Podium Speak

I am so smrt!

2008-10-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how much of an exact science there can be in a study which only involved 40 people, but I sure like the conclusions!

Taken from http://www.physorg.com/news142185056.html

Musicians use both sides of their brains more frequently than average people

Supporting what many of us who are not musically talented have often felt, new research reveals that trained musicians really do think differently than the rest of us. Vanderbilt University psychologists have found that professionally trained musicians more effectively use a creative technique called divergent thinking, and also use both the left and the right sides of their frontal cortex more heavily than the average person.

The research by Crystal Gibson, Bradley Folley and Sohee Park is currently in press at the journal Brain and Cognition.

"We were interested in how individuals who are naturally creative look at problems that are best solved by thinking 'out of the box'," Folley said. "We studied musicians because creative thinking is part of their daily experience, and we found that there were qualitative differences in the types of answers they gave to problems and in their associated brain activity."

One possible explanation the researchers offer for the musicians' elevated use of both brain hemispheres is that many musicians must be able to use both hands independently to play their instruments.

"Musicians may be particularly good at efficiently accessing and integrating competing information from both hemispheres," Folley said. "Instrumental musicians often integrate different melodic lines with both hands into a single musical piece, and they have to be very good at simultaneously reading the musical symbols, which are like left-hemisphere-based language, and integrating the written music with their own interpretation, which has been linked to the right hemisphere."

Previous studies of creativity have focused on divergent thinking, which is the ability to come up with new solutions to open-ended, multifaceted problems. Highly creative individuals often display more divergent thinking than their less creative counterparts.

To conduct the study, the researchers recruited 20 classical music students from the Vanderbilt Blair School of Music and 20 non-musicians from a Vanderbilt introductory psychology course. The musicians each had at least eight years of training. The instruments they played included the piano, woodwind, string and percussion instruments. The groups were matched based on age, gender, education, sex, high school grades and SAT scores.

The researchers conducted two experiments to compare the creative thinking processes of the musicians and the control subjects. In the first experiment, the researchers showed the research subjects a variety of household objects and asked them to make up new functions for them, and also gave them a written word association test. The musicians gave more correct responses than non-musicians on the word association test, which the researchers believe may be attributed to enhanced verbal ability among musicians. The musicians also suggested more novel uses for the household objects than their non-musical counterparts.

In the second experiment, the two groups again were asked to identify new uses for everyday objects as well as to perform a basic control task while the activity in their prefrontal lobes was monitored using a brain scanning technique called near-infrared spectroscopy, or NIRS. NIRS measures changes in blood oxygenation in the cortex while an individual is performing a cognitive task.

"When we measured subjects' prefrontal cortical activity while completing the alternate uses task, we found that trained musicians had greater activity in both sides of their frontal lobes. Because we equated musicians and non-musicians in terms of their performance, this finding was not simply due to the musicians inventing more uses; there seems to be a qualitative difference in how they think about this information," Folley said.

The researchers also found that, overall, the musicians had higher IQ scores than the non-musicians, supporting recent studies that intensive musical training is associated with an elevated IQ score.

Source: Vanderbilt University

Tongue Twister of the day

2008-10-04T18:31:00.001-07:00

There I am in front of the choir this week, trying to teach this line to the choir, from Handel's Solomon: "Now the hard fought battle won" Which is set in a very excited double-choir-quickly-sung-polyphony type of thing.

Of course in good English diction, the "r" in "hard" should not be pronounced.

So I demonstrate .. "Hard Fought .. H-aw-d Fought ... h-aw-d fought ... Hot Fart"

Well, so much for productivity on that movement.

Let's see you say "Hard Fought" 10x fast!

RETREAT!

2008-09-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

Well, it's early fall, which means it is retreat season! The first choir retreat that I am conducting is coming up this weekend, and then the second one happens the weekend after Canadian Thanksgiving. One of them is in town, meaning I get to sleep in my own bed in the evenings, and the other is in a log cabin on a secluded creek just outside of town. Both of them will offer a great advantage to my choirs to do some concentrated learning, as well as opportunity to socialize, and build on choir morale.

Having been involved in choir retreats for many years on the other side of the podium, I know how difficult it is for a chorister to stay mentally alert for all those rehearsals! In the past couple of year though I have found that these retreats can be awfully taxing on me as a conductor. After approximately twelve hours of rehearsals over three days, there are moments during the retreat where my focus dwindles, my patience grows thin, my arms get sore, my voice gets tired, my back gets sore, and the list goes on. I'm fortunate to have an assistant for both of these choirs though, and I will make much use of them over the two weekends!

For our retreat with my chamber choir, which is the one we do out of town, I have found a pretty good system where we have enough time to really learn some repertoire, as well as finding time to enjoy the surroundings, and each other.

