Josh Kossman

As a musician it’s easy to say, but music truly is my favorite art form. It’s got it all; history, discipline, culture, emotion, as well as what I love best– the emphasis on live performance and fun. Music can be enjoyed alone, with friends or strangers, at any time of day, and on any continent in the world.

To me music is all about performance. Connecting with others through my personal dedication and discipline is a real high that I haven’t found anywhere else. It’s not only connecting with an audience that thrills me, it’s connecting with the other musicians I perform with that really gets me. Music is one of the great art forms that emphasizes collaboration. Much like theatre and dance, we musicians play off of one another and we would be lost without each other. One musician says a line or moves to their left in such a way that it inspires (calls) another to respond. I can’t limit this to the stage– the audience is also involved in this call-and-response process. I first wanted to play music because I went to a concert, and every concert I go to still has the same effect. It’s stimulating, educating, emancipating and regulating. It’s live music!

Maybe it’s because I can’t draw or act, I’m not savvy with computers, and can only cook things I like. Maybe it’s because I was thrust into music early and have had a great eighteen years of making music in a variety of contexts. But really, I think the reason I love music is because I’ve been fortunate to make music with a cornucopia of individuals possessing crazy personalities and insane talents. These individuals, without knowing it, have inspired me to continue on my own musical quests. I can’t stress enough how important performing music with others has been to my life and I don’t think I’d be so in love with music if it weren’t for my predecessors and colleagues.

Greg Warren

As a player of woodwind instruments I have learned many lessons about how easily they can bend and break.  The saxophone, flute, and clarinet are fragile instruments.  When you have played as long as I have you learn that the tiniest of bumps to the delicate buttons, levers and, rods can severely impact the instruments playability or sound.  It is never fun to struggle on an instrument especially during a performance. Your mind needs to be free of concern for the instrument so you can play without any inhibitions.  With the first round of school concerts and recitals having just passed or coming up you want your instrument to be in peak working condition.

The reason I am addressing this particular problem is because I have been seeing lots of bumps and bends happening to quite a few instruments in the last month or so.  I believe this is a result of students becoming more comfortable with their instruments.  This causes you to lose focus and concentration concerning the expensive instrument in your hands.  One time it happened to me right before a gig I was playing in Vail.  I was back stage talking to some friends when my sax fell off of my lap hitting the floor pretty hard.  The damage was severe, it could not be fixed.  We were going on stage in 15 minutes and at this point in my career I did not have a back up horn.  I ended up having to play the flute on a bunch of songs I didn’t know on the flute.  I love the flute but that was hard.  It was not the best gig I have ever played but at least I had a flute.

Here are some tips for all the woodwind families to help avoid damaging your instrument.  These care tips are common to all of the woodwind instruments.

• Make sure that all corks are thoroughly greased.  The cork can easily dry up in this dry Colorado climate of ours.  It is not a major repair but can be avoided easily.
• When concerning metal to metal connections on the flutes and saxophones, they only need to be wiped with a dry rag to prevent sticking.  Never put any kind of grease on these joints; they become very slippery.
• When assembling woodwind instruments take care to be firm but gentle.  Holding these instruments while assembling can cause a lot of damage; if you are not holding the instrument in the correct places you risk bending the long rods that make the keys move up and down.
• Always clean your instrument after playing.  Saliva and condensation will collect on the walls of all woodwind instruments while being played.  If it is not dried out regularly things can start to grow, I know from experience.  Sometimes a smell will develop and a professional has to help get rid of the gunk on the inside of the instrument.  This is more common on the saxophone with all its curves.
• Most importantly, just be aware of your surroundings.  Over time the instrument will become part of you and bumping into things or accidentally dropping it will stop, or become less frequent anyways.

As I said before, it will happen to every single one of us sometime in our musical career.  All we can do is be vigilant about how we treat our instruments and hope for the best.  Most musicians I know have a back up instrument or a really good friend to borrow a replacement from when things go bad.  When you become a professional, having a back up is a must.  Now go practice, but be careful not to drop or bump into anything with your instrument.

