A Few Weeks Hence

The Berklee fall semester came to a close this past Sunday, and while I’ve had a bit of time to reflect (since I finished all my work this time last week), my attitude hasn’t changed.

I had a brief conversation with my instructor Norm Zocher and he was supportive and tried to convince me that I should continue on at Berklee and that I was good enough to keep going. I appreciated the gesture, but I find myself disagreeing with his estimation, at least at this stage in my education. He was nice enough to send me a preview of the level four and five course material and it just reinforces that I’m not ready.

The guitar degree requires that each level builds on the previous and there’s a presumption that all previous material is retained and it will be tested on eventually. I realized that my approach has been a bit of smoke and mirrors and that this eventually will become my downfall if I don’t correct it. Specifically, I’ve never really embraced sight reading on the guitar and I’ve been using Guitar Pro as a crutch to allow me to just learn pieces via tablature rather than by standard notation.

I’m still not convinced of the utility of standard notation in my use case, but certainly the level of complexity only increases as the Berklee major progresses to where I wouldn’t be able to “fake it” and get away with it.

Right now the pervasive feeling is that I’m not going to respond well to a rigid schedule of assignments on a deadline. I’m disappointed in myself for not absorbing more of the material and I feel I’m well short of where I should be at this stage in my education and playing. Because I’ve got several creative disciplines of interest, I think I need a completely self-paced approach where I can be as deliberate as necessary with each step and never feel rushed as well as never needing to pause or subvert whatever was my primary project (music or otherwise) at any given moment.

Disillusionment

Despite some tentative optimism, this semester at Berklee has been more of the same vis á vis rigid application of theory, long lists of scales, arpeggios, chords to be swallowed and regurgitated for the sake of checking boxes. It occurred to me that, ironically, the most valuable musical courses for me have been those that were ostensibly a part of the production degree program.

Most of those courses were built on projects that we would create and develop throughout the semester, lending a sense of ownership and making the individual assignments that made up the whole possess a greater weight than another week’s bland arrangement of an old jazz standard to be played poorly and nitpicked for transcription and timing errors.

Most of the courses that make up the guitar degree program are of the jazzers, by the jazzers, for the jazzers. I shouldn’t be that surprised because it is Berklee and that’s kind of their calling card. I’ve found that I require a significant dose of creativity and ownership to be integral to effective learning, and without it, it’s just rote memorization that will evaporate in short order at semester’s end.

On that note(s), I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not likely to continue at Berklee. I think I’ve mentioned previously that the main reason for my return last year was to get the additional income courtesy of the housing allowance. This hasn’t changed and hasn’t helped in my engagement for these classes. The other key issue is that I had used up so much of my credits that I could only take core requirements and so all the guitar courses that I would take by preference were no longer going to receive benefit payments since I’d used up all my electives.

At best, I have enough benefits for one full time semester where I would get that housing allowance. There are only two remaining courses I can take, and both are likely to be theory fire hydrant swallow and regurgitate types that I’ve come to dread. It would be one thing if my frustrations with these courses was self-contained but I find that needing to spend hours per day to digest course requirements and the weekly grind of transcription, practice and performance tends to suck away any motivation I have for my other artistic disciplines.

Everything besides Berklee has been suffering in the last year…drums, keys, bass, vocals, drawing. I’ve held on to reserving time to work on 3D projects and tutorials, but even these are tempered by the daily Berklee distraction. Although I don’t like the idea of forfeiting a semester’s worth of housing allowance payments, I don’t think it’s worth the negative impact it has on my creative disciplines and motivation in general.

I’m taking next semester off regardless, so I won’t say I’ve made a final decision as I still have time to change my mind before my benefits expire in 2025. As of now, this feels like my last semester at Berklee. I’ll probably give myself time to reflect and post again on this at a later date.

A Tentative Change in Plans (for Berklee)

My plan had been that I would take one more semester, Winter 2025, and this would complete all my regular classes and up to level 4 (of 9) guitar lesson requirements. After emailing the financial advisors at Berklee, they worked out that I could take just the private lessons for four semesters and stretch out my benefits for longer than planned.

Since the private lesson is only 2 semester hours, it ends up not counting as much against my benefits as a full time course load would count. With this plan, I’d take just the private lesson for all four of the 2024 semesters, and then in the Winter 2025 semester I’d take my two remaining regular courses and the private lesson level 8 course.

Under that plan, when I get to Winter 2025 I’ll only have 13 days of benefits remaining, but the VA will extend your benefits to cover your last semester even if you only have one day remaining. The downside is that I won’t receive any housing benefits for those four semesters, but I would get them for the last semester. That’s just delaying the housing benefits by a year, so not really a significant change in that I’m not losing any potential benefits. Arguably I’m gaining a year of benefits that I handn’t planned on getting.