On the opening night, we rehearse for a couple of hours before dinner, and another hour after dinner. Saturday morning I try to plan an extended warm-up, which will include enough stretching, vocalizing, breathing and tuning exercises to get people a bit more relaxed and ready to sing. If someone in the choir is a yoga expert, this is the opportunity to use them. The day is then divided up with sectionals and enough breaks to enjoy the day - especially if the weather is permitting. This year, we are planning to take our new promotional photos, which should take up a good hour or so of the afternoon. I also plan for at least one rehearsal to be spent on "new" music that we will be learning for future concerts in the season - something to keep the mind active, and sight reading chops in working order. The evening will have a shortened rehearsal followed by a games night where we can all relax and get to know each other a bit better (there is often Bailey's involved!). Sunday morning will also have a rehearsal component, but as many of our singers are off to church choir obligations, I have to limit it to easier repertoire, and small accomplishments.

This year, I expect much of the weekend retreat to be involved in memorization! We are doing three spiritual arrangements, and it would be pointless to perform them with music in front of us. So if we can memorize at least one or two of these works over that weekend - that will be a significant accomplishment indeed!

Do you have retreats coming up? What are your strategies for an effective weekend retreat?

Happy Michaelmas!

2008-09-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, September 29th, is the Christian Feast Day known as Michaelmas. Otherwise known as the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. It is also one of the few feast days which has the suffix "mas". The other two being Candlemas (February 2nd, aka Groundhog Day) and the much more popular and commercialized Christmas.

During the Middle Ages, Michaelmas was a far more popular feast day. It coincided with Autumn harvest in much of western Europe.

In England it was customary to east a goose on Michaelmas to protect you from financial ruin.

In Ireland, if you found a ring in the Michaelmas Cake, it would mean that someone was likely to be married that year.

It also coincided with the election of the new mayor and chief of police, and for a period of time on Michaelmas, there was a "lawless hour" where there was no law enforcement. A symbolic gesture of this was to throw cabbage at people.

In Ottawa, Canada, in 1971, on Michaelmas ...

I was born.

Happy Michaelmas Everyone!

Election and the Arts Part II

2008-09-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to my post on the weekend - here is an article from Sunday's Halifax Herald which tries to answer why the Conservative Government, both present and past, have made massive cuts to Arts programs.

I realize I'm probably "preaching to the choir" as it were, but it is important for us to read as we approach the election.

The original article is available through this link, but I post it in its entirety below in case the article is archived.

Political cynicism behind arts cuts

By SILVER DONALD CAMERON
Sun. Sep 21 - 7:16 AM

‘TO BE QUITE candid," said the Danish professor, "we in the Scandinavian countries always considered your country as an uninteresting shadow of the United States. But now recently everyone wants to know about Canada, because we all want to know, where is this extraordinary writing coming from?"

In 1988, I was speaking at schools and universities in Denmark and Sweden, sponsored by the Nordic Association for Canadian Studies. Canadian writers were suddenly emerging on the world stage — Margaret Laurence, Mordecai Richler, Robertson Davies, Alice Munro and many others. Everywhere I went, people wanted to know about Canada — its cities, its ethnic complexity, its geography, all the realities that are reflected in its literature.

Culture is the face that Canada presents to the world. It is also an extraordinarily attractive industry. With a ballpoint pen and a notebook, Alistair MacLeod composes stories that echo around the world. Celine Dion takes over Las Vegas, while Diana Krall conquers Paris. Alex Colville paints an image onto canvas, and sells it to a German collector for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That’s "value-added" and "export-oriented" beyond the dreams of Bombardier. In the information age, culture is the very content of the economy. In 2002, culture was a $40-billion industry in Canada. It was bigger than mining and oil and gas ($35.4 billion) and nearly double the size of the agriculture and forestry sectors ($21 billion).

Culture is huge. That’s why American governments relentlessly promote their own cultural industries, running interference worldwide on behalf of American publishing, recording, film and broadcasting.

Culture is design, music, architecture, images, film, story. It is also quilting, folk sculpture, video games and festivals. It is what Cape Bretoners do in their kitchens. It’s jazz on the waterfront, buskers on the Grand Parade, Shaun Majumder and Cathy Jones "goofin’ around" on TV. Culture tells us what it means to be Nova Scotians, and Canadians, and sentient human beings. It creates no pollution, uses few materials, employs hordes of people, and travels almost free.

And the Harper government hates it.

Every 20 years or so, a new Conservative government guts Canada’s cultural programs. The Harper crowd has chopped about $60 million since 2006, axing everything from the $2.5-million National Training Program in the film and video sector to the tiny $300,000 Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada, which supported the archiving of important film, television and musical recordings.

Why? Gary Schellenberger, the Tory MP who chaired the standing committee on Canadian heritage, brays that arts support programs are fundamentally insulting to Canadian artists, indicating "that Canadian artists cannot compete globally" and that "Canadian talent is not as viable as American or European talent and that without government assistance, arts and culture in Canada could not survive."

Horse pucky. Insert the words "aircraft" or "nuclear reactors" or "softwood lumber" in this passage, and see how it plays. Consider, for instance, Prom-Art, the $4.7-million program of the Department of Foreign Affairs, which supported the foreign travel of artists promoting Canadian culture abroad. Yes, the Canadian cultural industry does need such programs — just as the forest industry, the aerospace industry and the power industry need government support in selling their products abroad.

Hello? Hello? Isn’t that what government trade and industry departments were created for?

The programs under attack are largely industrial support programs — training programs for cultural workers, research and development programs, seed money and venture capital programs. Stephen Harper says that the cuts are not anti-culture, but simply represent prudent financial management — and then says that there’s no point in "funding things that people actually don’t want."

