As a teacher for more than 25 years, I would relish the chance to get my classroom ready for the new ‘recruits’ making sure that stands were tight, chairs for the saxophones in the correct location, slides greased, valves moving smoothly, skins tightened and tuned. The opportunity to share my passion for making music and enjoying music has never dwindled. The opportunity to demonstrate how to make a sound on ‘any instrument’ was my challenge and modus operandi. ‘He can play 3 Blind Mice on any instrument’ is my claim to fame. Demonstrating how to make music, not just make sounds, is the goal. What is the difference? Sounds can be noise, what we dislike, and sounds can be music, what we like. The challenge is, how do we get young musicians to like things that are music but they still dislike? Form is the key I believe. If a young musician can hear how the form evolves and know how each element - theme, counter theme, development, recap - works within the form, they can begin to predict how the piece is going to evolve, giving them a chance to anticipate and ‘know’ what is going to happen as it unfolds. This knowledge helps to remove the unknown, which helps to create familiarity, which in turn, helps to create the ‘like’. After years of introducing 12 tone composition to students through listening examples and creative projects that are composed and performed by the composer, it never ceases to amaze me how many students disliked the examples I ‘forced’ them to listen to as an introduction to the genre, who eventually loved listening to their peers' composition, in the same style. Careful introduction and participation can lead to an understanding and appreciation for something we did not like before.
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I invite you to come by......This section is composed of observations or impressions I have, or others I value, share about music and its power. Archives
August 2019
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