Ritornello and the fire in my belly
“It is my hope, as I keep this online journal, that as I cherish my songs, I, too, shall learn to cherish my life.”
I wrote these words in 2013 when I was setting up this blog. They can’t be any truer now that I’m rediscovering my passion for music.
My childhood was at a time when entertainment options were not as varied and accessible as they are today. Afternoons were spent playing with and talking to dolls, reading books, acting like a teacher to my younger sister, mimicking actions we saw on the telly, or finding good music on the radio.
It’s through the latter that I discovered an FM station that plays only classical music. I’d listen with intent, feeling the pulses and phrases of the score, allowing the melody to bring me to places. At the end of a piece, a disc jockey, in his calm baritone voice, says the name of what was just played and who performed it — often foreign-sounding names I couldn’t even pronounce or recall. This is my earliest memory of conscious classical music consumption.
Advancement in technology has made virtually anything easier to accomplish. I learned to download the soundtrack used in the anime La Corda D’oro Primo Passo, which I’d say further deepened my appreciation for classical music, and maneuver music player settings on the family computer so I can choose whether I’m playing my music files on shuffle, on repeat, or through a playlist I made of my favorites. At the time, Spotify and auto-playing suggestions were figments of imagination and one has to know exactly which songs one wants to listen to.
I learned to distinguish music I like from music I didn’t. I also learned to transfer files from the computer onto my phone I considered sleek because it’s a flip phone that has a front-facing camera, allowing me to take selfies before selfies were even called such. By today’s standards though, it’s a dumb phone. I also learned to compute file sizes: If I delete three music files, I can put in this new favorite. Will one file be worth it?
That was a period of listening sprees, when I’d literally spend an entire afternoon in bed, indulging in songs and pieces, knowing them by heart, imagining scenarios as if my mind plays a music video.
What an ideal scenario. Thinking about it makes me realize how those summer days encapsulate what it means to cherish my song.
Inevitably, the joy of such simple activities was suspended when I went to university. College demanded seriousness and, to a degree, sternness. I focused more on the essential things, what I could do then for my future career — and music was clearly not part of my list.
I tried though. At first. In my freshman year, I signed up for an audition for the university’s chorale; however, I never received a notification of the schedule. I never inquired and followed up, especially after having witnessed the talent of our music students.
^ I remember this piece fondly,
as this was performed during our freshman orientation.
As well, when an opportunity presented itself in our sophomore year, I didn’t even bother lining up for the auditions in our class theater production despite my classmates’ urging.
To be sure, there are songs I’d still hum while waiting for the next class, but music was no longer worth spending undivided attention to and it was no less than a background for when I need to focus on work.
The art of mindful listening, I found to be time-consuming. The practice of mastication was left in abeyance. At that point, music wasn’t something to be digested.
Perhaps this is why I feel so strongly about TwoSet Violin. The duo made me remember how it feels like to actually listen to music again. Their videos and obvious passion for music made me crave for more than the passiveness I had relegated myself to for the past decade. They introduced me to new classical pieces and composers. They made me want more of what I used to enjoy.
And they inspired me to study.
Currently, reading reference materials helps me be historically informed about my new — rediscovered — interest. I found that YouTube is also great resource if one uses it well. For vocal warm-ups — which I try to do every day, because #LingLing40Hours — I rely on video uploads from Jacobs Vocal Academy. I also enjoy the insightful content on Inside the Score. Every once in a while, I listen to recorded performances from violinists Jascha Heifetz, Itzhak Perlman, Janine Jansen, Hilary Hanh, and Ray Chen, and soprano Patricia Janeckova.
Schubert’s Ave Maria was, and still is, my favorite piece, though with a relatively broader knowledge now of repertoire, I’ve taken a liking to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major (worth mentioning: I've always been drawn to Tchaikovsky); Monteverdi’s sweet Pur Ti Miro (from the opera L’Incoronazione di Poppea); Purcell’s heartbreaking, gut-wrenching Dido’s Lament (from the opera Dido and Aeneas); and the ubiquitous Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
^ A spread from The Classical Music Book
Vivaldi’s most famous composition is my entry point to a whole new realm of appreciation for classical music. And as I try to learn more about classical music, the more I hold in high regard the intricacies of this art form.
