Percussion Safety Tips

Today I was putting together a new set of marching multi-toms, or quads, if you prefer, and I came across the following safety warnings:

Be Careful Using Sticks and Wire Brushes
Sticks and wire brushes are intended for playing the drums and should never be used to hit or to be thrown at people. Doing so can be extremely dangerous.

Broken Sticks
Fragments and splinters from broken drumsticks can fly into the air and cause injury to the player and/or to those nearby.

So kids, now we know to be careful with those sticks. My favorite warning, however, is the following:

Earthquake Preventions
A strong vibration such as an earthquake can cause your drums and hardware to shift and tip over. Stay well clear of falling objects to avoid injury.

Consider yourselves warned...

"Meteorology is an Inexact Science," or "How I Heard Four Minutes of a Concert at Ravinia"

It sounded like a great idea. The Ravinia Festival was presenting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a concert of a number of shorter works, including two with a violin soloist and three opera overtures. Two of the pieces, Bernstein's Overture to Candide and Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'une faune, are personal favorites. Since college and high school students get free admission to the lawn with their student IDs, it was going to be a cheap night of culture for our family. My wife typed "Ravinia" into weather.com and saw "0% chance of rain." I listened to the audio forecast on the Ravinia website, and the meteorologist mentioned "possible scattered showers." So, we picked up some sub sandwiches and headed off to Ravinia.

When we arrived, we staked out our place on the lawn and settled down to hear Candide, which is a wonderful, rollicking work full of fanfares, soaring melodies, and cross rhythms. Then the Debussy work began with a very quiet unaccompanied flute solo, and the rain started. Our umbrellas were at home, but we did have a blanket and a plastic ground cover. My sons and I took refuge under the plastic, which of course amplified the sound of the rain and drowned out all of the delicate harmonies and orchestral nuances of the work. The thunder didn't help much, either. I don't really remember anything about the two violin pieces because the rain wouldn't abate, and occasionally large pools of accumulated drops would rush off the edge of our plastic shelter and end up on us.

At intermission, I gave up. The rain became torrential as we packed up our chairs and table, leaving us looking like drowned rats. We walked back to the Park'n'Ride bus and headed home. By the time we got to our car in the Metra lot, the rain had mostly let up (of course). Later we found out that they let everyone into the pavilion for the second half (of course). If we had done that though, it would have been hard to enjoy the music while soaking wet, so oh well.

When we got home, I made my family sit down in the living room and listen to the Debussy. Seeing as how I use this piece in music theory class and have a wonderful handout with my insightful analysis of the work, I made them read it while listening to the music and watching the score on my son's iPad. Yes, we are an entire family of music geeks. But in the end, we had our Debussy!

I'm hoping to hear the concert on July 31 when wind soloists from the CSO perform two works by Mozart in the Martin Theater: his Serenade in C Minor, K. 388 (an arrangement of which was performed by the WE sax quintet this past spring), and the monumental "Gran Partita" serenade (a movement of which the non-orchestra WE members will play this coming year). Again, I'll be on the lawn, and again, I'll be at the mercy of the elements. Hopefully, it will be a beautiful star-lit night!

3 Minutes of Awesome! Best rock song ever...

For a rock song to be considered the best rock song ever, at least in my book, it requires the following items:

• It must be guitar-driven. Synth rock and EDM need not apply.
• It has to have a memorable hook, something catchy and engaging without being trite.
• It must have a sense of chaos and danger. Rock was never about safe music.
• There must be a bit of snarl to it, in both attitude and voice.
• It cannot be pretentious (and there's a whole lot of pretentious rock out there).

Now there are plenty of great songs that don't satisfy these requirements. That doesn't mean they aren't exemplary in their own rights; they just can't qualify for my list of "Greatest Rock Songs of All Time." And that's okay--Steely Dan will never make the list, but I still love their music. Ditto Paul Simon.

