Tag: classical music
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Music and Words
Last month my school had an assembly celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Every year I think about how my school celebrates MLK. In years past, when I taught at a small independent elementary and middle school, we kept it to many of his highlights and events. Students learned about nonviolent protest,…
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More From Composition Game – Glass’ish
In August I posted a short composition I put together as part of a pilot program connecting me with an artist mentor. Somehow between then and now I didn’t get around to posting some of the other sketches. I mean to remedy that with this post. A friend thought the minimalist gestures sounded a little like Philip Glass.…
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Remembering a brass quintet recording – Drei Stücke
I was going through some files recently and came across an old program for a concert I played with a brass quintet. There were two big pieces on the program and both were pieces were obscure to me. The one I ended up looking for online was a piece by Stefan Hakenberg named Drei Stücke.…
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The Composition Game
I was recently asked to participate in a pilot program connecting me with an artist of the same discipline to work with me and coach me achieve an important next step in my career. My peer mentor and I talked about using music composition as a way of stretching out to meet some artistic goals.…
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Trumpet and Basketball
Sometimes multitasking can go to far. For me lately, my practice habits have been lead by the NBA playoffs. I settle in to watch a game but feeling guilty about not practicing my trumpet. So I decided to create a practice routine around the game. I tend to think of this kind of practice as maintenance. More…
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The things students do
The past four weeks have been quite difficult for me. I had to take a significant amount of time away from my day job as a middle school music teacher to care for my father. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about that as I continue to cope with losing him. However with all…
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Color and Classical Music In December
Sometimes I look out into the audience when I perform music. I don’t mean to take an subconscious pole of the demographics of the audience, but it’s hard not to notice. The picture above isn’t what I usually see, in fact the picture below is more of the reality of I tend to notice. Often…
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Picking a high school in New York City
Many of my middle school students already know where they will be attending high school. When I was their age I had no ideas where I’d be spending the bulk of my teen age years. There were only 3 real choices for me at the time. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts,…
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Middle of summer worries for a music teacher
It’s the middle of summer, my kid is watching cartoons while I look at my units of study for the up coming school year. Since I am a middle school band director, I tend to worry about how effectively I am helping students learn specific skills on their instruments and the other parts of music, like music theory and…
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I Tend To Reminisce
Now and again I tend to reminisce about my youth, and luckily what comes up most for me is the music I listened to. Lately I’ve been spending my time totally enamored with two specific groups, The New York Voices and the Pat Metheny Group. I listened to these pieces often and I fell in…
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