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Co-op is a real pain. At Waterloo we change terms ever four months (hence why I’m on my school term right now, and why so many people think I’m taking remedial classes :S). It’s a pain to move and you constantly have to be searching for jobs/housing and arranging transportation. The worst of these problems always happen at the end of the term as you are scrambling to plan the next 4 months of your life and how you are going to make it work. Then there is the packing. How Iloath packing! Every 4 months I get to cram my life into a suitcase, a duffel bad and two carry-ons. And what happens when you can’t fit something in? You pawn it off on a friend, or throw it out. What other choice do you have? At the end of every term a student is left with quite alot of disposable items. These include paper towels, toilet paper, and other products that just don’t seem worth keeping in favour of space and weight savings. The worst of all these things is food.
When you are a student and you get to the end of the term, you start thinking carefully about what food you have left and when are you going to eat it. Thought it was a good idea to buy the 10 kg bad of potatoes a week earlier, didn’t you? Price shopped good and now have a half dozen Michalina’s in your freezer? Buying the bulk spices was a good decision, until you find you can’t fit them in your luggage to take to your next place of residence. This is now the third consecutive term where I think I’m having this problem. Luckily last term my roommate was staying and I pawned everything leftover on him. Oh and I made a huge ham dinner on one of my last days in Ottawa and then left it for others and ran off for dinner out with friends…just to use up that ham I assured myself I’d have a use for when I bought it (It really WAS a good price too!). The term before I ended up just throwing alot of stuff away at the last moment (like 5 mins) before the shuttle picked me up for the airport. Hope is not lost yet though! I still have a week and a half, and I can do it right this time. I still have time to stop and think about what I’m doing and carefully plan out meals for the remainder of the term.
The real problem is a balance of eating all of your food, while not having to eat out too much, and to eat RIGHT. The last one is really key. I find myself eating less nutritional meals just for the sake of using up those bags of pasta leftover. For most students, an issue for them is always the cost of food, and at the end of the term people are prone to going out for food and spending money they really shouldn’t. Sure, it isn’t bad to treat yourself at the end of the term and go out with friends, but some people end up eating out for every single meal instead of risking buying food and having it left over. Also, it is much easier, especially when you are trying to study, to just have food made for you then to have to waste time making it yourself (though it’s a nice study break methinks).
This last Sunday I went for my last grocery run (I go every Sunday because there is a shuttle). I stocked up only on stuff I know I’ll use up in the next week and a half (also realizing that I have some eating out events I have agreed to already). I’m going to try to use everything up, but I know I can’t use up absolutely every food item I own. Last term, as I mentioned, I ended up throwing stuff out. You can’t donate half finished boxes of crackers, or open bags of rice. Most of the stuff is half used and it is just not possible to give away (unless you have the occasional extended stay student who can use a few snack foods to pass the time). Even if I had non-perishables, it’s out of my way to go donate them. You’d think that, knowing the day/week people move out of res, that food banks would set up a box in the foyer of the building. It’s easy gathering time! I can just imagine all the donatable things that just get thrown out because people can’t be bothered at this stressful time to go out of their way.
Well, back to studying methinks…after last night’s 5:20 fire alarm pull, and the resulting loss of sleep and ruining of my usual schedule, I’m now behind where I hoped to be. This would never of happened if I was in off campus housing…
Currently Listening to: “Cocaine Cowgirl” – Matt Mays and El Torpedo
Here I am, 2 days from my first final exam and I just need a break. It’s hard to ingest knowledge all day along without a break. I know many people are like me and start looking for distractions, and since I already cleaned my room, did the dishes, no one wants to play Solitaire Showdown, and all the laundry washers are being used, I default back to my web page.
My first exam up on Tuesday will be MUSIC 140: Popular Music and Culture. This is my Complementary Study Elective (CSE) for this term and the only one I’ll get in 3 years. Overall I have been quite pleased with my decision to take it, especially since the instructor is Simon Wood who is quite hilarious and engaging. (Although sometimes his anecdotes are historically inaccurate) I’ve liked music for quite a while, but it wasn’t until Grade 8 when I took the Headstart program (go to a high school for class) and learned trumpet, that I began to really appreciate it. All of my musical training in the earliest time with music was with classical, and I’ll always have that classical training in my mind. After the great Mr. Cotton left my school and was replaced by a crappy music teacher that I moved onto other bands, including the Thunder Bay Symphony Youth Orchestra (TBSYO) and Thunder Bay Community Band. (Called City band by most of the members, who were there before it’s name changed) These both developed my knowledge of classical music as well as exposed me to other styles like swing, jazz and contemporary music.
