Haagcore Podcast #1

Well, here's the first of perhaps more podcasts. I hope you like it!

26.08.08: Haagcore #1: http://www.yousendit.com/download/Q01GQndIcHZlcEt4dnc9PQ

It's taken a while to upload it and it'll be up on the yousendit server for a week, I'll try and find a more permanent home for it later.

I finished the podcast on Tuesday. Since then I haven't really done an awful lot. I went up to Scheveningen, which is the seaside bit of the Hague. It's got a pier and is one of those odd 'resorts' (like Cleethorpes or any of the seaside towns of the English East Coast) with the requisite amount of sand and water, but also a "refreshing" North Sea breeze. Oh well, come global warming they'll be laughing...

I also found out where Radovan Karadzic is being tried. I might pop along at some point, if that doesn't sound too weird...

Also, I have been contemplating the worth of my music degree after receiving a set of questions in an email, from one of the music theory tutors from the conservatorium . The email was sent to all new composition pupils in order to guage their theoretical backgrounds. I enclose below the questions and my answers:

1. Are you able to analyse a fugue of Bach? [Do e.g. you know the 4 different types of answering a theme?]

No

2. Have you ever analysed a sonata of Beethoven by yourself?

No

3. Are you familiar with other styles of art music, like Ars Nova, Renaissance, Romantic Age?

[E.g. do you understand the isorhythmic technigue of Machault; have you analysed a mass of Josquin; are you able to analyse the harmony of Wagner or Bruckner?]

I understand the isorhythmic technique of Machaut but have not analysed a Josquin mass, very little of Wagner and none of Bruckner

4. Have you ever written a 3 part motet in modal style (counterpoint)

No

5. Have you ever written a "Bach fugue"?

No

6. What is the level of your eartraining

- sightsinging (both melodies and rhythm)

Very poor

- dictations (both melodies and rhythm)

Quite poor

7. Did you do a music history course?

I did a musicology module as part of my bachelors, but this mainly focused on 20th Century music

8. Do you have a bachelor degree? (If so, and you want to be exempted form a certain class I need some proof.)

Yes, from Huddersfield University in the UK

WHAT EXACTLY DID I DO IN THE LAST 3 YEARS?

Tot ziens!

dp

Because I'm Haagcore

Hello, one and all and sundry, welcome to my blog.
After being in Den Haag for a week I thought I would keep you all up to date using the 'internet' (you may have heard of it). The following posts will, I hope, act like digital postcards; although if you really want the effect of a postcard in digital form I suggest you only read them a week after I have arrived back in the country.

But ,I am fickle when it comes to technology so as well as this blog you will also be able to find links to my podcasts, such as the one below, which are a bit like having a conversation with me, except I do all the talking.

dp

P.S. and, please, forgive the pun! (I am pretty hardcore, though).