For the Mamas

May 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Today being the day that we celebrate our mamas’, I thought that it would be best if we honoured them in musical form.  The songs I have chosen don’t necessarily represent the relationship that I have with my own mother, or ones that my  students have with their mothers.  It just happens that these are some of my favorite songs about mommies.

So here are my choices for the mother of all songs:

Mama’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys -by Willie Nelson.  This one is a personal choice, since my father actually grew up to be a recreational cowboy.

Mama’s Pearl- by The Jackson 5.  This is a song that I wasn’t familiar with, the suggestion came from one of the parents – but I’m including it because I love the “b-boom b-boom b-boom” bass vocals.

 

New Mother Nature/No Sugar Tonight-by The Guess Who.  This is for my own mama, since she loves The Guess Who above all other musical acts.

 

Mama You So Sweet – by Lucinda Williams. Just because it’s a great song.

 

Mama Look At Bubu – by Harry Belafonte.  Not exactly about mamas’ but the song makes me giggle – and combined with Nat King Cole, the video is super charming.

 

Mamma Mia – ABBA .  The very first “mama” song I could think of, that isn’t really about mamas’ at all.  But still – since I thought of it first, it makes the list.

 

There are so many more mama songs out there.  I could spend days and nights listing them all.  So I am going to quit while I am ahead, but I encourage you to share your favourite songs about the mother(s) in your life.

To all the mommies out there we offer our very best wishes on having an excellent day with your loved ones.  Your love and hard work has not gone unnoticed.

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Fantasy Camp

May 6, 2012 By 1 Comment

 

By Crinklecrankle.com

On the last weekend in June, I will be hosting a fantasy camp of sorts.  One that involves fairies, sprites, pixies, brownies, unicorns, hobbits, elves, dragons, and any other mythical creature that can be found in either the imagination of a young girl, or a garden.  The camp is geared towards girls pre schooled age, but if boys want to join in – they are more than welcome.

What can your preschooler expect at this camp?

  • arts and crafts involving a lot of glitter
  • music that can be heard at an english garden party
  • dancing
  • garden gnomes
  • and a fairy safari

We’ve been researching the difference between all the different garden creatures, and we’ve discovered their unique likes and dislikes.  At our camp, we will let your child in on all the secrets we’ve discovered.

Refreshments will be served during the 2 day (late morning) camp.  And of course we will be serving fairy food (aka cupcakes and sweet tea).

If you have a child that would be interested in attending this 2 day camp, you can reach us at (604) 320-0486.

*Photo Source via CrinkleCrankle.com

 

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A Practice Break

May 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

By JTaylor Photo

I read an article on the Classical Guitar Canada blog, about the necessity of putting walking or exercise breaks into your daily practice.  And I have to say, I agree whole heartedly.  The article by Rob Reid, talks about the benefits of daily exercise of course, but also touches on the following points:

  • allows you some time to think about your practice session
  • lets you come up with new ideas
  • lets you breathe
  • you use all of your body when out walking
  • the things you see when out walking, may inspire your practice

I love all of these reasons for breaking up your practice and going for walks.  In fact, on days when my students are having problems connecting to the lesson – we often go for a short walk around the block, just so we can “breathe” and pay attention to the things that are happening around us.  And often we find that when we come back to the studio, the lesson is changed, and the sound is much fresher.

Also it doesn’t hurt that there are often puddles to splash around in here, and that always brings a little something extra to the performance.

You can read the entire article by Rob Reid here and visit his site,Classical Guitar Training, here.

Now, go take a walk – its beautiful out there.

Photo via JTaylor Photo from flickr

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Punk Therapy

May 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Last weekend, I held a group session for my students who are between the ages of 12-15. Since we are approaching the end of the school year, I thought it would be a good chance to check in with all of them, and let them discuss their plans musical or otherwise, for the summer and fall.  I thought this year, that they might like to be a part of some camp projects.  And that this could be an opportunity for them to do some brainstorming.

What actually happened was something that I was not expecting.

I know that at this time of year, kids tend to get a little frustrated and anxious with the ending of their term.  I was not prepared for this level of frustration. These kids were not interested in talking about plans. They wanted to do something. Anything to get themselves out of their heads.

And so instead of a great planning session – we ended up having Punk Day.

Imagine, 5 kids sitting in a circle with bongos (and other assorted percussion) banging along on their drums to this (now you know why we are called Studio de Chaos).

 

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The Influence

May 6, 2012 By 2 Comments

By Ferrari + caballos + fuerza = cerebro Humano 

I often think about who influences our musical style.  I know that my love of folk music comes from my father.  But after that, I think I might have influenced my family’s music listening habits (when my taste started to develop). I didn’t grow up in a very musical family. Certainly you couldn’t call us cutting edge. My parents owned one Rolling Stones album, and that’s about as cool as they got. With the exception of my brother’s very short punk phase, I think most people would yawn at what I grew up listening to.

