Instruments
Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Wed, 09/19/2007 - 10:03am.
I have just finished reading Daniel J. Levitin’s interesting book, This Is Your Brain on Music. There are chapters on the physiology of how our brains work (or in my case, don’t), what sections of our brains are involved when we listen to, or 
perform music, and a bit about the evolutionary evidence of whether music was a survival trait or not.
The section that caught my interest was about whether musical talent is genetically-based or developed. It’s the old nature versus nurture discussion. Levitin cites research that suggests that to do anything – music, sports, writing, etc. – at an advanced level one needs to invest 10,000 hours of practice.
I have put in at least 20,000 hours on the practice tee and the golf course over the last 15 years, and this summer’s results have proven that Tiger Woods has absolutely nothing to worry about from me (unless he’s on the fairway next to me and I am teeing off). On the other hand, as a young guitarist, I made significant strides as a musician with far less than the suggested number of practice hours logged.
As a music teacher for many years, it was always my opinion that musical ability was innate to certain people. I could usually tell after 5-10 minutes if someone was going to be a good player or not. True, lots of practice could make anyone better than they were. But no amount of practice could make certain people play at my level or above.
We have a good number of musicians who visit this site. What are your thoughts about musical ability?
Click here to continue reading
Posted in
Greetings from Las Vegas, where I just saw Blue Man Group at the Venetian.
For info on a decidedly non-classical experience, including a hilarious faux-historical treatment of Blue Man Group's influence on rock music, visit http://blueman.com/about_bmg/rock.shtml.
I had a fabulous time. The show is funny, touching at times, incredibly high in energy, and even containing some cool musical things that remind me of what might happen if Bobby McFerrin played plastic tubes instead of singing. There were a few occasions when I found myself wondering, "Where is the substance here?" But all in all it was great, and now I can say I've been there.
Whoever music-directed that show was very smart. There was an erotic reference to tango, where they brought this young blonde woman up on stage, started playing a tango-like soundtrack, and had one of the Blue Men sort of flirting with her (in the middle of some funny antics involving Twinkies). It strikes me now how quickly a few bars of a classical genre like that will evoke a mood.
At one point in the proceedings, they had the three Blue Men each playing a plastic organ pipe-like thing, and there were three different tones (low, medium, high). The sign overhead said, "If you have a low voice, sing with this note... AAAAAAAAAHHHH." The singing from the crowd was pretty out of tune. The higher the pitch went for the other two Blue Men, the worse the singing got. The little funny segment was billed as "Gregorian chant / new age / group meditation" or something like that, and partly was a spoof of minimalism.
Well, so much for my exposure to Vegas Culture! I'm glad I live in Chicago.
Click here to continue reading
Posted in
Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Wed, 03/14/2007 - 10:23am.
Today's blog is guest written by Garry Carke, a UK native who has recently relocated to our fair city.
Chicago, as I'm sure most readers of this site are aware, is a great city! Last summer I had the good fortune to move here. I am a baroque violinist from the UK but had been living in Washington, D.C. since September 2004, initially coming as a Vilar Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. I live downtown and adore it. It's great being able to get to walk along the lake and I love being close by the museums, galleries, theatres, and restaurants; and of course, I love being close to the concert halls. Okay, so it can get a little chilly at times, but who cares when there is so much enjoyable culture to partake of with the many new friends I am making.
One thing did perplex me however: why no regular period instrument orchestra? Soon after my arrival I had the good fortune to meet, and perform with, some fine period instrumentalists - David Schrader, Craig Trompeter, David Douglass, Jerry Fuller, Marty Davids - but no regular period instrument orchestra!
"But", I hear many of you yell, "what about Music of the Baroque?". And, having attended several of their performances this year I know from experience what a fine musical organization they are. Beautifully crafted music performed to the very highest standards, but in the main, performed on ‘modern' instruments. Now, I may have been a professional period player all my working life, and I have no problems with performing music from any period on whatever instruments you like, but I do have a mission in life: to present the music I love to as wide an audience as possible and show just how alive, vibrant, and fresh it is today as I'm sure it was in the 17th and 18th centuries. Gone are the days when we had stodgy, dull performances, that might have been historically accurate, but that had no soul or emotion. Today the ‘early music' scene is full of energized, dynamic performances from ensembles like the Venice Baroque Orchestra (whose performance I was bummed to miss the other week as I had to be out of town), Les Arts Florissants, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Yes, we're still aiming for historical correctness, but we're also aiming to make our audiences leave with a feeling of inspired joy at the freshness of this wonderful music. We want audiences to hear it as if for the first time, we want to remove the layers that have been applied over the centuries and to bring back the full palette of the music's original colors.
