Piano pedagogue and performer Tony Caramia has a nice substantial article about jazz resources on the website Keyboard Companion Online. Any pianist (student or teacher) who has an interest in jazz, blues, and other pop styles could benefit from taking a look at it. Mr. Caramia widely covers resources and repertoire on the web, how to choose jazz repertoire for students, interpretation issues, style concepts (like swing), and method books.
Some of my students absolutely LOVE playing this music. If you are reading this and you love playing jazzy things, have a look at Mr. Caramia’s article (maybe with Mom or Dad) and let me know if you’d like to dig into jazz and blues more deeply.
By the way, I took my first piano pedagogy course with Mr. Caramia while I was getting my bachelor’s degree at the Eastman School of Music way back in the 1990’s. He’s a terrific teacher and I am glad I got some pedagogical training with him (though I did not realize this until later, when I actually started teaching!)
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Jazz Resources by Tony Caramia
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Medieval Times in Dayton
The Dayton Philharmonic will be performing Carl Orff’s massive Carmina Burana next weekend on May 18 and 19. This 20-plus collection of songs celebrating bawdy and hedonistic texts from the Middle Ages is scored for full orchestra (plus TWO pianos, of which I’ll be playing one) and multitudes of singers. Our performance will employ no fewer than three choruses (one men’s chorale, one full chorus, and a children’s choir) and three vocal soloists. It’s going to be a great deal of fun for everyone involved.
Here’s a performance of “O Fortuna” (one of the most famous numbers from this work) by the Bordeaux National Opera in France. Many will instantly recognize it because it is severely overused as “background” music in movie trailers and commercials!
Tickets available here. (I might be able to swing a few half-price tickets for some lucky inquirers. Let me know if I can be of service…)
Monday, May 7, 2007
Ear Trainer for Intervals, Chords, Melodies
A reader left a comment on my recent "online ear-trainer" post, suggesting another site with free ear-training software. (Now this is what blogging is all about! It’s great to get suggestions from readers about what else is out there…because I certainly don’t know about it all.)
This ear-trainer program features a special random melody generator for those of you who want to try call-and-response. Try sitting at your instrument (if you can near the computer) and see if you can play back the melody. The site also features exercises involving intervals, chords, rhythm changes, etc. Check it out!
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Ear-Trainer for Intervals
I found this free applet (called "Big Ears") for online ear-training over at the well tempered blog.
The neat thing about this is you can select (or de-select) which intervals you want to hear. This makes it versatile for all levels of musicianship.
Students: I’ll attempt to suggest how to tailor the settings by your lesson book level:
If your lesson book is Level 1 or lower, try selecting these intervals only: P1 (unison), M2 (2nd), M3 (3rd).
Level 2: Add P4, P5 (fourth and fifth), P8 (octave). "P" stands for perfect interval.
Level 3: Add M6 (sixth) and M7 (seventh).
Level 4 and above: You already have all of the major intervals. Now add the minor intervals (m[#]) one by one until you feel comfortable with the new addition. After that try all of the intervals that are bigger than the octave (m9, M9, m10, M10, P11).
Have fun. Also, if you've ever wished you could play two notes on a keyboard and have a program tell you what the interval is, you can find that here (it's on the same site as "Big Ears").
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Dayton Phil hires new Principal Keyboardist...
...and it's me!
I performed a successful audition yesterday afternoon for the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra at Dayton’s Schuster Center, made it through two rounds, and was awarded the job after consideration by the audition committee (which was chaired by music director Neal Gittleman). I played Chopin’s Impromptu Op. 29 and several excerpts of standard orchestral literature by Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Gershwin, Respighi, and Tchaikovsky. It was a mean and technically demanding list, and I was sweating bullets in the final round!
This is a really great career move for me, and I am very excited about achieving a performance post with such a wonderful group in a nearby area. My position will begin in the fall (I am waiting on a contract for the time being). As some of my readers know, I’ve actually been playing as a substitute with the orchestra for about five years now. The real job came open just this past spring after former keyboardist Michael Chertock resigned the position. (I'm grateful to Michael for giving my colleagues and myself the opportunity!)
So it turns out I have two performance positions with two different orchestras: one now with Dayton, and the other with the IRIS orchestra in Germantown, Tennessee (where I’ve been principal keyboard for the last six years). This is a rare and fortunate circumstance for a pianist, so I will probably enhance the blog in the near future with posts about orchestral and large-ensemble keyboard practice.
TO MY STUDENTS: Rest assured! This is a part-time position (mostly in the evenings), so I will continue to teach at Slater Academy as much as possible. Since the drive up to Dayton does take commuting time, I may have to give up teaching regularly during the evening. But I will strive to accommodate everybody to the best of my scheduling ability. Since we have until the fall anyway, everything remains the same for now. Please be in touch if you have questions about how this might affect your lessons.
Last but not least, I’d like to say “thanks” to my students and their families for their patience and flexibility over the last five years. Many times I needed to reschedule lessons at the last minute so that I could rehearse and perform with the DPO as a sub. (Thanks also to Becky Slater, who allowed me to get away with this kind of behavior!) That experience helped give me the edge I needed to win a job like this, so I appreciate everybody’s willingness and good humor during those hectic times.
