Got this in an email the other day!   Looks like something I’d like,  hopefully it will interest  you, too!

Improvisation Master Classes

The following master classes are part of the Bienen School of Music’s four-part series, Music Education for the 21st Century. The series, which takes place between February and May 2009, is designed to spark discussion and fuel thought on new and innovative ways to move music education forward.”Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness: New      Pedagogical Horizons in Music and Beyond” Presented by Ed Sarath Wednesday, February 11 6 – 7 p.m. CST Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, or the Pick-Staiger webcast page This master class, for instrumentalists and vocalists alike, will explore improvisation as both a means for musical creativity and a vehicle for examining the mind’s creative process. The session will serve as an introduction for musicians with little or no background in improvisation as well as a method for expanding the horizons of experienced improvisers. Ed Sarath will guide participants through rhythmic exercises, movement, and meditation practices. Participants – and online viewers – are encouraged to bring their instruments to put the concepts of the class into practice. “Free Play: The Art of Improvisation” Presented by Stephen Nachmanovitch Thursday, March 5 6 – 7 p.m. CST Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, or the Pick-Staiger webcast page In this hands-on master class, Stephen Nachmanovitch will help participants to strengthen technique through improvisation; overcome fears; take advantage of mistakes and accidents; create coherent, well-formed music without a plan; contact the creative process while performing; and renew the pleasure of play. Special attention will be given to ideas for bringing these techniques into “school music” settings.

Internet2 Viewing
Institutions with access to Internet2 can view the high bandwidth mpeg2 multicast feed using the VLC media player or an mpeg2 decoder. Details are available at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall’s webcast page.

A great article from Hypebot reminds us that sites like Myspace and Ticketmaster have their own interests at heart.  And this includes keeping records of your fans and turning them into saleable marketing lists.  Your fan data is valuable and each one is a potential customer (for someone else);  -never forget this!

Read it HERE.

Great post, Bruce!  Keep up the good work!

Is this the same quality of creation? I know it’s making something new from prior material; it happens in visual arts all the time. In music, we used to call it “lifting a melody” and the lawyers would get all excited, but it’s so commonplace in this age that no one seems to care.
I’m getting the same feeling I get when I watch the work of DVDJ Unique: -question= is it art?

Check out more from Doyle and Debbie here.

UPDATE – I’ve got lots to talk about {especially regarding running live sound at an event}. It’s 20 minutes to midnight and I think my ears are bleeding! Tibetian throat singing! I’ll try to get video and pics up tomorrow. Tonight I need to take some aspirin and retire ASAP.

In two weeks I’ll take a few days away from classes to attend the Performing Arts Exchange at the Southern Arts Federation convention in Atlanta, GA.   For details, go to http://www.southarts.org/ .  As a newly elected member of the local arts council, my mission is to channel the spirit of legendary talent buyer “Hiram Cheap” and bring home the acts for the upcoming 2009-2010 season.  I’ll be blogging live from the convention and sending you little video interviews of performers, agents, and random miscreants as time permits. 

     Sample panel discussions include: Advanced Contract Negotiation,  Using Second Life to Engage Audiences, Federal Taxes on Foreign Artists: It’s Time to Comply, and Arts in Healthcare: A Rewarding Way of Reaching New Audiences. 

There are a couple of issues I’m working through as I mentally prepare for this trip: 

            (1) What is the right balance between “art-lite” (i.e. entertainment like magic acts, regional theatre companies’ A Christmas Carol presentations, and the Kingston trio) and “art-stout” (i.e. heavy art like modern dance, opera, classical chamber groups, etc…)?

            (2)  How do you convince people to “buy-in” to the season tickets when popularity (and thus attendance) has been abysmal the past few seasons?

            (3)  Do we book according to our funds in the bank or take a risk (major act) and hope to increase the subscriptions?   I can predict the vote of most of the council on this one…but should I try to turn this thing around? 