So what's on my list? Well, for years it was just one song. I've since added a couple of runners-up, but I should probably lengthen that list. These include "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, and "Twist and Shout" by The Beatles. But the song I believe to be the Greatest Rock Song of All Time is "My Generation" by the Who. Here's why:

• Guitar-driven? Check! Pete Townshend's windmilling guitar propels the track.
• Memorable hook? Check! The background vocals "talkin' 'bout my generation" and Roger Daltrey's stuttered leads.
• Chaos and danger? Check! Keith Moon's on-the-verge-of-falling-apart drumming that sounds sloppy as all get out but never loses a beat.
• Snarl? Check! It's the classic "us vs. them" mentality, with Roger singing Pete's famous and now ironic line "hope I die before I get old."
• Pretentious? Not in the least!

Add to that a wicked bass solo by John Entwistle, a surprising modulation, and a live show that typically wound up with total destruction. Greatest. Rock. Song. Ever.

3 Minutes of Awesome! Morning run playist...

Today, instead of one track, I'm sharing 16! This was the random playlist my iPod generated for me on my morning run. I've excerpted it to be under three minutes, so you can enjoy it without spending the hour plus that I was out on this beautiful day. Here are the artists:

• The Beatles
• War
• Prince
• The Sugarcubes
• Dave Matthews Band
• R.E.M.
• The Rolling Stones
• Esperanza Spalding
• Paul Simon
• Steely Dan
• R.E.M. (again)
• Los Lobos
• Led Zeppelin
• Yes
• Parliament
• Sting

Check it out:

Link

3 Minutes of Awesome! Gustav Holst and one of the greatest works ever written for band...

In the early years of 20th century, very few important composers wrote music for bands. Fortunately for us, Gustav Holst was one of them. His two landmark works, First Suite in E-flat and Second Suite in F, have become cornerstones of wind repertoire. This coming year, we will be studying his life and music, and I'm sure that both Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band will spend some time with these wonderful pieces. There may even be time to dip into his orchestral suite The Planets, which explores the mythological beings of Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

As an ironic aside, noted Holst scholar Colin Matthews composed an eighth movement, Pluto, in 2000. As Holst wrote his original work over a decade before Pluto was discovered, it always felt "incomplete" to later audiences. I wonder how Dr. Matthews felt when, six years later, Pluto was demoted!

In any event, here is the Intermezzo movement from the First Suite in E-flat, as performed by the United States Marine Band.

3 Minutes of Awesome! Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines...

Welcome back to "3 Minutes of Awesome," my summer series on incredible music that you can enjoy in only three minutes or so, bite-sized bits of wonderful sounds from classical, jazz, pop, and world music.

Today, I'm highlighting the first true giant of jazz, Louis Armstrong. Before he became a movie star and a retro-performer, he was on the cutting edge. Here some of the reasons he is considered a groundbreaking musician:

• He was one of the first soloists to improvise in a manner that went beyond mere embellishment of a pre-existing melody.
• He popularized the trumpet when his peers were all playing the mellower and quieter cornet.
• He may have invented (but definitely popularized) scat singing.
• His sense of the swing rhythmic style was much freer and smoother than the "ricky-tick" beat of other musicians.
• He played with a bigger sound and a higher range than other trumpeters.

If you want to hear the true Louis Armstrong, check out his Hot Fives and Hot Sevens, which were recorded in the late 1920s. These are much more interesting, in my opinion, than his later work. One of my favorite recordings, however, is this duet with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines, on "Weather Bird." Check out this insightful commentary while you listen.

Why marching band has meant a lot to me over the years...

Last weekend, my family and I went to a reunion with some of our closest friends from the Northwestern University Marching Band. It's been almost 30 years since any of us marched in "NUMB," but our friendships, which were forged on the practice field and in the rehearsal hall, have lasted over the years. Among us, we had four piccolo players, three sax players, and a euphonium player. Two were drum majors, and a bunch of us were on the band staff. All told, with our kids and non-marching spouses, we had 17 people in a rented log-cabin house near Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee.

Today, we work in law, pharmaceuticals, music education, and parenting, with kids from 12 to 23. Most of our children have continued the musical tradition by playing in bands and orchestras from middle school into college. They enjoyed (I think), listening to us rehash old tales and swapping "what's he doing now?" stories.

There's something about the time spent together in marching band that truly binds people together socially. It's a lot like being on a team, except it's coed. Right now, I'm making plans for the 2013 season of the Warrior Marching Band, and it's possible we are going to break last year's record numbers. I'm starting to get excited about watching another wonderful group of students come together to form a family of musicians--one that just might create friendships that last for decades.