Among his many works, prolific composer Antonio Vivaldi is most remembered for these four concertos. Something about his music sticks and stays, even while it differs and, some would say, “countered” the style of music in his time, what we regard now as the Baroque period, from which Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Handel were most notable. No wonder Vivaldi is often described as an arch-progressive. Many even say he’s the first metalhead; I mean, listen to Winter.
I was reading DK Publishing’s The Classical Music Book when I learned that Vivaldi’s Four Seasons came with a program that aids the audience during performances. With my innate curiosity, I searched for the sonnets that were published along with the music, then listened intently on the piece as I read the accompanying text. It was like opening a Pandora’s box of goodness. (To clarify: Four Seasons is so full of imagery, one wouldn’t need to read the sonnets to appreciate its magic.)
For a time, this confused me. I have always enjoyed the comfort words bring, but music makes me feel so alive. Am I betraying one by liking the other? It’s a familiar feeling of guilt, shame, and bewilderment that overcame me. Here I am, already in my dream career track yet still wanting to enroll in a music program. Music is not even related to journalism. What deviance! The tension!
But whenever I listen to Vivaldi, each time with more focus and attention to detail it deserves, I welcome the wonders and embrace the beauty of my love for both words and music.
I return to this blog, keeper of my thoughts since 2008, and I am reminded.
My passion for music was referred to in the blog title (though, for so long, I hadn’t really put it into practice, sorry). My platform has always been writing. It’s the marriage of my two loves.
This online journal brought me back to my old self — not necessarily a regression, but a returning to the self I knew. After all, we are never lost and in finding. We only forget until we remember.
This blog is a testament to how I manage to go back to where it all began.
It’s this rekindled fire in my belly that brings me joy amid the drudgery of life. There was a time when I feared I was going back to a robotic way of living: being too mechanical in my dealings, not savoring moments. But music is meditation. Listening to classical music brings awareness to the littlest details one wouldn’t have otherwise noticed.
And that’s why most people find it boring and won’t even attempt to appreciate what classical music has to offer. It is intimidating because we are not educated about it.
Classical music calls for mindfulness. It requires one’s full attention in the hour or so that it takes to finish a symphony or a concerto. It’s unlike three-minute pop songs one can listen to while doing other things.
One takes time to cherish the music.
Allow me to share this tweet from a decade ago:
Now, I no longer listen to classical music for when I’m at work, even if most Spotify playlists for productivity would include classical pieces. I simply can’t focus on what I have to do when my mind can’t help but breathe in a piece. I can no longer listen to classical music without savoring the history of the composer and his time, the interpretation and the artistry of the musicians performing it.
This is what it feels like to cherish my song. And by taking to heart this small, seemingly insignificant aspect of my being, I’m also learning how I’m more able to cherish my life.
I finally understand what my words meant: “... that as I cherish my songs, I, too, shall learn to cherish my life.”
* * *
January 21, 2020, Tuesday; 9 to 11:30 a.m. This was the first day of enrollment at the University of the Philippines College of Music Extension Program.
I inputted the schedule on a countdown app on my phone, specifically installed so I won’t forget about it especially when busyness strikes. I even filed a leave of absence from work for it. Since November 2019, I had been waiting for this day to come. It would mark the beginning of a musical journey I’ve long wanted to embark on.
^ A screenshot from my phone homescreen;
notice the countdown widget!
When the 21st came though, I couldn’t muster the courage and energy to get out of bed. I laid awake, tossing and turning, frantically monitoring the shifts in time, how my phone clock changes in three-, five-, ten-minute increments. I pondered if enrolling in voice classes was what I truly wanted, if it would be worth it in the end. All the excitement I harbored for months was lost in the dreamless slumber I had the night before then.
I turned to an online group chat of TwoSet Violin fans for counsel. An organist and, I assume, a choirmaster from Germany helped me by providing some insight into my singing.
It was a brief encounter between strangers in two different time zones, but the short exercise reminded me of how happy I become when I sing.
I enrolled in the program the same morning. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. No, not at all. •
I wrote these words in 2013 when I was setting up this blog. They can’t be any truer now that I’m rediscovering my passion for music.
