Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Older Musicians

When my students start learning about jazz, usually in 8th or 9th grade, we play out of a series of books by the great Lennie Niehaus. The books were written in the '60s, which is evident by its unusual cover art, which I often refer to as "psychedelic zebra stripes."

ME: But even though the cover looks funny, Niehaus is a wonderful saxophonist and composer. He's in his mid-80s and still plays, so far as I know.
KID: He still plays at that age? Wow, I wouldn't have any air left!

Contest Judges Say the Darnedest Things

Here's what one wrote on a student's comment sheet from last Saturday's Solo & Ensemble Contest: "Make it more seamless like you are verbally speaking."

I guess that makes sense; what in the world would the saxophone sound like if the kid made it like he was non-verbally speaking?

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Themselves

I was greeted in a most unusual manner by this particular beginner...

KID: Guess what--I grew two inches since the last time you saw me!
ME: That was just two weeks ago. You really grew two inches in two weeks?
KID: Yeah--I'm wearing boots!

Kids Continue to Say the Darnedest Things About Musical Terms

Many of my students are playing solos with multiple movements for the first time this year, and I usually explain the time they should allow between movements as bring similar to the time between tracks on a CD. But there is one exception...

ME: The only time you'd have to go straight into the next movement is if the music says "attacca" at the end of the previous movement.
KID: If it says what?
ME: Attacca. A-T-T-A-C-C-A.
KID: Oh! I thought you said "a taco."
ME: Yeah, because you'd definitely want to stop and eat a taco between movements. That'd be really good for the horn...

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Musical Genres

Several of my students are taking driver's ed at the moment, and the subject of the dreaded driving test with the state trooper came up; I mentioned that when I was a kid, it was rumored that the trooper was known to occasionally change your radio to a country station during the test, and of course there was nothing you could do about it...

KID: I hate country!
ME: Amen, brother.
KID: But I guess country-rock is OK; it's really just rock, with the people dressed up like cowboys.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Stores and Food

A kid I was teaching this morning has a Swatch watch similar to mine, though I pointed out that mine had the bonus of actually being purchased in Switzerland. This kid is smart enough to know the difference between Switzerland and Sweden, but he didn't have too many kind words for the most famous store from the latter place...

KID: Don't even get me started on IKEA. My mom says that IKEA is the second-worst store on the planet...behind only Walmart.

ME: I agree with you on the Walmart part...but what's wrong with IKEA?

KID: It's got two levels, and it's jam-packed, and there's only one way to go, and the people move like snails. And all the food is Swedish!

ME: What's wrong with that? It is a Swedish store, after all,

KID: It's just weird. Why couldn't they have a hamburger or something?

It's Region Band Marathon Time Again

No matter how seldom I may blog these days, I always find things to say on the night that I've attended the All-Region Bands concert every January. The region where I teach is known for having strong band programs, and the result is a fine evening of music, even though the kids have had less than 24 hours (last night and most of the school day today) to rehearse the music. And while I've blogged about Region for almost the entire eleven years in which this blog has been in existence, the post has been very similar each year, with only minor edits, but like last year, I seem to have come up with several new ideas. As always, this doesn't pretend to be a review of the concert, just whatever random thoughts popped into my head as I was listening.

• Let's get my own numbers out of the way first: There were twelve in all from my studio--four freshmen, a sophomore, four juniors and three seniors (plus one more senior who plays another instrument but studies jazz saxophone with me). The fact that four out of the ten saxes in the freshman band are my students certainly bodes well for the future, I think. I was also pleased to have my studio represented in all five of the bands tonight; it had been a year or two since that had happened.
• This concert is set up to run like clockwork--there is a 45-minute slot allotted to each band, and while a few bands started later than their posted times for the first time in a while, the whole concert still finished before its anticipated 9:45 ending. While the nearly precise schedule meant that, for "marathoners" like myself who stayed for the whole thing, there were some fairly substantial lags between bands, it worked out perfectly for the families of the students in the later bands, who may have just been there to hear their own kid's band. But the fact that five bands--one freshman band and four high school bands--can complete a concert in less than four hours, year after year, is indeed impressive.
• Thinking about the above, it occurred to me a year ago that this event really isn't one concert--it's five mini-concerts. There was a more substantial amount of turnover between bands than I recall seeing before, but that may well have made room for everyone, though there were seats to spare during each band. (I've never done the math to figure out whether anyone's auditorium could hold a cumulative audience, but I have my doubts, especially if kids stuck around to watch their friends in later bands.)
• I still like the new "wind ensemble" music better than the older "band" music (and I have yet to make my post about how film scoring saved classical music), and this was very much reinforced for me tonight. While most of the groups leaned toward modern music, one band played nearly all older compositions, and to these ears, there's a definite difference between the two. I guess the best way I can describe it is that the older stuff was written so that things would blend together into a more homogenous sound ("like a big organ" is a common description I've heard),whereas the modern stuff (whether influenced by film scoring or not, it's the best way I can describe the sound) takes advantage of a much larger timbral palette, with different sections playing off each other and combined in unusual ways, along with a greatly expanded percussion section, with an emphasis on mallets, piano, and so on. To me, the sound just pops compared to the older works.
• Speaking of modern, this was a new one for me: One of the bands played a piece written for winds and laptop! I've always been a fan of electronic sounds, and the ones used in this piece were tastefully done. The piece is called "Mothership" by Mason Bates; that's a name I'll be looking out for in the future.

