Fugue Article in the Fall 2011 Progressions Magazine

I'm glad to report that one of the most viewed articles on the Music Teacher's Helper blog at the moment is my post on How To Learn Any Fugue In 5 Easy Steps. British Columbia readers might also want to check out the article reprinted in the upcoming fall issue of the BCRMTA's Progressions Magazine.

Discovering Unsung Songs at the Artsong Project

A fascinating venture out of Munich: pianist Philipp Vogler and soprano Hélène Lindqvist are in the midst of the Artsong Project, whose goal is to bring to life the art songs of under-appreciated composers. Here is their full artistic statement, which caused me to jump up and cheer earlier this evening:

This is our dream: We‘re finally in the position to share with you all the unsung songs we‘ve found. Some people ask why we bother spending our time with the works of composers nobody has heard of. Our answer is always: because we love to search for and discover new music.

Anyone looking through a music encyclopedia will find that a fraction of the composers listed are actually played in concert halls all over the world. Of course the repertoire differs a bit so that you will hear more french composers in France than in Germany or Finland for example. The variety of music played at one specific concert hall of course also depends on the interest and focus of the artistic director. This could be „18th century music“ or „contemporary classics“ etc.

But Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Mahler, to name a few, are omnipresent.

To hear a symphony by Heinrich von Herzogenberg or chamber music by Rebecca Clarke, you will probably have to travel further than to your local town hall. Unknown music doesn‘t draw a crowd. Dwindling attention from the audiences puts pressure on the organizers. So they play it safe with popular symphonic repertoire. Chamber music concerts are rare, and art song concerts only ever reach break-even financially with the big names.

Happily there are record labels off-mainstream that make it possible to at least hear unpopular music on CD.

One might ask why these composers are so obscure. Isn‘t there something like a natural selection taking place to let only the highest-quality music reach immortality? Yes and no. Of course there were always composers writing boring music around. Famous composers no exception. But it certainly would be a mistake to think a composer probably is of little interest only because he‘s unknown.

Stay with us. There is much to explore.

Go and explore their online collection of art song recordings, with some astonishing gems by composers such as Augusta Holmès, Joseph Marx, Wilhelm Peterson – Berger, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Anton Rubenstein, Gabriel Pierné, Franz Xaver Scharwenka, Elfrida Andrée, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Régine Wieniawski and Joachim Raff.

Remember that there's a massive amount of great music by little-known composers just waiting to be discovered - it's only our cultural bias that causes us to focus on such a small number of them.

Hélène Lindqvist on Twitter
Artsong Project on Facebook
Subscribe to the RSS feed of new Artsong Project recordings

How to Make a Lego Piano

A previous post with pictures of a Lego Piano generated plenty of interest and discussion. Here's a video on how to make one, with photos lovingly compiled by Masao Hidaka:



At the official Lego site, you can also find instructions for building an upright piano (for those who haven't yet got the room or budget for a grand).

Collaborative Piano Studies at Eastern Michigan University

The Department of Music and Dance at Eastern Michigan University offers a Master of Music in Performance specializing in Collaborative Keyboard. About the Master of Music performance program at Eastern Michigan:

The Master of Music in Music Performance program prepares students for a career in performance, teaching, and/or continued graduate studies toward a doctoral degree. In addition to developing a high level of musicianship, it provides broad intellectual development through the advanced study of music theory, history, pedagogy and literature. Graduates of this degree program often pursue careers as solo and ensemble performers, college teachers, or private lesson instructors.

The Collaborative Keyboard page gives a good enough outline of course and graduation requirements, although you'll need to email the Music and Dance department in order to get more information about audition repertoire.

Full list of Degree and Diploma Programs in Collaborative Piano

Friday App Giveaway - Metronome Plus for iPhone

Last month I reviewed iPhone app Metronome Plus and found it to be one of the most useful metronomes I've ever worked with. The time has come for Dynamic App Design to update Metronome Plus, and version 1.1.1 comes with the following improvements:

*Improved menu bar- now responds much better to touch and eliminates accidental selections
*Tap Tempo Improvements- Screen now flashes when tapping for better user feedback
*Lock screen play enabled- Metronome continues to play when screen is locked
*Animation has been optimized and is smoother
*Minor bug fixes

To celebrate the update, Dynamic App Design has decided to offer an app giveaway on the Collaborative Piano Blog. On Friday afternoon, three lucky readers will win an iTunes code to receive a free download of Metronome Plus, thereby assisting them in their relentless quest to develop stability of pulse, accurate rhythmic delineation, and overall musical awesomeness.

iPad owners take note: although Metronome Plus was designed as an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it renders with excellent clarity on the iPad and only the slightest pixelation. It's also very loud if you need it to be.

