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Recital Recap & Recordings

8/28/2013

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The recital this past Saturday went very well. Thanks to everyone who attended! I'm very proud of my students and pleased with the way all of us made some music.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE RECITAL PAGE

I have some strong thoughts about how music is used in our society, and I shared some of them with the audience towards the end of the recital. I jokingly referred to it as a "sermon" and I guess it is something like that. I hope, however, that it makes people think.

It is a shame that so much of the music people enjoy is separated from the rest of their life. Making music is a joy that should not be reserved for only the professionals and highly-trained among us. There was a time when music-making was enjoyed by all, whether trained or not, whether wealthy or poor, no matter what class, gender, race. The poorest commoner sang to the love of his life just as frequently as a wealthy man would have serenaded his mistress. Unfortunately, today both rich and poor alike prefer to passively rely on recordings for their musical needs.

So I have issued a call to everyone to engage with music. This first and foremost means to make music, whether singing or playing an instrument. Don't tell me you can't sing: everyone has the necessary tools. A bit of advice: this is best done with other people.

Secondly, however, everyone should listen to live music. It doesn't have to be an expensive concert--there's plenty of inexpensive and free options around if you look. Here's another piece of advice: Go to church. You'll almost assuredly encounter some live music there as well as some people to share it with.

Anyway, I've posted the audio of my 'sermon' on the recital page along with recordings of the music.

I'll end this post with a YouTube video of a flash-mob performance. Maybe someday I can get one of the groups I work with to do one. They look like a lot of fun and what a great way to share music with the community!
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Recital Recordings Posted

1/12/2013

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Go to the Recital Page to listen! Pictures will be up soon.

Happy New Year!
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Recital Recap

5/17/2012

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If you haven't already, go check out the photos and recordings from our Spring Recital! It was a great success and we had the biggest audience yet! I'm very proud of all my students and grateful to all my colleagues for their hard work.

Elmer, of course, made an appearance. He was a big help throughout the whole process of rehearsing and working on the music. I've attached a few photos of his efforts:
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And, as an extra note, I've officially hung up my 'shingle':
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Happy New Year! - Random Musical Thoughts

1/5/2012

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Happy New Year everyone! All my various projects began again Monday, Jan. 2nd so I've been pretty busy this week with the various groups. Anyway, have a few random thoughts that I thought I'd share:

1) A friend sent me this You Tube video last week. It's very funny, but also very clever. It is a video of the musical group Mnozil Brass being silly. I highly recommend following one of their related videos to see them doing more traditional performances--they're fantastic. However, it seems that everything they do has a touch of humor to it.
2) Today I changed the guitar strings on both of my work guitars (the ones I use all the time). It's a bit time-consuming, so I often like to listen to music or watch something on TV while I do it. So, I popped in my DVD of Giulio Cesare and watched Act II. This is definitely one of my favorite operas for many reasons. For one, it features male soprano Michael Maniaci. No, he isn't a counter-tenor; he's the closest thing we have to a living castrato. Anyway, he's got a beautiful voice and it's a fantastic aria. If you like opera at all, you should check this out. If you don't like opera, still check it out to see a man singing in fantastic ranges.
3) For the Christmas Eve service at St. Mark's I arranged a ton of Christmas carols and hymns for the praise band to sing. One that I am most pleased with was this pop-rock version of "Hark The Herald, Angels Sing". Here's just a snippet of the piece (mind you, this is just the backing track that I recorded, but it gives a good idea of what was going on).
I think there was something else that I wanted to share, but I can't remember what it was now. Anyway, I think that's enough for one post anyway.

Happy New Year!
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Frosty The Snowman

12/29/2011

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It's been a great year! I'm slowly piecing together all the recordings and videos of the recital (while also spending plenty of time enjoying the holiday and all the friends and relatives that have been visiting). Here's a piece that we played at the recital that I'd like to post separately. Taylor, Tyler and I (aka the Tempe Guitar Trio) had a load of fun playing it and I've posted the score at Score Exchange.

Happy New Year!
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Swinging in November

11/13/2011

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I've had three gigs with Swing Memories in the past week. Here's a collage of photos taken of our Veteran's Day event and a snippet of a recording from the same.
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November Update - The Music of Papua New Guinea

11/2/2011

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I have finally finished preparing my New Guinea music web pages. Even after making web-pages for a little over a year now it hasn't gotten any easier. Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with them, but I'm certain that I'll be correcting things and adjusting things as they occur to me. Take a look and let me know what you think!

The Music of Papua New Guinea

In other news, all of my performing groups are up and running again:
• Swing Memories has our first gig at the VFW this coming Saturday (11/5).
• The Mesa City Band has another concert coming at the end of the month.
* The Silveridge Pops is rehearsing and getting ready for our first concerts in December.
• The Sunland Singers are off to a good start and working hard for our Dec.15th concert.
• I'm writing & arranging music for St. Mark's next Taize service on Dec. 18th.
• And, of course, I'm getting students & colleagues ready for the next Perry Project rectial, on December 10th.

I'm sure there's some other things that I should post here, but I won't think of them until later. Keep making music!
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Music of Papua New Guinea

8/10/2011

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My aunt and uncle deal in art from New Guinea (link to their website), and recently they have asked me to digitize some New Guinea music that they have collected on cassette tapes. This process requires that I listen to the recordings several times as I first digitize the music and then edit it. It's pretty neat stuff; sometimes strange, sometimes beautiful. All of it evokes a culture very different from our own. Listening to this makes me appreciate the study of ethnic music a lot more (I have a friend who is an ethnomusicologist).

Anyway, I'm including two tracks here. As I continue to finish the editing of the material (several hours worth) I may post more.
01_seven_flutes_and_drum_-_aibom_village.mp3
File Size: 4838 kb
File Type: mp3
Download File

09_two_flutes_of_the_iatmul.mp3
File Size: 1794 kb
File Type: mp3
Download File

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Reticulated Dunes

6/6/2011

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This was a particularly fun piece to write because, no matter what other music I play and enjoy, there will always be a little part of my musical heart that beats to a heavy metal riff. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to write the next Mars piece in a 80s rock idiom.

I'm very pleased with the way I got the raw image data to fit into a groove. Aside from the opening, which is just me vamping a few steel-string arpeggios and playing an opening electric guitar solo, the rest of the guitars you hear in the piece are all from the image data. Even the drum solos you hear are the image data mapped onto a set of tom-toms. The vocals are all me. :-)

Go check it out! You'll have to scroll down to the bottom to see it: RETICULATED DUNES
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Recordings Posted

5/17/2011

3 Comments

 
I posted most of the recordings from the Spring Recital this morning. Go take a listen!
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