University 1.0

I mentioned that I am back in school. Actually my classes started exactly two weeks ago today. Apparently this university starts really late? It was a bit strange.
 

Anyways, I am attending Texas Tech University and majoring in Music Education/Piano Pedagogy. I transferred from a smaller junior college where I earned my Associate's Degree in Music. The best part about having attended junior college first was that I completed nearly all of  my core curriculum - no more English or science classes unless I want to take them! The only exception to that is a math class that I'm taking this semester because the two schools had different requirements for the amount of math to be taken.

This semester, I am taking 15 credit hours. Some might say that it is a lot, but its what I took most of my past semesters and I would have no trouble taking up to 18-20, depending on the classes. Apart from that math class I mentioned, I am taking all music courses, and one equine industry course (more on that later).

Every music major is required to take theory classes for a minimum of four semesters. I'm in the second class of four - this is one of my harder classes. Theory is, in very simple terms, the way that music works and is put together to create the sounds that we all love and enjoy. We do a lot of writing down actual scores, changing little pieces of them, and learning about rules so that we can break them. Lots of fun actually, but its more logical than my brain can handle at times.

Apparently it is a law among music majors that we are supposed to get really bored and hate our music history classes (we are required to take three). If that is the case, then I must be an exception. I love this class! And the professor we have this semester is fantastic - he really has a passion for the subject. This is the only class that we have to write a paper in and I'm actually looking forward to working on it.

Alongside music theory, I'm taking what is called Aural Skills. More or less, this is the class where we put the music theory into practice. We sing various things, learn to write scores correctly after hearing them played, and really become completely confident reading and translating every type of music possible. 

I should probably put a paragraph in here about my Mathematics class but I won't. It's boring, I only go once a week, and its easier than algebra. I'll pass it just fine.

Of course, since I specialize in piano, I am taking piano lessons for an hour a week and the practice time outside of these lessons consumes more time than homework itself. My minimum right now is to spend 12 hours a week on the piano outside of lessons. It's rough, but even in the past two weeks, I've improved a lot!

The only other class I'm taking is called Selection & Evaluation of Horses. I would expand on it, but I'll save that for a separate post! 

Overall, I'm really loving college and all my professors are fantastic!  We'll see where I'm at in two weeks, eh?