We’re trying to revive the idea of a market survey and get some data collection done within the next week, and this may help create a buzz.  Personally, I’d love to have an outdoor songwriters’contest/festival to coincide with a big arts/crafts festival our town has each year, but this would be a LOT of work for me and a pretty big financial risk to take if the weather is ugly that weekend.

As always, your insights and ideas are appreciated.

Last year I covered the Atlantis Music Conference and ReMIX Hotel Conference for my students who couldn’t attend.  This year I have a presenter’s showcase to attend and won’t be able to make it to either of these.  This year’s ReMIX  schedule has 2 solid panel presentations:

1.  Mixing by the Numbers;  -Frequency Ranges for Musical elements.  This would be a great one for beginning mix engineers!!  Learn how to carve out space in a mix so that every player sounds like a star!

2. The Path to Enlightenment – Signal Chains for Recording and Live Performance.  There will be some grey areas in recording due to tastes, but I’d really like to hear the panel talk about processing for live venues.  In this age of rack-mounted “do-it-all” processors, just what are the pros using to get a killer club sound?  It’s like that 200 item Chinese buffet I sometimes visit in a nearby town;  –too many choices and putting some combinations on your plate will lead to stomach pains!

Anyway, I know most of my students won’t be able to skip school and go, but if anyone’s interested, here’s the link:

http://www.wantickets.com/EventDetail.aspx?e_id=43320

The All-Access pass this year gets you admission to the Atlantis Music Conference and panels.  (Remember that Grammy U members may get a free upgrade to VIP All-access status;  –they did last year.  Grammy U is also holding a mixer on the 16th of September.  Details here.)

Atlantis has a couple of good panels on getting/keeping jobs in the music industry and touring.  Since the two events go on simultaneously and are within a brief MARTA ride from each other, it makes for a good networking and educational value.  

Got a band?  Wanna play at the conference?  Chances are slim, but there might still be a few spots available here:

http://www.atlantismusic.com/Festival_ShowcaseApp.html

Get on their mailing list and check back next year in July!!

14. ALL I WANNA DO – SHERYL CROW

13. MR. BRIGHTSIDE – THE KILLERS

12. R.E.M. – IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT (AND I FEEL FINE)

11. DANCING QUEEN – ABBA

10. SWEET HOME ALABAMA – LYNYRD SKYNYRD

9. DON’T STOP BELIEVING – JOURNEY

8. SMOOTH – CARLOS SANTANA AND ROB THOMAS

7. HOTEL CALIFORNIA – THE EAGLES

6. I WILL SURVIVE – GLORIA GAYNOR

5. MEATLOAF – PARADISE BY THE DASHBOARD LIGHT

4. KID ROCK – BAWIDABA

3. ANYTHING BY THE BEATLES – THE BEATLES

2. PIANO MAN – BILLY JOEL

1. AMERICAN PIE – DON MCLEAN

While I don’t agree with choices/reasons that HolyTaco blog states, I do think some basic guidelines are in order.  Here are my suggestions:

5.  Don’t play massive medleys in the style of “Hooked-on”  (classics, disco, hair metal, etc..).

4.  Make the covers suit the environment.  Playing any song by the Kinsey Sicks in a biker bar is probably not a good idea.

3.  Don’t preach.  You’re hired to entertain, not to change behavior or beliefs.  Songs about quitting smoking or drinking should probably be avoided.

2.  Avoid assymetrical meters, excessive polyrhythms and anything that sounds like this:   Varese may have inspired Frank Zappa to write music, but as far as I can tell, he’s never been a favorite of bar patrons.

1.  Never try any song you aren’t capable of singing on-key.

Bonus advice:  Knowing when to tell a bad joke is an art;  if you don’t have the talent, don’t try it onstage.

Last night we drove a bit to find  Crockmeir’s Pub to hear my old buddy Stan Foster and his friend Mark Custer play a few sets.  They played together in a very successful duo (Custer’s Last Stand) in the mid-1980s but due to careers, family responsibilities, etc… they each followed different paths. This is the first time in 10 years that they’ve done a gig together and they’re doing it out of their home territory, so none of their regular (old) fans are there (except for me and my wife).  Stan’s wife, Donna Hall, joins them for several numbers;  she’s got a good voice with lots of range and control. 

