Category Archive

I heard an interview on NPR the other day and found Victor’s views on music education incredibly interesting(and he has a book available now!  I just ordered my copy!).  I still can’t find the audio, but I found this text from:

Bass Musician Magazine

Jake /Kot (Editor)/: In my interview with Alain Caron, he had very similar things to say about his playing being a language of its own, right down to comparing syllables to phrasing.
 
Victor: Right! You can move people with this language. The difference is that it’s rare that I’ve ever met a musician that actually treats music like our first language, English. We agree that’s it’s a language, but for some reason we treat music totally differently. Most of the time when it comes to learning music, I would go as far to say that we go about it backwards, in reverse. I’m not saying that any approach is wrong, that’s not my point. Realizing that English, and I only say that because it’s my first language, and music are both forms of communication, it’s easy for me to see that I’m still much better and more comfortable with English even though I’ve been playing for a very long time. So when I look at the approach that we use to learn and speak, and even teach English, and compare it to the usual approach we take to learn music, I realize, wow, it’s a drastically different approach, to the point where I say that we’re learning music backwards. Let me explain what I mean by that.

Lets say that I have a child that I think wants to play piano. My first thought is going to be who can I send her to for lessons—nothing wrong with that. But if I take that same approach—if I have a child that wants to speak English, for me to think, ok, who can I send them to for lessons is an odd thought. We just surround the kid with people speaking that language. We talk to the child and allow them to talk back, uninhibited. They can say whatever they want, and we hardly teach them anything for the first few years, and what I mean by ‘teach’ is teaching in the classic sense of the word as in sitting them down and giving them instructions. We don’t do that for the first 3 or 4 years at least. We let the child fend for itself. We more or less throw them in the deep water when it comes to speaking English. They have to figure it out themselves. I recognize a few key factors when I look at what allows us to get good at speaking English quickly, really quickly. I want to present these factors because as far as learning music goes, we seem to be looking at what, 15 or 20 years to obtain that same skill level communicating on our instrument.

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From www.potluckcon.com:

The Pot Luck Audio Conference is a yearly gathering of people who are passionate about signals, sounds, music, and recordings.

Formerly TapeOpCon, we are now moving into our seventh year. There will be three days of fun and informative workshops and panels. We will be featuring three different working studios, four main panels, and over thirty-two workshops.

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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  

Years ago when I was trying to make a go in retail music with 5 partners, we had a pretty nice little store with full lines of most anything you’d want.  One day the Randall amps representative (if memory serves me) came in and (after begging everyone else in town) offered us the line for a rather small investment.  If we took the line, we’d also get a clinic with Michael Angelo Batio (from the band Nitro). Everyone thought this was a good idea at the time (even though we already had Marshall, Ampeg, and Crate lines), so we took the line and booked a clinic.  Michael Angelo was an incredibly nice guy and brought his double-neck and another guitar and drew a pretty big audience for B’ham, Alabama in the late 1980s.  Frankly, I’d not heard of him, but when he played, I was very impressed.  This video illustrates why you should learn to play your tetrachords! (@45 sec.s) Read the rest of this entry »

For beginners, watching your hands is crucial;  –remember learning your first G chord on guitar?  But some of us never get over this habit of visual finger/hand placement.  It’s really hard for beginning keyboardists;  they’ve got as many as 88 different locations to memorize (or more, if they’re on a Bosendorfer).  I do use my peripheral vision for extreme things (jumps of 2 octaves or more) , but for everyday playing, I don’t need to place my hands using my eyesight.  In fact, just give me dark sunglasses and let me find the groove.  I’m speaking to drummers, too.  You don’t need to look at everything you hit.

Beyond the break there are 2 videos that prove my point. Read the rest of this entry »