Daniel Jang

In recent decades, football, baseball, basketball, and hockey have been the most popular sports in the United States.  There are entire television channels, magazines, and incredibly expensive stadiums dedicated to these athletic events.  This past week, baseball and basketball were at the forefront of national news due to the World Series and the NBA lockout.  And with football season in full bloom, there’s no avoiding the cheers of excitement emanating from your living room.  If you love sports, whether you are in a league or involved at school, you are constantly exposed to and inspired by your favorite athletes by television, internet, and other media.  But how many of you can name your favorite violinist?  How about a pianist that you admire or an orchestra that you like to go see?  The world of classical music is not exactly front page news, but rest assured that with a little searching, you will be surprised by the many great concerts, recitals, and performances there are all around you.

Did you know that almost seventy five years ago, the television network NBC used to have its own orchestra?  For many years, the NBC Symphony Orchestra was even paid for by the network itself without any sponsors.  It had an entire fifty two-week season, offered the highest salaries, and was considered one of the greatest orchestras in the world.  NBC even had a show called “The Bell Telephone Hour” from 1940 to 1958 featuring the best performers in classical music and had many millions of weekly viewers.  Fast forward to today… A classical music performance on television is extremely rare.  Changes in the last seventy five years may be perceived as people losing interest in Mozart, Bartok, or Debussy, but in reality, getting exposed to these great composers just requires a little bit of homework.

The Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony, Youth Symphony, Chamber Orchestra, and CU Boulder Symphony Orchestra are among the dozens of ensembles that give regular performances around Boulder County.  There are even more concerts surrounding our city and don’t forget about Denver’s Colorado Symphony, Ballet, and Opera.  Local events to look forward to in November are Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker by the Boulder Ballet, the CU Boulder Symphony Orchestra concert on the 17^th, and the Boulder Symphony concert on the 18^th.  The School of Music at CU Boulder has over fifty free performances this month alone!  Now, how do we get excited about these performances and what can we do to prepare for watching a live concert?

When enjoying sports on television, we are watching performances of the best athletes in the world.  After the Denver Nuggets or the Rockies have a thrilling match, do you get inspired to shoot some hoops or play catch with your friends?  Try searching online for information on the world’s celebrated musicians for the instruments you play.  For guitarists, try a search for Andrés Segovia or the Assad Brothers.  For those who play a stringed instrument, watch incredible videos of violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz or learn the inspiring story of Jacqueline du Pré.  Also, we can go watch the world renowned Takács Quartet perform because they live right here in Boulder!  If you take voice lessons, look up “The Met Opera” on YouTube, or learn about Wagner’s operas and why there is a ten year waiting list for the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth.

Inspiration, whether it comes from your parents, teachers, favorite athletes, or musicians, can be very important to how much you enjoy a hobby or a subject in school.  What if you were the only person on Earth who played baseball?  It would be very difficult to enjoy and improve your game with no other players on the field.  Once you have a full roster and other teams to compete with, you can expect to get better as a player and help your friends win games.  The same applies to learning an instrument.  With help from family, teachers, and idols, it is your responsibility to make playing music as enjoyable and educational as possible.  So get out there, learn, and have fun!

Robyn Yamada

The improvisational pianist is a complete combo.  For example, inside the heart of every improvisational pianist lies a versatile bassist.  It is  imperative that one is always thinking about where the structural line is going and leading the rest of the “combo” through the changes.  There are endless possibilities in creating a good bass line – the structural foundation, really.  The mid-range of the piano (middle C to high C) becomes the guitarist, i.e. mainly used for comping chord changes over the bass line and creating a basic rhythm.  It’s what I like to think of as the jello that holds everything together.  Also, the drum section happens in the mid range.  The comping of the changes is very percussive in nature and sets the rhythm and tempo of the piece.  The upper register of the piano is used for the color instruments (lead guitar, fiddle, flute, horns).  In short, leads should not be played in the mid-range but above high C.  Lead lines played in the mid-range have a tendency to get muddy.  The melody of the piece should be in the mid-range, with fills and solos moved up for clarity and distinction from the main melody.  This concept remains consistent when working with a vocalist.

In summation, the piano as a solo instrument, when approached with a combo in mind, can be used very effectively.  The bass remains below middle C, the rhythm instruments should be played between middle C and high C, and the color instruments belong above high C.

