Week in Review

March 3, 2009

Finally, the month of February has come to an end. When I was a work study in college for Instructional Media Services, I recall my boss calling February "the monday's of the year, nothing really happens...". This February wasn't very quiet at all, especially this past week.

This past week geared up for two major concerts, one with the university jazz band, the other for the university wind ensemble along with a clinic with the Saint Joseph's High School band in South Bend, Indiana. The jazz band has been working very hard in preparation for their first performance of the year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's Centennial Era Gala on Friday, February 27, 2009. This event kicks off a three year celebration of centennial of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500 race. We were very fortunate to be invited back to perform for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and perform for their Centennial Era Gala. The event included many notable celebrities and drivers and included The Gordon Pipers, the Marian College "Orchestra" and "Mr. Las Vegas" himself, Wayne Newton. I wish I had pictuers to share, but was quite an event, filled with great entertainment and company and I am very honored to have been part of this historic event of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Following that incredible evening was a performance of the university wind ensemble at the Indianapolis Artsgarden in downtown Indianapolis, entitled "Big Music Downtown".

The program:

• Festive Overture-Dmitri Shostakovich
• Irish Tune from County Derry-Percy Grainger
• Overture to The Impresario-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• The Klaxon-Henry Fillmore
• Pictures at an Exhibition-Modest Mussorgsky

I also had the pleasure to chat with John Strauss, host of WIBC's (93.1 FM) First Day, about the concert and the great opportunities in the arts in Indianapolis before the performance this past Sunday. If you get the chance, check him out on www.wibc.com/weekend/firstday.

Play percussion? Good cord mallets in your bag.

February 17, 2009

Earlier today I had a music ed. student come into my office and ask for another copy of the Percussion Ensemble course syllabus since he had lost his and was wanting to finally purchase the items he needed for that course i.e. stick bag, timp. mallets, concert snare sticks, etc. Well, part of that list of needed items are two pairs of marimba mallets. He also asked if he needed vibe mallets, a very valid question since he is taking a course that revolves around playing various percussion instrument. He learned a very valuable lesson today-invest in some good cord mallets!

With cord, you'll have greater durability than yarn and you can have a great range of uses as opposed to just vibraphone or just marimba. With cord, you can easily segue from vibes to marimba to a nice suspended cymbal roll.

Pros:

• durability
• different choice of sounds
• versatility-marimba, vibes, cymbals, blocks, etc.
  

Cons:

• vibe mallets are shorter and a slight disadvantage for larger intervals on the marimba
• doesn't allow you the fullest of range from the needed lushness of the lower register to a full articulate sound on the upper register

I'm sure there are more pros and cons to using vibe mallets, but I must admit that I am a huge fan of the Mike Balter Pro Vibe Series, especially his medium blue and soft red mallets. While in college I started a farily large collection of mallets for my bags and I would find myself constantly returning to a select few models for general work-Balter blues, Balter reds, Leigh Stevens line and now...the Gifford Howarth line through Vic Firth.

When I started learning the Bach Cello Suites on marimba, I went through every possible combination of mallets to make sure I had an even sound across the instrument, but I found myself coming back to the Balter reds of the Pro Vibe Series. I love the warmth, yet articulation of the reds during the lower third of the instrument.

As I mentioned a little earlier, the Malletech Leigh Stevens and Vic Firth Gifford Howarth Series are amongst my favorites to use, particularly in a solo setting.

The Recording-When To Use It

February 11, 2009

I've been talking about this topic with my wife recently and the pros and cons of a recording in terms of preparing music for performance. Of course, there are millions of recordings of just about anything and they all serve various purposes, the most common of course is for listening pleasure.

So, when to use it? Recordings are an ideal source of listening pleasure but then can also be used as a learning tool. How it should be used as a learning tool should be carefully thought out. I am a firm believer that a recording should be used for stylistic examples and interpretations in preparing for performance.

I find, in the college setting, that a good portion of my students are still learning and exploring much of the repertoire that we perform. We are gearing up for our next performance (March 1 at the Indianapolis Artsgarden!--shameless plug) entitled "Big Music Downtown" and are performing Mussorgsky's famous Pictures at an Exhibition arranged by John Boyd from Indiana State. Since this is my first time conducting the complete work I have been studying this piece for a while now and became a little worried when I encountered No. 6 Two Jews, One Rich, The Other Poor. I knew that there would be a few raised eyebrows when they saw the amount of 32nd notes, especially with a pick up of a 64th note.

Let's use recordings in the classroom for examples of other interpretations and styles and not as a tool to help them "learn the music". Sure, it's fine to play a recording of the piece once at the beginning, but don't constantly reference it to demonstrate how they should be.

Let's do our best to cultivate the process of discovery in music and not be so quick to give them the answers. Maybe that concert won't be as stellar as you hoped, but I bet they really learned something and I know that your next performance will be that much better.

