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.

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.