For this year’s benchmark project, I decided I would perform a piece and challenge myself. I ended up choosing Reverie, Op. 24, by Alexander Glazunov, a highly melodic and romantic piece written in 1890. Glazunov was a well known and accomplished horn player, and tended to write small solos like this often, favoring the emotional, expressive pieces. Reverie was a beautiful example of this. Written in the romantic style, going back and forth between major and minor, the piece is a wonderfully intricate solo to play. Reverie wasn’t anything close to his “big hit” as far as his compositions went, but it was a beautiful piece, written for horn and piano just before he left Soviet Russia. Some say it was his goodbye piece to the home he had to …show more content…
The tricky combination of rhythms in the piece made keeping time harder, and I had to make sure that I was counting during all of the solo. Timing, as a result of not counting the rhythms, would be off as well should I stop counting. I noticed that I was messing up simple things -- either playing eighth notes in the style of a triplet, or not counting the duration of a dotted half note. The fix -- a metronome. I had to be extremely rigid with how I practiced, or else that would be the way it would sound when I performed. I did notice improvement over the course of the week and a half, but I’ll admit, rhythm is still the weak point of my performance at its present composure. Along with my constant battle of seemingly simple screw ups in rhythm, I had to work on endurance. Reverie was, at some points, out of my range, peaking at an 턭A above the staff, and at its lowest it reached to the bass clef, which, let me tell you -- wasn’t gonna happen. I ended up rewriting a few sections of the piece, eliminating the whole bass clef section, and going down the octave with some of the higher notes. Regardless of the cuts and rewrites, it was still a very challenging piece in the realm of endurance, and I had to practice it in sections in order to preserve my chops for each
There was a vocal recital on October 19th, 2017 at 7:30PM, held at the performance hall in Mountain view college. Alex Longnecker, a tenor vocalist and Imre Patkai, (pianist) played a series of homophonic textured songs, some being sung in German and others in English. The Three selected songs I will be writing about are, The Lincolnshire Poacher, The Plough Boy, and Im Wunderschonen Monat Mai. This performance played a total of 24 Pieces, composed by 4 composers, being Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ernest Chausson, Benjamin Britten, and Robert Schumann.
“You gotta play this piece like an English military band would,” said Jules during band one day while rehearsing the first movement of Gustav Holst’s Second Suite in F. “1. March” begins with four notes played by the low brass which is then echoed by the upper woodwinds. The trumpets have a noble melody which broadens when the entire ensemble joins in. Next, the piece lightens up with an upper woodwind melody. Later on there is a euphonium solo, and following that is a grand theme with an extremely distinguished style. After, there is a change in style and time signature. One simple theme repeats with different dynamics and instrumentations every repetition. The Wind Ensemble played this piece at the Winter Band Concert on December 11, 2013. This work, though easy looking at first glance, was genuinely difficult to put together. It had few layers, so mistakes or intonation problems were extremely noticeable. Furthermore, the style of the piece was extremely intricate and hard to master. Therefore, “1. March” had positives and negatives regarding intonation, balance and blend, articulation, style, and dynamics throughout the entire ensemble and the low instrument section.
Volondat, Pierre-Alain, perf. Variations OP 20. By Clara Schumann. Rec. 15 May 2010. Saphir Productions, 2008. Florida College's Classical Music Library. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Conclusively, while being one of his earliest works, Mozart’s Minuet in F Major (K.2) is far from primitive. His use of repetition and subtle melodic and rhythmic variations keep the melody interesting enough to retain the listener’s attention. Not only this, but the harmonic surprises of the modulation and deceptive cadence keep the listener guessing in the best way possible. While at the surface this work may seem like nothing more than an AABA 32-bar dance, there is much more than that hidden throughout the work. If this is what Mozart was capable of at the mere age of six, it is unsurprising that his legacy remains to this day.
Then, with a punchy five-note line the sax player began his solo. After that phrase he stopped and waited-allowing a few bars to roll by as he felt the rhythm and absorbed the harmonies the piano player offered in response to his line. With his head bent down as if in prayer, he countered with a longer, smoother second phrase that elaborated on the first one but then confidently let his last unresolved note bang out over the audience. I felt my legs moving under me and my head bobbing slightly, and my jaw began to open and shut tightly as if to sing the next phrase. As the solo progressed, I felt I had to hold my breath, waiting for each of the horn player's thoughts to finish before I could take a full breath. The phrases began to get faster and closer together until he was rapidly firing notes out of his horn, and there was increasingly less space to breathe. The notes came in clusters and bursts of creative energy. His ideas seemed to flow from deep within the realms of the unconscious until he seemed no longer to be in control of his thoughts.