I decided to take up the baroque violin after hearing Simon Standage perform Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the English Concert. A girlfriend had dragged me along, and the energy, the freshness, the clarity, and the sheer exuberance of the performance changed my life.
Now we're aiming to change yours.
In May, Baroque Band, Chicago's period instrument orchestra, will make its debut with three concerts: May 22, at the Music Institute of Chicago's Nichols Hall, Evanston; May 23, in the Grainger Ballroom, Symphony Center; May 24 at St Thomas the Apostle Church, Hyde Park. That week we'll also be announcing our first full season with concerts throughout the area in 2007 - 08 as well as some exciting partnerships we are developing. We hope that you'll join us at these events and also visit us online. As we approach our launch concerts we'll keep you up to date with our news, we'll add information about the music we perform, the instruments we use, and why we use them. You'll also have the opportunity to ask those questions about historical performance practice you've always wanted to know but were afraid to ask and we'll carry on telling you why Chicago is a great place to be!
Click here to continue reading
Posted in
Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Wed, 11/08/2006 - 1:20pm.
This blog is the first in a series of monthly posts written by Chicago Sinfonietta musicians. This week's guest blogger is June Matayoshi, an active free-lance oboist and English hornist in Chicago. She is a member of the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra.
Nothing creates more havoc for a double reed player than the change of seasons. Imagine having your perfectly honed reeds completely collapse due to a humidity and temperature drop, or become so 
saturated and enlarged due to too much humidity and rise in temperature. How do you even predict what kind of reed to make when the temperature is as variable as it is in Chicago at this time of year!
As an oboist who has battled with double reeds for over 30 years, my reed making struggles often have me asking myself, "Why do I continue to play this instrument?!"
Think about having the success of your professional career hinging on a piece of bamboo. A bad reed can make or break an oboist. Assuming you have the musical ability to master the techniques of the oboe itself, a professional oboist must also spend endless hours perfecting the art of making a reed, something that takes years and years to develop. You take bamboo tube cane, splice it, chop it to length, gouge it to a particular thinness, fold and shape the cane to a specific shape, then take the folded cane and tie it onto a tube. Once you have made this "reed blank," you sharpen your knife to begin the whittling process. You carefully sculpt the reed, creating a backbone and channels, a very thin tip, and a thicker middle area called the heart of the reed.
Sound easy? Not! Here are the problems. Back in the 70's, John Mack, principal oboist of the Cleveland Orchestra, said that we had to accept the fact that good cane sources were dwindling and that we had to learn to make playable reeds from bad cane. Cane was no longer given the chance to grow and age to maturity due to keeping up with demand. He said that over 30 years ago! So you get the picture. Couple that with working with a woody grass like bamboo, which can be highly affected by temperature, humidity, altitude, and sometimes you just throw up your hands wondering how to tame this plant into a reed that is going to provide you with the warm, articulate tone every oboists strives for.
How long do reeds last? It depends on how lucky you are. Sometimes it's one rehearsal. If you've found some decent cane, perhaps the life of the reed may be extended to 3-6 hours worth of playing before it starts to deteriorate. This is why you always see oboists whittling on reeds, always readying a new reed for the next rehearsal or performance.
Check out this Wikipedia link for a rundown on reedmaking. There are some nice illustrations here as well.
Click here to continue reading
Posted in
If you have some free time this weekend and are interested in sampling much that the world of music has to offer, I invite you to Symphony Center for Macy's Day of Music. Our 10th annual free, daylong music marathon will feature performances and activities for families beginning at 1:00p, including a family-friendly concert featuring the Civic Orchestra of Chicago at 1:00p, with performances for our more mature patrons (8 and up) , beginning in the late afternoon and continuing until 10:00p, including a concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at 7:00p.
