Monthly Archives: September 2012
What People Often Forget…
…is that education is the key to acceptance and understanding. That statement is true for most realms of life. And it holds very true in the music world.
Musical Evolution
Science was never really my strongest suit in school. Not that I was bad at it from a theoretical side; I am just really, really bad at math. At one point in time, I had the bright idea of taking a physics class in high school, because I enjoyed the theoretical, thought-provoking side of physics. […]
What Music Looks Like / Ben Folds Five and Fraggle Rock
Because sometimes music should just be fun… (Plus I’ll never complain about a cameo from Anna Kendrick.) Enjoy!
What Music Looks Like / The Piano Guys
Speaking of thinking outside the box… One open Yamaha grand piano, five musicians using fingers, hands, elbows, voices … and every bit of that piano. These guys are rethinking what music-making looks and sounds like. And in times like this, we should all be taking a step back and seeing our music (and perhaps our instruments) […]
Choosing Sides
There’s no shortage of woe-is-me moments for musicians to turn to, from the continuing collapse of the recording industry to the latest announcements of some major orchestras that won’t be starting their seasons. The music world, in all its varied realms, is up in the air. It’s hard to say where the chips will fall. […]
What Music Looks Like / Matt Owen, Eclectic Tuba
Matt Owen (@EclecticTuba) is making some great music out of Birmingham, AL. When you think, Tuba you may not immediately think of trendy bars, darkly-lit clubs, and a happening night scene, but Matt isn’t letting traditional stereotypes dictate the kind of music he makes. Here’s a great sentence from his website: He has taken a […]
What’s Wrong With a Day Job?
I happen to be really bad at reading blogs. I admit it. I spend ridiculous amounts of time in front of my computer and just never think to open my RSS feed and read the blogs I’ve subscribed to. But I’m glad I did today. I was going back through old posts by Seth Godin, […]
What Music Looks Like / The 23rd Psalm
Here’s an interesting choral tone poem of the twenty-third Psalm, arranged by Bobby McFerrin and performed by Cantus (@cantussings). There was a small controversy about McFerrin’s tweaking the words to refer to the deity as a woman, but the piece was dedicated to his mother. McFerrin has always been a hero of sorts to me. He […]
Sightreading Sundays
Okay, admittedly, I kinda took the easy way out. I didn’t compose a new piece for this week. But I did transcribe/arrange the melody from Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1, the “Andante Cantabile.” It has many challenging aspects to it, not least of which is the overall range of the melody, and some unusual intervals […]
Long Tones: The Pursuit of a Life in Music 