Really? Who, exactly, was objecting to the industrial support programs he’s been cutting? Some voters dislike the Canada Council, admittedly, but who dislikes Prom-Art? Who even knows about it? And if we’re killing loser programs, when will Harper garrotte Atomic Energy of Canada, which has sopped up $20 billion in public money building reactors that nobody will buy? Talk about "funding things that people actually don’t want."

The truth about the arts cuts is buried in a recent Globe and Mail story on the Conservatives’ unprecedented use of data mining and micro-targeted marketing. One key to victory, the party believes, is appealing to "battlers," blue-collar workers and low-paid white-collar workers who feel ignored by the country’s elites, including government. The battlers really like tax reductions and cuts to government-supported programs — particularly in the arts.

And that’s why the latest cuts were made just as the government ramped up for an election. These cuts were designed to cause controversy, and to send a message to the battlers. They damage a major industry, and they shrink Canada’s presence in the world. But they may give the Conservatives an electoral edge in a few ridings — and that’s the only thing that matters.

Silver Donald Cameron’s website is www.silverdonaldcameron.ca

Election Promises - What about the Arts?

2008-09-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

For my friends south of the border, you might be unaware that Canada is in the throws of a federal election. The difference is, we just found out about it in early September, and the entire campaign, election, and induction of the new government will all happen before mid-October.

Here, we don't vote for a leader of the country - instead, we vote for individual members of the party, and the party who wins the most seats, becomes the government, and their leader becomes the Prime Minister of the House of Commons, and in turn, the leader of the Country.

The latest polls show that our current party, the Progressive Conservative party of Canada, under the leadership of Steven Harper, will likely be re-elected in some capacity. It remains to be seen if they will increase their presence in the House with a majority, or continue to operate with a minority (i.e. fewer seats than the combined three, possibly four, opposition parties - all of whom are liberal to some extent - some more than others).

One of the things that the Conservative party has done in the last few months before Parliament was dissolved is to make unprecedented cuts to the arts in Canada, including the Canada Council for the Arts and other major granting agencies which basically fund all the major arts programs in Canada, and in turn, provide me with work.

Although at this point, I am not going to publicly endorse a political party, you might guess that I lean a bit to the left. This latest announcement by the Liberal Party of Canada provides some reassurance that there is hope for the future of the arts. However, my greatest fear is that we are headed in the direction of a long period of Conservative rule, where funding for oil, gambling and war will continue to supersede any new funding to the arts, and will instead be subjected to continued cuts. Whereas it is unlikely that a Liberal, New Democratic, Green or even the one-province separatist party would support this sort of action.

I do hope that Canadians will take a good look at the political landscape that our current government is molding, and ask yourself if it creates the identity you want for our country.

Music for the Eucharist of the Anglican Church

2008-09-19T16:18:00.001-07:00

I've been involved in Anglican Church music in some capacity for almost thirty years. My parents enrolled me in the local Cathedral Men and Boys choir when I was eight years old, and within the first four months of moving away from my home city, I took a job as choirmaster at an Anglican Parish, where I've been director of music now for five of the last eleven years.

Back at the Cathedral, as you might expect, we used different settings of the Eucharist every week, in the style of British Cathedral music programs. Some of the composers of these settings included the likes of Harold Darke, Charles Wood, John Stainer, Byrd, Charles V. Stanford and other British masters, as well as Palestrina, Victoria, Schubert and Mozart, and a host of Canadian composers as well.

At my current parish we rely on Merbecke for the Traditional services, and the American composer, Richard Proulx for the modern language service, and Gordon Light for our contemporary service, and it's been this way since 1982, a good 15 years before I showed up.

I've been thinking for the last few years that it is time for a change. This Sunday, in celebration of the anniversary of a prominent parishioner and chorister, we are singing Charles Wood's setting in the Phrygian mode (often known as "Wood in the Phryg" (pronounced "fridge"), and it is going to be stunning! As much as I'd like to make the inclusion of a choral eucharist setting a regular event at the church, I'm sure that it will be met with opposition from parishioners who feel that removing any part of the congregation's opportunity to sing is a step backwards. So I'm trying to find a solution where we can all win, perhaps adding this element to our worship once a month, or maybe just on major feast days an holidays.

Well, if that idea is met with opposition, which I expect it will, at the very least, I think it might be time to retire the Proulx in favour for a new congregational setting.

If you have any ideas of settings of the eucharist for the modern language, which is the same at the Catholic Mass, that is particularly singable from a congregation standpoint, and "Anglican", you know, the kind of singing that doesn't induce instant hand waving or clapping on beats one and three? I'd love hear your suggestions!

The importance of score studying!

2008-09-15T12:10:00.001-07:00

On the table in front of me right now, I have the following:

Handel's Solomon
Monteverdi's Orfeo
Haydn's Harmoniemesse
RVW's Mass in G
various works of Bruckner
a mish-mash of works by Mendelssohn, Clemens non Papa, Knut Nystedt, Finzi, Britten, Koepke, Halloran and Whitacre.
One black cat, and one mostly white cat with siamese markings.

