Doper Musicians - Amateurs, Teachers, Pros - Whatcha working on? Sept. 08 edition

Cafe Society
41

Well, I’m actually so incredibly overwhelmed right now and seeing this thread title I figured I’d take a break and come in and sorta vent it out a bit, BUT what I didn’t expect was to see so many here with such equally full plates and beyond.

  1. First and foremost I’m acting in 2 Eugene O’Neill plays opening in 2 weeks.
    The director envisions music to play a large role in both, and in very interesting ways. But that aspect wasn’t much my concern… until yesterday. The composer who was going to be handling the music is sorta handing it over to me. So I’ll be composing much of the music (pre-recorded to a large extent), performing the music as a character in the first play, and then acting in the second.

  2. I’m the piano accompanist for a weekly singing class for Germans wanting to improve their english and sing at the same time.

  3. I’m developing 2 music theater programs for kids - one weekly for 6 weeks, one intensive week-long thing ending in a music theater show of some sort. This will start next month.

  4. I’ve just been asked to perform an hour of popular music (guitar/singing) for a B-day party next week. This is what worries me the most on my stack right now because I really am lost when it comes to popular music. But it pays well so I can’t turn it down. (It will actually be the difference between me making rent this month).

  5. I teach private guitar lessons.

  6. I hopefully will be playing an art gallery opening in the coming weeks, playing the music I’m most at home playing - improvised minimal loop stuff. Here’s a short promo video the gallery director put together of the last opening with some of the music I played that night. At least with this stuff there’s no real prep, so these gigs are always most welcome.

  7. I do a sing-a-long for young children a few times a month at an english book store to help them better their english.

The funny thing is that the bulk of it just came this last week. A month ago I was sitting around day after day twiddling my thumbs wondering what the heck I was going to do with myself. I’m so relieved to be this busy.

42

I’m a Director of Photography and just completed a feature about a week ago.
My band wrote some songs for the soundtrack and we should be gearing up to hit the studio soon. We threw together some rough/live recordings for him to use on the roughcut. It’s sitting on a desk somewhere at Sundance right now waiting for consideration. Fingers are doublecrossed.

43

So what kind of stuff are you wailing on? As one of the few rockers who has responded thus far, you bear a heavy responsibility. Clapton? Stevie Ray Vaughn? Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter? I’m curious…

And congratulations on having a GAS enabling GF…

44

Well, until a real pianist shows up, let me throw in my two cents…

First off, do you have/have access to a copy of the Piano Syllabus of the Royal Conservatory of Music (of Canada)? If not, it’s a very useful book I recommend you order or pick up if you’re ever in Montréal. The British Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music has their syllabus online at this link, but I’m nowhere near as familiar with that system. In terms of RCM, it sounds like they’re after around a Grade 8/Grade 9 level.

So, their directives are a little vague, but when they say Bach Inventions, the two part inventions, and the aria from the C minor ‘French Suite’ and the Minuet and Trio from the b minor ‘French Suite’ are all at a Grade 8 level. The 3 part inventions, plus the WTC I C minor P+F, E minor P+F and the WTC II A Major P+F are all at a Grade 9 level.

“Any Classical Sonata” - Great Og! That ranges from the really simple to f*cking concert recital rep!

Chopin - At Grade 8, there are two Mazurkas - A Minor, op. 7, #2 and G Minor, op. 69 posth., #2 and only one Nocturne - G Minor, Op. 15, #3. At Grade 9, there’s a lot more - Mazurkas F# Minor, Op. 6, #1 and A Minor, Op. posth. 67, #4. Nocturnes, there’s the famous Eb Major, Op. 9, #2, C# Minor, #20 (Op. posth.), B Major, Op. 32, #1, G Minor, Op. 37, #1, F Minor, Op. 55, #1 and Eb Major, Op. 55, #2.

Bartok - At Grade 8, there’s The Swine-herd’s Dance from For Children 1, Revelry and Canon from For Children 2 and Evening at the Village from Ten Easy Pieces. Grade 9 there’s only Bear Dance from Ten Easy Pieces. Or you could try the Bill Evans’ Sunday at the Village Vanguard.:smiley:

So, if there’s any of those you already play, work 'em up in your copious spare time. And if not, that at least gives you a basis for contacting Prof. X and saying “Of these, which ones best suit your requirements?” Hope this helps, Le Ministre

45

Do the RCM really not have their syllabus online?! If I could have a look at the violin one, I’d very quickly have a good idea how the progression through the grades compares to the ABRSM system.

46

That sounds like great fun!

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I think it’s because the Piano Syllabus is published by the Frederick Harris Music company, the same outfit that publishes all the collections for the RCM. Fred Harris doesn’t publish anything else, just RCM stuff, so I don’t think they’ll be in a hurry to license it for online access. It’s a huge document - where the ABRSM has three lists of around 6 choices each per grade, the RCM gives lots of scope. Grade 8 List A: Baroque Repertoire lists 36 pieces. It’s kind of amusing to go through and try and divine the paedagogical basis for a piece’s inclusion - well, okay, amusing for music geeks like me, anyway…

At any rate, it wouldnae help - the RCM syllabi are not equivalent in difficulty from instrument to instrument. Lots of first year university piano majors have their Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto (ARCT; it comes in two flavours - Teaching and Performing) while the ARCT on Guitar is more like the equivalent of a second year in a good master’s degree program. I don’t know where the violin one sits. I personally am working at a Grade 8 level on piano, which is by far my weakest discipline. I have played guitar professionally for a number of years and I’d have to work to pass a Grade 6 at the moment. The suspicion I hold is that the guitarists suffer from Segovia Syndrome, an incurable urge to establish the instrument as being more difficult than its roots in popular culture would lead you to believe.