My childhood was at a time when entertainment options were not as varied and accessible as they are today. Afternoons were spent playing with and talking to dolls, reading books, acting like a teacher to my younger sister, mimicking actions we saw on the telly, or finding good music on the radio.
It’s through the latter that I discovered an FM station that plays only classical music. I’d listen with intent, feeling the pulses and phrases of the score, allowing the melody to bring me to places. At the end of a piece, a disc jockey, in his calm baritone voice, says the name of what was just played and who performed it — often foreign-sounding names I couldn’t even pronounce or recall. This is my earliest memory of conscious classical music consumption.
Advancement in technology has made virtually anything easier to accomplish. I learned to download the soundtrack used in the anime La Corda D’oro Primo Passo, which I’d say further deepened my appreciation for classical music, and maneuver music player settings on the family computer so I can choose whether I’m playing my music files on shuffle, on repeat, or through a playlist I made of my favorites. At the time, Spotify and auto-playing suggestions were figments of imagination and one has to know exactly which songs one wants to listen to.
I learned to distinguish music I like from music I didn’t. I also learned to transfer files from the computer onto my phone I considered sleek because it’s a flip phone that has a front-facing camera, allowing me to take selfies before selfies were even called such. By today’s standards though, it’s a dumb phone. I also learned to compute file sizes: If I delete three music files, I can put in this new favorite. Will one file be worth it?
That was a period of listening sprees, when I’d literally spend an entire afternoon in bed, indulging in songs and pieces, knowing them by heart, imagining scenarios as if my mind plays a music video.
What an ideal scenario. Thinking about it makes me realize how those summer days encapsulate what it means to cherish my song.
Inevitably, the joy of such simple activities was suspended when I went to university. College demanded seriousness and, to a degree, sternness. I focused more on the essential things, what I could do then for my future career — and music was clearly not part of my list.
I tried though. At first. In my freshman year, I signed up for an audition for the university’s chorale; however, I never received a notification of the schedule. I never inquired and followed up, especially after having witnessed the talent of our music students.
^ I remember this piece fondly,
as this was performed during our freshman orientation.
As well, when an opportunity presented itself in our sophomore year, I didn’t even bother lining up for the auditions in our class theater production despite my classmates’ urging.
To be sure, there are songs I’d still hum while waiting for the next class, but music was no longer worth spending undivided attention to and it was no less than a background for when I need to focus on work.
The art of mindful listening, I found to be time-consuming. The practice of mastication was left in abeyance. At that point, music wasn’t something to be digested.
Perhaps this is why I feel so strongly about TwoSet Violin. The duo made me remember how it feels like to actually listen to music again. Their videos and obvious passion for music made me crave for more than the passiveness I had relegated myself to for the past decade. They introduced me to new classical pieces and composers. They made me want more of what I used to enjoy.
And they inspired me to study.
Currently, reading reference materials helps me be historically informed about my new — rediscovered — interest. I found that YouTube is also great resource if one uses it well. For vocal warm-ups — which I try to do every day, because #LingLing40Hours — I rely on video uploads from Jacobs Vocal Academy. I also enjoy the insightful content on Inside the Score. Every once in a while, I listen to recorded performances from violinists Jascha Heifetz, Itzhak Perlman, Janine Jansen, Hilary Hanh, and Ray Chen, and soprano Patricia Janeckova.
Schubert’s Ave Maria was, and still is, my favorite piece, though with a relatively broader knowledge now of repertoire, I’ve taken a liking to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major (worth mentioning: I've always been drawn to Tchaikovsky); Monteverdi’s sweet Pur Ti Miro (from the opera L’Incoronazione di Poppea); Purcell’s heartbreaking, gut-wrenching Dido’s Lament (from the opera Dido and Aeneas); and the ubiquitous Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
^ A spread from The Classical Music Book
Vivaldi’s most famous composition is my entry point to a whole new realm of appreciation for classical music. And as I try to learn more about classical music, the more I hold in high regard the intricacies of this art form.
Among his many works, prolific composer Antonio Vivaldi is most remembered for these four concertos. Something about his music sticks and stays, even while it differs and, some would say, “countered” the style of music in his time, what we regard now as the Baroque period, from which Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Handel were most notable. No wonder Vivaldi is often described as an arch-progressive. Many even say he’s the first metalhead; I mean, listen to Winter.