By November 21st, pretty much all of this music will have been performed by me in some capacity. Actually, a good percentage of it will be performed between November 8th and November 21st!

Solomon is on the 21st, and I'm conducting it. The Monteverdi I am singing in a staged production (reading into this - it's memorized, and needs to be memorized by early November), Haydn, RVW (hurray!) and Bruckner are making appearances on the next Pro Coro concert at the end of the Month of September, and the rest is Da Camera music for our November 8th concert.

(The cats are on the table, simply because they're always around, and we are not strong enough to tell them what not to do. Not that they'd listen anyway)

Right now, the two projects which are most prevalent on my mind are the Handel and the Monteverdi - both of which will require a fair amount of prep work. I've been elbow deep in the Handel this morning, marking up the choral score with breath marks, dynamics, articulation etc - and will have to tackle the orchestra score in the coming weeks, so I can have my assistant transfer it all into the individual parts before they are delivered to the orchestra (time is money - and I've learned from experience that the more you have written in their parts before the first rehearsal, the quicker that rehearsal goes!).

The Monteverdi is going to be a ton of fun - it is such great music, and the musicians involved are fantastic! Memorizing, however, is going to be a challenge for me. I think the last time I actually sat down and intentionally memorized a work was about 10 years ago. This is not to say that I haven't memorized music since then. To be honest, like most conductors, I bet I memorize everything I conduct, but the music is always there anyway. If push came to shove and I had to conduct Messiah or St. John Passion from memory, I probably could. But this is different, this is singing! With text! In a language that I don't sing enough for it to be natural to me. So it's going to be a daily activity around here from now until the end of October (and I'm not just writing that because I know the director of this project is reading this ...)

I'll be writing about issues in both conducting score preparation, as well as memorizing music in the coming weeks, specifically related to these two major works. I'm also going to spend a fair amount of time getting into the story behind Solomon, and the connection between this major oratorio and King George II, which I find most interesting!

First though, I have to get over the first cold of the season. At least I have it now ... and not in November!

A big change in my life ...

2008-09-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Well I did it.

After years of constant frustration... wasting countless hours waiting for things to work as they should, but to no avail... thinking I've solved all the problems only to find out hours later that the problems still existed... going over to friends houses and lusting for something they have, and I don't, yet ever defending the fact that I could do anything on mine that they could do on theirs, even if it did take just a little bit longer...

I gave in ...

I bought an Apple MacBook.

Life is so much better now.

For bloggers out there who need more proof - I turn your attention to this bloggers account of switching from a PC based system to an Apple - the posts are in a three part series, and if you are considering the switch - I recommend you read them all.

As a bonus, when I bought my Mac from the University Bookstore, I got a fancy new iPod touch - which only took my wife three days to fall in love with, so I bought another one for her too (only hers is pink).

I kind of like this habit of buying early birthday presents!

coming soon ...

2008-09-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

I've been rather negligent as of late with blog posts - simply because, as many of you who are involved with choirs or University will know, this last week marks the start of our year, and I'm trying to stay ahead of the game with my preparations and lectures. I'm also in the middle of yet another long job application process, which will go into the mail today or tomorrow.

I do have a few blog post ideas in the works though, and I should be able to start putting them down here in the days to come.

In the mean time - here is a fun article from the CBC. A good reason not to be shy about having Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot in my collection of CDs.

The New CBC Radio Two

2008-09-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

Looking at my counter stats this week, my hits seem to be on the high side, it seems many of you are finding my blog this week while you search for CBC Radio Two, or CBC Radio Two Programming because of my older post on this subject, back when the powers that be at CBC first announced their proposed changes.

Since that announcement, there have been public protests, which I have been involved in, Facebook groups, email lists and from what I can tell very little support for these changes. Perhaps that demographic is being quiet and enjoying the changes, but I don't see that happening.

Yesterday, the changes went into effect, and I tried to keep an open mind about them. I am sad to say however that my original feelings towards these changes have not changed since I've listened to the new programming.

Yesterday morning, the familiar voice of Tom Allen came on the air, but was quickly followed by music that was so disruptive that we instantly hit the snooze button (this coming from a man who has never hit a snooze button in over 30 years of waking up to a radio alarm). After the snooze time ended and the offending radio noise came on again, the snooze was replaced by "OFF". We tried again this morning, with the same results and are seriously considering putting a CD in the clock radio as a wake up alarm. We've already replaced the radio station in the car for the drive in to work with a CD - and we'll need it on the way home as well.

The afternoon show "Tempo" with Julie Nesrallah is much the same as the morning request show used to be. Good music here - although nothing overly challenging for the critical listener, a lot of "safe" music, including Mozart, another replay of the Elgar Enigma Variations, which has always found monthly repeat performances on various radio2 shows in the past, and very little from the 20th or 21st century. I really do like Julie though, and she is finding her radio voice quite well I think, I just wish she was allowed a bit more talk with some educational componenet and live interviews, aspects that we've had in the past. Right now, it sounds a little bit like classical DJ'ing.

Eric Friesen's show, which played a fair amount of live music and followed interesting discussion topics is gone, and the drive home show, which was always an interesting mix of classical, eclectic, and good independent music labels, has been replaced by - at least what I heard on one occaision - rap and pop?