I could very happily spend my days listening only to Simon and Garfunkel, and Joni Mitchell – but I would be a very limited and ineffective music teacher, if I did that.  So over the last 15 years, I have made a real effort to listen to everything I could. I certainly could listen to a lot more local music (this is a big weak spot in my knowledge), but despite that I have had a fairly varied music collection thanks to friends, libraries, students, and the internet.

My students are all very familiar with the game “What’s on your iPod?” where we listen to random songs on our listening devices. They share a song on their playlist, and I share one of mine. It’s a way for me to hear what they are listening to, and a way for them to hear what I might be listening to.

But now I want to go one step further.  I have a new computer, and I’ve been thinking about importing my old music from iTunes – and I have decided against it.  No offence to my old playlists (you are still on my iPod), but I am ready to be influenced.  I don’t want to look for random music anymore, although when I encounter something I love (by accident) I will embrace it whole heartedly.

So now I am letting you influence me.  Now keep in mind, when you take on this role, you will also be indirectly influencing young musicians – which makes this challenge a bit more fun.

Tell me what you think my music platform must contain.  Anything goes.  I am not restricting you to certain genres.  Just give me a list of the must have music.

 

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The Grade School Lolas

February 4, 2012 By 4 Comments

  For days now, I have had the song, “Whatever Lola Wants” stuck in my head.  Usually when this happens, I try to make the best of it and use it in some fashion.  Most of the time, I end up using a song in my lessons.  But the idea that is rolling around in my head right now, is not at all appropriate, and yet I can’t seem to let go of it. Which makes me think that I am either really onto something, or its such a bad idea that I can’t even convince myself that it will fail, and fail hard.

The idea is Grade School Lolas.  Almost all of the girls I teach are between the ages of 7 and 13.  This song is not appropriate for any of them.  I also don’t teach singing or drama (nor do I school them in the arts of striptease or seduction), but the idea of the girls trying to figure out how to approach this song, just makes me want to squeal in delight.  It would have been the perfect choice for a segment for last year’s Diva Camp.  But now, I am thinking about doing an afternoon workshop with 9 girls trying to get their jazz siren on.

Someone once told me, that she starred as Lola when her sixth grade class mounted a production of Damn Yankees.  At the time, I thought her teacher was crazy and a bit irresponsible. But now I am thinking the woman may have just been experiencing something similar to what I’ve been going through.  She may simply have had this song stuck in her head for days on end, and her solution was to get an 11 year old to create a rendition of it, in order to remove the earworm.

I think there are ways to make this song less about seducing men, so I intend to be creative and make the song age appropriate.  I’ll write a followup post, with the ideas I have come up with.

Let’s talk about the earworm issue, what do you do to remove an unwanted earworm?  And has one ever been so intrusive that it makes you do strange things? Inquiring minds want to know.

If you aren’t familiar with the song, here is the fantastic Sarah Vaughan bringing her all to the song.

 

**photo source via prospecttheatre from flickr

Filed Under: camp de chaos, film music, teacher issues Tagged With: , , , , ,

I Wish I Was Superman

January 2, 2012 By 3 Comments

 

and these days
I wish I was 6 again
Oh make me a red cape
I wanna be superman.

About a year ago, I came up with a concept for a series of lessons for a group of boys between the ages of 4 and 11 years old.

The reason for this idea was that I sensed that there was less of a community surrounding some of the boys than there were with the girls.  They were all friendly, but there weren’t any real friendships being made.  When you tell stories, friendships are kind of important.  And I wanted the boys to really get involved with what I was trying to do at Studio de Chaos.

So, I created Superhero Camp.  Why Superheroes?  Well why not.  Superheroes are virtuous and fun and most of the time they work within a community.  Besides what kid doesn’t want to be Superman?

The plan was to run the camp for a week, a couple of hours every night of the week, where the superheroes would learn their craft.  I brought in guest speakers to teach them about how to be a good citizen, and other various topics.  And each night the boys got a chance to teach their fellow superfriends about their power, a new skill, or a topic that was important for all superheroes.  Along with their teaching assignment, each superhero had to come up with their own persona, and a theme song.  I provided the space, capes, snacks,  lectures, and a fake crime scene.  The camp ended, when I got the fathers involved, and let the superheroes use the skills they learned from the week and staged a battle between them and their dads (aka super-villains).

The kids had a great time learning about and developing their alter-egos.  I on the other hand learned that teaching a group of 8 boys is a lot of fun and a tremendous amount of work.  I learned that kids tend to gravitate to theme songs that sound like the Mighty Mouse cartoon (Here I come to save the day…..), but when it comes to creating a new personality there were no boundaries.  For instance one hero, who has really good hair, was able to move his head around and get a bit of a hair thing going, and the next thing you know, his hair turns into a tornado – and that nabs the bad guy.  I don’t know about you, but I would definitely go see that movie.

