March
11
2010
What’s New, Pussycat?
Try Something New. Be Creative. Improvise. Keep Learning.
Today’s edition of Musician’s Motivator looks at ways we can build up our creative resiliency.
Try Something New.
Last week, I asked our goddaughter, Bree, what she wanted to do on our weekly date. She suggested a treasure hunt. Great idea, Bree! I don’t think you have to be 14 to appreciate a treasure hunt. We mid-century citizens of the world can enjoy them, too.
I did some googling and found letterboxing.org. This site lists treasure hunts by area (city, zip, neighborhood) and also by date placed. I found one in SE Portland that had been created in August, 2009.
A treasure hunt provides clues for the hunter to decode. In letterboxing, the found treasure consists of a small blank booklet, rubber stamp, and stamp pad. You bring your own personal rubber stamp to mark in the booklet and use the stamp in the found treasure stash to mark in your own log book. Since we were newbie letterboxers and didn’t have our own personal rubber stamps, we wrote messages and drew pictures in the booklet at each found treasure.
Be Creative.
At a future get-together, Bree and I will create a new treasure hunt and add it to the letterboxing website for others to enjoy finding.
Improvise.
My students have been learning how to improvise, as in creating music on the spot! This is in preparation for the Spring recital, Sonata Improv. Each musician will prepare a solo, a fully-notated piece of music; and add an improvised section to the piece.
Improvisation is such a daring act. And yet, not so scary when approached gently. We’ve been working on exercises to get the improv muscle strengthened. Each week, I’m pleasantly surprised at the new musical creations that come out of their instruments. Rather, the music that *they* create!
Keep Learning.
Last Saturday, I enjoyed a performance by Belle Voci, a 24-voice women’s vocal ensemble. They sang a great variety of styles and languages. In addition to English, they sang in Latin, French, a West African tongue, German, Spanish, Italian, and Estonian.
It was the Estonian piece that has stayed with me. Since hearing it, I have undergone a journey of learning about Estonian music. Lauliku Lapsopõli is an Estonian folk song arranged by Veljo Tormis for female voices.
A solo voice begins the piece, singing the haunting melody in a clear, high voice. Soon she is joined by more and more voices layering tight, high harmonies above her. The sounds are exquisite, evoking images of high mountain snow and ice for me.
However, the lyric speaks of summer and birds and ducks, and how the singer learned so many songs.
“When I was very little, al’leaa,
I grew so prettily, al’leaa,
I was but one night old, al’leaa,
just two days old,
mother took my cradle to the meadow,
put my crid on the heath,
put a duck to rock the cradle,
the bird of summer to push me.
The duck had many words,
the bird of summer had lots of songs,
the duck sang many songs to me there,
the bird of summer, it spoke to me a lot.
That is where this child learned the songs,
this crazy one [got to] know the words,
all of them I placed on paper,
all of them I hewed into a book.
That is why I have so many words,
that is why I have lots of tunes.“
Ongoing Process
When I was at the library on Sunday, I checked out a CD of orchestral music just because it had the word Estonia on the jacket. It is the music of Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg, performed by the Estonia National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Paavo Järvi. Trying something new.
How are you flexing your creative muscle? By trying something new? By continuing to learn? By improvising? All of these? Oh, that’s great to hear!
Thanks for reading! The next edition of Musician’s Motivator will be out on Wednesday, March 24, 2010.
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Have you ever played jacks? It’s that game of agility and speed played with a small rubber ball and a set of 10 six-pointed jacks.
Suppose that each learning variation above might be a different jack from the game of jacks. Saying the name of the note as you point to it could be your Ones-ies. Threes-ies might be something like saying the name of the note as you point to it and then singing the pitch. I’ve prepared some suggested guidelines, and created some audio files and written music for you to use to get going. Read through my suggestions below, download the files, and play some Musical Jacks!
Set the printed music on the stand, sit with your instrument on your lap or otherwise handy, and have your MP3 player within easy reach to start and stop the audio file.
Singing and playing musical instruments was quite common among my forebears. One hundred years ago, music was an integral part of family life. Children sang in educational and sacred settings, and took piano lessons. Adults played in community orchestras and bands or sang in casual groups. I suspect when you ask your parents and extended family about their musical experiences, you will hear some great stories. Today, I learned a little more about my musical genealogy.
Allen and Jim became friends and went out on double dates together. On one of those double dates, Allen invited his sister, Loretta, to be Jim’s date. Loretta and Jim hit it off pretty well; well enough to continue dating and eventually marry.
Family gatherings of all the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins always had some singing. After a meal, song lyrics were handed out, sometimes some sheet music too, and we’d sing. As Mary Beth and I got older, we accompanied the singers on flute and saxophone.
What’s your musical genealogy? I invite you to share your stories with me and the readers of Musician’s Motivator. Make a comment on my
The idea of improvisation scares the beejeezus out of many musicians, especially those who learned to play their instrument side by side with learning how to read music. Knowing how to read music is a valuable skill. But when you stop and think about how you learned to speak your native language, you will realize that you learned to read well after you learned to speak the language.
How To Practice Improvisation
Turn on your radio and play along. Many radio stations specialize in one genre of recorded music. You can chose from jazz, pop, oldies, classical, folk, rock, opera, and many others. I recommend that you start with a style of music you like and with which you are familiar.
Music has many mathematical elements contained therein. The idea to apply pitch to pixels is the concept behind the free software,
In this image, I am boating on the Bosphorus Strait, the waterway separating Europe and Asia.
This time, I set the instrumentation to voices by choosing #54 Ooh Choir. There are 142 different instruments with everything from clarinet and trumpet and tuba to Rain and Gunshot and Dog. There are nine different types of drum kits, and about that many types of guitars, pianos, and basses.