Thankyaverymuuhhch

I have several students attending the same high school, so I have by now seen some marching band music that they are learning for the upcoming marching season.  In one particular high school, the students are playing an Elvis show.  Presley, not Costello.  Anyway, I'm fairly well-acquainted with the music of "The King", but I figured it wouldn't hurt to brush up on my Elvis-knowledge.

Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, on January 8, 1935.  When he was 13 he moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and in 1954 he was signed on the legendary Sun Records.  Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records at the time, wanted to introduce African-American music to a wider audience.  In Elvis he saw the perfect face and vehicle to introduce this music.  For his part, Elvis was a great listener, translating gospel and blues to the still less than civil-rights-minded audience of the 1950s.  Because gospel and the blues were essential to the development of rock music, it makes sense that Elvis is considering the founder and King of Rock and Roll.  He helped to promote African-American music the way that Ray Charles would promote gospel to wider audiences.  (And not without controversy, Charles was accused of exploiting and devaluing gospel tradition by giving it a rock beat and playing it for white audiences.)

Elvis created controversy in a different way, through his now iconic hip-shaking during performances that drove women wild.  This seems tame, but it was the 1950s.  Then there was the infamous Ed Sullivan Show performance that showed TV audiences Elvis from the waist up.

Elvis eventually succumbed to failing health and drug abuse.  He died August 16, 1977 (yes, Elvis did die)and his mansion in Memphis, his Graceland, is now a museum.  I plan to visit Memphis someday.  Not just for Elvis, but for all the other legends that have walked through and left their mark on our American music.

The Creature runs

Tomorrow I will take part in the Bix7 race around Davenport for the second time.  I ran it last year because the Momster made me.  I'm repeating the effort again this year (again because the Momster is making me) but I've gotten more training in since last year and I  want to see if I can better my time a bit.

So, aside from annoying everyone within earshot with my bombarde (there is a post about this new toy, see the one called "Bombarde-ment"), I haven't had too many musical revelations.  I am preparing for my Wisconsin adventure, during which I will look out for interesting musical things to tell you about, and have been doing the usual work/teach/perform daily routine (last week, during a gig, the band I was playing with was caught in a severe downpour/thunderstorm.  Next time I will remember to close by car windows.  My car has just recently dried out.  But, the saxophone and clarinet were saved from too much damage, and I think most of the band gear was rescued.)

When I go out for a long run, I usually take my MP3 player.  I find that I need to distract the mind while I run, so I don't get too hung up on how much I want to stop (I'm not really a runner, but I try to be.  It's good for me.)  I plan to add some new tunes (Cee Lo Green, Gnarls Barkley, Katy Perry, and Elvis), but to date I have music from the following:  DMB (duh, are you really surprised?), Paul Simon's Graceland, The Police, Joanna Newsom, Black Eyed Peas, Stevie Wonder, random assortment of recent Grammy nominees, Lady Gaga, Vusi Mahlasela, Benny Goodman, Smash Mouth, Modest Mouse, and some others that I know I'm forgetting.

Hope it isn't too hot tomorrow morning...

(Incidentally, the race is named for Bix Beiderbecke, the famed cornet player (and there is a jazz fest in his honor around this time every summer).  Bix wasn't a runner, but somewhere along the way, a race was started, in his name.  Odd, that.  Unfortunately, this makes it possible to still run into people who think that Bix was some famous runner...)

Oh, Death

British singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in her home in the early morning hours on July 23.  Sad, but not too surprising.  She had trouble dealing with addiction to drugs and alcohol.  She was on my radar, but only slightly.  I liked her 2006 hit Rehab.

She was 27 years old, and joins a list of other well-known rock artists who died at this tragically young age.  Others in the 27 Club:  

 Robert Johnson.  Blues man. (I've written about him, check out the post about the Crossroads)
Jimi Hendrix.  Innovative rock guitarist and icon, died just months short of his 28th birthday.

Janis Joplin.  American rock singer.

Jim Morrison.  Poet, singer, frontman of The Doors.  I went through a Doors phase just before my first year of college.  Lots of good music, and the biography, No One Here Gets Out Alive, is highly recommended.

Kurt Cobain.  American singer of the Seattle-based grunge-rock band Nirvana.

Burn out

While waiting for a student to show up for his lesson last night I got out one of my favourite Kalmen Opperman technic books to play through.  I just love his Velocity studies for clarinet.  Anyway, the student was listening outside and when he came in for his lesson he asked what I was playing.  I showed him and told him that I just felt like practicing.  He then asked me: "You don't always feel like playing?"  This got me thinking about burn out.

Most of the time, you can't get me to stop playing an instrument.  Nothing makes me happier than to have lots of time to myself in a practice room, playing a saxophone or clarinet or plunking away on a piano.  But sometimes, I just don't want to.  There are the occasional days (and, more rarely, weeks) when I'd rather not play or practice at all.  Maybe I'd rather read a book or go outside for a walk in the woods or listen to the people talk on NPR.  I don't think there is any reason for this beyond feeling burned out and un-inspired.  I'm sure others feel this way from time to time.