And in case you were wondering what my role was in all of this superhero stuff, I was the sometimes good/sometimes bad/but always conflicted Mayor of Metropolis.

*lyrics by John Mayer for the song 83
** excellent Superman drawing by Joe Crawford (artlung) via flickr

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What’s On Your iPod

January 2, 2012 By 15 Comments

 

I bet there's at least one song about coffee on that playlist

In the last 5 minutes of every lesson, I play a game with my students called, “What’s on your iPod?”.  It’s a way for me to learn what the kids listen to, which is often music that I’m not familiar with. And they get a chance to hear what I listen to.  There is only one rule, and that is, the iPod must be set to choose a random song.  That way, there is no hiding of the embarrassing stuff.  Sometimes, we do an entire lesson of this game, and research the songs a bit. We look at form, phrasing, lyrics (if there are any), the way the song moves, and subtext.

In the spirit of sharing, I am going to list the first 10 songs that appear on my iPod this morning. You have my word of honor that I will list everything that shows up.

  1. Golden Spinning Wheel, Op 109. Allegro Ma Non Troppo  – Anton Dvorak, conducted by Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
  2. Call Me – Jessica Lea Mayfield
  3. Dark as the Black – Serena Ryder
  4. Job (scene 1) Introduction – Vaughan Williams
  5. Goodnight Josephine – The Tragically Hip
  6. The Engines Are Idle – Jay Bennett
  7. Allegretto in E Major “Die Jagd” – Paganini performed by Shlomo Mintz
  8. The Safety Dance – Men Without Hats
  9. Blues Run the Game – Nick Drake
  10. Nefertiti-Herbi Hancock (from River: The Joni Letters)

That’s my morning list, it feels a bit confused, but that’s what happens when you press the random button.  I would love it, if you would share your random musical selections with me.  Leave a comment so we can continue the game.  And maybe we can learn some new music from each other.

I must say, I’m more than a bit relieved that the Justin Bieber songs decided to stay hidden today.  OK go, share your music!

**Photo Source – y0aimee via flickr

 

 

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Creativity Takes Courage

January 1, 2012 By 3 Comments

  The very first thing I read this morning, when I woke up was a quote by Henri Matisse.  It goes something like this, “Creativity takes Courage”.  This was exactly what I needed to read on a really important day  (the day of rebirth for many), it’s a great motto for my own creative renaissance.

Months ago, when I started this blog, someone critiqued me, stating that he couldn’t hear my voice in this blog, nor could he figure out who I was writing for, and the topic was just not interesting to him.  His criticisms made me want to abandon this project.  In fact his words really made me think about not continuing with Studio de Chaos.  Because if I couldn’t write an interesting blog about what I am passionate, how on earth was I going to teach students how to tell stories through music, or even help them discover what they are passionate about.

I was so worried about pleasing everyone, that I forgot that the only person who needs to be happy in this situation is me (plus my students).  If I can write a blog, and teach some kids, and at the end of the day be happy with what I have accomplished, then I have done good.

Does it matter if everyone is happy with everything we do?  Of course not! I don’t teach the entire population of this planet.  Who cares if everyone likes what we do in this studio.  I suppose that if they all did, then I would have the most successful teaching practice in the world.  The fact that I have critics, just proves that I am doing something right, because I am making people question their own approach to living and learning.

So here are some lessons I have learned from critics, and what I plan to do about them in 2012 (after the jump). [Read more...]

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I’m Confused And it Annoys the Kids

November 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Ever listen to a piece of music over and over and over, and not be able to commit it to memory?  This is something that I have encountered recently. I confused two pieces of music, and the only things that I think they have in common are that they are iconic movie themes, and written by John Williams.

Here is how the problem came about:  Last month, I arranged the Harry Potter theme for a guitar quintet made up of 5 boys (ages 8-11). Everything was excellent, until the day we started rehearsals which is when I would break out into song to demonstrate what each part should sound like (because this is what teachers do).  Not once, was I able to do this correctly.  This is no slight on John Williams, because the piece of music that was actually stuck in my brain for the entire month of October was the theme from Jurassic Park.  Why Jurassic Park and not Star Wars, or Indiana Jones or any of the other iconic themes from movies of our past?  I have no answers for you.

Both themes are majestic and magical and are full of wonderment.  But is this enough to cause confusion?  I don’t think so. What I do know is that my mix-up caused the kids some frustration, and I think they were a bit worried that their teacher was cracking up.  After all, I did arrange the score, and would even be reading it and singing the wrong tune. When I listen to the themes I find more differences than similarities, so why is this happening?

Here are the two musical examples, if you could listen to them and write a comparison/contrast comment, I would be forever grateful, because it could prevent any further embarrassing and awkward moments in my teaching practice.

 

 

 

 

 

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