I'm so disheartened by this, that I find this post hard to write. The most disheartening aspect of it is that ALL the music I've heard on the new morning show and afternoon drive home show can be found on at least two or three other radio stations in Edmonton. Wheras those who enjoyed the old programming have no alternative but to resort to CDs or internet radio (which doesn't work so well in the car - my network cable not being long enough) .

So it is with great saddness that I have turned off CBC Radio2 in my car, and in my home. I only hope there is enough outcry over the coming year that a decision is reversed in some way.

We need to make this an election issue! This is public broadcasting that all Canadians are paying for after all.

Visit the Radio2 blog post from yesterday and read the comments, you'll see I'm not alone. Add to the comments if you wish, but know that the blog only allows comments for seven days after the posting was made.

Hitting the ground with at least one foot running

2008-09-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

It's September 2nd, and so far, all is quiet. In fact as soon as the new CBC 2 Morning show started playing what they are referring to as "music" ... the bedroom got really quiet again. After 30+ years of never once hitting a snooze button, I've been converted... in fact, the snooze button is closely followed by the OFF button - a really really sad day for our national broadcasting service.

The quietness is going to change in a few hours though as the inevitable "back to reality" mode hits. On the list of things to do today is to finish up two course outlines and stand in front of a photocopier for a few hours while they all print. Apparently I have a TA for the course I'm teaching at U of A, and I was hoping I could use that person to do the copier work for me - but I haven't received confirmation of who this is - and class begins tomorrow at 9:00 AM.

Last week, almost certain disaster happened. We are one week away from the beginning of choir rehearsals, and we found out one week ago that the Oratorio "Solomon", which is the work I'll be conducting in late November with Richard Eaton Singers (Edmonton's symphonic choir) is completely OUT OF PRINT and won't be ready until mid-October. However, our incredible librarian and general manager found scores in Toronto, and low and behold, one-hundred-and-thirty copies of the piano vocal score should be somewhere en route, likely in a plane passing over western Ontario as we speak, and should be in the hands of our librarian tomorrow. Amazing really.

Other things on the to do list this week -- finish a job application, which will include putting together CDs and DVDs, prepare material for my church's concert series, including budget and PR related work, prep classes, including online material and powerpoint presentations, and prep rehearsals for next week!

The cats however are still sleeping unaware of the apparent cosmic shift in the world today.

What to do with all these new compositions on my desk?

2008-08-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

It seems that once you become director of a chamber choir, you are immediately added to a list of conductors to whom composers from all over the world send PDF's and post mail samples of their works. In the last five years, I have accumulated about one hundred new compositions, and admittedly most of them are still in their envelopes, having never been looked at, and only one of those (after much persistence from the composer) I have programmed, and even that piece had been performed before by another choir before.

It's made me think a bit recently of what is it that attracts choral conductors to new works, and why it is that of the many compositions we receive each year, it is unlikely that any of them will actually be programmed ... ever.

Here are my thoughts. When a composer "gives" a work to a solo performer, the chances that the work will be performed seems somewhat higher (although I have no idea how much higher). Quite often, the solo performer IS the composer. However, when it comes to choirs and orchestras, you are dealing with a large number of people, a board of directors, and a fairly consistent audience base. The risk of performing an unsuccessful work has implications that affect a great number of people.

So how do artistic directors choose "new" music? Often music that is premiered at conferences such as Podium, or ACDA conferences will have an effect on a large number of conductors. Reading sessions at these conferences as well are a great way to see a host of new works, and sing them through with other conductors. Recordings and live broadcasts of new works will likely get a second glance. After that, once a composer has a reputation of being a fine choral composer, they open up doors for commissions - which in my experience is where the highest number of "world premiere" performances come from. Since I've been with Da Camera, we have performed two commissions, and have another coming this year. The main reason for this is they look great on grant applications. Plus there is also nothing quite like the incentive of putting money into to something that will see a project through to its completion.

How many compositions have you performed of works that you have received by email or post mail? What percentage of new works that you perform are commissions? What is the best outlet for you to find "new" music?

To vibrate, or not to vibrate - that is the question.

2008-08-07T11:49:00.000-07:00

It's been debated on many different levels, and by musicologists and conductors who have much more authority on the subject than I do, but the question of "should we use vibrato" and other performance practice issues, particularly in the singing and playing of Bach always seems to come up in conversation, and everyone has an opinion on it.

Kenneth Woods over at "A view from the podium" delivers this interesting insight in the music of Edward Elgar - which to me can be easily transfered into the ranks of the playing of Bach through Mozart and the like.

I commented on that post already, but felt that a post of my own was warranted.

For a while now, the recordings of Bach which claim to be "Historically Accurate" have bothered me for some reason. I'm always left asking myself if it was worth it. To go through all that trouble to try to recreate a sound which no one can claim to be 100% accurate. In some cases the recordings to me come out calculated, and bland. There are some exceptions, but I won't go naming these recordings as that isn't the point of this exercise, but instead offer the following argument.