As it turns out, January 2025 is also our planned mortgage payoff date so we’ll be getting a few needed income bumps in that timeframe. Without the housing benefit for the next year, our cash balance will likely drop a bit, but we should be able to stretch things out enough until the house is paid off. Worst case scenario, we can dip into my 401K for a bit of cash to tide us over, but hopefully that won’t be necessary.

A Break for Gaming and then Back to the Grind...

I’ve been neck-deep in Baldur’s Gate III for nearly a month, and I just finished the game earlier this morning. It was one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had in over forty years of gaming, dating back to the Atari 2600 and the nascent days of online gaming (Compuserve, anyone?) Larian Studios has had an incredible run since Divinity Original Sin I and II and now Baldur’s Gate III. In many ways, it’s the spiritual successor to DOS, with just a different setting.

Larian manages to get you heavily invested in the story of your main character as well as that of your allies. I found myself repeating boss battles that I had won just because one of the key allies had died and was unable to get brought back after the battle’s culmination. In the epilogue, a certain character’s story was drawing to the ultimate conclusion and I found myself overcome with emotion that it was truly over. Thankfully, they left an option open for future DLC or sequels and I’m looking forward to that day although it’s likely years away.

The game isn’t perfect, there are bugs in gameplay and quest lines and some weird NPC reactions to murder versus looting. Murder okay, looters go to jail? Inventory management could also use a big overhaul, but I’m hoping we’ll see those sorts of improvements in future updates. Those small complaints aside, Larian got so many things right. A compelling story and characters, flat-out amazing level design, architecture, modeling, sculpting, animations, VFX, etc. It’s one of those games where you repeatedly pause and just look around at the environment design and how much thought and care went into it.

I’ll be replaying it in the future, the variety of possibilities is essentially endless. I want to put it down after such a heavy time investment and give them time to keep updating it and maybe eventually announce DLC or a planned sequel. As of now, I can’t imagine I’ll want to go back for several months, maybe even a year. But, this feels like one of those games I’ll probably play multiple times over in the coming years.

Gaming news aside, I’ll be back at the grind with Berklee Online for likely my penultimate semester if not my last. I’m not highly motivated to go back, but another semester of housing allowance will get us that much closer to paying off our mortgage by the end of next year. I’m taking Private Guitar Lesson III, Solo Guitar (Performance, Accompaniment, and Arranging), and Game Design Principles. I would prefer to be taking a Blender course over the Game Design but they discontinued it and of the options I have for electives, Game Design was the only interesting one. Maybe I should have gone for the interpretative dance class?

The solo guitar course might be interesting, it’s something I want to get better at, but you never know how these courses are going to be presented. Hopefully, it’s not another theory fire hydrant and regurgitate course like so many of them are. I switched from Shaun Michaud to Norm Zocher for my guitar lessons. Shaun was a good teacher and an amazing guitarist/musician, but I don’t think his style combined with my goals was an ideal mixture. I’ve had a few classes with Norm and really appreciated how laid back and non-pedantic he is about the material. I find his style more conducive to learning, regardless of the material.

The frustration is ever present...

After a few back and forths with VES, they requested a collaborative agreement memo signed by a physician, including their license number. This differs slightly from what I used in 2016, which was just a memo signed by a physician with their name/title printed on it. As that memo was signed by the as of then not psychotic former coworker, I knew I needed an updated memo. Thankfully, my present supervisor in my dormant fee-basis job was not only willing, but very prompt in filling out said document and returning it posthaste. Cry fury, and loose the snares of obtuse administrators improvising further obstacles over which to jump.

Now, they needed a physician licensed in Texas for the collaborative agreement. A fact they failed to mention when specifying the requirements of the memo. As luck would have it, many physicians in federal service take jobs in states different from where they are licensed. It was fairly typical in the military and I’ve noticed the same trend in federal service. To compound that problem, I’m not especially social at work, and there are only a few doctors I would even consider asking. Right now I’m still waiting on a response from the only other physician in that clinic I would feel comfortable asking. The lack of response is starting to feel like a refusal, but I’m going to give it a bit more time.

I think the requirement is nonsense because my colleague who is now working overseas, got a memo from the same doctor and apparently it was good enough for that scenario. What makes overseas and stateside different for an informal relationship where the physician just states they “are available to answer questions” is lost on me. I don’t think it matters, I think it’s just another clerk throwing up unnecessary requirements so they feel better and can shift blame if something comes back on them. This happens time and time again with credentials and other HR people. There are many benefits to being a part of a big organization like the federal government, but this is probably the biggest downside. You’re often at the mercy of an entry level admin type who is some combination of incompetent and ambivalent.

