Posted by Elizabeth Devereux
In honor of what would be Mozart’s 257th birthday, I’d like to share a very silly video of Bobby McFerrin and a comedic Polish string quartet called Grupa MoCarta enjoying Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nacht Musik in many new transformations…
Posted by Elizabeth Devereux
This weekend high school musicians from across the Philadelphia region who are playing in All-City Orchestra will rehearse with the Philadelphia Orchestra’s new music director, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, who’s proven somewhat of a sensation to Philadelphia audiences, full of energy and verve enough to get even Philadelphia Orchestra audience members excited about their new orchestra conductor. All-City Orchestra will rehearse portions of Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony, which seems to be a perfect match for Yannick’s vivacity. This weekend’s rehearsal is in preparation for the All-City Orchestra Concert on March 4th, 2013, which Yannick will also conduct.
Lucky high-schoolers, enjoy!
This weekend’s rehearsal comes days after Yannick’s appearance at Monday’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Tribute Concert, at which the Philadelphia Orchestra was joined by the All-City Choir, Jeri Lynne Johnson of the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, violinist Elena Urioste, and narrator Charlotte Blake Alston.
I love hearing about a city’s music director performing outside of the Kimmel Center and Center City, and conducting the city’s young, talented musicians! It’s the cynic in me that even has this thought: I hope Yannick’s community involvement this year isn’t just honeymoon behavior but is here to stay…
Posted in adult, children, classical music, concerts, ensembles, orchestra, philadelphia, philadelphia orchestra, student performances, teen, youth orchestra
Tagged all city choir, all-city orchestra, black pearl chamber orchestra, charlotte blake alston, elena urioste, jeri lynne johnson, martin luther king high school, martin luther king jr, mlk day, philadelphia orchestra, shostakovich, shostakovich 5th symphone, yannick, yannick nezet-seguin
Posted by Elizabeth Devereux
I work in a program in Philadelphia, Play On, Philly!, which lets me participate on a daily basis in the positive impact that a strong arts program can have on a child’s social and academic development. Here is an Edutopia article by Fran Smith which discusses in-depth, and with sound statistical support, what I see happening with my students day to day at Play On Philly:
The Edutopia website is an amazing, innovative resource for those interested in the world of education. One of my favorite series on the Edutopia website is their
“Schools That Work”
series, which has videos such as this one, about a school reform effort in Germany.
Posted by Elizabeth Devereux
As he tweeted after a 95-83 loss to the Chicago Bulls, playing piano (Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata) calms him down when he reaches his breaking point.
Posted in adult, children, classical music, did you know, music and sports, teen
Tagged beethoven, chicago bulls, Kobe Bryant, LA lakers, moonlight, moonlight sonata, piano
Posted by Elizabeth Devereux
One of my most memorable experiences so far as a violin teacher is the first time I played Beethoven for a classroom full of 3-6 year-olds. It was in my first year of teaching private violin lessons full-time, and I taught one Suzuki group class of beginner violinists. Each month I chose a composer whose birthday fell in that month to celebrate; we would listen to their music, read about them, and share what we thought of them and their music.
Posted in adult, children, classical music, composer birthday, composers, famous birthday, orchestra, teen
Tagged beethoven, beethoven's birthday
Posted by Elizabeth Devereux
Hi Rowan Prep Parents, Students, and Friends! Here are the scanned PDFs of our holiday songs. I hope you’re able to download them easily. If not, we’ll have plenty of extras available this weekend. Look forward to seeing you this Sunday, Dec. 9th @ 2pm at the Rowan University Barnes & Noble in Glassboro!
Posted in practicing, rowan prep, student performances, suzuki, teaching, violin
Posted by Elizabeth Devereux
Repetition is necessary to learning any skill well. We learn how to speak our mother tongue by repeating what we hear around us over and over in infancy; we learn to crawl, walk, run, ride a bike by making repeated efforts (and repeated failures!) to do so. Rote learning–memorizing through repetition–can help us internalize our multiplication tables, basic arithmetic, the periodic table, Latin noun declensions, and, in music, the circle of fifths and the order of sharps and flats.
Our brains are such sponges before we hit the age of 12 or 13 that we should be sure to use our spongey brains to sop up helpful info! [I still remember the pledge of allegiance to the flag and Longfellow's poem, the Ride of Paul Revere, even though we memorized those in my 1st grade class and I haven't recited them regularly since that year! The utility of these two could be called into question, of course, since I still struggle to recite my 7's and 9's of the times tables...]
While rote memorization is a helpful, and I would argue necessary, component of learning almost any skill well, IT IS ONLY ONE COMPONENT OF LEARNING! We must be sure that we do not go on autopilot in our learning, whether it’s while reading a novel, studying our chemistry, or practicing our violin!
If you are making a slight mistake each time you repeat the measure, then you are practicing the mistake, rather than practicing the corrected version of the mistake! Similarly, if you make the same mistake two times in a row, then it will likely take at least twice as many times (that’s AT LEAST 4 times for a mistake made 2X in a row, AT LEAST 8 times for a mistake made 4X in a row…) of playing the spot correctly to ensure that you avoid making the mistake in the future! That starts adding up to a lot of time, if you’re not practicing carefully.
STAY AWARE, my musician friends, and repeat away! Avoid turning into a musical parrot (especially a masochistic musical parrot)…
And, please, sometimes give yourself a break from repeating the hardest stuff possible, and repeat some of the easy stuff that you play beautifully and with ease…
WOW, it’s fun to be able to play something well, isn’t it?
Posted in adult, listening, practice tips, practicing, teaching, teen, violin
