Posts tagged singing
You know it. We have two teachers: David Anderegg, a child therapist, teaches most of the clinical psychology. Everything from developmental psych to cyber psych, different forms of therapy, psychiatry, etc. Generally speaking, I’d say this is the psychology of the self.
On the other hand, we have Ron Cohen, who teaches social psychology — the study of interaction. Ron teaches classes on the ways people deliberate and make decisions, how people understand and implement justice, the effects of authority and other structures of power on individual decisions, etc.
Whoever you study with (hopefully both because they’re great) you’ll be asked to read primary literature, both theoretical and experimental, and to design your own final projects, either analytic papers of psychological experiments.
Ezra ‘13
P.S. you know what else is strong and interesting? Me, Liam, and Sam, serenading Riley with some doo-wop:
You can often audit classes (i.e. attend but not take them for credit), but for performance project classes it doesn’t really work. As a performing member of an ensemble you would be expected to be completely invested. Sometimes students just take more than the average credit load, although I definitely wouldn’t recommend that for freshman year. We also have a new club on campus this term called the Amateur Bennington Choral Club that will be doing some great singing I’m sure! There is also Sacred Harp (shape note singing, 4 part harmony, the best thing EVER) which is a class but is easily audited as well. You can also always start an ensemble or club of your own! There are always a lot of people down to sing on campus.
-Riley ‘13
Finals
The sun majestically perforated the clouds this morning, striking one lone snow-tipped mountain. For some, these rays breaking through the windows of their sleepy dorm rooms stimulated their natural circadian responses, and they rose up like the rest of their animal brothers and sisters in the woods. For others, however, this dawn meant only that another hour had passed in their sleep-deprived delirium. Why, I sometimes ask myself, at a school where there are ostensibly no “requirements,” where we are free to design our own education, do we CHOOSE to do this? The answer, I think, is because we love our work so much.
Here’s what some of us are doing for finals. Check it out:
Molly Murphy ‘12 performs Harold Arlen’s “Stormy Weather” at the UpCaf’s Jazz Lounge.
- Ellie
Last night was a night full of traditional music on campus. We had a Sacred Harp Singing (see my previous blog post for details) followed by a contra dance hosted by the on-campus string band. We didn’t look as cool as the people in the picture but I bet we had just as much fun. This week has been a whole lot of stress but it felt so good to sing, dance and play music for 4 hours last night.
Last term I had the amazing opportunity to take a performance course with Tom Bogdan learning and performing Meredith Monk’s beautiful piece of work, “A Celebration Service”. During the CAPA opening a group of women got to sing a song from it entitled “Quarry Weave”. It begins in unison and goes through several transformations before finally culminating in a challenging 8-part round. It was such a joy to sing this music once again, especially in the reverberant space of the Lens, a small, echo-y, chamber in CAPA’s courtyard. A small section of our singing was captured on video.
-Riley
Young people all attention give! Last night there was an explosion of folk tradition on campus! Folk tradition explosions are really the only kind of explosions I like, but I like them a lot. A Sacred Harp Singing took place in the Dean Carriage Barn followed immediately by a Contra Dance (put on by John Kirk’s Traditional Music Ensemble). Check out my earlier blog post if you want to hear a recording of us singing! Both Sacred Harp and the Traditional Music Ensemble are regularly offered music classes, but the event drew students from all disciplins and even some faculty and staff! We also got a great crowd from the outside community. Sorry for the dark pictures — they still make smile. Fa so la until next time.
In the last five minutes…
I was told I’m taking a tour to of prospective students of chines to a Chinese class here, so I tried to remember what I know of the language. Wo yao cher nee means “I want to eat you”, wo ei nee means “I love you”. I was advised not to say this as I greeted my tour, and I agreed. Then we looked up the phonology of chinese, regarding the 5 tones.
40 plays
This term (and last term, and the term before that) I’ve taken a course called Sacred Harp Singing School. It is undoubtedly the most joyful 2 hours of my week and my favorite 2 credits on my resume — who said holy music wasn’t fun for those of us not religiously inclined?!!? Sacred Harp singing is a form of traditional American shape-note singing that harkens back to church singing from 18th century England. Historical, powerful, and a great way to improve your sight-reading and harmonizing skills. My favorite part about it is that it is participatory, never performed. You have to sing it to see it happen! We host singings open to the greater community a few times each term. This is a recording a friend of mine made of our class singing one of my favorite songs, “Restoration” in last week’s class.