Giveaway Rules and Regulations

1. To enter, send an email to me at collaborativepiano [at] gmail dot come with Metronome Plus in the subject line.

2. The deadline for entries is Friday, July 29 at 5pm EDT. Once the deadline passes, I will draw for the winning entry, after which I or Metronome Plus designer Joe LeBlanc will email you your code for the app.

The clock is ticking. Start your metronomes and good luck!

A Collaborative Pianist Experiences the Full Range of Senses at the Piano

In talking about piano playing, we often discuss the modalities of the senses to discuss the vastness of human experience when at the instrument. But it is often overlooked that the notion of five single senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell) is no longer accepted as fact, since they were teachings put forward by Aristotle several thousand years ago. Listverse corrects this misconception in an informative post with a quick rundown of the full range of human senses. In the quote below, I've annotated each sense to attempt to explain how a collaborative pianist might experience each one of these extended modalities while at the piano:

The nervous system has an area dedicated to each sense. Apart from the traditional abilities, humans can sense high and low temperatures (thermoception) [it sucks that there's no AC at this summer festival], balance (equilibrioception) [whaddya mean I'm too loud?], acceleration (kinesthesioception) [that violinist's tempo is INSANE], body and limb position (proprioception) [aren't there any low benches in this classroom?] and pain (nociception) [what frightful intonation in the slow movement].

Other natural abilities include the sense of time [OMG I'm gonna be late for the next lesson], itching [I've been sitting on this bench how many hours?], pressure [I'll never learn these notes in time for the first rehearsal], hunger [only 70 minutes until lunch], thirst [shoulda brought that second Evian], fullness of the stomach [too many spring rolls at Pho Hung], need to urinate [shouldn't have brought that second Evian], need to defecate [only with certain composers] and blood carbon dioxide levels [first day of playing for staging rehearsals at Aspen]. People also hold a large collection of internal senses. This includes the chemoreceptor trigger zone of the brain which receives input from the blood and communicates with the vomiting center [auditions for crossover artists]. Cutaneous receptors in the skin not only respond to touch, pressure and temperature, but also other emotions such as embarrassment [you mean _____ was actually YOUR teacher?], which will make your skin blush. Pulmonary stretch receptors are found in the lungs and control respiratory rate [OMG I lost count in the rests again].

Practicing Technique With 12-Sided Dice

When discussing how to practice scales, chords, and arpeggios randomly with a student preparing for her Grade 9 piano exam in a few weeks, an idea suddenly hit me: why not use 12-sided dice? Many of you versed in the ways of Dungeons and Dragons may still have one of these dodecahedronal novelties stashed in a closet somewhere, otherwise you can easily buy one on Amazon for a few dollars or find one online. When randomizing the keys you practice in the lead-up to an exam, all you have to do is roll the dice and when the number shows up, play the corresponding key in the major or minor:

1 = C
2 = C sharp/D flat
3 = D
4 = E flat
5 = E
6 = F
7 = F sharp/G flat
8 = G
9 = G sharp/A flat
10 = A
11 = B flat
12 = B

If you're preparing for an RCM exam, this method should work for most patterns in Grade 9, Grade 10, and ARCT Advanced Practical Piano Pedagogy. For an extra level of randomness, you can toss a coin first to determine whether the key was major or minor, then toss the 12-sided dice to determine the key.

Call for Pianists: The Second Chicago Amateur Piano Competition

I've always been a huge fan of amateur music-making, and many of my adult students would happily fall into that category. Pianists who don't perform for a living often have a hard time fitting into the uncompromising world of competitions, which is why it is such a pleasure to hear about the announcement of the second Chicago International Piano Competition to be held in May 2012.