Alexa Reeves Massey

It was a vivid day for a number of reasons. Not only had I been anticipating seeing Yo-Yo Ma perform the Haydn D Major Cello concerto with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra for weeks, but my teacher had acquired back-stage passes for him and his students to meet him after the performance.

Then a turn of events occurred. The day before the concert, the Twin Towers fell. I was in 8^th grade and remember not fully understanding the impact of it until the following day in Denver, when my Mom pointed to the Sears Towers on our way to the Boetcher concert hall. As we looked up at the Sears Towers, which looked rather large to a small-town girl like myself, she explained that the Twin Towers were several times as high and wide as those buildings. This July, I visited ground zero in New York City, and the air felt thick with the loss of a decade ago. The surrounding Wall Street Buildings are still heavily guarded, and my heart pounded as the countless news images played through my mind of people running for their lives from the area I was standing.

Of course, Haydn D Major, an up-beat, joyful concerto, was no longer appropriate for the concert. An hour before the performance, the program was changed from Haydn to the Elgar Cello Concerto—one of the most soulful, heart-wrenching pieces of music ever written for the cello. This is also the work that inspired me to stick with the cello when I was young—I saw it performed at the age of ten, and I knew I would never quit the cello after seeing the true magic this instrument could create.

Most events were cancelled after the attack, but the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and Yo-Yo Ma continued on with the concert with an altered program as a tribute to the lives lost.

After the concert, Yo-Yo Ma spoke with my cello studio, and I will always remember the wisdom he imparted. He discussed the tragedy of the previous day with us, and I was struck by how gracious, generous, and completely humble this man was.

He went on to discuss cello playing with us, and said that practicing is about quality, not quantity. He said that some days he practices for five hours, other days he will only practice for five minutes. If you aren’t having a productive practice time, you are most likely just reinforcing bad habits. He also discussed the importance of having a balance of the three ways to practice. Those include:

1) Practicing by yourself

2) Practicing with others (rehearsing)

and 3) Imagining yourself practicing.

I remember being surprised by number 3 on his list. It seems silly, right? But it has been scientifically proven that the brain forms the same neural connections by imagining yourself doing something as actually performing the task. He said, “Just because your cello is in the shop is no excuse to not practice!” This piece of advice saved my music career in college—I was injured and the time I could practice was very limited. But I learned to practice in my mind, and work out fingerings, bowings, and other musical ideas before even touching my instrument. This is a great way to give your body a rest, or prevent injury, and still improve musically.

Yo-Yo Ma was a child prodigy, performing in the White House for President John F. Kennedy by the age of five. However, in college, he studied Humanities at Harvard University. Yo-Yo Ma stressed the importance of learning about the world. He said to develop yourself in many areas—to learn about history, humanities, art, and math & science; being a well-rounded person is as important to virtuosic musicianship as are practicing your scales and etudes. You can’t be a truly mature artist unless you are educated and aware of the world you live in.

As well, he said that he is always pursuing new musical interests. Yo-Yo Ma has largely popularized the cello because he doesn’t just play standard works—he is continually pursuing new projects, playing music from different cultures, and learning, growing, and challenging himself musically.

“When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.”

Yo-Yo Ma

Denise McCoy

Welcome back The Lesson Studio students! I hope your summer was relaxing and musical! The fall is the start of many music seasons in theaters and concert halls in the Denver Metro Area, as well as local venues, such as the University of Colorado. It is really important for the students and the parents of students to be involved in seeing live performances because not only does it enrich the growing musicians education, it is fun and can be done as a family. Parents who are involved in their child’s musical education are more likely to create positive views towards their study of music and encourage the student to practice. By bringing your child to live concerts, the student can see what it’s like to perform music live. They can see that live performance may have more to offer than recorded music, and the student can see first hand the work that goes into putting together a concert. Practice, hard work and love for music is what makes a performance successful.