  And who knew that you could make the All-Region band on laptop? How cool would it be to serve on that judging panel? But just imagine practicing the music for four months and then having your battery die during auditions. You'd have to carry extra batteries in your pocket the way we saxophonists carry spare reeds. (But seriously, the laptop appeared to be played by a director, or a very old-looking senior.)

• While the audience was rather good about not clapping between movements, there were still some concert etiquette problems, mostly related to people walking in during a performance and (only occasionally) letting auditorium doors slam. I'm not sure how well this could be enforced; a big sign telling people not to enter might work, but otherwise, it would require monitors, and I'm not sure who would do that job; directors wouldn't want to miss hearing their students play, and students themselves would be put in the awkward position of having to tell adults what to do. Not sure what the answer is here...
• The "theme" in our region for many years to get the top two directors from a major university to be the directors for the top two bands, but this year was different (though the directors of the second and third bands had former and current ties, respectively, to Texas A&M-Commerce. While all the bands did well, the top two, being made up mostly of kids who made at least Area if not State, take things to a whole new level. It's hard to believe that they're high school kids who had less than two days of rehearsal to put this together.

  (And a thought hit me tonight: Perhaps one of the reasons that these bands sound more like college bands than high school ones--besides the obvious fact that they're being conducted by college directors--is that the bands are often quite senior-laden. That means in around eight months, many of the people on stage will be playing in college bands.)

• I only have two mild bits of criticism of the concert: For the first time that I can remember, the parents, directors and private teachers of the students on stage were not asked to stand before each band's performance. In the private teaching world, we often do our jobs behind the scenes, and I have to admit I really missed having the one opportunity (besides this concert's middle school counterpart last weekend) to stand in support of my students. I was also surprised that, while the players who made Area were recognized in the program, those who made All-State were not singled out this year. To me, that's all a bit unfortunate.
• Quote of the night, from the concert coordinator/emcee, noting that few things in education can compare to the All-Region concert experience: "It's not as if, when you're named to the All-Area football team, that you get together and play a game after eight hours of practice." Well said.

Did you really make it through this whole post? Congrats; you're a marathon winner in much the same way as those of us who stayed for the entire concert!

I'm sure I'll be writing a similar post next year. Stay tuned!

Kids Contniue to Say the Darnedest Things About Classical Composers

This morning, a kid made a mistake that made what he was playing sound more like "Für Elise" than his actual solo. I hummed a few bars and the kid understood what I meant...
 
ME: So do you know who wrote "Für Elise"?
KID: I should know this...
ME: He's one of the famous ones. If I asked you to name three famous classical composers, who would they be?
KID: Beethoven, Bach, and...that other guy.
ME: That narrows it down...
KID: He was from Europe!
ME: That *really* narrows it down...
KID: Wagner? No, wait--he was Russian.

(Props to the kid for pronouncing Wagner correctly, despite the geographical gaffe...)

Kids Continue to Say the Darnedest Things About Geography

I was working with a kid on a solo published by the Neil A. Kjos company, and the kid noted the unusual name...

KID: What kind of a name is that?
ME: It sounds Scandinavian to me. Do you know where Scandinavia is?
KID: In England!

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Their Accompanists

As my students pick their solos and turn in their forms, I always check to make sure they've contacted an accompanist as well...

