Shanghai, Friday

7:30 - I got up and hobbled over to Starbuck’s to use their WiFi, and they’re closed!!! Open at 8AM. Sacrilege! So, I came back to the hotel and had a typical Chinese breakfast. The only beverage is warm milk (soymilk?). the basic food is comchee, a sort of rice porridge, and plates of various salty condiments to flavor it. Not so great for me in my attempts to avoid sodium, but the boiled egg is reliable, tho it’s brown on the outside (I;ve been told it’s boiled in tea), it’s just a hard boiled egg. There are various “pastries”, mostly soft white, or fried crunchy yellow, all pretty tasty, not overwhelmingly salt, and ONE concession to Western taste, a donut with sugar sprinkles!
So now I’m writing in “word”, I’ll cut and paste later. We will observe an eartraining class today, and some other classes. Then an orchestra rehearsal this evening.
Last night was our first performance, all chamber groups with the Copeland Appelachian Spring as the finale. The audience was students at the Music School, elementary and middle school age. Pu Qi (our conductor/music director at U of M) was in his element, explaintng every group/piece in Chinese. I’m sitting principal, and am definitely not playing up to snuff. Brain fog is either increasing or just more noticeable when I try to do something requiring tight focus. I really hope when I get home I’ll get some relief from this joint pain. I’ll never consider coming on a trip like this again otherwise. No regrets, tho!
We did al little touring yesterday, went up the Shanghai Pearl tower and saw the view from way up, and the Shanghai Museum, lots of Jade and furniture, and pottery (celadon), and calligraphy, and stamps. If I was going to pick anything to try to become an “expert” on from here, it would be the stamps. They’ve been used through all the eras, are small, durable, functional, and can be rather beautiful.
On to ear-training!
12:30Well guess what ya’ll, Starbuck’s does NOT have wi-fi! So I’ll just keep adding to this for now.
Ear training call this AM was an eye-opener! The class had strated at 8AM, and we arrived at 8:30. The instructor had already gone over a lesson in chord progressions.
First sight-singing (fixed “do”), then writing 3-part chord progressions after hearing them played on the, piano, then long (eight-bar) melody dictation, then shorter two-line dictation. I hope the scales fell from the eyes of a FEW of our smug American students. These kids were 13 years old! I never got this kind of training until I got to college, and then not much. I had a discussion with Keel Williams, who just graduated from U of M and is now a grad student (in Missouri?). He was shocked to find that after making straight A’s in theory as an undergrad, he flunked the theory entrance exam at his new school. He actually emailed the school to ask them what they thought about this, and received a reply! Apparently there is a fix in the works. They are no longer using John Bauer’s book, and are back to a more traditional text.
I could SO see myself as an old, heartless eartraining coach, “Just come in and do the work, either you earn a good grade or you don’t, no arguing, pleading, bargaining, the evidence is right there on your paper”.
Then the Chinese traditional instruments demonstrated by six 16 year-old girls. Physical grace in playing has got to be part of the training, because they were all SO graceful.
We have free time now until 6PM rehearsal, and I hear the sheet music store is selling scores dirt cheap. Let’s see what I can get into.