Here are a few suggestions for concerts this fall:

Colorado Symphony has a wide range of genres that are performed in an acoustical setting. Here students are more likely to see their instrument performed in an ensemble. This season there are contemporary concerts with performers such as Patti Lupone, Ozomatli, and Jim Brickman. The symphony is also putting together a multimedia performance called “The Planets: an HD Odyssey.” This type of performance integrates different forms of art, to express a theme. On the classical end, Beethoven’s 7^th is being performed, as well as Faure’s Requiem, and an all Dvorak program, just to name a few. Renee Fleming, who in my opinion in a famous, real life opera star, will be performing in March. For any young singer, this is definitely not a concert to miss!

http://www.coloradosymphony.org/

If you want to find concerts that are a little more wallet friendly, Colorado University offers a wide variety of concerts throughout the school year. There are student recitals, which are free and can be instrument specific, that are great for a young musician to attend.

http://music.colorado.edu/

The Denver Center offers a massive, and impressive variety of shows that is great for any musician to see. A few to mention are, The Lion King, A Christmas Carol, Wicked, and Hair.  I recommend a concert at the Denver Center, purely because of the wide range of interest that they cater to.

http://www.denvercenter.org/home.aspx

I hope you can take advantage of all this area has to offer musically. There are a lot of talented musicians in the area. I am sure they would like your support and I am sure your kids can really learn from them, and further enjoy music and what it has to offer.

Wilson Harwood

It has been a great pleasure and somewhat frustrating task to learn the cluck.  Until a month ago I didn’t even know what the cluck is.  For those of you who are also wondering what the cluck is I will give you my own definition.  The cluck is a technique used by claw-hammer/old time banjo players.  It is used as a percussive accent where the players uses the nail of the middle finger to strike a string and then immediately stop the string with the index finger nail resulting in a resonant “cluck.”  Those last two sentences are much easier written than performed. The cluck is not easy and I have had trouble creating the perfect resonance each time. With some steady practice you to can cluck!

If you are starting out learning the cluck, bring your middle and index finger together so they are touching. Next put your index finger slightly behind your middle finger so that it is touching the underside  of you middle finger.  Now strike the middle G string with the outside of your middle finger nail and let your index finger follow through and stop the sound of the string. If done correctly you will get a loud resounding “cluck.”  Practice this method slowly and deliberately at first and then work in the frailing pattern.  The cluck replaces the strum or “dit” when you frail.

Below are some helpful resources to learn more about the cluck:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy2iCyrsqr0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdXbQkeC2h8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVqWF_FC554&feature=related

And some more descriptions on clucking:

http://zeppmusic.com/Clearhead/cluck.htm

http://www.ehow.co.uk/info_8390566_playing-techniques-clawhammer-banjo.html

Garrett Smith

I want to talk about performance. Different stages, different levels of performance. Venues, degrees, heights, hysterical to barely audible. Divine to mundane. Terrifying and restrictive to freeing and natural. Red Rocks to the shower. The Met to the cab of your truck. Anytime you tap into that intimate place inside yourself where you encounter your muse and let it out, you are performing. For yourself, for the angels, for your family, to patrons, or to total strangers. To outwardly manifest the phenomena of organized sound, which we call music, you are to some degree performing, as you should. It is healthy to perform. It’s an exercise in letting go, in being natural, in being indeed totally yourself, a divine creature gifted with the capacity of producing combinations of beautiful sound.

We humans are not the only ones to appreciate beautiful sounds. I have two cats. One, Ash, loves to play my guitar (with his tongue, or teeth, or sometimes paws, but mostly his mouth.) Whenever I whistle, sing or play the piano, he’s right there rolling on the floor in utter bliss no matter how loud. The other, Mobius, is a bit more reserved, perhaps even offended by these noises uttering from my interaction with the physical world. The difference seems to be an appreciation of music. If you pay attention, you may notice just as in the Disney princess stories, the birds and squirrels and deer drawn to your music. Even if not such a fairytale scenario, one increases her/his magnetism through the practice and power of performance. People can see when someone is comfortable enough with themselves to allow the beauty of song and sound to move through them.

