Monday Morning Run

The randomly shuffled playlist from my morning run, which was unfortunately indoors due to the rain:

• You're So Vain, Carly Simon (turns out she was singing about Warren Beatty)
  
• Hot Thing, Prince (awesome atonal sax squalls over drum machines)
  
• The Royal Scam, Steely Dan (as cynical as ever)
  
• Hurricane Eye, Paul Simon (brilliant manipulation of time signatures)
  
• Born at the Right Time, Paul Simon (referencing the story of Moses)
  
• Twist and Crawl, The English Beat (old-school ska at its best)
  
• Life and How to Live It, R.E.M. (takes me back to my first year of teaching)
  
• Rock and Roll, Led Zeppelin (excellent drum fills)
  
• Sajna Ve Sajna, Sunidhi Chauhan (the wildcard in this playlist--Bollywood music from India)
  
• Rock On, David Essex (early 70s pop bliss)
  
• Miss You, The Rolling Stones (mix a blues harp in and disco suddenly becomes hip)
  

Interesting how Mick Jagger sang background vocals on the first song and then lead on the last. A nice rounded form.

Theme and Variations on "Mary Had a Little Lamb"

Theme and variations form has been popular with composers for centuries. The idea is simple: take a well-known melody and come up with new ways to play it, like changing the rhythms, adding notes, going from major to minor, etc. Charles Ives wrote a set of fascinating variations on "My Country Tis of Thee" for organ. Here is the band arrangement of the orchestral version:

Variations On "America" - US M...

Mozart used "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman," better known to anglophones as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," as the basis for a virtuosic piano piece:

Variations on Ah, vous dirai-j...

In music theory class, we tried our hand at doing something similar. Here are three variations on "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Enjoy!

Julie and Nick's version


Stuart and Ryan


Kenny and Nathan

Renaissance Music

This quarter, Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble students have been studying Renaissance music. We have rehearsed modern band pieces based on music of the era, including Court Festival by William Latham (SB) and Four French Dances by Robert Hanson (WE). Earlier this week, we learned about some exotic Renaissance instruments (see the previous post), and then we divided into chamber groups to create our own arrangements of Renaissance dances composed by Tielman Susato. All of the students received the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass parts to three dances, transposed into the proper key. Then, each ensemble was responsible for orchestrating one of the pieces, adding percussion, and applying ornamentation and dynamics. Here are some of our best results. (Click on the arrows to hear the sounds.)

Symphonic Band (clarinet, 2 alto saxophones, trumpet, trombone, euphonium, and percussion)

Wind Ensemble (flute, clarinet, bassoon, tenor saxophone, trumpet, trombone, and percussion)

Wind Ensemble (flute, clarinet, baritone saxophone, trumpet, trombone, and percussion)

Home Sweet Homecoming

Well, it's mid-October, so that means it's Homecoming! The school is all decked out to reflect the Windy City theme, and the Concert Band has created their annual banner, which in my opinion looks great. We are defending champs in the advisory banner contest, so I hope we can hold on to our crown.

On Tuesday night, we had a small group of Warrior Marching Band members form a pep band for our boys varsity soccer team. We cheered them on to a 4-1 victory over our crosstown rivals, the Highland Park Giants. Now we are frantically preparing our halftime show for Friday night. Hopefully it won't be raining non-stop like it did last week. Thank heavens for ponchos! Tomorrow we also have our traditional 8th period march through the halls and the pep rally. I can't wait!

UPDATE: The banner took second place! And, the band did a great job at halftime, in spite of being rained out of several early bird practices and having to perform on the rice paddy that was Adams Field. The team was successful, too, defeating Niles North 26-13 to improve to 5-2 on the season. One more win puts us in the playoffs!

Renaissance Musical Instruments

During the week of October 5 (Homecoming week!), the Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble will be studying Renaissance music and musical instruments. Here are a few videos to supplement our work in class.

Click here for a USC music professor demonstrating a number of Renaissance instruments, like the recorder, bagpipes, and shawm.