To add insult to injury (that’s overstating it a bit, but I’m going for dramatic effect), I’ve been trying for over three years to get my TSP account (401Kish) changed to reflect that I was separated from regular federal employment in 2017. Without this status change, I have no control over the account and can’t contribute funds, rollover the account, or make withdrawals. In effect, my account is frozen and out of my control. It’s not a huge acute issue at this precise moment, but if we had a financial emergency (especially considering our current situation), we’d be unable to use these funds. I’m hoping to leave it untouched until I’m 59 1/2 and can withdraw without penalty. But, if we really needed to, we could withdraw everything and payoff the house with some money left over. We’d take the tax hit and an additional 10% early withdrawal fee (which would suck), but we’d be able to shift our monthly budget by $1500 in the black since we wouldn’t be paying a mortgage any longer. I’m currently experiencing a similar scenario with the VA where my inquiries are either ignored or get to participate in the admin hot potato email game.

On hopefully more positive news, I’m strongly considering resuming my studies at Berklee. Depending on any developments with the job front, I can go back to full time studies and derive a $900 monthly housing allowance, not to mention the yearly stipend for books. I have 14 months of GI Bill remaining, so this should get us through another year of employment uncertainty. Hopefully by then, some trickle of work would have returned for fee basis examiners. It’s what I’ve been needing to do anyway, and the more I’ve thought about it, I really need to get my ass in gear and submit my application for the guitar dual major and get as much done while I have GI Bill benefits remaining. I may not be able to complete all requirements, but I should be able to close the gap significantly. I think the private lessons requirement of 9 semesters is the one I’ll most likely be lacking when my benefits are used up.

I’ll cross that bridge when I find it. I like this plan because it at least puts on more stable ground financially and I’ll be more or less in the driver’s seat again in regards to my work status.

On to bigger and better things

As a sort of follow up to the last post, things are hopefully going to get better from here. We're in the final month of the spring semester and what's a been a particularly challenging ear training course. Mostly this is because a significant portion of the class is focused on sight reading, solfege, and conducting. Ear training as a skill is very valuable to me, and I've already improved quite a bit in this course. That being said, I have no intention to conduct or use solfege with any regularity in the future. For that matter, I don't anticipate sight reading to be particularly necessary in my future as well. 

Not that these aren't valuable skills, but I don't plan or hope to work in a scenario where I would need these with any regularity. I have no aspiration to be a session musician or work in a professional capacity where I have sheet music handed to me that I'm expected to be able to play on the spot. This is where I have a fundamental disconnect with the instructor and the course. He's very focused on those components as part of ear training. I understand how they're being used to reinforce the concept of intervals and getting these baked into your brain so they're second nature. 

What I also know is that this program isn't necessary to acquire these skills. The musicians and songwriters I most admire were rarely trained within any formal program, and many of them know very little theory at all. Again, I don't disregard the skills, I just know that for the music to which I aspire these skills aren't typically involved at all. Artists like Steven Wilson or Tommy Emmanuel have said on numerous occasions that they know very little theory and certainly don't think of it when they write. That isn't to say they don't apply theoretical concepts, it just proves that you don't have to know those specific components to create amazing music. 

Despite this, I have soaked up a bit of these skills along the way, but at least with conducting I'm still basically faking it just so I can pass the class. I know for sure that I've managed to write songs without thinking in these specific terms, although I do apply theoretical concepts to my works. This course has reinforced the value of ear training not only for my instrument but for singing as well. I plan to study more after this class, but I won't be pursuing programs that focus so heavily on those theoretical disciplines. I think I'll gradually soak up more sight reading because it does have some general value in learning new music as well as composition to a certain degree, but I'm not sure I will be forcing myself to get it down to instantaneous sight reading. My approach has been to use reading to learn a piece until it's memorized and usually just on the piano. I can read drum notation as well, but for guitar and bass I think tablature is superior if I really want to learn something quick. 

Learning from Mistakes

It's really the most effective way, in my experience. The errors of the past are the things that stick in your memory and typically bring about the most change. This particular episode was my very simple and ostensibly easy Guitar Scales assignment 3 this week. I thought I'd be clever and convert the sheet music over to Sibelius and then import that into Guitar Pro so I could practice along with it before recording myself playing the assignment. 

The problem was that I didn't proofread it, probably because I was in a hurry and it's a pretty simple piece of music that I honestly didn't think Sibelius (via Photoscore) would screw up. Well, I was wrong. Got a B- on the assignment because I played it wrong - the imported version got several note values and positions wrong. I'm not sure what the instructor really thought, as he just commented that I had played the wrong note values. It almost sounded like he thought I had just performed them out of time. Regardless, the grade was fair because I failed to play what was on the sheet. I can just imagine the tone of a professor in a more rigid program a la Julliard or the resident Berklee classes. 

I frankly think he was diplomatic about the whole thing. I'm going to re-record it and submit, although I'm not sure he'll change my grade. I'll explain that it was my error for not proofreading and see how far that gets me. Lesson learned - never assume these technical tools can't make mistakes. Which, I normally don't, but when you're in a hurry it's easy to make stupid errors like this.