One of the ways to improve your performance level is to watch professionals of all sorts of genres. Good DJ’s, jam bands, pop stars, folk artists, bluegrass, family style-around-the-campfire, worship music, opera, musical theatre, indeed any theatre (the beats and timing of stage theatre and film for that matter are somewhat musical, for example looking at the cadence in Woody Allen’s dialogue, or Shakespeare) are all going to that place where music lives from different roads. I am involved (in fact starring as the title role) in an original musical comedy, “Casanova at Twilight” being premiered in a week. Written by Tony-award nominee, TV soap star of “All My Children,” and on and off-Broadway actor, Bill Mooney with original music by CU’s Hunter Ewen, this show is raucus, hilarious, and all about timing. You will see a cast of high caliber who have created these characters and this show through their various trainings to bring the audience and themselves the ups and downs that make life so exciting and, indeed, sexy. You can find tickets at cupresents.org (including $5 student tickets!) and we are playing two weekends. There is a free preview on Thursday, the 22^nd if you can’t afford tickets, just mention Garrett Smith. I encourage you to come see our process of performance in this intimate space of the Atlas Multimedia Blackbox Theater, and experience what it does to you. Perhaps you will be inspired. Perhaps you will seek your own stage.

Cheers,

Garrett

Beth Barnadyn

You just got assigned a new piece, and there are some fast passages.  What do you do? How do you practice it?  One of the most common tendencies of musicians is to jump head first into a passage, and repeat the same few measures over and over until, hopefully, it starts to sound better. Unfortunately, this is not the best approach to mastering and ultimately learning a particular section or piece.   The key to learning any passage, whether rhythmically or technically demanding, is to practice in small chunks.

One of my favorite visual examples of how to approach the practicing of a piece is to think of it like a big pizza. If we wanted to eat the whole pizza, we wouldn’t stick the entire thing in our mouth at once, would we? No. We eat it one slice at a time. (Unless of course you are really hungry)   This is a great approach to learning a passage or piece in a timely and solid way.

First, you want to isolate those spots in the piece that need the most attention. Once you have these areas, focus on playing small sections at a time, typically no more than a measure long each. When playing, you will want to go extremely slow, listening for good intonation and good tone/sound quality.  After you have achieved a good foundation at that level, you can start to play the section faster, and to start playing with rhythmic variations. Some typical patterns for digestion would be long-short-long-short, and/or short-long-short-long.  This works for groupings of four, but you can easily play long-short-short, for example, for a group of three.   Continually work towards a faster and more complex rhythm, and you will master even the most difficult passages.

After a few days of eating the pizza slice by slice, you will find that you will master even the most difficult passages. The key to success is to not get frustrated.   Just take it one bite at a time!

Tung Pham

by Tung Pham, Brass Instructor at The Lesson Studio

Having a steady routine will help any musician develop consistency in their playing and build a solid foundation for further development. For brass players in particular, having a routine is essential to building strength in the embouchure which is a necessary for players of all levels.  Routine exercises can happen in a number of different ways:

1)      The Warm Up – you have heard it before from band directors, choir teachers and private lesson instructors… “You need to warm up before you play!” Not warming up is the number one cause for not sounding good. 9 out of 10 teachers agree that negligence in warming up is the number one cause for bad intonation, lack of focus and bad breath. (ok, so maybe not bad breath). Having a well organized warm up routine based on fundamental techniques such as breathing and  building /maintaining tone are cornerstones.

Suggested warm ups include: long tones  (for breathing, air control, tone building) , scales (control, theory and finger technique)

2)      Flexibilities – regularly playing flexibilities is the quickest and most efficient way to make your “chops” (lips) hurt! It’s also the most efficient way to build strength in your embouchure. Playing brass instruments is an extremely physical undertaking that requires the coordination of many muscle groups that have to do with breathing, blowing, lower back, arms, hands and fingers. Regularly slurring passages and playing through flexibility etudes helps the player transcend physical restraints and refocus on creating music.

Suggested flexibility books: Max Schlossberg Technical studies, Advanced Lip Flexibilities for trumpet, Arban Complete Conservatory Method for Trumpet

The most important idea of routine is consistency! Consistently going through warm ups and other exercises will show immediate results in how you play by reinforcing carefully placed good habits. Talk to your teacher about how to set up a good warm-up routine. Every time you pick up your instrument, it should be with purpose. For you naysayers at home, routine doesn’t mean to exclude learning new materials. Learning new concepts or music can also be put into routine. Parents can help facilitate the process of routine at home. Let’s get organized. Happy practicing!