Susan's ePortfolio

For a music class for which we don’t physically play music as a mandatory part of the grade, most of my classmates play or did play at one point in their life at least one instrument. I suppose that’s not very surprising, seeing as we’re all honors students and music is definitely an art form that communicates and is played on many different levels, aside from the purely musical one.

As a highlight for this course, I enjoyed going with my classmates and instructor to see the opera, La Boheme, in Richmond. I hadn’t been to see an opera since I was in grade school and went to see a German one with my hearing itinerate. I’m actually very glad I attended this one – the opera house was much bigger and much grander than the small theatre I remember attending. We sat so high up that I could see most of the orchestra (a live one!). The story was very good and the actors and actresses were even better. I liked that even though in the end, the one main woman died, the whole story didn’t revolve around sadness. There was humor and happiness too, which included a play fight between the four flatmates, where they armed themselves with things they had in the room, e.g. a bread loaf and a fish. All in all, it was a lovely outing and I would definitely go to see an opera again.

As for appreciating music, I have noticed that when I listen to music, especially that of the classical type, I sometimes try to place the artist or era or for what nationality the music was written, and sometimes a combination of those three traits. After the movie music projects that we, as a class, had done, each movie for a small group, I have begun to watch movies for the music and how it relates to the plot, characters, and/or themes. I have also begun to account for silence and how that also affects the movie’s effect on the audience and/or events within the movie itself. Although I wasn’t sure I could appreciate music even more than when I started, I ended up listening to music differently after the course than I had done before.