Music Majors are Cool?

When I first started this class, I was apprehensive about being a non-music major. I mean, I’m a biologist by training, so discussing music in an academic setting is definitely out of my comfort zone. I have since discovered that my concerns were completely unfounded. Learning about music from my classmates has actually been one of the most fun parts of this class! I’ve noticed that it’s easiest to learn when a teacher (or professor) is passionate about their subject, and this is definitely what goes on whenever I’m listening to the music majors. And probably the best part is how open to questions they are—especially because I often have a hard time asking questions due to shyness.

For example, just in the past few days, I’ve learned a variety of things, including but not limited to: violins can and do play two notes at the same time, harmonizing with themselves, like the soloists at the Czech Philharmonic and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. The performers sitting in front of the trumpets get clear shield-things to protect their ears because trumpets are super loud. And because I’m a nerd I got a real kick out of learning what happens to sound waves when two pitches are just off from each other (aka “crunchy”).

Yes, things can and do go way over my head from time to time. At first it made me feel deficient somehow, but now it seems like “cool, more things to learn about.” I also love learning about music history from my classmates, for example what the composer was thinking/going through at the time they wrote X symphony. I also find it interesting how, in general, both music majors and non-majors tend to have similar overall opinions on certain performances. On multiple occasions I’ve had, like, and idea for what I thought about the performance, but I can’t articulate it because I don’t have much of a musical vocabulary… and then when I talk to my musically inclined classmates, they totally put words to my thoughts! (example: when Katie talked about the dinner performance going a bit long and used the phrase “read the audience” *see previous post*).

I realize now that I’ve become really used to being around just science majors—turns out I was missing out big time on learning new things. Music academia is like a different world altogether, but it’s not scary. It’s actually really cool and interesting.

Some of my musical compatriots got to conduct a virtual orchestra at the Mendelssohn Museum

Bonus photo of St. Thomas Church (Thomaskirche) in Leipzig