How can you tell if you're an amateur pianist? Let's look at what the CIPC considers an amateur who can qualify for the competition:

I. Applicants must be amateurs: the word amateur stems from the Latin amo, meaning “to love.” From this the PianoForte Foundation has created the following definition of an Amateur Pianist: an enthusiastic pursuer of piano playing for pleasure and dedication to the instrument and its repertoire, rather than professional pursuits or financial benefit.
II. Applicant must be 30 years or older by May 23, 2012.
III. Applicants must not be faculty members at a college/conservatory level music department.
IV. Applicants must not derive a majority of their income from public performances.
V. Applicants must not be actively pursuing a degree in piano performance.
VI. Previous first place winners are not eligible to compete

Taking a look at the application form, here's the required rep for the competition:

Solo piano: Competitors are free to choose their own programs for all solo piano rounds of the competition. However, no works may be repeated in subsequent rounds. Repertoire should reflect a variety of musical styles, periods, and composers. Individual movements of larger works are acceptable. Works do not have to be memorized. The contestant may choose to play one or more pieces during each round.
Concerto: Contestants will choose one of the following below, equaling 15-20 minutes of music. An accompanist will be provided for Round 1. Concerto options:

Schumann: Concerto in A minor, Op.54 I. Allegro affettuoso
Beethoven: Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op.37 I. Allegro con brio
Tchaikovsky: Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 I. Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

The jury will consist of Chicago Symphony Members, and the final round in Symphony Center (with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras’ Encore Chamber Orchestra) will be part of the Keys to the City Festival. Applications are due on February 1, 2012, so there's no time like the present for putting your competition programs together.

Do Musical Theatre Degrees Still Have Value?

There are many, many performing arts degrees with a huge number of graduates entering the market every year. At the same time, there is mounting evidence that the actual numbers of people employed in the performing arts is declining. Tom Loughlin of SUNY Fredonia argues that the entire concept of the musical theatre degree should die:

Any rationally-based corporation spends a lot of time trying to analyze their market and adjust their practices accordingly. But theatre, it appears, is not a rationally-based enterprise, and the same and more can be said for educational theatre. It is an enterprise based on nostalgia and past practice, not data. The fact is that employment opportunities in musical theatre, not to mention other theatrical trends, seems to escape the notice of theatre departments altogether, or they willfully ignore the data because they fear the time, effort and work it would take to change their curricula (not to mention the loss they’d suffer in enrollments). It’s time for theatre departments to begin to cut their BFA Musical Degree programs from their curricular offers, because given the realities of the business today these degrees are disingenuous at the very least and outright lies at the worst.

Although I can't argue with the fact that the Broadway musical theatre scene is roughtly half the size of what it was in the 1940's, the best performing arts programs educate students in new and interesting ways to make a living in the profession, as well as imparting the skills that will enable graduates to break new ground in their field. The experience of the musical theatre field is unique, and I would argue that it still hasn't recovered from the demise of LiveEnt in the mid-90's (especially regarding MT employment in the Toronto area). But then again, with so many new programs starting up, how many students will actually graduate with the skill set to engage the new arts job market?

Recent graduates of performing arts programs: what is your experience? Are you finding immediate success or disappointment in your field? Is your career going off in directions other than what you envisioned? If you have succeeded in new and interesting ways, what are the core skills that allowed you to succeed?

(Via Andrei Strizek on Google+)

The Star Wars Cantina Band Arranged for Ragtime Piano Duet

Martin Spitznagel and Bryan Wright show how things are done in the Mos Eisley spaceport with their four-hand ragtime arrangement of the Cantina Band tune. And BTW, Greedo definitely shot first.

Scriabin, Arranged for Flute and Piano

Pianist Steven Aldredge's arrangements of Scriabin piano works for flute and piano feature him alongside flutist Christopher Chaffee in these recent YouTube clips. A CD release is projected for the next few months, as well as a published edition of seven flute/piano arrangements(!). Both Chris and Steven are on faculty at Wright State University.







(Interesting factlet: Back in the day, Chris and I were often mistook for each other because of our extreme height, identical first names, and near-identical hairstyles. One year at the Bowdoin Festival, we played the Poulenc flute/piano sonata - someone came up to me afterwards and complimented me on some excellent flute playing.)

The Known Universe (Dean Burry Ad Astra remix)

Dean Burry's Ad Astra for solo harp is a gently moving work inspired by the American Museum of Natural History's The Known Universe video. A fascinating way to listen to this work is to play the AMNH video but with the soundtrack of Burry's harp work. Here's how you do it (you'll need a fast broadband connection):

1. Start the Ad Astra video (beautifully played by harpist Gina Min).
2. Start the Known Universe video.
3. Mute the sound on the Known Universe video but make sure the sound plays on the Ad Astra video.
4. Click the full-screen button at the bottom right on the Known Universe video.

What follows is an alternate soundtrack to the original video. Enjoy the journey to the limits of what we know about the universe...

