 Apparently “Binaural Beats” are making headlines lately. I have never heard this term before today, but I have been listening to a type of therapeutic music just like this for several years now. I have been a fan of Kelly Howell, a pioneer in digital music therapy, for a couple years now.
Listen people. I am not an expert in this, but I have studied Sound Healing with leading Sound Healer, Wayne Perry, and I have been researching this subject on a weekly basis for over 2 years. Here is my humble take on the freak-out fest: We all know that music changes the way you feel, right? What if you understood the brain and it’s reaction to music, and you could predict which frequencies and pitches made your brain feel “happy?”Ok, that is what Kelly Howell and many others in this growing field are doing. You put on stereo headphones, listen to this calming music, and if you focus on the music intensely enough, you can go into a deep meditative state. Or you can get “high.” It is all a matter of semantics. Which word do you prefer? |
Posted in Music & Technology, Music History & Facts, Teaching Tips
When I studied voice there was no discussion about what I wanted to study, nor did I ask. My teacher invited me to join her studio after hearing me in a performance, she taught, and I sang. I never questioned the style she was teaching me, the technique, nor the direction we were headed. I just sang.
I too invite students to join my studio whom I believe have great talent by writing them a note and inviting them to come sing with, me as my first teacher did for me. I then invite them for a “preview lesson” to see how we gel together, and then we move forward. However, I differ from my first teacher in that I begin by asking each student what they want out of their lessons, and where they want to go with their voice and their music. Read more…
Posted in Music & Technology, Music History & Facts, Performing, Practicing, Promoting Your Studio, Studio Management, Teaching Tips
One of my top reasons for having the lab along with the lesson is that it simply offers me more time with each student. Thirty-minute lessons literally disappear and making plans for what and how to practice in the upcoming week must always come first. The opportunity to introduce and reinforce concepts is often limited to a quick intro and then students are asked to “apply immediately”. Most of my students require a great deal of review of new signs, sounds, and concepts to make it stick. With the extra lab time, I am able to provide a wide variety of activities at the computer and beyond that allow for extra “sink” time.
My past blog described types of software for the lab sessions. However, sometimes, my favorite activities to assign are the beyond the computer assignments. Below is a number of them:
Reviewing: Hands On
1) Recently, I designed a unit dedicated to the bass clef to ensure stronger reading skills. The very first assignment required bass-clef-note flash cards. Students had become familiar with the sentences for
lines: Great Big Dogs From Alaska
and for
spaces: All Cows Eat Grass
So, while listening to “Who Let the Dogs Out” and “Cows, Remarkable Cows” on iTunes with head phones, they were asked to make Cow piles and Dog piles (space-note pile and line-note pile.) Basic, yes, but students have since then, not forgotten the sentences thanks to the fun music and of course the visuals–I had l plenty of cows and dogs hanging out around the studio.
2) Create a stack of flash cards–only treble, bass or both clefs and challenge students to name them in less than a minute. Offer a “fabulous” prize for the studio winner.
3) Ask students to review certain basic concepts using Coloride found at http://www.musicedmarket.com . This manipulative is a very unique tool for students to reinforce learning “in color”.
Posted in Music & Technology, Music History & Facts, Music Theory, Performing
February is Black History Month. This is an excellent oppurtunity to teach your students some history of American Music. Our own American music style goes back to the days of slavery when Africans carried over their own folk music and merged it with the European classical and folk music that was brought here by the white folks. This is an awesome opportunity to teach a little history in your lessons.
I grew up in the southern part of the US, and Black History Month was always a very important time in our schools. Because of this, I grew up singing and playing many important songs from the pre-civil war era as well as the jazz age. I’ve compiled a list of songs you might want to consider teaching your kids this month, in honor of this special time: Read more…
Posted in Music History & Facts, Teaching Tips
daily observations “classical music insights” Charles Noble is the Assistant principal violist of the Oregon Symphony. He blogs about his experiences with the orchestra, as well as his deep love of good coffee. Follow Charles on Twitter.
Dial “M” for Musicology “Music, Musicology, and Related Matters.” “This is a musicology group blog that features the prose stylings of Jonathan Bellman (University of Northern Colorado) and Phil Ford (Indiana University Jacobs School of Music). It is a place for us to work ideas out publicly in what is still, for our field, a somewhat new medium. We are members of the American Musicological Society, but our views are entirely our own and should not be taken as representative of the AMS or any other academic organization. “Dial ‘M’ for Musicology” is an academic blog, but it wants to be friends with everyone. Welcome to all critics, musicians, bedroom air-guitarists, louche aesthetes, prickly autodidacts, and random passers-by!” There are also several new contributors who have joined the fold. Often thought-provoking and always interesting, this is a great place to find things to think about. 4-8 posts monthly.
