Friday Fun Link #24

Just a quick post before I start teaching for the day. This week's fun link is Musical Hangman. Have fun!

(c) 2006, Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Calgary Youth Sparkle at Calgary Concerto Competition

On Sunday, a friend and I attended the Calgary Civic Symphony's concert, featuring the winners from this year's Calgary Concerto Competition. We were simply amazed at the musical maturity these youngsters displayed.

At the tender age of 11, Jan Lisieki demonstrated that he could interpret the tender cantabile melodies in Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 with sensitivity and maturity. It is no wonder that he has won the Calgary Music Competition three times.

Thirteen year-old TieDan Yao is always a delight to watch. His face reflects the sheer joy he feels about playing. He sparkled with the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1. I enjoyed this performance even more than his playing at the CFMTA National Piano Competition this past summer.

Willem Stam provided a wonderful break from the piano with his interpretation of Dvorak's Concerto for Violncello and Orchestra in B minor. The seventeen year-old proved that he can infuse the melodies with sufficient angst and passion.

Fifteen year-old Eric Kim closed the program with Gershwin's Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra. In her introduction, Maestra Rosemary Thompson, mentioned that Eric plays trombone in his school jazz band. His feel for the jazz idiom was evident in his performance.

It was an inspiring concert, the type that inspires other musicians to try harder. Most of us aren't cut out for the concert stage, but we can always improve.

Copyright 2006, Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Friday Fun Link #23

Whoops! I nearly forgot to post today's Friday Fun Link. What can I say? I got carried away with errands and housecleaning (a true sign that I'm getting older). Although I did take a detour to McNally Robinson today and heard an accordionist play at the cafe. She played wonderfully. We had a good chat afterwards. Did you know that there are over 100 accordion schools in Europe?

Today's fun link comes from the Dallas Symphony's website. It's Music Instruments Scramble. Enjoy!

PS: On another note, I'm another step closer to solving the Site Feed issue. It was a two-fold problem, 1 - typing up blog entries in Word, copying and pasting into a blog is a no-no. I deleted between 4 and 48 extraneous codes per blog entry because Word added code that was incompatible; and 2 - Blogger uses Atom 0.3 and apparently 1.0 is the standard; which means more code needs to be adjusted. It's a slow ongoing process, at least until Blogger upgrades to 1.0. Stay tuned!

Off to practice now. I'm playing at a wedding tomorrow and need to pad the beginning of Canon in D to make sure that the bride's entrance is timed perfectly with the climax of the song.

(c) 2006, Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Eastertide Music

Easter is my favourite time of year. The church music is especially wonderful. Our church choir did a splendid job at the Good Friday Mass. Two songs brought tears to my eyes (and I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one tearing up). I can’t remember much of the details (composer and title) but I remember the lyrics were about the sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross. I’ll find out the info and post it at a later date.

The soloists captured the intense emotions so effectively – their timbre reached deep into my soul and pulled. Hard. The harmonies were highly chromatic, which leads to the emotional angst. One song was sung by an alto. Her performance was especially moving. [04/26/06 note: Songs title are "The Seven Last Words from the Cross" and "The Pieta"."]

Easter Vigil presents a different tone. When the lights are turned on and the candles blown out, the choir broke into a jubilant Gloria, while some of the children rang bells.

Easter Sunday. The joyous tone carried through. The choir at the church I attended last Sunday sang a capella. It made me realize how much I rely on the piano or guitar for my chords. I know that I should be able to hear where the chord progressions are going with four-part harmony, but alas, I haven’t mastered that yet.

Easter Break has been creatively productive and relaxing on all other fronts. I finally managed to arrange Above All for piano duet in a form that I am happy with. How apropos as it also has to deal with Easter. Now all I have to do is transcribe my scribbles into fancy looking sheet music, using Finale Notepad. But first, I need to do an arrangement of A Whole New World for another student. I’m simplifying it a bit, so that hasn’t been too hard.

Now if only I could solve my site feed issue (see the link on the right), I’d be laughing. It just stopped working one day and my research and Blogger support have come up with zilch. But that’s a challenge for another day.

© 2006, Musespeak™, Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Wacky Wednesday Fun Links #1 & 2

I missed last week’s fun link so here’s one link for last week, plus one for this week, since I don’t plan on posting one on Good Friday. Thanks to my room-mate for tracking these down:

• Music Concentration Game (Musical Signs & Rhythms)
• Musical Jeopardy (1 or 2 player game)

(c) 2006, Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Enter Troppo Crazy Season

Yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you – this is truly a late night blog entry. We are now into troppo crazy season. I was speaking with a fellow teacher this past afternoon. We talked about how the pace will be prestissimo from now until June; with the mad rush to nudge (er, push) students to get everything memorized/prepared for festivals, recitals and exams, everyone becoming busy with extracurricular activities, work and/or school.

I’ve been a busy bee, trying to get as much done by Thursday so I can actually take some time off during Easter Break (novel concept). The submission deadline for Calgary ARMTA’s newsletter has come and gone, which involved bugging (er, reminding) advertisers that we needed their ad ASAP. The logo design contest is over and I must say I do like our new logo. Check it out at Calgary ARMTA’s website (I just reformatted the fonts on ALL the pages, by the way). My 2006/07 Registration Package has been distributed to most students. My own website got a bit of an overhaul in the Studio Central section. The online Studio Handbook is complete and uploaded to Studio Central. And no list of mine can be complete without bookkeeping. I am nearly done my corrections and will be seeing my accountant later this week. I hope I don’t owe the tax man too much.

Outstanding items? Marking theory, re-arranging Above All for piano duet, arrange a song in lead sheet format for another student, cleaning up, practicing for a wedding gig next week and more administration. I’ll have to start thinking about my summer teaching schedule, but can’t nail that down until a few things are finalized.

My brain is sliding into an ungraceful ritardando. Onto the fun links and then I can call it a night.

Copyright 2006, Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Ear Training and Sight Reading Help

My weakest areas as a piano student were the aural and sight reading tests. One year when I was in high school, I “forgot” my Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests book for two months’ worth of lessons. Elizabeth Mahaffy, my teacher at the time, got so fed up that one day, she sent me home to get the book.

My students don’t get away with that since I’ve kept all my Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests. I bring them out for the forgetful students or sometimes, I have them pick out a song by ear and add the chords.

There are a multitude of online resources for students who need extra work in this area. Here are a few of them:

• http://www.musicstudy.com/
• http://www.musictheory.net/
• http://www.practicespot.com/freetools.phtml
• http://pianoeducation.org/pnokids.html

Happy practicing!

© 2006, Musespeak™, Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.