Finally gonna get some o’ that musical stuff taught to me

Not that I’m narcissistic, though …

Despite my songwriting, I’ve never had any musical instruction at all, ever. Well, I did have some basic guitar courses a while back, but that was more of a hobby than anything really serious (and at any rate, my hands are too bloody big for me to be a good guitar player [*sadness*]), and I didn’t really learn much of what one would even call the basics of musical theory.

Of course, as with any other art or aptitude, the thing about writing music is that there are two key traits to it: talent, which one is born with and is inherent to someone, and skill, which must be acquired, learned, and practiced. Humility be damned, I’d say my talent is just fine, yet I am definitely lacking in the skills department. Hence my need for a music school and/or teacher.

That was the problem, though. For all the music classes available, actual music composition and/or orchestration/arrangement courses are notoriously difficult to find, mostly seeing as they’re usually only found in universities and the likes (or used to be, anyway). Most classes just focus on teaching students musical instruments and basic accompanying theory, which was simply no good for me. I couldn’t care less about playing; I wanna write music, not perform it.

Well, anyway, long story short: we’ve been looking at music schools for a while, and finally, after stalling for months, we got to calling around. We finally found someone interested, someone who actually taught composition classes, and so this evening, I went in to get interviewed. I’m happy (read: excited) to report it went splendidly. Met my music teacher at his home (which is also where I’ll be studying – what, you didn’t think I’d sign up for a group class, did you? ;-P) and we settled everything, from the nature of the sessions, to availability/prices.

So, basically: every Tuesday evening, I’m gonna be spending an hour receiving criticism on my works (which I lack, as you people won’t COMMENT and give FEEDBACK! [*glares reproachfully*]) whilst learning musical theory as I go. It’s not a “read this manual, answer these questions, then pass a test” sort of course; hell no. That’s why I left school; I wasn’t gonna be doing the same crap all over again. As Christian said, his focus is really more on guiding his students, not telling them what to do or how to do it. Which, of course, is just perfect for me.

Well, enough blathering. I don’t write much about my personal life and goings-on on this blog (which is understandable, as nothing of interest usually happens to me … [*sighs*]), so I thought I’d slip this in. Now for your regularly programmed petulant and irrelevant teen’s view on reality.

Edit (02/07/12 5:00 PM ET) – Fixed the broken link and removed the teacher’s name for anonymity purposes.