Quality of the learning environment

January 26, 2009

As we approach the middle of winter, my students (and many faculty) are getting antsy about the beginning of Phase 1 of the Marian College Music Center's expansion. The expansion of the music center will allow us to accommodate the quickly growing music population due to the new bands program and growing choral program. This new facility, phase 1 of 3, includes:

• multiple Wenger practice rooms
• large rehearsal hall with 20 feet tall ceilings
• large instrument storage room
• instrument repair station
• percussion storage room
• marching band uniform storage
• administrative assistant office space

Schmidt Associates (architectural firm) designed a building that pays homage to the beauty and class of the historic Stokely and Allison mansions, staples in the design of Marian College's beautiful and vibrant campus. To honor our heritage as a Catholic university and look to the future, the facade resembles the recently built University Hall dormitory and has a wall of the first ten notes of the university fight song, "We rise and cheer for you dear Marian", marked in neumatic notation, a notation style that is most commonly associated with gregorian chants and Catholic liturgical music.

Buildings are amenities that serve the greater good of a campus and it's community. Improving instructional quality and academic performance is greatly enhanced with a quality learning envorinment. Having a "quality learning environment" does not mean to suggest having a new facility or more instruments, rather that the most important part of the building is you-the educator, the eager student or the supportive parent. It is very important to relate them to our bigger purpose-human development. Without students being able to take advantage of another great learning tool, these projects are not relevant.

Having a new facility or renovation does not guarantee success but rather allows you access to another tool to offer your students, parents, administration, etc. Keeping this in perspective is an essential element to your sustained successes. Without the support of your students, alumni, faculty, staff, boosters, administration and community...a structure is simply an open space, but with their support it becomes an envorinment destined for great things.

Practicing...Writing

January 24, 2009

At the start of this new semester, I have made a new addition to my syllabi for those taking my MUS 105 Percussion Ensemble course and MUS 123B Percussion Private Lesson course. I have added the most beloved part of any course-writing papers.

In continued efforts to ensure that our graduates have as many tools as possible to be successful in their fields, I believe that having the ability to write well is absolutely essential. We live in a society where it is becoming increasingly more common to communicate with quick emails and text messages rather than a well written letter. I know that my students take their required writing courses, but I think that music educators can partake in that role of encouraging and underlining the importance of being able to communicate well with words. Encourage students to write. Just as we take time to underscore the necessity of practicing an instrument, let's take some time to have our students write a little. Perhaps a one page paper about their previous lesson, or even better yet, have them submit it in an email so they can have reinforcement that email can still be used as a proper form of communication.

As I started glancing through some of the papers I have to grade (over Dame Evelyn Glennie's documentary Touch the Sound) I noticed, not only are my students taking the time to write a good paper, but that I learn more of my students. Encouraging our students to write may not only be a necessary skill for them, but it may make us better teachers, allowing us to encounter more ways to be fully engaging in their education.

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.

What are you listening to?

January 5, 2009

I've been sitting in my office working on all kinds of things today, including a visit to a local high school to talk about the opportunities for the students in music at Marian. Unlike most people, I can't have music on while I work. Unfortunately, I put it on anyways although I know all to well that I'll end up focusing on the music and not the work. So, I tried something a little different and typed in a few keywords on YouTube to see what would come up. I stumbled upon this video of Bobby McFerrin and Richard Bona doing a live improv in Montreal and I absolutely had to share it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iimMKWF7SK0&NR=1
If that link doesn't take you there, look up Bobby McFerrin and Richard Bona, you'll find it.

This brought me back to something that I have been thinking about for the past few days. The curious question of "what's on your ipod?" Considering I don't really use my ipod anymore, but tons of cd's around my home office and my office at the university and throughout my car, I've been thinking about music I have been listening to lately. I've been trying some music that I am not all that familiar with. I've been listening to a lot Tchaikovsky lately, most recently his Manfred Symphony. All you trumpet players out there, take a look at those tonguings! It's some awesome stuff out there. And it's such a wonderful reminder of how old music like that is and how fresh it stays. Not too long ago I was watching a Bernstein rehearsal of his famous West Side Story where he was talking about his own music and that he had finally really studied it in the mid-1980's. He never conducted it, except for the overture on a few occasions, but never truly studied his own work like he would study a Haydn score. He mentioned how it was nice to hear his music stay fresh after so many years and but nothing in comparison to how Mozart's music stays fresh. Isn't that amazing and so true?! Although Mozart died over two centuries ago his music still stays fresh.

The point of all this was to make you ask yourself "what are you listening to?" There's nothing wrong listening to the Britney Spears come back album or playing your Thriller album again and again, but ask yourself why you're not exploring other music out there? I know, as humans-especially in a Western dominated society, we tend to latch onto our few things that we enjoy and become numb to everything. I ask you to be adventurous and at least try out something new. You don't have to jump right into looking at the incredible world of "classical" music, but perhaps take out 50 cent and listen to some Run DMC, then listen to the pipes of Steven Tyler and Aerosmith, then perhaps you'll listen to some Dave Matthews and then hook up into some Phish, then maybe the Grateful Dead...the road is endless. At some point you might even listen to Metallica and then come across the work the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra did with Metallica and accidentally listen to Carmina Burana and be blown away with a whole complete idea of "power chords".

Where do you want to go today with music? It'll take you all over the place. It's an incredible ride, so hang on. Or, for some of you who might be more like me, just take a chance...who knows, you might just find yourself needing some bigger space on your ipod. Try something else...you might just find yourself loving something you never knew existed.