Free Scores at the Ukrainian Art Song Project

New vocal works written in Eastern European languages are the hot thing this year in Toronto, with productions such as Tapestry's The Enslavement and Liberation of Oxana G (Ukrainian) and Queen of Puddings' Svadba Wedding (Serbian) appearing this year. But these languages also have a tradition of art song, and Pavlo Hunka's Musica Leopoldis label aims to bring to fruition new recordings of hundreds of songs for the Ukrainian Art Song Project. So far, several CDs of songs by Yakiv Stepovyi, Mykola Lysenko, and Kyrylo Stetsenko have been completed, performed by a cast of mostly Canadian singers and pianists.

But that's not all. The UASP has also made available over 200 free art song scores by Ukrainian composers in multiple formats. So get to work and start looking through these forgotten gems of the art song repertoire to further enrich your recitals next season. 

A short documentary about the project:

Pop-Up Pianos for Sale at Sing for Hope Charity Auction

Calling all fans of custom piano mods: the opera-based social change charity Sing for Hope is auctioning 10 pianos from its stable of 88 Pop-Up pianos installation from the NYC area. About the Pop-Up piano program:

Sing for Hope's Pop-Up Pianos bring live art to The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island with the installation of 88 pianos, representing each of the 88 keys, placed at parks and public spaces throughout the five boroughs. For the two-week duration of the project, the pianos feature formal and impromptu concerts by amateurs and professionals alike, in an open festival of music involving all elements of New York’s culturally diverse population.

Sing for Hope’s Pop-Up Pianos celebrate our vision: that all New Yorkers — from Times Square to Coney Island, Lincoln Center to Arthur Avenue — have access to the arts. Each one of the 88 pianos on New York City streets has been painted by a Sing for Hope Volunteer Artist who shares our mission of bringing the arts to all. These professional visual artists volunteered hundreds of hours in our piano warehouse to bring their Pop-Up Pianos to life!

This project combines the participation of dozens of community organizations, the creativity and passion of hundreds of professional artists and public school students, and the spirit of a one-of-a-kind city – New York – to present Pop-Up Pianos.

All profits raised from the sale of these pianos will go to Sing for Hope's Art U! youth outreach program. Get your cash ready soon, as the auction closes on Thursday, July 14 at 5pm.

The pianos being auctioned are:

• Love is Life by Diane von Furstenberg (pictured above)
• Hello Miss Piano by Isaac Mizrahi
• Chopsticks, anyone? by Kate Spade
• Playing One Continuous Line by William Conroy Lindsay (NB: my personal favorite, as its design may assist in getting the point across when explaining legato)
• Manhattan Rhapsody by Scott Taylor
• Got Away and Just Wanted to Play by Samson Contompasis
• Brooklyn Love by Adam Suerte
• Polychromatic Scales by Chris Soria
• Homage to Fred by Scott Glazer
• Pedal to the Metal by Moira Fain

(Via Camille Zamora)

Krista Erickson's Attack on Margie Gillis and Arts Funding on SUN TV

It might be a good idea to sit down for this one. Krista Erickson's blindside attack on Margie Gillis' funding from the "Canada Arts Council" [sic] may go down as an opening broadside against funding for the arts in Canada from the Fox News-funded extreme right wing media. Kudos go to Margie for the eloquence, dignity, and grace with which she defended herself and the arts community against Krista's ill-informed and vicious personal attacks.





Further reading:

The Margie Gillis Dance Foundation
Charlie Smith's editorial in the Georgia Straight
Krista Erickson complains about being bullied by the arts community
KJ Mullins on the massive complaints to the CRTC following the interview

The Top 30 Classical Music Blogs for July 2011

Happy 4th of July and Canada Day weekend, everyone! I've been outside for much of the weekend, but here are the latest standings of the top 30 classical music blogs via Wikio:

1	Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
2	Nico Muhly
3	Opera Chic
4	Adaptistration
5	Sandow
6	Clef Notes
7	Proper Discord
8	Musical Assumptions
9	The Opera Tattler
10	Opera Today
11	The Collaborative Piano Blog
12	Sequenza21/
13	Ionarts
14	oboeinsight
15	Michael Huebner's Blog & Column - al.com
16	A Beast in a Jungle
17	Erica Ann Sipes - pianist and cellist
18	Of Music and Men
19	The Stark Raving Cello Blog
20	Eric Edberg
21	Andrew Patner: The View from Here
22	Elaine Fine's Thematic Catalog
23	Bryan Pinkall's World of Opera
24	Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog
25	Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer
26	AfriClassical
27	Lynn Harrell
28	Chamber Music Today
29	MusicaSacra
30	The Classical Beat

Ranking made by Wikio