The only correspondence I can find between the ABRSM and RCM is the Chopin A Minor Mazurka, Op. 7, #2. Based solely on that, WAG WARNING! something from the Grade 7 or 8 ABRSM would probably do. I still hold that if there’s something there you already know, that’s easier than trying to learn something new.

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Is anyone else thinking of Harold Ramis in ‘Stripes’ at the moment?:smiley:
Singing is a brilliant way to work on any language.

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Depends on how frustrating it is to learn. I’m all about learning some new techniques. I’ve never heard the piece so I’ll have to check youtube to see if someone’s done it.

I know GAS can’t be cured, but it’s being firmly held down by my severe lack of funds. Between music equipment and computer stuff, I’ve got quite a x-mas list accumulating that won’t be filled any time soon.

50

Grrrrr…anyone else getting logged out all the time at the moment? Just lost a long reply…

What I said was that the ABRSM business model (and FWIW the one used by the Trinity Guildhall exams, too) makes more sense to me - freely distribute information about the exams, to make the market as big as possible, then make money selling music, books (lots of books) and recordings, all published by themselves. It’s not like their syllabuses and other information stuff isn’t wordy, either: once you plough through the regulations, the special notices, the ‘advice for teachers’ and ‘advice for candidates’, you’ve dealt with several hundred PDF pages…

51

Sorry I can’t find any of the pros doing it on YouTube, but here are a couple of impressive performances - sorry that the sound quality does not match the playing.
Matt Palmer
Axel Giudice

I hate it that they both look so calm - I’ve never gone much further than reading this piece, but I’m told my face looked like I was trying to shit a watermelon.

52

Very little, I’m not a real musician like many of you appear to be.

I’m looking for something else beside my current band because they’re too busy with their kids and jobs to devote much time to what could be a very nice band.

I’m a guitarist and have been teaching myself mandolin over the last year. It’s fairly easy, just backwards.

53

Thanks! I’ll check those out at home (no youtube at work, sadley).

As far as facial expressions, I sometimes get this weird look on my face that looks like :eek: . I have to concentrate to NOT do it.

54

It would be (and should be) if the actual person teaching the class wasn’t the most incompetent and unqualified person I’ve ever met in my entire life. I’ve only be doing it 2 weeks now and I sware, there’s a BBQ rant a-brewin’.

55

Well, it’s not music, but about music. I have just finished my thesis and given my lecture on North Indian Classical Dhrupad. I’ve been working on it for two years (not that unusual in Denmark), and I earned my degree of magister artium yesterday.
Far from being fed up with the Indian stuff, I can hardly wait to get my tablas down from the shelf they have been sitting on for the past two months. I really need to get some speed into my fingers again.
And then I am going to buy some sort of electrical piano (I need to be able to stove it away, turn down the sound level, etc., so I can’t get a proper one). This is going to be my big present for myself - can’t wait to get me some keys again.

56

I’m not playing at all right now, because my left wrist has pretty bad issues. It’s really gone downhill since this thread, and I can’t use it for much, especially not guitar playing. And I’ve got a couple of brand new (in April) instruments staring at me. Grr.

57

Amazing piece isn’t it? I played the wind arrangement on my Carnegie Hall trip last spring. Though I can’t recall if we played it in Carnegie itself or only at the church “warm up” a couple days before. (We basically needed a test performance, with a few extra pieces, on top of just practice so a local Church in some odd Back Road of NYC let us play there)

Anyway, as a rank Amateur (only one year of music theory and going to a school that doesn’t offer any music classes) I’m composing the entire soundtrack for the game I’m working on. Considering I’ve only ever done a 74 measure, 8 instrument piece before this it should be an adventure. Especially since I have a mad case of cadence-block right now (Cannot. Finish. Phrase). I also desperately need a new composition program, Finale Notepad is great and all, but it has too many limitations for something this in depth. But I’m looking at other composing programs before I just buy Finale main. If anyone knows any really good ones I’d be grateful.

58

I use Sibelius 5.1 right now, and I love it. I’m also a lurker on the Yahoo Sibelius mailing list, and one of the software developers monitors the list in order to spot bugs and answer dumb questions.

Another program you may find useful is Band in a Box - it’s nowhere near as versatile in terms of the complexity of its writing, but for firing in a few chords and turning out something to play over top of, it’s great. I use it constantly as a teaching tool.

59

squeegee
I’m so sorry to hear that - any word from doctors about why, and when it’ll feel better?

You are not alone - lots of musicians go through this. I’m hoping Playing (less) Hurt will have some useful links when the site comes back up - I know the book was very useful to me when my left was going wrong in 2001. Physio, rest, stretching and a teacher who had been there himself eyeballing everything I did got me through it. Sending sympathetic thoughts your way…

60

That’s it, I now officially hate you. Dream is one of my unfulfilled wishes - I like to kid myself I have the voice to sing the **Priest **and Angel of the Agony, and I have literally dreamed of singing Profisisceri, anima Christiana… more than once.

Meanwhile, I shall be singing some lightweight Christmas fluff come December, and playing trumpet with the village band. We have the Remembrance concert due in November and after last night’s rehearsal I am offering no more than even money that I can make it through the Evening Hymn and Last Post without tearing up.