The interesting thing about my current music class is that it is not a practical class. It is a music history class, something I’ve never really done before (though I got small history lessons in my regular music classes). The class is accessible to people who have no formal music training at all and rarely touches on music theory. A portion of the class is on listening examples in which certain characteristics are pointed out to us by the instructor (as we aren’t expected to have the knowledge to recognize them our self). Quite often after listening to songs we are asked if we “liked” the song or not. Generally (from my observations) roughly same groups tend to vote the same. Simon usually follows this with “Whether you liked it or not tells you more about yourself and your ideals and beliefs on music than if the music itself was “good” or not.” Yeah…we can accept that generally. Different people think different music is good. Agreed.
I personally tend to fall in the more professional, well produced music than the rough, recorded on the go music. I value professionalism, accuracy, organization and detail. I disagreed when Simon said that the opposite was valuing energy, spontaneity and improvised performance. Organized accurate professional music can be filled with energy, and and improvised performance can be very accurate and detailed. What I prefer it my view of what “good” music is: something with musical merit. Musical merit to me it not in the lyrics of the song, but in the rhythm, melody and harmony of the piece. So often in our course we focused on the lyrics and the content of the song. While the topics of the song are important, and even the form of the song (that we occasionally talked about) is important, there is so much in songs beyond that. A very good song writer can do it all: lyrics and melody. When that happens is when I find a truly good song.
When you look at my favourite bands (Weezer and Our Lady Peace), and their music, you can see why I like them. While their lyrics are often extremely good, the actual music that accompanies them is very well thought out (this doesn’t mean always complicated, but suited to the song). Lots of the current pop that comes off assembly lines is just boring. It’s frequently the same thing as the rival single. If one thing is popular, it is likely a similar thing will sell. It’s business. For the untrained ear, the lyrics become the only source of difference between songs, and in reality, it’s all that is really needed, because so few people truly examine the underlying music. In our class we finished off the syllabus with Hip Hop and Rap. If you take a current song from that general you have two cases: Either it is the same background music as a dozen other songs in the genre (simple base) and the rapping is what you listen to it for, or it is a variation on an older song, and samples from other sources, thus creating what appears to be a very creative single.
The fact is that much of the old emphasis on creative melodies and completely unique song writing has been dwindling and most people don’t even know. So many people didn’t know that Gwen Stefani’s “Rich Girl” was clearly a “cover” (if I can even call it that) from Fiddler on the Roof, or that the underlying (and memorable) music from Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” was actually from a Queen/David Bowie single called “Under Pressure” (which is clearly the better song!). I’ve played the latter before and people were shocked not to hear “Ice Ice Baby”. Many of the music world’s most successful stars have been taking free rides on past creative productions. Many of my friends know I’m not a fan of Rap (though I have to say that there have been the occasional song worth of my attention), and it is mainly because it lacks the underlying musical merit that I demand from music. This is the same reason that when we got to Funk in our class I now have a new found hatred of Funk because of it’s lack of melody and harmony.
This little discussion on musical merit was sparked by two events: One) my new All-American Rejects album, Move Along and Two) an essay I had to read for music before my final. I’ll talk about the former briefly. For those who are familiar with the All-American Rejects (AAR)you may know that they are shelved in the “Punk” section of the music store. They are not Punk: they are more Pop-Punk or Emo. Most people know them for their first single “Swing Swing”, though I believe that there are alot better songs on their album then it. In the end, unless someone enjoys the music enough to go out and buy the album, it’s radio that determines which songs people will associate with the band. The first single ont he new album is “Dirty Little Secret”, which I think is a horrible song. The lyrics of the chorus are “I’ll keep you my dirty little secret”…wow. Going for the young teenage girl demographic are we? But I’ve been talking about musical merit. Overall AAR are pretty good at the musical side of their songs, but this one is behind so many other songs on the album. So why was it picked as the first single? Because it was radio friendly. Because it is what people are used to. If they had picked the orchestral “It Ends Tonight” or “Can’t Take It” the audience expecting “Swing Swing” would be shocked. People now just don’t appreciate well orchestrated music as they used to in the past.
The second catalyst of this discussion was the essay I just read called ?Beyond the Vocals: Toward the Analysis of Popular Musical Discourses? from Running with the Devil by Rob Walser. In contrast to our usual discussion of lyrics, themes and content of songs in class, this essay focused on the musical side and derivinginterpretations about the music from it. This is something to really appreciate music for! Earlier we had an essay by Theodor Adorno, a musicologist who in the essay we read seems to be very much in opposition to “Popular Music”. The arguments he brought forth are completely valid in my mind, and I can see why he hated much of the music when he wrote it. There has been alot of change since he wrote it and very good Popular music has produced song very artistic music (Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” comes first to mind). He has a very influential musicologist, and, in fact, the essay I cited and another essay we read mentioned him. Makes you think that all of what I said above about how musical merit is what we actually should be searching for in music is true…
Well, back to cramming for my next exam. I’m sure I’ll have a few more “study breaks” in the next week. 
Currently Listening to: “Rhiannon” – Fleetwood Mac