Basketball was created and has been played since December 1891 (Griffiths, 2010), it is a game of skill and talent that is enjoyed by fans all over the world. There are numerous leagues, but the two main leagues are the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). The NCAA is considered amateur where the players are not paid, and the NBA is considered professional where players make millions of dollars. In order for the NBA to get their players they draft from the NCAA, but the rules have changed several times over the years that have permitted players to enter the NBA. The current rule states that NBA players must be one year removed from high school or 19 years of age (Article X, 2008), this rule is considered by many needing the most change.
In “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop, the narrator attempts to understand the relationship between humans and nature and finds herself concluding that they are intertwined due to humans’ underlying need to take away from nature, whether through the act of poetic imagination or through the exploitation and contamination of nature. Bishop’s view of nature changes from one where it is an unknown, mysterious, and fearful presence that is antagonistic, to one that characterizes nature as being resilient when faced against harm and often victimized by people. Mary Oliver’s poem also titled “The Fish” offers a response to Bishop’s idea that people are harming nature, by providing another reason as to why people are harming nature, which is due to how people are unable to view nature as something that exists and goes beyond the purpose of serving human needs and offers a different interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. Oliver believes that nature serves as subsidence for humans, both physically and spiritually. Unlike Bishop who finds peace through understanding her role in nature’s plight and acceptance at the merging between the natural and human worlds, Oliver finds that through the literal act of consuming nature can she obtain a form of empowerment that allows her to become one with nature.
I came into this class under the impression that I already wrote well enough and wouldn’t need to improve. However, as I progressed through the semester I learned that there is always room to grow. The first paper I produced was not at the level I was hoping but after I actively decided to improve my writing my papers became much better. Looking back on my work in the class I wonder how much my writing has changed and where I still have room to improve. Without evaluating my work I can’t hope to become any better. Through this class I have grown much as a writer but there is still more I can learn.
This piece was filled with improvisation and you could feel the creativity following from the musicians. The combo didn’t have a conductor like the big band and was significantly smaller. Although, the combo was smaller and less formal it wasn’t any less of a performance. The piece started out with a phenomenal alto sax solo by Kevin Clements of Lamar, Missouri. Kevin is a talented musician, with his dark, rich sounding solo, he hit it out of the park. Ivan Vazquez of Garden City, Kansas performed another great solo on the trombone. Maddy Beasley, Kearney, Missouri followed Ivan with a tenor saxophone
It is in gaining a sense of our identity that we find a place to belong. This is presented in Episode 4, Stand Up, of the television series Redfern Now, directed by Rachael Perkins.
This concert is held by the Stony Brook University music department and is to perform seven pieces of music written by seven student composers. The concert is performed in Recital Hall of Staller Center in Stony Brook University. Since it is a small hall, audiences are very close to the performers. In fact, it is the first time I am this close to the performers and the sound for me is so clear and powerful that seems like floating in front of my eyes. Among the seven pieces, “Ephemeral Reveries” and “Gekko no mori” are piano solo, “Two Songs for Joey” is in piano and marimba, “Suite” and “Fold Duet No. 1” are in woodwinds, “Elsewhere” is played by string groups, and “e, ee, ree, and I was free” is in vocal. Personally, I like the sound of piano and guitar the best. Therefore, in the latter part I will analysis two pieces in piano, “Gekko no mori” and “Two Songs for Joey”.
...re was very interesting transitions between the variation, for example, string section plays the variation from low to high, when they reach the highest note, the brass family takes over and continue with the scale and make it more higher. Tremolo style was used in this piece, which is a quick ups and downs stroke mode. The music were very soothing and attracted the audience. Lastly, they end the piece with the same variations that was played at the beginning.
Philip Glass’s musical career has been lengthy and essentially truly successful. For most of Glass’s early life he worked in his father’s store where he stumbled about unorthodox Western classical music (Sadur “Biography”). After uncovering this music, Glass began to study music. Once graduated from college, he went on to study composition in New York. However, finding modern music of his time distasteful, he moved to Europe, at the age of 23, where he studied under Nadia Boulanger and worked with composer Ravi Shankar (“Philip Glass: Biography”). While in Europe, Glass also discovered a variety of non-Western music. The style in this newly discovered music began to appear within Glass’s own compositions. After being away from the States for an extended time, Glass made his return to New York in 1967. Once settled in New York, Glass began forming a collection of “new music” (Sadur). During this point in Glass’s career, he constructed his own musical...
The music he produced had a lot of control with a lot of flair. He liked improvisation, but did not leave that up to the performer. Instead, he wrote very virtuosic passages for his pieces, with which the performer did not have much room for imaginative playing. Then there is his knowledge on how to writ...
Kamien, Roger. "Part VI: The Romantic Period." Music: An Appreciation. 10th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008. 257-350. Print.