by Matt Baamonde.

Matt Baamonde

It’s Thanksgiving break, I’m sitting on the train as I head for home, stunned over the fact that the semester is more than half over… its even time to start registering for next semester’s classes.

What a strange, paradoxical feeling though. It seems like I’ve only just moved to Boston and yet, somehow, it feels like I’ve been there forever. Going ‘home’ almost seems more appropriate as I head back to Berklee. I guess that goes to show how much Berklee has really become my new life. It’s very hard to feel like you don’t belong- in Berklee and in Boston. Everything happens so fast, and you have so much to do, it’s equally as difficult to find the time just to think about it in those terms anyway.

Work, like preparing for the midterms, is utterly grueling at times. Some classes require more intensive studying, depending on the individual and their specific skill set. For me, the Writing Skills, Music Tech, and Harmony midterms were relatively painless, essentially written exams, while Ear Training (my weak spot) was crippling after spending hours every night practicing in preparation for…. sight-singing. I have sung solfege (do re mi, etc) so much in the past weeks, I think my roommate might throw me out the window, unless I kill him first for playing Rush non-stop since September.

But, despite all the work, and all kidding aside, I’m having the time of my life.

For my Ensemble class, we had to prepare two pieces for our mini-performance two weeks ago. We chose two Jazz tunes, a shuffle and a swing tune by Charlie Parker and Ray Charles, respectively. Essentially, what was required of me was to comp a few chords, play a melody, and take a few solos ; ) . The hardest part was simply meeting with the band in the first place, as obtaining a practice room at a decent hour at Berklee is purely impossible, unless one of us wants to wake up at six in the morning to sign up- and being college students, that’s never a serious option.

In my Guitar Performance Skills class, we’ve been doing extensive chart and sight-reading to all sorts of musical styles from eleventh century royal suites to 1940’s jazz. Its amazing to see how rapidly my abilities have improved, charts I would fumble over three months ago are now second nature to me.

Surprisingly enough, though, I haven’t had much time to actually focus on my guitar playing. So much time is spent doing written or oral work that actually jamming- out is secondary most of the time. A big misconception for Berklee is that all the rockers get to be here and just rock out day and night, and though that does happen at times, the workload piled on usually takes priority. That’s not to say that I don’t have anything to practice though, as I have four books, a Real Book, and a stack of papers that I have to have prepared by, well, Monday, and a whole load of other things for my private lesson.

And then there are the new songs for my Ensemble class….

For a college town, Boston nightlife is somewhat dead, though there are many clubs and bars with live performances. Part of the Berklee experience is seeing as many live shows as possible. I have seen Buckethead and Iron Maiden, Al Di Meola, and recently Victor, and his brother Regi, Wooten made it to the Berklee Performance Center (dubbed the BPC) for an amazing clinic. Incredible musicians are in and out so often, its hard not find somewhere to go or something to see on a Friday night.

December is upon us and it’s starting to get frigid out as well. Snow is due any day now and I’m excited to see this city covered in white powder. The holiday season has decked the streets in its red and green regalia, with lights and tinsel lining every street corner. Holiday music is unavoidable, especially at Berklee. We have even begun to sight-sing classic Christmas tunes in my Ear Training class and are analyzing the more complex ones in Harmony.

It’s scary to realize that its time to register for classes for next semester as well. I’ve loaded up on a sixteen-credit schedule, the max Berklee allows. The plan is to open my schedule for the following semesters and to focus on what I really want to do for my majors.

This also means that finals are right around the corner for this semester, in addition to final projects. The workload is getting even more intense as I prepare. I’ve got to consider the Proficiency exam for my private lesson and the prepared piece required for that, (mine is “Prelude to a Kiss” by Duke Ellington.) I have my writing skills final exam, and final project, which is correctly notating a four-part medley, including a drum part, bass, keyboards, and melody and sequencing it in a music program. There are the Music Tech finals, which are similar, but require creating a full song using a variety of music programs. My Ear Training final, which I am dreading but diligently practicing for, is right around the corner, as well as Harmony 2, which I’m not too worried about, but still don’t want to take for granted.

I’ve also spent some time writing some more original music, which I have missed, after spending a lot of my summer vacation composing songs. The programs I use at Berklee are different than those I use at home, though I am finding them fairly easy to master. The learning curve on these new programs, the workload here, the fact that some of the software isn’t as advanced as I was using, and the fact that everything here is on a laptop with limited memory, among other details, have slowed me down in this area.

At home, and while in high school, I trained and composed on a PC using the following software: Sibelius, Cubase, Adobe Audition, and various synthesizers . At Berklee, we use a Mac Laptop, and the following software: Garageband, Reason, Logic, and Finale. If anyone reading this is planning to attend Berklee, it would be of benefit to start learning some of these software packages. Anyway, I love composing, and due to some of the success I have had with the online competition websites, feel the need to continue to build a stockpile of songs, even if they are just demo idea pieces that I can flesh out in the future. I want to capture those inspired moments when they come, and find they come more often when I work at composing.

Well, the train’s getting close to Beantown again…I guess I’ll wrap this up. Next month I’ll let you know what classes I chose for next semester. I’ll also explain why I took 27 Gen Ed credits at another college last year, and how I am planning out my time here. I’ll also fess-up on how I did on my finals. (Funny, when I agreed to do this column, I never thought it would be a motivational tool for me, but I sure don’t want to come back saying I did poorly…).

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and I wish you all the best this Holiday Season.

All the Best,

Matthew Baamonde
“Baazar”