of this song, I will get over my feelings of doom and my sorrow over lost love and move on and learn from mistakes and become more successful because of my attitude change.


Monday, December 5, 2011

Untitled #23

Today I worked mainly on Sonntag and The Old Man's Song.  First I did score study.  I got on NAXOS music library and looked up Sonntag and found it.  I made more pronunciation markings in for Fauline and Hoyte.  What I had written in for phonetics was not working for me because I was not pronouncing it correctly, so I am going to try writing it another way and maybe it will make more sense to me in the practice room later.  I also listened to how the singer presented it and where they were breathing/phrasing.  Then I looked up The Old Man's Song, but I had no luck.  It was hard to find on NAXOS.  In fact, I am almost for sure that they don't have it on there so I looked it up on YouTube and found one video of the song.  The girl who sang it, did a splendid job.  I needed to reacquaint myself with it, because it had been a while since I'd worked on it.  I listened to that a few times, and then went to the practice room to work on my rhythm errors on the last page.  I conducted myself through those parts slowly like you suggested and wrote in the counting.  Then I worked that last page starting at the "AH's".  After I had been through it a few times, I decided to go back and rerun the entire song so that I would get a hang of how it all fit together.  It went pretty well, sometimes I think I just psych myself out or over think things and get confused.