Institute for Creative Music News
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Listening, Not Just Hearing (with Leonard Bernstein and George Washington)
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
IfCM Collective Tour '13: Upstate!
Mike and I teleported Matthew up from Buenos Aires early, heading to Ithaca for all of our first performance at the Gates. We stretched out on a completely improvised night of music for the small but appreciative crowd, washing electronic manipulation with spoken word.
**Discovery of the day--Short Stop Subs***
Nick and Chris Z took an overnight bus from NYC to arrive just in time to start the first sessions of our two day residency at the Harley school. We worked with Kristy Houston's 6th grade general music class on both days on learning Radiohead's Packt Like Sardines In a Crushd Tin Box by ear--moving, singing, playing, and improvising with enthusiasm. The class created a new "what does your community sound like" piece, riffing on dog relationships, angry parents, Black Friday, and the cold of Rochester:
The Harley upper school string ensemble premiered Matthew's new piece, Southern Castellano featuring adventurous solos from Henry Smith (violin) Andrew Wang (cello) while the wind ensemble gave a strong performance of Louis Steps and a percussion-driven, poly tonal happy birthday for two of the students. Our friend and head of the Harley Lower School, Terry Fonda Smith, wrote a comprehensive overview of the week with pictures.
Wednesday put the IfCM Collective in front of what we thought would be our largest group of students with Eileen Yu's Franklin Middle School:
The students brought Louis' Steps to life and ended the morning swinging by learning Blues by Five by ear. One of the students wasn't sure how he would remember the melody that we'd learned without sheet music but there's a very good chance that if we catch up with him in a year or two those riffs will still be under his fingers...
After a quick nap and a bucket of coffee the band reconvened for a jazz performance at Fairport High School. Bill Tiberio and the students asked some great questions about our compositions and use of electronic manipulation to expand out sonic palate.
A full day at Rochester's School of the Arts packed an average of 80 students per period into Doug Stone's classroom, getting 100 people playing together at one point. As the name states, SOTA immerses their students to a wide range of musical styles, drama, dance, and visual art so we had the opportunity to see the impact that the arts has on students, teachers and guests . Some of the students even knew the words to sardines! We are extremely excited to involve these amazing schools in our project at the Chesonis Commons in March--more to come shortly!
Part two of our Rochester/Buffalo tour up shortly...
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Nick's Visit to Argentina - Trombonanza!
"...the most unexpected part of the week occurred when during the whole group rehearsal (yes, 150 participants - trombone, bass trombone, euphonium, and tubas), Ruben handed me a score to an arrangement of Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" (thanks Conrad Herwig for the arrangement!) and said "OK you're up" and I conducted the mass ensemble! WOW - now THAT is a lot of brass. Having to play over the whole ensemble, I was immediately thankful for the time I spent with Wycliffe Gordon - learning how to belt out over such a big group!"
Read the full article on Nick's site and watch him conduct the group (1:02:00 below):
Monday, August 5, 2013
Success Through Comfortable Failure - Come Join the Band Wrapup
Here's the completed result from a field trip session to GFI Music, a great professional recording studio in Rochester:
- Chris Teal
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Music, Traditions, Culture, and Appreciation
Like other occasions when we come into contact with cultures different from our own, cross-cultural collaboration in music can lead to deeper insight and creativity. It makes us see our own traditions from a different perspective, to notice things we didn’t see before because we previously took them for granted. Stepping outside of the borders can help to open up our eyes. If we learn more from each other, not only do we enrich each others’ musical lives and maybe even come to a better cultural understanding of each other, but we also eliminate so much of the need to reinvent the wheel any time we want to think of different ways to think about learning, teaching, playing, performing, and appreciating music.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Ben Fang - "Come Join the Band" 2013!
Hi, my name is Ben Fang and I am a new IfCM summer intern.
I am currently pursuing my BM in guitar performance at the Eastman School of Music, expected to graduate this coming Spring. I began my musical life on the piano and violin when I was very young, picking up the saxophone in grade school and the guitar in middle school. Initially, my training was exclusively classical, but it wasn’t long before I couldn’t help but create my own tunes. Ever since my first (and not very good) composition, creative music making has been one of my favorite activities. Many musicians, despite wanting to compose, claim to be devoid of the skill which they believe only a select few possess. I couldn’t disagree more! I think that everyone’s mind has the capacity to be create art. Often, it is not a lack of ability, but rather a lack of faith in one’s own ability that prevents us from trying new things. I would love to see this barrier torn down.
My main duties for IfCM this summer revolve around the wonderful pre-college program,Come Join the Band: Creative Music Making for Everyone. Chris Teal and Alan Murphy are teaching high school musicians the fundamentals of being a musician, band member and creative person in general. Sound like big goals to you? They are. But these kids are quick learners and Chris and Alan are amazing teachers. I am learning just as much about teaching as the students are about playing instruments! Working with the kids has been an immense pleasure. There is nothing quite like seeing the look on a student’s face when an idea clicks.
We covered a lot of ground last week. I had expected to be spending all of our time playing instruments and singing, but one day Allan had something very different planned for us. Drawing from Julia Cameron’s book,The Artist’s Way, he introduced us to a couple of exercises designed to jumpstart creativity. The first was a free-write, in which we each privately wrote whatever occurred to us in our notebooks for 15 minutes. The one rule: just keep writing. I found that by putting my thoughts on paper, one letter at a time, I was able to slow down my thought process and unscramble a mess of ideas that had been bouncing around in my brain. Whenever we write or compose, many of us are prone to creating and proofreading simultaneously. Sometimes the proofreading can get out of hand, preventing us from writing down anything at all. A daily free-write can free up one’s creative side, shutting off the inner critic for a moment.
The second exercise he presented is called “Creative Monsters and Creative Allies.” We began by each recalling a person or event that had in some way hindered our creativity, then describing how this made us feel and how we reacted. I was pleased to hear how most of the students had managed to rise above the negative influence of their experiences. The second half of the activity was to recall and describe just the opposite: a person or event that had inspired us to be more creative. Usually this came in the form of an encouraging peer or teacher. I think that by considering the things in our lives that positively or negatively impact our creativity (or anything for that matter), we can do a better job of putting ourselves in environments that foster creativity.
Today we are heading to the recording studio to record two songs that the kids have learned. They will be playing Paramore’s “Crushcrushcrush” and Alicia Keys’ “No One.” None of them have had any recording experience so they will be learning a lot in the coming hours. I’m having a blast and I’m looking forward to hearing them perform at the end of the week!
- Ben Fang