With four stages operating throughout the day, patrons will be able to check out music in a broad range of styles - classical, folk, world and jazz to list but a few - with especially rich offerings supporting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's leadership role in the dynamic Silk Road Chicago collaboration, involving Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Project, The Art Institute of Chicago and Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs.
I wanted to give a bit more dimension to one of the concerts featured on Day of Music, namely the Civic concert that will kick-off the day's programming on Armour Stage. This program is designed, as are many others, to introduce the individual instruments and instrument families that comprise the orchestra. What is unique about our take on this, however, is that we will build the orchestra before the eyes of the audience - offering performances by chamber ensembles from each of the four instrument families until the full orchestra is assembled and ready to perform Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.
As the orchestra is assembled, conductor Duain Wolfe will give the audience a chance to learn more about the musicians in the ensemble through short interviews with individual players.
The performances of musicians from the Civic - one of the world's great pre-professional training orchestras - will be complemented by performances by special guest artists from Hubbard Street 2, the training company of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and a treasure in its own right.
This unique program will be repeated in a bilingual format on Sunday, September 17 at 6:30p at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Pilsen. Tickets are not required for either the Day of Music or Cristo Rey concerts, and I expect a good turnout for both of these general admission events, so please plan to come early to save your seat!
As I think about the activities of this first week of the 2006/07 season, I am really thrilled that it will have launched with the CSO offering four days of free concerts - two at Millennium Park and one at Cristo Rey High School, with a daylong series of concerts at Symphony Center.
These concerts celebrate Chicago's local and simultaneously global musical community, highlighting the fact that, as Chicagoans we are really fortunate to live in such a varied and richly layered cultural, musical environment. We are able to access traditions that are familiar and dear to us, as well as to experience traditions new and inviting. In many ways, the cultural life of this city embodies the answer to the question often asked by Yo-Yo Ma: "What happens when strangers meet?". The answer, of course, is that great things can happen when strangers meet: friendships and discoveries are made, new journeys are taken. In connecting with concertgoers through this week's performances, the CSO is extending a welcoming hand to friends new and long-standing, offering opportunities to continue or start a musical journey to at least 15,000 people. Do I hear 15,001?
Click here to continue reading
Posted in
Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Tue, 05/09/2006 - 4:01pm.
Today we welcome guest blogger Paul Zafer, Concertmaster of the Chicago Sinfonietta.
Hello! Jim Hirsch, the Executive Director of the orchestra, asked me to write a few words regarding my personal preparation for a concert.
When I get the sheet music for a work we are going to perform, I sit down to practice it on my own. First and foremost, I make sure my cup of hot tea is in the mug holder attached to my music stand. Other necessities are a pencil and my metronome.
I usually try running through the piece close to the performance tempo. At this point I am using all of the violin skills I have acquired over my many of years of lessons, coaching, practicing, etc. If all of that doesn’t do the trick and produce a flawless result, I slow things way down and start considering different fingerings or bowings.
In a piece such as Daniel Bernard Roumain’s Voodoo Violin Concerto, the rhythms are particularly challenging so the metronome gets a heavy workout. There are many styles in this piece outside the realm of mainstream, Bach-through-Strauss, classical music. These different styles make this particular piece more challenging and interesting for me.
The first movement is a bit jazzy. I have to figure out how to do the slides, bent notes, and wild vibrato that the composer indicates in my part. The second movement is like a Gregorian chant - very calm and serene. I have to focus on my bow arm and make sure I am producing a pure tone. In the last movement, things get more frenetic. Keep an eye on my bow arm – it will be flying around!
In a more well-known work such as Gustav Holst’s The Planets, I am revisiting it so I can do more spot practice work on notoriously difficult passages. Again, the metronome gets a good workout to get it up to speed. All of my homework should stand me in good stead come the first rehearsal with the full orchestra.
Sometimes, if Maestro Freeman’s tempi are different than what I practiced, I have to change some things to match his vision. Hopefully, in the end, my bowings and fingerings will stand the test of the performance.
I hope this gives you an enlightened perspective when you attend the upcoming performances of the Chicago Sinfonietta on May 14 and 15 .
Regards,
Paul Zafer
Click here to continue reading
Posted in