The Crumhorn


The Cornett


The Lute


The Recorder (soprano, alto, tenor, and bass)

An Intro to the Jazz of Today

One of my favorite jazz blogs is National Public Radio's "Take Five," a weekly sampler of five tracks that follow a theme, like Latin jazz, Beatles' covers, jazz from Canada, and the like. This week they feature five albums specially chosen by a panel of young jazz critics designed to introduce the casual listener to the latest in modern jazz. The list is highlighted by pianist Brad Mehldau, trumpeter Christian Scott, and the acid jazz band Soulive. You can check it out here.

Here are a couple of albums I'd like to add to the list:

Prime Directive by Dave Holland. Not all that recent, but in many ways it changes the notion that jazz must swing and have a pianist comping away in the background.

Little Things Run The World - ...

Little Things Run the World by Ben Allison. Allison is a bassist and composer who shows how rock influences his mostly acoustic jazz. Deceptively simple, yet compelling tunes.

Red Earth - Dee Dee Bridgewate...

Red Earth by Dee Dee Bridgewater. During a trip to her ancestral and spiritual homeland of Mali in West Africa, jazz vocalist Bridgewater collaborated with Malienne musicians to create a wonderful disc that meshes the two cultures in a very engaging manner.

Listen and enjoy!

Do-It-Yourself Ravinia

The "Do-It-Yourself" concept in music has its roots in the garage bands of the 1960s and the punk movement of the 1970s. Bands would create their own look and sound, and then tour relentlessly, relying on self-promotion to make it big (or not.) Whenever musicians get together to make something special without the help of large organizational structures or corporate sponsorships, they celebrate this DIY ethic. Here is a great story on NPR about underground concert promoter Todd P that gives you an idea of what I mean.

I had a personal connection with this type of musical gathering a couple weeks ago when a friend of mine invited me to his annual backyard music festival. For several years now, he and his wife have been staging a full evening of musical acts on their backyard stage for an appreciative audience of about 100 friends, picnicking under the stars and enjoying the sounds. He first called me because he wanted to add horns to his "hootenanny" band, which consists of two guitars, keyboards, bass, accordion, drums, three lead vocalists, two background vocalists, and dobro (click here, scroll down to "dobro" and roll over the picture). So, I wrote out some horn charts for alto sax (me), trumpet (my brother), and trombone (another friend). We played on a flamenco version of "Hotel California," Billy Joel's "River of Dreams," and Neil Young's "Long May You Run." It turns out that we were only a small portion of the evening's festivities.

The opening act consisted of two of my friend's neighbors, one of whom ran sound for the evening. They played guitar and sang some old favorites like "I'm a Believer" in a delightfully ragged manner. They were followed by the contemporary worship pastor from our church who sang a solo acoustic set of his own music. Then, leading American operatic baritone, Robert Orth (who just happens to sing in our church choir), performed a set of opera, show tunes, and other numbers. He is an amazing performer and a wonderful guy to know.

The fourth act was also a treat, the Dave Ness Trio. This acoustic jazz group features guitar, bass, and drums/percussion. They play music that is full of interesting nuances and subtle details, reveling in quiet textures and silences. The drummer enjoys playing the Cuban cajon, a wooden box that the player sits on and plays by tapping and slapping the various surfaces. Here's an example of one in action.

Finally sometime after nine, the hootenanny band came on, playing folk, country, and country rock numbers. Towards the end of the set, we horn players joined the group for the grand finale. It's been a long time since I've had this much fun making music without waving a baton, and it was especially great to play alongside my brother again. In high school and college, we got to do this a lot more, but it's become too infrequent as the responsibilities of family and career tend to crowd out recreational music making. I've always admired his trumpet playing, and hearing him up close again was a blast.

Afterwards, a folk music sing-along lasted until midnight. It was an incredibly full evening celebrating the talents of a lot of outstanding musicians. Playing with people who can sing harmony parts by ear or who can play a tasty blues solo on dobro is a real kick. And the amazing thing was that it all came about because my friend wanted to get some like-minded people together to make a little music. Moral of the story: keep practicing and never stop playing! You can still enjoy your instrument well beyond your time at DHS.