Continuo Class

Oh my goodness I am taking a class this semester called "Continuo Playing", where we learn to improvise on figured bass, playing the harpsichord.  For those of you who don't know - figured bass is a music notation system that was very popular in the Baroque era. Basically the composer would write one note in the bass line and put numbers above it, which symbolize the type of chord you are supposed to play on top of that note.  Then you are supposed to improvise cool stuff on top of it, and make sure that all the chords you play lead smoothly to one another.   I am so bad at it!!!!!!!  Yesterday we had to accompany a violinist in front of the class on "la Folia" and mine was terrible!  Oh my goodness. It was so embarrassing.  I think I messed up fifty times.  It is so hard for me to learn to make stuff up instead of reading it off the page....    But that is why I am taking the class right?  I think my continuo teacher, Corey Jamason, could tell I was really embarrassed and discouraged so he told me (and the whole class) not to worry, that we are doing fine and are exactly where we should be right now, that we have only been playing continuo for one month, etc. etc.    It doesn't make it less embarrassing to make a fool of myself in a performance, however -- especially since the other girl that played in the class this week is REALLY good at it... and she didn't make any mistakes that interrupted the flow of the music... and she played right before me.  I seriously wanted to cry right after I played (but I held it together!).  I'm going to keep going with it though because improvising from figured bass is something that I want very badly to learn how to do.... So I'm willing to repeatedly humiliate myself in order to improve! 

Next week for class I am going to be both singing and playing -  I will sing our new piece while the other students accompany me with the continuo part, and then I will play the continuo part myself.   Mr. Jamason gave me the song to sing and I said, "I will be a lot more comfortable doing this!", and he said, "You are going to do both!"    The idea of both singing and playing at a single performance sounds really fun to me... but hopefully I will play better next week!  He said that this week's piece is easier than last week's...so I should be able to! 

I'm off to practice...