August 28, 2007
Music of the gilded age
Ogasapian, John and N. Lee Orr.
Greenwood Press
2007
204 pages
Happy Apple Back On Top: CD Release Party at the Artists’ Quarter … - Jazz Police
Music Musique: French and American Piano Composition in the Jazz Age
Meister’s insightful thesis emerges from the cultural ferment of African-American jazz musicians settling in post-World War I Paris, and their influences on French composers. Against the backdrop of Sylvia Beach’s “Shakespeare & Company” bookstore and the coteries of Paris-based American writers, she traces the development of piano music in American (from Ives to Copland and Gershwin) and French (from Satie to Ravel and Milhaud) compositional styles.
Track List Unveiled For Career-Spanning ‘Dylan’ Sets
Making Music: Creative Ideas for Instrumental Teachers: More than 200 Step-by-Step Activities
Making Music by Patricia M. Gane is an unusual supplementary resource. For those unfamiliar with aspects of education in Great Britain, an independent and highly respected organization visits schools to evaluate all aspects of instruction. The reports of these Ofsted Inspectors are vital in evaluating strengths and weaknesses of the instruction. As an Ofsted Inspector, Gane has come to the conclusion that “many teachers wish to broaden the music experience of their pupils, but need help sometimes because of their own backgrounds … and sometimes because of a lack of appropriate material to them.” This resource supplies more than 200 step-by-step activities for private or group instruction designed to engage imagination and to place an emphasis on creating music. The author believes that young players, in particular, often play music without understanding it, and that by engaging them in the activities she suggests they “will come to really understand its magic, its language, and its power.”
The first two chapters are quite fundamental, and concern some basic physical and rhythmic awareness drills. The third through sixth chapters develop such musical concepts as texture, making melodies, the relationship of phrases and so forth. The sixth chapter introduces some projects making improvising less intimidating to young teachers, and the seventh chapter is an attempt to draw many of the themes from the early chapters together.
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I doubt that there is any music teacher who could not find several of these projects interesting and fruitful resources in their teaching. Almost all of the projects are well thought out and do seem to work. The question is how much time would have to be devoted to these projects to have a real impact on the development of young musicians, and how many of us would find these activities to be more important than those developing the skills, the musical awareness and communication that we have already identified as crucial in our own teaching style.
Reviewed by Kenneth Lee, Vienna, Virginia
Ghastly Ones cd release party and performance tonight
The future of music teaching? Recreational music making
AMT: What is RMM?
Brenda Dillon: Recreational Music Making (RMM) likely means different things to different people. The definition closest to what I believe is that it’s music making for the joy of it in non-stressful environments.
A predecessor of RMM was “amateur music making.” This was used to describe those who were unskilled or didn’t make a living as a professional. My favorite movie about amateur music makers involved a volunteer church choir preparing the Christmas portion of the Messiah. During one of the rehearsals a pretentious choir member left the rehearsal in a huff while lambasting the choir as “nothing more than a bunch of amateurs.” The choir director, played by John Housman, gave an eloquent speech about the word “amateur.” He noted that it was from the Latin word “amare” which means to love. He also observed that amateurs were very noble people because their love and humility toward an art tended to enhance and elevate it. That perfectly describes how I perceive RMM.
AMT: Why is RMM important?
BD: Anecdotal evidence suggests that 5 percent (or less) of the U.S. population is involved in music making of any kind. If that’s accurate then what are we doing to involve the other 95 percent in something we believe has lasting value and is life-enhancing? If we believe that music making can be life-changing for every human being, why do we accept the status quo even when it appears to shrink before our very eyes?
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We music teachers are like most of humankind. It’s easier to teach the way we were taught and to assume that the path we’re on will continue throughout our careers. The supply of music students was fairly consistent until students were bombarded with a huge array of choices and music making didn’t rise to the top for the majority of them. As many piano teachers weren’t completely self-supporting, the profession adapted the best it could to this new reality.