In my time, I've heard a good amount of music. Radio music. Symphony Hall music. Bluegrass music. Street music. Middle school music. Every single time, music manages to surprise me and cast a spell which never ceases to enchant me. A good number of years ago, I fell under music's charm. I joined the band, learned a stringed instrument on the side, and began playing music around Aiken with my duo partner. I couldn't get enough of this wonderful art. I spent my evenings practicing for several hours and allowed my free time to be used up with YouTube music listening. Around this time, I had met my angel of music who inspired me to my passion for music. This person opened opportunities for me and taught unique details about music. I say all this to imply the divine splendor of music. Plato once wrote, "Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything." There is something truly divine about music after all, it is a gift given to us by God. Music is something which defeats all boundaries. It transcends language barriers, social class barriers, and age barriers. It embraces diversity and gives a home to anyone and everyone. It's true that not everyone capable of attending the great performances at the Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, but still everyone has the opportunity to find music and listen. Listening takes talent. This talent requires you to open up your mind to the possibilities, to be open to whatever you may hear. Listening is directive something little kids have trouble with and an unattainable act some elderly possess. In our time on this earth, we must open our minds, our ears, and most importantly, our hearts to music. Some years ago, I discovered that listening--truly listening--was a choice and gift. I used to listen to music in the dark quiet of the night when all was silent in the house. I'd turn off the lights in the room, close my eyes, listen to the music, and let its sound wash over me. In those moments, I could feel the music, feel every emotion woven into the melodies and harmonies. In my mind, I'd separate the sounds of particular instruments and allow my ear to hear the journey of that one instrument. I could move my ear about the ensemble and remark on the dependence one instrument had upon another. It never ceases to amaze me how melody, harmony, and rhythm work together to create a product which contains so much unspoken meaning. Expression through music is something which has always manages to fascinate me. I doubt I'll ever forget my love for music.
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Disclaimer: I don't claim to be a composer. That doesn't mean I don't compose in my spare time. Within the last two weeks, I've been working on opus no.2 which I've now titled "Incarnations of the Heavens." This piece will be premiered this Sunday, June 1 and will be preformed by the King's Strings at SAPC. I'm exceptionally fortunate to have such a talented group of local musicians to perform my work. Reminder: I don't claim to be a composer. Creating melodies and harmonies to illustrate and express a point is something I think every musician should try once in a while. Composing music is similar to any act of creative composition like writing, but composing music contains an additional level of difficulty in the sense that it is wordless artistic composition. To present your artistic voice without words is a task similar to that of a mime. Wordless expression is perhaps one of the most difficult form of expression in this world, but I believe that such expression is the most rewarding to witness. Additional reminder: I don't claim to be a composer. I've roomed with a composition major all of my sophomore year, and if anything, I've learned that composing is not easy work. It takes time and a whole lot of patience. After scribbling through a melody four different times, I've certainly learned this lesson. Knowing the difficulties didn't discourage me from trying. Everyone needs to give it a try at least once. Not everyone is a composer, I certainly don't claim to be one, but it doesn't mean that one should give up the notion to be creative through composition. I've worked with a good number of young instrumentalists who struggle with practicing. They often find it frustrating and annoying...thus, they give up the notion entirely to save what's left their sanity as well as their parents' sanity. Practice sessions can be rendered unsuccessful for one of three reasons: practicing the piece too fast, learning too large of a chunk of music at one time, or perhaps the instrument is broken and it won't play right. The last option is a bit tougher to address and fix, but the other issues can easily be remedied if you know how to practice well. Here are some tips I've learned along my musical journey: 1) Always start up your practice session with warming up. This piece of advice is aimed toward wind players, not strings players. Long tones are a great way to start up your practice sessions; it'll get the air moving and get your brain focused on listening to your tone. Don't rush through the warm up process. Warming up should take more than half of your practice session. As you play through your long tones, think about your tone. Is it airy? Strained? Unfocused? Judge your tone and improve it whenever you can. 2) Practice in front of a mirror. Check your position all of the time. For flute players, look at your hand position and check to see if your fingers are curved and if your fingertips are on the keys, not the middle of your fingers. If you have this issue and you can correct it, you'll be able to play faster and more accurate. Also check to make sure your fingers aren't flying off the keys too high. If you keep your fingers closer to the key, you'll be able to play faster. For violinists, I recommend watching your bow in the mirror and constantly checking if it's straight. This is an issue for several beginner string players. Note: If your elbow is going behind you as you play the violin, then your bow is probably not straight. Also while you're looking in the mirror, check your left hand position and make sure that you're keeping the heel of your hand off the neck of the violin. 