Is there a difference between "Historically Accurate" and "Historically Informed"? for example, can a choir of two hundred singers and an equally mammoth orchestra perform Handel's Messiah and call it "Historically Informed" considering they've taken the time to prepare the score with a sense of Baroque style, articulation, and nuance even though the performing forces are too large, and the instruments too "new"?

The question of vibrato, I think, is answered so well in Kenneth Woods' post:

I can’t help but feel that in all music the “non-vibrato sempre” method is a weak-minded cop-out, an easy way to avoid thinking about whether, when, why and how to vibrate, a process which demands an awareness of harmony, instrumentation, color and taste. It stops the process of thinking, listening, responding and contemplating sound dead in its tracks.

How can we expect modern players to remove vibrato without removing the soul of their performance? I'm not saying we should be adding "Bel Canto" vibrato or rubato into the music of Bach, but we should not be afraid to let the instruments sing.

There is also evidence that early keyboard players did not use their thumbs! Why don't we ask our organists and harpsichordists to do the same? Because it would probably take away from the musical ability of the performer - which to me is like removing the left-hand vibrato motion of the string player.

Carpentry Interlude

2008-08-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

While the stereo played Handel's "Solomon", I spent my holiday Monday building a 96 bottle wine rack for our newly established wine cellar.

Note - there are no IKEA manuals to be seen - just wood, tools and screws.

And they say musicians aren't handy ...

Productivity

2008-07-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the non-music related posts as of late, but unless you are interested in hearing about the dozen weddings I've done, or am going to do, there really isn't much to write about. So I bring you a few posts of "life in the off-season of a freelance musician"

This past week, my wife suggested that every night we should do something "productive" in the house. On Tuesday, we cleaned the main floor of the house, yesterday we put up some paintings on the wall that we took down to make room for an upright piano which we are babysitting, and today, we took on the biggest job on the list. The Garage! We emptied it out, swept it clean, cleaned out the mouse droppings (that's another story), and then reorganized it in such a way that everything is accessible. It is a very small garage, in fact, it's technically a 1920's carriage house, so we can't park a car in there even if we wanted, but at least all our outdoor tools, lawnmower and wheelbarrow are now organized amidst the winter sport equipment, bicycle, and camping equipment.

My wife and I work very well together on projects like this. We've hung ceiling fans, put shelves up, painted, renovated a kitchen, built IKEA furniture and moved our various apartments into one house without any fuss or arguing.

Decorating the Christmas tree however ...

The Dentist

2008-07-21T14:01:00.000-07:00

I don't like the dentist.

It is understandable though, considering my dental history:

12 teeth extracted (four of them because of a childhood accident involving sliding down an icy hill on my stomach, while having my head sat on halfway down - the other eight due to having my Dad's large teeth, and my mom's small mouth).

Two rounds of braces - first round from Grade 4 until 9, second round from Grade 11 until first year university.

So when someone says I have a million dollar smile - I tell them that it is probably not too far from the tooth . . . er . . . truth.

Today, I had my annual check-up and cleaning. About a month ago I started feeling sensitivity in one of my molars, one which about eight years ago was drilled and filled with the caveat of "I'm not promising that this won't need a root canal some day". So with some reluctance, I told my dentist about my recent sensitivity. After x-rays, tapping and humming and hawing - the good news is - no root canal needed! I am however going to get it crowned - as a preventative procedure.

The bonus prize was that I have a cavity on the other side of my mouth.

Thursday's not going to be a fun morning for me.

* Photo credit - Good Rockin' Tonight

Dormant, but alive

2008-07-11T17:01:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd put down a quick post letting all my faithful readers (all two or three of you) that I am still alive and well, and on holidays.

We've just finished a ten day holiday in California, Six of them in San Francisco, and four days trekking through wine country in Sonoma County. To the left is a photo of me taking a rest between wineries in a vineyard.

It was a holiday to remember!

Now I'm off to Southern BC for an annual golf trip and tournament, then I'll be back in full swing.

You may look forward to a variety of posts on Handel's Solomon, which I am conducting in late November, as well as Monteverdi's Orfeo, which I will be singing in early November. I'm also conducting a concert with Da Camera in November.

So, this holiday is going to be well deserved!

Thoughts on Programming

2008-06-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

Recommended reading: Richard Sparks made some great posts in the early months of 2008 on programming - which start here and continue as a thread throughout his posts, I encourage you to read them! The following post is more of a rambling on the process and results of my programming for my chamber choir next season.

Yesterday was a tough day. I have an AGM tonight for my chamber choir, and in that report, I have to announce my season to them. We have our dates planned, carefully trying to avoid conflicts with most of the similar choirs in the city, as well as the two other choirs that I am involved with (a feat in itself), and we've committed ourselves to recording our first CD since I became artistic director. I'm sure there will be more posts on this in the coming year.

Over the past few weeks I have been considering different works, and sets of pieces for possible programs, but have had a difficult time coming up with firm ideas. I have many ideas for feature concerts in the coming years - for example, three years ago we did a concert of Michael Haydn and Mozart during their anniversary years, and the next year we did Rachmaninoff All Night Vigil, and this past year we did a Baroque concert of Handel's Dixit Dominus and a Bach Cantata. I find those concerts quite easy to program, understandably, as usually one work dominates the program, and a few smaller works, if needed, would complete the program. I have a list of pieces that I want to conduct in my life, it is by no means exhaustive, and keeps growing. So this yearly concert program should be easy to manage. Plus composers birth and death anniversaries keep popping up from time to time (note to self - next year is a Debussy year - might have to alter our November program a bit), so I'm good for the next foreseeable future.