In the opening of the video, you hear Stan say “I’m not sure about this one…” but they were fine. They had a few fakebooks lying around and didn’t hesitate to take requests. It’s good to see them back together!

Think just a moment about how much economic sense a duo makes;   –plus no lugging a drum set back to the van!  They used hand-held percussion or a rhythm machine to good effect (–just dialed up a beat and faded it in and out).   Mark had a pedal rig for his acoustic that gave him a nice variety of tone.  Stan used the extended range of his 5 string bass to its fullest advantage. Good sound, happy customers, and at the end of the night, you divide the pay in half and head to the house.

I believe that duos deserve special respect;  –it requires a special amount of musical give and take to pull off everyone’s favorite cover tune.  I rarely see solo acts that can (or will) do covers any more.  But in terms of profitability,  it seems a bit strange.  Venues that handle large bands often pay more than smaller venues, so unless you’re a solo act playing a large venue, the money is not much different. 

What is your experience?

Yesterday she arrived 10 minutes before time to start playing.  Her name was Joyce and she was a “hotshot” soprano from a cathedral in Virginia.  Usually she sent music well in advance, but today she just showed up and wanted to sing.  I bumped the communion hymn off the hymnboard to make room for her solo and she handed me the copied pages of music;  –music I had not seen before.  I had only 5 minutes to prepare to sightread this piece.  What did I do?

1.  With pen in hand, I examined the page to make sure the notes were there.   Soloists are infamous for only paying attention to their part and trimming the lower clef off the other parts.

2. I made sure everything was legible and dark.  I will write letter names for notes more than 3 ledger lines above or below the staff.  Copies made too dark or light can spell trouble when sightreading.

3.  I examined the solo for 1st & 2nd endings, Da Capo al Fine, and Coda marks and highlighted these with attention-getting symbols of my own design (I favor frowny faces).

4.  I looked for courtesy accidentals.  Upon finding none, I inserted my own.  Many publishers use courtesy accidentals to help you realize that the preceding accidental has been cancelled.  The more accidentals a piece has, the more brainpower it requires.  Once there was an old TV game show called “Concentration” where contestants had to keep remembering where the pieces were.  If you don’t appreciate key signatures, go pick up a copy of some Paul Creston.  I’m sure Creston was smart enough to use key signatures;  –the problem was that he modulated so much he figured he didn’t need them.  Most of the time he probably didn’t know what key he was in!

OK, enough of the accidentals rant.  It’s important to know when accidentals are there and when they are cancelled.  Do what you have to do.

5.  I decide tempo and sing (”audiate” i.e. hear in my head) through the most complicated part of the soprano line.  She may be the soloist today, but I’m driving the parade;  –I’ll set the tempo and we can argue about it later.

6.  Finally, I study the most important notes in the bass (i.e. reduction or Schenkerian analysis, for you music theory buffs out there).  If the right hand should get lost in a sea of accidentals, I’ll jettison its part and will momentarily become a one-handed bass player. 

The important things I keep in mind are:  keep the steady beat (unless it’s colla voce),  drive the music defensively (i.e., –act like the soprano drops a beat out of every 3rd or 4th measure and you’ll win a million dollars if you jump in the music with her) and don’t lose your cool.  

Salvation is only a half-step away.

 There you have it:  my 5 minutes of prep.  The performance was fine, btw, and Joyce said ”it’s so nice to work with a real accompanist that’s always ready to go” as  she ambled off in search of food.  Thanks, Joyce. 

Whether  you’re preparing for a studio session or live show, there are some interesting rituals that take place. 

If possible, I also remove my wallet, checkbook, keys and spare change (when I have any) and hide them away in a safe spot.  Sometimes there are no safe spots.  Oh well.

If you have a moment, why not share one?

Thanks,

J