3) Take some time and work on scales, scalar patterns, and arpeggios. These are the meat to tons of musical literature. Learn all your major scales first and then move onto minor scales and then all forms of the minor and so forth. 4) As you practice, continue to think about your tone and ask yourself, "Is my tone consistent throughout a piece of music?" Make that call and fix it. 5) Practice with a metronome! It'll become your best friend and you'll use it throughout your musical life. This brings me to another point. 6) Practice SLOWLY and then gradually speed it up after time. If a piece of music is giving you a lot of grief, practice with a metronome at a ridiculously slow tempo to ensure you're playing all of the correct notes and correct rhythms. Once you're completely comfortable with it at a slower tempo, speed it up a few clicks of the metronome. Assume you practice it at tempo 60 and it needs to be at tempo 80. Speed it up to 63 when you're ready and then move on to 66 and so forth. Before you know it, you'll be at performance tempo, and you'll hopefully be playing everything correctly if you've followed my advice so far. If you're having trouble getting the rhythm correct, try putting the instrument down and clapping the rhythm. Sometimes, if we take away the pitches and the mechanics of playing the instrument, the musician can focus on just the rhythm. It also helps me to try singing the rhythm. 7) Learn some technical etudes. Every instrument has a book of great etudes to play through. Right now on the flute, I'm working on Berbiguier etudes and on the violin, I'm working on Wohlfahrt etudes. Your skill level will dictate what book of etudes you'll be working on. 8) Sometimes singing the music out loud helps with getting the style and articulation right. Try it out. While you're singing also think about dynamics. 9) If you have a particularly difficult passage of music to learn, don't try to conquer the entire piece in one run-through. Try chunking the music into pieces and learn a couple measures at a time. Breaking the composition down into bite sized pieces will make life feel loads easier than trying to swallow the entire thing whole. It's often recommended to figure out where the most difficult measures of music are and then start learning them first. 10) If you make a mistake, fix it. Don't keep playing it wrong day after day. Remember: practice makes permanent. The way you practice is the way you'll perform. 11) Take breaks every now and then in your practice session. Let your hands and fingers rest before woodshedding another segment of music. Should you ever get truly frustrated in your practice session, please do take a break. Nothing is worse than practicing when you're mad at your instrument or your fingers. 12) Practice means a lot of repetition, so don't be annoyed by having to play material over and over again. When you practice, don't just practice until you get it right; practice until you can't get it wrong. Good luck to anyone who is inspired to start practicing after reading this! I hope this helps! Part of the artistic process is knowing when you need to rest and take a little break. Today will be the day that I relax and recoup from the constant practicing and painting I've been doing over the last week. Last week was devoted to hours of practicing my instruments. There are a few concerts I have coming up, so it's better to start practicing earlier rather than later. Also, I'm practicing up for the music placement auditions when I return to Furman. Mainly, I've been working on the flute audition excerpts, but I must admit that I've been eyeing the violin excerpts as well. It would be amazing to audition for the symphony orchestra on violin this semester, but if anything, it's good practice to just learn the pieces on the violin. Later this week, I'll have a lovely blog post about practicing! Joy! Hope to see you all then! For the last few weeks, I've been helping out with a summer arts program called acGATEWAY. This Aiken County program headed by Mr. Joseph Laorenza is a program for elementary, middle, and high school students. The program offers five divisions of the arts: music, drama, dance, art, and creative writing. As a former student of the acGATEWAY program, I decided to return this year to visit a few of my former music teachers. One of the teachers who had been present for the premiere of my composition asked me if I could serve as a guest speaker for her conducting classes. About a month ago, I was honored to speak to all of the music students about conducting, composing, and what the life of being a musician is all about.