The concerts that I find difficult, and I'm sure I'm not alone, are the concerts with a "potpourri" of works. Usually, this coincides with Christmas programs, something that I've been lucky to avoid for the last couple of years. Lately we've done a mid-November program around Remembrance Day, which has been very rewarding, and although challenging to find a full program, they have been quite successful, dealing with the theme of Remembrance, War and Peace. The end of the year concerts I've been able to concentrate on secular works, and poetic themes.

So, a sneak preview for those who read my blog - as my choir will not find out about this program until tonight at the AGM.

November concert "The Spirit Sings" - works by Finzi, Mendlessohn and Violet Archer (Canadian Composer, from Edmonton). The featured work will be Mendelssohn's famous English anthem for treble soloist, choir and organ "Hear my Prayer". We are being joined by the Edmonton Youth Choir, which I hope to draw from their young soprano section for a soloist. Otherwise I will be inviting a young up and coming student to join us for this. The rest of the program will deal will "spirited" music, perhaps even a spiritual. As mentioned above, I should look into Debussy's "Trois Chansons" as well. Violet Archer, known in Edmonton mainly for her piano music, has written some interesting, and challenging, music for choir. Her setting of Psalm 98 is one of her more tonal works, and I believe most accessible for audiences. I haven't sung it since the late '80's, so I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

Our CD project in March will include a Canadian work that we found much success with two years ago, Eleanor Daley's "Requiem". A collection of texts from the Anglican BCP, as well as secular poetry on remembrance - and one other Canadian work, which I'll keep a secret for now. A good Canadian CD I think - attractive from a grant perspective!

The May concert will headline German Romantic composers Rheinberger and Brahms with the former's Cantus Missae (Mass in E-Flat major for double choir) and the later's Zigeunerlieder op. 103. A sort of "Sacred and Profane" idea, hmmm... maybe the Benjamin Britten work of that name would make a nice third piece on that program - if it weren't so ridiculously difficult - another year maybe.

Good luck with all your future programs!

Just as a note - we are off to California in about a week, and then I'm off on a golf trip until the mid to end of July. As a result this blog is likely to go into an extended hiatus for the next month, my family is welcome to check our family blog for updates on our trip, and photos!

Wishing you all a restful summer!

Singing Harmonics and their Effect on the Domestic Cat

2008-06-13T10:46:00.001-07:00

My wife and I are singing in a project choir for a colleague's DMus conducting recital. One of the pieces he is doing is a short piece called "I Am the Great Sun" by Jussi Chydenius of Rajaton.

The start of the piece calls for the tenors and altos to sing with overtones at the start, otherwise knows as harmonic singing. I've done a bit of this with some success, but thought I should practice a bit at home. Which made me discover something interesting.

Cats HATE overtone singing! Both our cats ran out of the room in a panic. It was close to feeding time too - and both of them refused to come back into the room to eat - which with these two felines, is a first.

I'm going to try this on them next time they start to scratch the furniture.

Wedding Stories

2008-06-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

One of the blogs that I read regularly, and enjoy immensely, is Jason Health's Blog, Arts Addict, found on the Adapistration collection of Blogs (he also publishes the Doublebass Blog, which has a certain amount of cross-over on his Arts Addict blog, but is worth checking in on). He has a knack at telling great gig stories, and his recent account of a wedding where a colleague was to play "Here Comes the Bride" on the double bass is a great example of this.

It got me thinking about a post that I've been meaning to put up here in a while, and I figure that it is time!

I've been playing or singing at weddings for over twenty five years now. At the hight of my wedding playing career, I would sometimes play up to three weddings a day, every Saturday from June to September. I have no idea how many weddings I've actually played in my life, but I figure it's in the neighbourhood of 200 to 250. 99.9% of the time, they go off without a hitch (except for the fact that they actually GET hitched). There are the odd few where a bride, or even groom, cannot get through the vows through the tears, or a flower girl or ring bearer doesn't do what they are supposed to do. There are the fainting groomsmen, and at least one case of "HELP ME" on the bottom of the shoes. This one wedding though - will be one I will never forget.

It was about fifteen years ago, at a small catholic parish in Ottawa. The box of whistles, which they called an "organ", was located in the back gallery of the church, about 2 stories higher that the rest of the church, and well back from the small group of guests. I arrived in good time to find the Father doing a few pre-service duties, including moving chairs, setting up the unity candle, and the elements for Mass. Two things I noticed about the priest. He was so old, I assumed the church was built around him, and his glasses where so thick, that they had to be made from the bottom of 750ml 7-up bottles.

About 20 minutes before the wedding, the first few guests began to arrive, and I opened up my trusty wedding book and started into my prelude music. The only connection I had with the front of the church was a 5x7 inch mirror on the console, giving me a view of about the front third of the aisle and the whole altar. All I really need as the usual cue to start a wedding processional is about 2 minutes after the bride's mum's pew has been seated, and the groomsmen are in a nice straight line with the priest looking down the aisle.