ME: So are you using someone on the list?
KID: No, it's someone from my church.
ME: Ahh yes, the proverbial Nice Lady from Church. (I've found that many students use the Nice Lady from Church rather than people on the list at school; said lady tends to be either really good or just awful--very few in-betweens.)
KID: Yeah, but it's a dude.
ME: That's right--you told me that. The Nice Dude from Church, then.
KID: He's nice-ish, but he has his Ph.D in music, so I hope he's not too pushy about everything.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Their Solo Pieces

One of my students is playing a Bach gavotte for his solo, and I was seeing if he could pronounce the title and composer correctly...

ME: So how do you say the name of this piece?
KID: Guh-VO-tay.
ME: Close. Guh-VAHT. And who's the composer?
KID: John Sebastian Bach.
ME: Close. But it's not John.
KID: Joanne?

Band Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Choir Kids

While working on a solo with a student, we noted that the arranger broke some eighth-note beams between phrases, and how that made it look more like choral music than instrumental music...

ME: Do you know why they don't often beam eighth notes in choir music? (The correct answer, in my experience, is that each note corresponds to a sung syllable of the text.)
KID: Because otherwise, they can't count it very well?

Kids Say the Darnedest Things at Concerts

At the end of the show tonight, a random kid I didn't recognize said hello to me in the hallway. Figuring maybe he was a friend or sibling of a student (and being an outgoing person myself), I said hello back.

KID: So are you Emily's dad?
ME: Nope.
KID: Whose father are you?
ME: Nobody's, so far as I know.

Kids Continue to Say the Darnedest Things About Musical Terms

At this point, most of my beginners have learned the term "divisi"--a divided part on a single line. One beginner noticed a divisi duet that took up four lines: his response was, "Wow, that's a long DaVinci."

(And yes, a brief discussion of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would follow.)

Reason #247 Why I'm Glad I Don't Work for a Corporation

While out running my errands this afternoon, I decided I wanted a peppermint mocha from the Starbucks inside the Tom Thumb where I was shopping. But they couldn't make any specialty drinks, because they'd run out of milk--this, despite being in a grocery store that is full of milk that they were not allowed to buy (yes, I asked). Things would be a lot simpler if the barista were allowed to do that, but i guess that would've taken too many layers of bureaucracy to accomplish. *sigh*

I'd LIke to Thank the Academy. (No, Really.)

We're iced in here in North Texas, so I might as well blog a bit...

I've ranted about various aspects of the Grammys over the years--everything from how they award most of the jazz awards before the TV show even comes on, to ridiculous mispronunciations of artists' names on the broadcast (like "Pat METH-uh-nee" back in the day) that would never happen to pop performers, but I think they've done something right this year, and It's the first time I've seen this: Putting people like Dave Koz and Boney James in the Instrumental Pop category, saving the Instrumental Jazz ranks for, well, people who play music that most jazz musicians would consider jazz, like Gary Burton, Christian McBride and Kenny Garrett. Well done, guys! This was needed years ago.

(I'd also like to thank the voters for giving nominations to some great artists that deserve wider recognition, such as Snarky Puppy and Darcy James Argue's Secret Society.)
 

Choir Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Band Instruments

As one of my students came out of his saxophone lesson, the choir kids were already gathered in the hallway outside the practice wing...

CHOIR KID: Yeah, (band kid's name)! Way to rock that...trombone!
BAND KID: Nope. Saxophone.
CHOIR KID: I knew that. I was just checking to see if you knew.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things About Old Composers

This morning, I was doing solo demos in lessons, and a piece by Handel came up. The kid had heard of "Messiah" before and recognized the melody to the Hallelujah Chorus, but I didn't expect what came next...

KID (points to top of music): We have lots of those in our house.
ME (after thinking for a second): Handles?
KID: Yup.

Kids Continue to Say the Darnedest Things About Their Mistakes

A student was playing through a solo and suddenly had a measure where everything just came apart...

ME: Whoa, what happened there?
KID: I'm just looking at that as one giant measure of stupid.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things When They Use Bad Grammar

This morning, I was working with a kid who had tempo problems with a certain passage...

ME: Think about a few years from now, when you're driving. Your passengers wouldn't appreciate a sudden burst of acceleration like that.
KID: Yeah, I've droven my sister's sports car before, and you barely have to touch the accelerator.
ME: "Droven," huh? I'm guessing you haven't had English class today.
KID: Yeah, I have.

(The same kid would tell me later in the lesson that Étude #2 was the "funnest" of the three.)