Back from an extended trip to Maryland, my Maryland - ancestral homeland of the narcissistic plate.  No time to write (or energy, for that matter) as I was marinating in family.  Back late last night and right back into it, I am beginning to line up a new opera project and re-examining all methods of self-promotion - meaning that I am considering having someone else publish and record my choral pieces.  Aghast.  Maybe, however, it'll free up some time.

As a good warm up, and via an Ionarts heads up, is this invigorating essay by Tim Page.

So, the concert went very well!  Players played great, baritone sounded great, soprano was sick so we had to cancel the tango, but that's ok, it'll happen some other time.

My job was finding the power strip for the recording apparatus.  An interesting situation.  The more people
I work with, the more I start to see everybody doing their jobs.  My job was done about a month before the show - all the music was written.  I did a little coaching here and there to get the singers up to speed, rewrote a few measures here and there to make the viola part realistic; but then, I just let everybody do their jobs.  So when it came to the day of the show, I found the power strip, I listened, I bowed, reception.

Next project...

Though I didn't hear a note (I was occupied by the sweet, 2 year old blonde daughter of the violist - a good trade off, I think), I had a good feeling going into the rehearsal today, as I was told by the wife of the violist that it was "growing on him."  I guess if you can grow something on the violist, then you're not doing too badly.

Things apparently went well, there were a few questions tat I could answer - Finale mishaps, notation redundancies, one double stop that apparently is not possible (only one?!). Tomorrow, everybody gets together - singers, too.  I have not been this calm about a performance. Ever.

I like it.

"When you practice, you try to make it perfect.  When you perform, you try to enjoy yourself."

I'm playing on the adult recital (gasp!) on Monday.  Two movements of the Schoenberg op. 19 and a Bach 2-part fugue.

 How do you develop age appropriate curriculum with a goal based, ear-eye coordination and have it lead to demonstrable skills which can be used throughout a child's musical development?

Before I answer, a shout out.

Music Literacy is half of the plan.  The other half is creativity.  Once a skill is learned, it must be employed, or else the skill atrophies.  Case in point: I have two private instrumental students struggling with rhythm.  One, who is not a visual learner, has a pronounced disconnect between what her eye perceives and the translation to physical movement which is then checked by the ear.  The other visually differentiates halfs, quarters, eights and 16ths, but the physical translation is lost, when he plays them all with the same length.  So we had to go back to school.  I set up rudimentary exercises to beef up the things they can do best, then have them improvise on those skills, in order to make sure at least two of the three learning styles (Kinesthetic, auditory, visual) are flowing freely back and forth.  The hope is that, grounded in two thirds of the learning trio, and demonstrably reinforced by structured improvisation on those concepts, they can tackle the third with ease.  I'll keep you posted.

In terms of the development of my current school's curriculum, I am pushing new ways to engage students develop music literacy that are also intended to improve the health of the school:

1) Keep the older students we have engaged.  Drive-thru private music lessons, and nothing else, are a dead end.  It's a vacuum.  Kids need to play out, and play together in order to keep their music studied fresh.  With that, I'm introducing "Crash Creativity Courses," instrument specific add-ons (up to three, paid for separately) to existing private lesson registrations.  Specifics: sight reading for singers, theory for guitarists, intro to fiddle, classical piano scale and chord workout, jazz piano ii-Vs, Rock drum set, Latin percussion, Jazz improv for winds, plus drop-in rock and jazz jam sessions and chamber music sight reading sessions.

2) Draw in new students.  The school has had, for about a year, an updates computer lab complete with six new iMacs loaded with Sibelius, Garageband and "skill drill" written-note and ear training  programs.  The biggest advertising push (because the old music theory program was in the throes of dying) has been for organized Garageband classes wherein the "...three R's: 'riting, 'ranging and recording..." are investigated (I, unfortunately, did not write that description). No one else in the area offers music technology classes on the scale that we can.  Enter the communications office.

3) Sustain the registrations of new students. Community is the key (along with mini-sessions, so as not to deter families who can afford a full term in addition to their lessons): Get kids playing with each other at any level - chamber music, rock bands that write their own material with a faculty coach, student compositions played by student ensembles, to name a few.  All of which involve using their lesson learned skills in creative ways making the school a place where kids come to make music together.  Another part is a commitment by all faculty to the development of their students music literacy, which may not be as hard as it sounds.

I think I'm ready to write the brochure now.