About 15 minutes into my prelude, I happened to glance in the mirror to see the priest lighting the altar candles. The one thing that caught my eye was that the tool he was using to light the altar candles (a typical combination snuffer and lighter, with an extendable wick) had the wick extended to about a half a foot, causing a very large flame to protrude from the top of the device. I kept glancing back and forth from the music, to the mirror. He began to light the candles with the agility of a hippopotamus. slamming the flame into the top of each candle. I looked away for a moment, and then heard an incredible GASP and CLUNK from the front of the church, and looked back in the mirror again to see the entire right side of the altar in flames! A candle had fallen over, and set most of the altar frontal on fire. I stopped playing, and planed my exit. A few of the ushers ran to the front of the church and very unceremoniously stomped on the fire until it was extinguished.

After the commotion had ceased, I resumed the prelude music. The music on the next page? a Suite from Handel's Water Music.

How appropriate.

Monday Laugh

2008-06-02T11:31:00.001-07:00

Something here to brighten up the start of the week courtesy of The Onion.

In preparation for Summer Checklist

2008-05-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

Things I have to do before the end of June:

Sing two more concerts.
Program the rest of the season for Da Camera (2/3rds done).
Find soloists, and substitute organists for 2 more Sundays in August.
Start studying Handel's Judas Maccabaeus, and keep searching for reliable scores and parts.
Figure out soloists for Judas Maccabaeus.
Plan audition dates and times for both Da Camera and RES.
Spread top soil along north side of house, regrade, and seed.
Plant the flower beds.
Try to think of a more interesting blog post

O how - not quite so - Glorious

2008-05-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

I post this blog with the following disclaimer - I love my church choir for so many wonderful reasons. Over the past ten years they have given me much joy and have risen to all the challenges I have thrown to them. Week by week they volunteer so much time to lead the music at our church, and every year they seem to improve. This past Sunday, however, was not our best showing.

A little background - we are nearing the end of the choir season, the weather is getting more and more beautiful and the temptation to be in the garden on a Thursday night will supersede the desire to be at choir practise. A temptation which I share, as this is the second full summer that my wife and I are spending in our new house, I have big landscaping and exterior plans for the house, and I'm eager to start. In light of this, I've decided to cancel all remaining Thursday rehearsals, and just rehearse on Sunday mornings only.

This past weekend was a holiday weekend in Canada (Victoria Day weekend), and my assistant was given the weekend off, so I was flying solo both behind the console and conducting the choir. There is however another very capable organist in our choir, and before rehearsal on Sunday morning I asked her if she'd be willing to gently accompany the anthem, Healey Willan's "O How Glorious" the second motet in his collection "Six Motets". I was a little concerned that being short of choristers that going unaccompanied would be a bit dangerous. We rehearsed it through about four or five times, and it was going just fine.

Fast forward to the service. For those who don't know the piece, it is very short, about 26 bars, and really only two LONG phrases - the first cadence not appearing until the 16th bar, and the second at the end of the piece. Somehow, in the first two bars, my extremely well loved fill-in organist skipped a beat. The result was a wonderful combination of Healey Willan and Stockhausen. At least for the first sixteen bars.

A lot goes through your mind in situations like this. "Should we stop and start over?" "If we keep going, will anyone actually notice?". I chose the later. We trucked on through to the first cadence, the accompaniment having no relation to the choir, and most of the choir stopped singing, or proudly sang on with pitches that may or may not have reflected anything close to the printed score. At one point while I was singing the tenor line, I substituted the words "ONE TWO THREE FOUR" in the hopes to sync the organist and choir back together again. Unfortunately, the downbeat that I was singing "ONE" on, was not the same bar the organist was at, so that didn't work. We blindly arrived at the first cadence, and the second part of the anthem went on OK, although the choir was visibly shaken. After it was all over - all 60 seconds of it, I leaned to the first alto and said "... or some reasonable facsimile thereof ...", and looked at my wife who mouthed the word "OOOOPS!"

We managed to stay more or less composed until the end of the service, and then at the end of the service, which of course by this time the congregation had forgotten the anthem completely, the choir was deeply apologetic, all claiming it was their fault. A very typical response, and a typical Canadian response. "If you don't know whose fault it was, just apologise". One chorister quickly commented "Oh well, at least we know they can't fire us"

My response ...

"Ya, but they can fire ME!"

I was happy to find that my key to the church still worked this morning. Deep down, I kind of wish we had recorded the service - I think it would have made a really nice YouTube video.

Season winding down

2008-05-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts as of late - as with most musicians, especially choral musicians, May marks the beginning of the end of the season. Teaching fished up at the start of June, I conducted the last concert of the season with my chamber choir on Saturday- it went very well - and then in about a month, the last concert with the Symphonic choir. So my summer posts will likely deal more with our Sonoma wine trek, and hopefully reports of a decrease in my golf handicap, then they will with choral music.

Someone did forward this video to me today, and I felt I had to share it.

I think that this concert with the Berlin Philharmonic and the classic rock group "Scorpions" just might have been the highlight of the year for the orchestra. Just watching them play puts a smile on my face!