After that first visit back, I continued to return to the program every single day just to help out and be useful. Originally, I had come to talk about conducting an ensemble and from there it advanced to assisting and coaching the strings masterclass...and then I was asked to compose three fiddle parts for a country tune...and then I became the designated page turner for the accompanist in chorus! In the last few weeks, I've done everything from fixing flutes to tuning violas to setting up equipment and performance areas. Honestly, I enjoy helping out teachers and music students so that the school day run as smoothly as possible. People have asked me if I'm a teacher. Not really. Then that question is usually followed with the insinuation that I'm a student. Nope, I'm not that either. What am I then? Well, one teacher has dubbed me as an "intern" and I suppose you can say that I'm kinda in that category. I consider myself a volunteer who doesn't mind helping out in the slightest. The acGATEWAY program is all about improving your art and always striving for excellence. By helping out with the program, I must say I'm constantly learning something new each day. I'm learning how to be an good music director, how to play any stringed instrument you throw my direction, how to help young instrumentalists find their sound and be proud of the beautiful talents they possess. I look forward to this final week of the program, and I certainly look forward to the showcase performances of these young artists on Thursday of this week. For anyone interested, the showcase will be held at Kennedy Middle School on July 11th at 7 pm in the gym. That's all for now! Helping out again with Gateway tomorrow bright and early tomorrow morning! Stay tuned to my blogs ab Hello to all! It's seems that I've been slacking with the blog writing. For that, I apologize, and I also propose a "creative" solution to remedy this problem. For the two months, I'll be blogging about my artistic/creative endeavors. For two solid months, I want to fill every moment I can with something creative and exciting. It'll be a summer long adventure of creative writing, playing music, composing music, painting, and much more! Already, I've been busy doing artistic jobs, but starting now, I'll start writing about my latest projects. So why exactly did I want to take on this challenge? Before the summer began, I vowed I wanted to enjoy the summer to relax. In my definition of relax, I take my completely blank calendar and fill it with all the activities I want to do. Happiness for me comes with doing anything productive and not mindless. So far, I've had a summer of absolute bliss! It's absolutely splendid to get a chance to enjoy things that you normally don't have time for! Check back tomorrow for my next blog about my summer "internship" adventures! Just yesterday, my composition titled "Valse" premiered at South Aiken Presbyterian Church. I am extremely proud of the performances yesterday and I'm proud of every musician that helped make yesterday possible. As requested by a friend, down below I have posted a YouTube video of yesterday's performance. Enjoy! Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique are all famous musical compositions loved by symphony goers and pieces of music studied by musicians all over the world, but how did these compositions come to be so well-known? What is it that people like about these musical works? How did these composers create such masterpieces that would be popularly played in concert halls many years after the deaths of their creators? These men were musical geniuses and all of their greatest masterpieces began with an idea and sheet of staff paper. Now that I've begun a summer long composing project/job, I'm beginning to comprehend agonizing madness and creative beauty of writing down melodies in your head. At this early stage of learning the craft of composition, I've discovered that taking on the title of "composer" means spending over five hours at a piano and writing down maybe eight bars of music and being perfectly content with the fact that you actually have something on the page now. Composing means praying to God that your musicians can hopefully play the ridiculous sheet music (which resembles more of a toddler's sketchbook) you've placed in front of them at rehearsal. Writing music means being a creator of something beautiful or raw or perhaps thought evoking. Composing is more than drawing dots and lines on page of staff paper. It's an art. This week, I'll be rehearsing my finished composition with a group of talented musicians for the premiere of my composition on Sunday, June 2nd at South Aiken Presbyterian Church. My composition utilizing two violins, two cellos, a viola, a bass, and a piano will be performed at 8:45 and 11:00 a.m. service. I certainly look forward to hearing my piece performed in a week from now! Have you ever been super proud of something small that you've accomplished and even though it's quite small and seemingly unimportant or insignificant or blah, you're still bursting with excitement to share it with the world? That's currently me right now. Today, I composed a short little melody for a project that's due later in the week. It turned out much better than I thought it would! I actually am really proud of my work and maybe someday I'll write a full composition with this melody somewhere in it. Give this a listen! Click and download the file and hear my hard work for the day! Comment if you'd like!
