How Julie Andrews Helped Me with Accordion By Lying to the World

Well, practicing is giving me a break from the outside world.  I’m really trying to take February to stay in and explore myself, which is a new experience in and of itself.  Almost all of my past-times as an adult have been social, save painting, so this pursuit is offering me a different outlook on life.  But I digress.

In some downtime at work yesterday, I was looking at some sheet music and furrowing my brow in a vain attempt to understand the situation.  A coworker noticed, and offered his two cents on the matter.  Come to find out, he has an advanced degree in music theory, so his two cents were worth a good deal.  He taught me about solfeggio, to explain the crazy Italian words underneath the bars of my accordion arrangements.  Each two-letter word represents a chord!  Turns out that “Do, a deer, a female deer” song that my mom always used to sing from The Sound of Music is an academically viable concept.

Interesting fact:  The song was transposed down to B-flat when Julie Andrews sang it, so it’s actually incorrect in the movie.  “Do” is supposed to be a C, but is a B-flat!  Julie Andrews lied to us via song!  Isn’t that interesting?  No?  Cram it with walnuts, ugly.

The solfeggio shenanigans helped me in piecing together the bass line for the song I’m learning, as the chords for the bassline are Re min, La min, Fa, and Do…  I feel like my sheet music is putting on airs by speaking in Italian, but whatever.  Here’s the result:

In addition, I’ve been getting reports back from other Brave Newbies on their skill development.  I’ve learned some awesome things from them.  Like what a zither is.  I can’t wait to start integrating communal progress into the blog!