I was reading DK Publishing’s The Classical Music Book when I learned that Vivaldi’s Four Seasons came with a program that aids the audience during performances. With my innate curiosity, I searched for the sonnets that were published along with the music, then listened intently on the piece as I read the accompanying text. It was like opening a Pandora’s box of goodness. (To clarify: Four Seasons is so full of imagery, one wouldn’t need to read the sonnets to appreciate its magic.)
For a time, this confused me. I have always enjoyed the comfort words bring, but music makes me feel so alive. Am I betraying one by liking the other? It’s a familiar feeling of guilt, shame, and bewilderment that overcame me. Here I am, already in my dream career track yet still wanting to enroll in a music program. Music is not even related to journalism. What deviance! The tension!
But whenever I listen to Vivaldi, each time with more focus and attention to detail it deserves, I welcome the wonders and embrace the beauty of my love for both words and music.
I return to this blog, keeper of my thoughts since 2008, and I am reminded.
My passion for music was referred to in the blog title (though, for so long, I hadn’t really put it into practice, sorry). My platform has always been writing. It’s the marriage of my two loves.
This online journal brought me back to my old self — not necessarily a regression, but a returning to the self I knew. After all, we are never lost and in finding. We only forget until we remember.
This blog is a testament to how I manage to go back to where it all began.
It’s this rekindled fire in my belly that brings me joy amid the drudgery of life. There was a time when I feared I was going back to a robotic way of living: being too mechanical in my dealings, not savoring moments. But music is meditation. Listening to classical music brings awareness to the littlest details one wouldn’t have otherwise noticed.
And that’s why most people find it boring and won’t even attempt to appreciate what classical music has to offer. It is intimidating because we are not educated about it.
Classical music calls for mindfulness. It requires one’s full attention in the hour or so that it takes to finish a symphony or a concerto. It’s unlike three-minute pop songs one can listen to while doing other things.
One takes time to cherish the music.
Allow me to share this tweet from a decade ago:
Finally, I'm able to hear music again. *flashes a big smile* I will worry about our film on Sunday/Monday. For now, I will enjoy the moment.
— Cherry Mae Salazar (@CMGSalazar) March 18, 2010
Now, I no longer listen to classical music for when I’m at work, even if most Spotify playlists for productivity would include classical pieces. I simply can’t focus on what I have to do when my mind can’t help but breathe in a piece. I can no longer listen to classical music without savoring the history of the composer and his time, the interpretation and the artistry of the musicians performing it.
This is what it feels like to cherish my song. And by taking to heart this small, seemingly insignificant aspect of my being, I’m also learning how I’m more able to cherish my life.
I finally understand what my words meant: “... that as I cherish my songs, I, too, shall learn to cherish my life.”
Within the fast movements, Vivaldi borrowed the key structuring device from opera—he used the ritornello (“little return”), a refrain or musical idea played, repeated, and modified over the course of the movement by the orchestra.
— from The Classical Music Book
January 21, 2020, Tuesday; 9 to 11:30 a.m. This was the first day of enrollment at the University of the Philippines College of Music Extension Program.
I inputted the schedule on a countdown app on my phone, specifically installed so I won’t forget about it especially when busyness strikes. I even filed a leave of absence from work for it. Since November 2019, I had been waiting for this day to come. It would mark the beginning of a musical journey I’ve long wanted to embark on.
^ A screenshot from my phone homescreen;
notice the countdown widget!
When the 21st came though, I couldn’t muster the courage and energy to get out of bed. I laid awake, tossing and turning, frantically monitoring the shifts in time, how my phone clock changes in three-, five-, ten-minute increments. I pondered if enrolling in voice classes was what I truly wanted, if it would be worth it in the end. All the excitement I harbored for months was lost in the dreamless slumber I had the night before then.
I turned to an online group chat of TwoSet Violin fans for counsel. An organist and, I assume, a choirmaster from Germany helped me by providing some insight into my singing.
It was a brief encounter between strangers in two different time zones, but the short exercise reminded me of how happy I become when I sing.
I enrolled in the program the same morning. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. No, not at all. •
