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{ Category Archives } pedagogy

Mahler Project

I was tempted to call this the “Mahler Symphony No. 1 in D Major Project” but thought that might incline me to have an end point for the project. As it stands, what I’ve decided to do (since I’ve decided I should go ahead and do this performance of Mahler 1 with the IU Southeast [...]

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hearing the spaces around sounds…

While reading some research about rhythm cognition I came across a link to a chapter (“How Music Organizes Time”) of Robert Garfias’ book. This is quote is pretty self-explanatory! In teaching us to see more accurately in order to draw realistically, Betty Edwards in her book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, advises [...]

to create or to copy

I was reminded of a quote I’ve often posted in various online forum debates about originality in music. Here’s the blurb from an old issue of the Theatre Symposium journal–the special issue titled “Crosscurrents in Drama: East and West” (Volume 6, 1998). It’s from “Part II: The Symposium, A Panel Discussion on Crosscurrents in the [...]

Alternative Careers as a String Player

Earlier today I had the pleasure of giving a talk to young string players (grades 7-12) about, as the title of my post says, “Alternative Careers as a String Player” during the IUS String Clinic 2010. The idea was to emphasize the kinds of careers a number of string players currently (or in the recent [...]

Ottoman Cello Suites

This is a project I’d been thinking about for some months now but just haven’t had the time to get around to for various reasons.  With the recent publication of Eric Siblin’s The Cello Suites as well as the general lacunae in conservatory Music History education regarding the music in portions of Europe during the [...]

Précis on the role of a performer (part 1)

I believe it was Gunther Schuller that said something to the effect of “play exactly what I had written and nothing else” (if I am completely making this up, PLEASE let me know). But basically I agree to a large extent with what Schuller was saying with respects to the role of a performer. This [...]

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Microtones

Calling a music microtonal is really such an unfortunate and misleading thing and belies alot of the assumptions that we make (in the world of Western Music) about how another culture’s music is organized. Basically we take as a standard Western diatonicism and when discussing other culture’s scale systems (the idea of a “scale” is [...]

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Practice [B]log

In the interest of charting my new found obsession with practicing, I’ve decided to start a “Practice [B]log.” Basically after each practice session I will take notes on repertoire or techniques worked on as well as my thoughts about the practicing process or the music itself. I haven’t decided whether I want it public or [...]

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On being an active educator again…

Yesterday I had the pleasure of coaching the cello section of the Floyd Central High School Orchestra (I’ve been coaching the cellos of the Floyd County Youth Symphony, and a music instructor for toddlers and pre-schoolers at Gymboree Play and Music since the fall of ’07) and being back in a high school setting brought [...]