dramma per musica “My name is Bob Kingston. I’m a librarian, free-lance musicologist, lapsed bass-baritone, and self-professed opera fanatic living in Portland, Oregon. I give all of the pre-performance talks for the Portland Opera, and I also lead music history classes for the company’s Studio Artists. I love collecting historic vocal recordings, and I often use examples of these in my classes and presentations. So, don’t be surprised if I post a clip of some obscure Russian tenor or Italian baritone from time to time.” 4-12 posts monthly. I enjoy Bob’s tweets immensely. Follow Bob on Twitter. Read more…
Posted in Composing & Arranging, Music & Technology, Music History & Facts, Music News, Music Theory, Performing, Practicing, Press, Promoting Your Studio
A Liberal’s Libretto “A Liberal’s Libretto is the place to look for news, commentary and real-life stories related to the ARTS and POP CULTURE.” 2-4 posts daily. “American bass-baritone James Newman holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Voice Performance from Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington and continued his education in Opera Performance and Conducting at Arizona State University. He then moved to New York City where he began studying with internationally renowned soprano, Maria Spacagna with whom he studies today. When he’s not performing, James Newman blogs, follows politics, the arts and pop culture tirelessly and loves hanging out in Park Slope with his wife, soprano Jenn Raithel Newman and their daughter, Lyla.” Follow James on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JamesNewmanNYC
Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise “Books, articles, and a blog by the music critic of The New Yorker” Author of book The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. Posts infrequently: Newly changed over to Unquiet Thoughts under the aegis of The New Yorker magazine. He plans for several posts weekly.
Artistic Discourse… because the future of the arts depend on it “This blog is about many things: technology, sociology, economics, politics, arts policy and any other potential category of discourse that peaks my interest at the moment. However, the underlying theme to all those sub-categories will always be, THE ARTS. Whether you agree with me or not throughout the course of this blog, I would hope that you share your thoughts. I appreciate dissenting opinions almost equally as much as affirming ones.” Was posting Read more…
Posted in Music & Technology, Music History & Facts, Music News, Press
For string players and teachers, Connie Sunday offers a book in which she has written and collected many essays of interest to the string player and teacher. This book is available online, in paperback via Amazon, in electronic book on Kindle, or on Mobipocket for reading on a PDA or Blackberry.
Online, it’s part of Connie’s amazing webpage which is primarily commercial, selling instruments, books, and supplies. The website is so full of information, free materials, links to sources for puchasing supplies or buying books and magazines, that it can’t fail to be of interest to all string teachers, if only to get them thinking about what’s out there.
Connie’s book starts out with the history of the violin, and addresses questions about ornamentation and many other topics. It includes FAQs about violins and violas, including Read more…
Posted in Music History & Facts, Practicing, Product Reviews, Teaching Tips
The Earliest Musicians
July 13th, 2009 by guest
There have been increased debates over what came first in prehistoric conditions, speech or music. While this remains to be fully explained, the recent discovery of a Stone Age flute from 35,000 to 40,000 years ago has helped to shine a light on the musical talents of these ancient peoples. This flute-like instrument was found near present day Ulm, Germany, and seems to represent a time wherein older humans discovered their ability to created music by fashioning a flute out of a griffon-vulture bone. This newest discovery has helped to indicate that music was present at the dawn of human culture, and further boosted the theory that there were high levels of technical and musical sophistication. Read more…
Posted in Music History & Facts
Originally posted on my solo performance website blog, I ran across more information on this today (see UPDATE at the bottom of the page) & thought I’d pass my posting on to my MTH colleagues. What do YOU think about applause at concerts?
Over the past several weeks I have asked my colleagues in person and via Facebook and Twitter: “During the Symphony for the Schools concert this morning at the beginning the kids applauded at 4-5 places during “Ride of the Valkyries” (1st piece). They were naturally applauding high points in the music. It made me start wondering. But, by the end, they weren’t applauding but were sitting restlessly. SHOULD we be so sure of ourselves & the importance of our presentation that we don’t allow the audience to participate in one of the only acceptable ways they have – applause? I’d LOVE to continue this conversation. I know I hate not being able to hear all the nuances of the music, but are we helping put the elitist label on classical music by proscribing when audiences can submit their input on the performance?”
Here is my Facebook Summary of responses:
“It’s always been weird but like with a cycle or set applause between each song would be tedious and also be distracting to the performer. So we hold off.”
“What if they want to applaud while you’re singing, like on American Idol or Sabado Gigante?”
“Yeah that’s annoying. I hate when you can’t hear them singing.”
“Amen!”
My Twitter responses: Read more…
Posted in Music History & Facts, Performing
Expose your students–and yourself–to as many styles of music as possible. If you are involved in a fixed curriculum, plan some times to step out of it and include something different.
Every style of playing music embraces players of top quality. Find them or recordings of them and let your students listen, and it’s of course educational for us as teachers as well. We need to set the example for students to be exposed to a variety of styles, whether readily available or not.
Nowadays media companies try to control what most people hear in order to sell lots of their own product. They know that people like what they hear the most. Classical music wasn’t elitist when Walt Disney used it for all his sound tracks.
Too often we are prejudiced against a whole type of music without really listening to it, or without listening to good practitioners of that style. For example, Read more…
Posted in Music History & Facts, Teaching Tips