Many people often underestimate the importance of music in our society today. Some even assume that such performing arts play second fiddle to everything else to the point that funding for the arts is constantly being cut. Even in this culture center of Aiken, South Carolina, I have witnessed the arts being cut and observed the startling increase of collective apathy from the public toward the performing arts. Recently, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley's veto caused a major uproar enraging several Aiken performing arts supporters. Haley's decision may potentially cut all state and federal funding to the state Arts Commission should legislators decide not to override Haley's veto. The arts play an important role in our society, so why should they be cut? Music has been present in our society for ages. The ancient Greeks saw the arts and sciences as equal in strength and importance to society. Music is everywhere you go. Birds sing, feet tap, and the audience claps. Music is played for movies, weddings, funerals, coronations, and graduations. Music is present in restaurants, in elevators, and going down the city streets. You don't necessarily have to be sitting in a concert hall to hear good music. My friends and I illustrate this all of the time when we perform our random acts of music all over the Aiken area. You're probably asking yourself " What in the world is a random act of music?" Random acts of music are free "random" public performances used to reach out to people who normally don't encounter classical music in their daily lives. I started up these performances for the public when a friend of mine decided that we should share our music with the community while making an impact on those around us. As two young classically-trained Asian musicians, we dubbed ourselves "the Asian Minors." As a musical duo, we have performed all over Aiken reaching out to everyone we could to show that the arts are worth saving and supporting. In our quest of sharing music in downtown shops and restaurants, we share the message that music is indeed important to our society. Serving over 1,000 people in the Aiken area with our music, there have been several memorable performances for us, but I wish to share only three of them with you, reader. Several times, I have performed for the elderly at nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and retirement communities. Last winter, some fellow musicians and I went to perform some Christmas music for these folks. Prepared with festive music and Christmas attire, we played thirty to forty minutes concerts at four of these places in one day. Everywhere we went, we were well received and greatly appreciated by our audience. Members of the audience requested songs and even sang along as we played familiar Christmas tunes such as "Silent Night." After talking with several audience members, I realized that music is memory. Familiar songs we once sang to as little kids come back to us when we hear them played again as adults. With some music, it triggers a specific memory. For many of the elderly at the nursing homes, our small performance of music triggered something in their memories that meant the world to them that day. Another performance I remember was when my friend and I performed at Helping Hands, a shelter for children in protective custody. The shelter serves as an emergency shelter for children who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected by their families. The kids there had so very little, and we, the Asian Minors, wanted to give the kids something to enjoy. Not only did we perform for the kids there, but we allowed them to hold our instruments and play them. We taught the kids that music could be found anywhere and music could be created just by clapping your hands. By reaching out the younger generation, I wanted to share my passion of music so those kids could see if music was one of their passions as well. Not only was I entertained by the children's fascination with music, but the kids were genuinely entertained by hearing my music and trying to make music by themselves. The final performance I'll share with you was indeed the most memorable, even though at the time it didn't seem like much. On the day the Asian Minors were celebrating our yearly anniversary of becoming a musical group, we decided to dress in traditional Asian outfits and get pictures of ourselves with our instruments at the beautiful Hopelands Gardens in Aiken. What had originally been planned as a day of photography turned into a full scale performance in the gardens. As soon as we started to play our instruments, people began to congregate around us and simply listen to the music we were playing. Of all the people who came up to us that afternoon, a young woman and her grandfather came up and asked if they could take a picture with us to remember this moment. For the next hour, we played some music for them, they listened, we chatted, and they asked if we knew the songs "Time to Say Goodbye" and "Ashokan Farewell." We thought it was an odd request, but we gladly did it; it wasn't until days later that my friend and I found out the real story behind this one performance. In the a letter to the Asian Minors, the young woman thanked us profusely for the good deed we had performed for her and her grandfather. In the letter, she explained she had come down to visit her grandfather who had been feeling very depressed lately due to the ailing of his wife to whom he had been married for 65 years; in fact, he had been crying all morning, so she decided to take him to the gardens to get his mind off of things. They had been sitting in the gardens talking about music when we came along and started playing some music nearby. "Time to Say Goodbye" and "Ashokan Farewell" were the grandfather's favorite songs and when we played those two songs in the gardens that day, it brought tears to the eyes of both the woman and her grandfather. For those moments in the gardens, music served as a ray of light in a darkened room for that man who was in despair over his dying wife. Music brings back the happy memories and impacts us in ways we can't always explain. Music transcends age barriers, culture barriers, and geographic barriers. Music has the phenomenal power to cause the listener to experience the gamut of human emotions. It brings emotion to the human ear allowing the listener to feel what a musician is bringing to the stage. People who are drastically different from one another can often find a common thread with others through music. They can relate to emotions conveyed through music and find themselves either humming along to a song on the radio or tapping their foot to the beat of a John Phillip Sousa march. Music can bring musicians who come from different areas in the state together for a concert; by the end of the final concert, the ensemble feels so much like a close knit family that they would claim that they have all been friends for years. Music matters. |
AuthorKendall Driscoll is an accomplished writer/ musician/ artist/ academic scholar. Archives
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