Recital Musings

I used to get nervous for myself when performing. Now I get nervous for my students. I want them to do well, for themselves and for the loved ones who came to hear them. I hum along with each performance, bobbing and swaying to the music, just as my teachers did for me. When a student has a glitch, I stare at them, willing them to carry on and to get back into the piece. When a student does well, I find it difficult to contain my excitement.  

Sunday, we held our studio Winter Recital at McKenzie Towne Church. They have the best Young Chang piano I’ve played (but my heart still belongs to Yamaha). The venue is well laid out. The spacious foyer served as the “Snack & Chat” area after the recital. My mother and room-mate made use of the big kitchen to store and prepare the plates of goodies. Dad went straight to the well-stocked supply closet afterwards and found all he needed to tidy up the place. My brother found the perfect nook to set up shop for recording the recital.

 We got to a late start because we didn’t have enough time to set up. I’ll have to put in a one-hour buffer next time.

 Delegation works wonders. Students and parents helped hand out programs, put up signs, sort the programs that were mixed with another document, perform a sound check and serve as MC’s. They also brought non-perishable food items for the Calgary Food Bank and goodies for the Snack & Chat.

The recital went smoothly. Unfortunately, we had some last minute cancellations and no-shows but that didn’t affect the flow. All the students played well. Sure, they may be grumbling about some wrong notes or some wacky rhythms, but they all demonstrated that they could carry on with poise, a sense of humour and musical expression. That’s all I can ask for.

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

Movie Music Musings

Christmas Break gives me a chance to catch up on all the movies and shows I want to see. I finally got around to watching The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. Excellent story but excessive use of the blue screen. The actors were a delight to watch. Casting was excellent. As a writer and musician, I couldn’t help but analyze the movie from these two angles. I’ve never read the books (but I will next year). The writer within reveled at picking out symbolism and foreshadowing, while the musician was moved to tears when Aslan went to meet his fate. The drum’s tattoo filled the theatre with dread as Aslan padded up to face the witch. The strings sang out their doleful melodies, swelling into a heartbreaking crescendo as the terms of Aslan's bargain with the witch were fulfilled.

Music makes a huge difference in movies, I think. If the music doesn’t match what is happening on the screen, it does make it more difficult to connect with the characters emotionally.

Both The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Star Wars Trilogies are superb examples of when the music, action and dialogue are seamlessly joined and balanced. It’s Wagnerian, really.

Wag-huh? Richard Wagner (pronounced VAHG-ner) was a German composer, conductor and writer who lived in the 1800s. He revolutionized opera by his use of leitmotifs – a recurring theme that is associated with a certain character or event. Look no further than Luke Skywalker’s theme played when he contemplated his destiny standing before Tatooine’s twin suns or the theme for the Fellowship of the Ring.

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On a final note, this will be my last post for 2005. Happy New Year everyone! May 2006 be a healthy, prosperous and happy one for you.

© 2005, Musespeak™, Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Not exactly a week off

It’s Group Class Week, which has altered the studio schedule. In lieu of regular piano lessons, the students attend a group class this week. I tried something different this year by spreading the four group classes over three days. I used to run them on a Friday/Saturday of one weekend. I found that I spent the whole week conserving energy for those two days and needed (but couldn’t have) another week to recover. Thankfully, my brother is available to help out with the beginner classes tomorrow and I have hired two of my older students as teaching assistants to give them some experience.  

There are a few bugs to work out since a new system and it’s the first group class for the year, but the first one last night went all right. My intermediate students performed for each other, improvised and figured out what do in a 10-minute practice session if that’s all the time they have (see my earlier entry on this for more info).

With the studio running at full capacity, I’m constantly thinking of ways to make the group class schedule work more effectively. I’m already thinking about how to structure it next year, believe it or not.

It hasn’t been a week off, as my heading implies. I am still teaching theory lessons this week and doing “make-up” lessons. There was the Alberta Registered Music Teachers’ Association (ARMTA Calgary) meeting on Monday. Maestro helped me with the filing and bookkeeping. Now it’s off to do some administrative work (receipts to couples whose weddings I played at, finding a venue for the winter and spring student recitals, preparing for the lessons and group classes today)

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Midnight Musings

Being an entrepreneur means that you never completely stop working. It’s past midnight and I am trading e-mails with the president of the local branch of the Alberta Registered Music Teachers’ Association, while I am working on tonight’s blog entry. We have a general members’ meeting on Monday, which we are preparing for. The executive is trying to implement some changes to improve how we operate and what we offer to members, students and the general public. But change is hard and, well anyone who works with people knows that sometimes personalities clash. It’s a challenge for volunteer board to meet the needs of everyone. Quite simply, it’s impossible to satisfy everyone. I have two main gripes: people who complain but don’t take action and people who don't do their share of the workload. It’s always the same volunteers doing all the work. We could use a little more help.

Enough ranting. I didn’t mean to rant but with “freefall” writing, you just type/write what pops out of your head without thinking.

Speaking of writing, I recently started a creative writing class at the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society. After years of doing corporate and technical writing, it is a refreshing change to write “fun stuff”. Strange how childhood memories flood the pages of my notebook, like my juice cup from kindergarten with letters, numbers and animals on it or the cat that scratched my arm when I tried to feed it weeds. I have even started writing haiku (it’s addictive).

On another note, some students and I are performing Sunday afternoon at a local nursing home. It was something I did when I was growing up. The residents appreciate the visit and the entertainment. It is also a great way to hone the students’ performance savvy.

Picture yourself at the piano, playing away, when a resident spills coffee all over the floor, another decides to belt out a different arrangement of your song, while another babbles incoherently - loudly. If you can maintain composure through that, then performing before a stern faced examiner or at a family reunion should be a little easier.

That’s enough musing for tonight. I still need to figure out what I am performing at the recital. Maybe the song titles will jump out at me in a dream.

© Musespeak, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. All rights reserved.

Is it naptime yet?

It's day three of teaching for me and I'm so tired! After a relatively light summer teaching schedule, I forgot how much energy teaching requires (and Tuesdays and Wednesdays are my long workdays!). The more excited the student, the more energy I need. I'm not complaining though. Both Maestro and I are glad to get back into our fall routine. Not to mention, budgeting will be a lot easier now that I have a regular schedule. I've enjoyed hearing about the students' vacations (camping, Disneyland, BC, Toronto) and am impressed with the progress some students have made over the summer.One continues to astound me with how well her musical ear is developing. The songs that she can pick out by ear and embellish upon are just astounding! Several have already learned two or three songs (and that's just the conservatory songs not the pop songs). With most, I have to spend some time reviewing what they learned last year.

The one glitch I've run into this week is with my new pet project. I plan to record the students' lessons onto CD but the CD burner died the first day. Two lessons sounded like two chipmunks talking. Then, the burner died. So it's back to pencil and paper until I can get that fixed. In a way, I'm relieved that it's a hardware issue. I was beginning to worry that my luck for learning new software quickly was running out.

Look at the time! I better get ready to teach.

(c) 2005 by Musespeak(tm). All rights reserved.