Chicago-The Midwest Clinic

So, day two of The Midwest Clinic out in lovely Chicago, Illinois. Since I've found a quick moment (waiting in The Pavillion at the Hilton for my lunch to arrive) I find myself actually missing writing on my blog. I've, in all honest, never really looked forward to it all all, it was all a Marian University Marketing Communications department indea. I didn't even know what a blog was...tells you how behind the times I must be. Anyways, I wanted to get back in the habit of updating my blog, and not do it every two months.

The Midwest Clinic is a nice event, the wonderful people at Yamaha and Paige's Music have very generous to provide me with registration and a hotel for the conference. The whole trip started out leaving quite early from my home in Fishers to drive up to Chicago Heights, IL to make a visit to Marian Catholic High School. As most of you already know, Greg Bimm (band director) has a phenomenal program with very hard working students. I headed up to Greg's program to do a few auditions. I believe I did 6 or 7, not to bad for a days work. The best part of that trip was the actual audition, each student did a great job, some with INCREDIBLE potential to be very solid professional musicians-but get this-almost all of the students that auditioned for me all want to major in something outside of music, many of them seeking careers in medicine. How awesome is that! Greg, you're the man.

Ok, back to Midwest, after leaving MCHS, now with 2 of my current students who are former MCHS students (they met me for breakfast at Egg and I-great food for an even better price) in my car, we headed to find my hotel at the Hilton on the Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago. My two students were so great to help me carry my luggage and tons of music to my room. So, after checking into my room I headed out to the McCormick Place (can't remember if it's north or south, but it's the new one) and sat on a nice charter bus for 15 minutes to get there from the hotel. Arrived at the beautiful convention center (although I think Indianapolis could do it soooo much better!) and walked around for about 45 minutes. Lots of vendors trying to speak to potential customers over the constant crescendo of screaming trumpets and cymbal crashes-quite the site...a little irritating after awhile, but then you can just walk to another side of the room. I feel a bit bad for the vendors who have to sit through that for entire days...yikes.

So, headed by to my hotel room to meet with my grandfather, who lives only about 30 minutes from downtown Chicago, for dinner. That was nice-we talked for a long time and I was able to see a deeper and more intimate side of a man I greatly admire. Afterwards I found myself quite exhaused from the day and finally fell asleep with the tv on. No worries, I definitely awoke at 2am to a very warm and stuffy room so I could lower the temperature and turn off the television. Unfortunately, I was now awake. I think I finally fell asleep about an hour later.

I'll write about day 2 a little later, my panini and fries are getting cold.


A presto!

West Side Story Tips

March 16, 2009

Well, it's been a little while since I made a post on my blog, but I've been a little busy with multiple rehearsals and performances of West Side Story with the Indianapolis Civic Theatre. The extent of my West Side Story knowledge comes from reading about it, seeing the movie and studying the famous vibe excerpt from "Cool". My appreciation for the music has definitely changed now being in rehearsals for about a week and end the first opening weekend of the show.

My colleague, Braham Dembar, played the symphonic suite to West Side Story late last month with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and did a terrific job playing the multiple mallet parts, with such ease walking back and forth to play each intricit mallet part. Bravo Braham!

I only wish that the same experience of playing in the concert hall to playing in the pit was the same. However, it's definitely not. The version that the pit orchestra is playing is a considerable condensed than the orchestral suite, however it is still very demanding. This show only allows for 1 drummer and 1 percussionist. As you can see, there's a lot of stuff going on with the set up. So, I thought I'd offer a few of my thoughts on playing the percussion parts well, since I know that you or someone you know will be encountering this wonderful music at some point in your career.

• Before your first rehearsal, if you can, stop by the pit and see how much space you'll have to work with. This is a very valuable time that you can save now rather than later by coreographing your setup before you even start your first rehearsal.
• Come to your first rehearsal EARLY to work on your setup and come PREPARED. Know your part(s).
• Use a trap table that you can easily access for your tambourine, claves, ratchet, woodblock, castanets, etc. On my table, I have a lighter for the tambourine (in case it were to loose too much tension), woodblock, claves, finger cymbals, slide whistle, castanets, ratchet and guiro with stick. For the most part I keep my whistle around my head at all times and my triangle beater in my pocket. It sounds like much, but it's absolutely necessary for the immediate segues from one scene to the next.
• Position your music stand in the best way possible so that you can see your music, your instruments and your conductor. Those 3 items don't always line up, but find a way to make it work.
• I can go on and on with each different song, but the last major suggestion-KNOW WHERE IT'S AT! Know where your xylo mallets are, know where your hard, medium and soft mallets are at all times. You will RARELY have the luxury to take more than a few seconds to grab the next thing and play.

I hope some of these thoughts help you out one day. There could be an entire book about this, but it's best to just take a lesson with a professional who has played this show before. They will know the in's and out's of how to make it work. That's the key, we work so hard on getting the gig, but we need to focus on how to keep the gig. Make it work. Work hard. Always be prepared.

Keeping them interested

January 23, 2009

The other day I was visiting a school in Evansville, Indiana, telling the students and their director about the great programs and opportunities at Marian College. While I was down there, I met with a former teacher of mine, Alfred Savia, Music Director of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra. Alfred and I had met for breakfast to chat over some curriculum ideas for the first annual Marian College/Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps conducting workshop entitled The Art of Conducting (June 12-14, 2009 at Marian College) in which the premise of the workshop is to support William Revellie's famous belief "From the 50 yard line to the concert hall, there is no difference". This workshop not only focuses on conducting styles and techniques for the concert hall or the field, but also stresses the importance of leadership necessary to be successful on the podium. Thinking about the leadership skills needed to be a conductor of many sorts, either with music, the classroom, or on the job site you have to always keep thinking about how to keep your musicians, students, or employees interested in what they do.

How to keep them interested? Here are a few of my suggestions.

• WANTING TO BE THERE-One of the biggest beliefs I have as an educator and conductor is wanting my students/musicians to want be there. If they don't have a reason to want to be there for themselves, then you will never get them to fully experience the potential they have. Put yourself in their shoes. Why would you want to be in your class or meeting?
  

• SENSE OF SUCCESS-If your employees believe that they are being successful, even in the most moderate terms, they will continue to want to work harder to acheive greater successes.

• SAY WHAT YOU MEAN AND MEAN WHAT YOU SAY-If you start out saying "this will be hard" you have already admitted defeat. Choose your words carefully and say what you mean and genuinely mean it.

• BE SINCERE-People can see right through you if you are insincere. If you're not convinced in what you're doing, what makes you think that your audience will be?
  

Do you remember the old saying "if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself"? Set the tone, be the example. Be the example that your students or colleagues can look up to.

These are just some of my thoughts of how to keep your audiences fully engaged, they are not strict rules, but guidelines. Be open to different methods of success, you never know-you might stumble upon an idea even greater.