Unless there is something coming up that I really should be practicing for, I've learned to just go with this burn out experience and not try to force it.  The burn out doesn't happen too often, and, when it does, it's usually in the middle of summer.  After a day or two of feeling like a "normal" person, I'll jump back in and practice altissimo notes and saxophone etudes, blissfully annoying everyone around me.   : )

Plink plink

I've been working on my piano skills lately.  I have dreams of one day being good enough to tickle the (now usually plastic) ivories in a public setting, but, really, it's mostly for my own amusement.  I had a piano teacher for a short time in high school, but she decided to move to Florida.  During that time though, I did perform in a recital, and at the time, she had really like the piano part to a clarinet solo I was working on, so I played the clarinets solo at the recital, too. 

Most of my 'real' piano training happened in college, where all music majors are required to take at least four semesters of piano.  I did learn quite a bit, like how to read a lead sheet, how to construct a chord and harmonize a simple melody, and I learned that playing scales on a piano is more annoying than it is to play scales on an instrument.  Each finger is assigned a number, the thumb is 1 and each finger is labelled 2,3,4,5.  So that your fingers land on the right keys when playing a scale, the player needs to memorize finger patterns.  And the thumb needs to pass under the rest of the hand at certain times to make the scale end on the correct finger.  As I successfully passed my piano classes, I could do this reasonably well, but it is still something that I need to work on. 

Some really beautiful piano works aren't too hard to find, as piano is an instrument that's had music written for it for centuries, but I am fond of Debussy, Chopin (the Preludes are divine), Bach, Satie, and of course Mozart and Beethoven. 

Caravan Recap

This past weekend a friend and I went to the Dave Matthews Band Caravan Chicago stop.  It was incredible.  Don't have the exact statistics, but I heard that each night had between 40,000-60,000 fans in attendance.  Huge.

The festival was remarkably well-run and  well-planned.  The south Chicago venue site was originally a steel refinery or something, so it was a bit rough (difficult to walk around without tripping on cobblestones and I did find more than one industrial-looking doodad lying around) but it was expansive and flat, all-in-all a good place to put a large music festival.

Here is a picture from the top of the Ferris wheel.  Oh, yeah, they had a Ferris wheel!  Nice touch.  Yes, beer was expensive, as par for the course for any concert, but for one dollar more, people had the option of getting better beer and even wine.  There was a farmer's market section, offering fresh fruit, and a couple of misting stations to cool off in.  Also available were free water stations, open to anyone with a reusable water bottle.  These usually had very long lines, but it was a nice service.  Another nice feature was a vegetarian friendly food vendor.  Usually, I go to big festivals like this and have a hard time finding tasty, veggie-ready food.  The portobello wrap and Benevolent Burrito from the Crescent Food stand were super yummy.
The daytime acts were solid and the sound system was superb.  Even on the outer edges of the crowd, it was possible to hear singers and instruments cleanly and clearly.  I discovered a couple new bands to listen to, a reggae group called Soja, O.A.R., and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.  We got to the grounds a bit late on day two to see TR3 play, but I have seen them in Davenport twice, so I wasn't too worried.  TR3 is Tim Reynolds trio.  Tim Reynolds has been an unofficial member of DMB and often tours with them.  He is also one helluva guitar player!

We got fairly close to the stage on the first night.  On Friday night, the band played a good mix of old and new and pulled out some not-often heard gems, like Joyride.  I was happy to hear You Might Die Trying done in the spirit of a recent LiveTrax (New York), where after the sax solo, just as the song builds to a thrilling conclusion, Dave vocalizes a nonsense-filled, energetic, rhythmic riff that reminds me just why I love the man so much.  Boyd was crazy good this set of shows, also reminding me of what he adds to the sound of the group, even though he appears to stay in the background.  Jeff Coffin burned up the sax solos, creatively and musically.  Stefan and Carter laying down an always tasteful groove and Rashawn Ross (who looked fabulous, by the way.  It looks like he's lost about 100 pounds) adding just the right amount of trumpet.

At the end of night one, Dave came out for a solo encore (they always do at least two encores) on a ukulele.  Brilliant.  He also gave a performance of Out of My Hands, which features him on a piano.  Ending the show on Shake Me Like a Monkey was perfection.

The second night had a few more mainstream tunes, but still had a good mix.  Saturday opened with #41, a definite crowd-pleaser that the fans loved.  I loved hearing Alligator Pie and Too Much and ending on Two Step was a great choice.  Carter's drum solo was a solo to beat all drum solos.

Overall, a great couple of shows, maybe the best I've seen.  The band sounded tight and fresh, and they looked like they were having a great time.  And, as anyone who has been a part of a DMB concert crowd knows, part of the experience is to survive being part of the crowd.  True, some DMB fans go just to get drunk and stupid, but there are plenty more people in the crowd there just to enjoy some great music from a great band. 

I'm older

Hello!  Today is my birthday! I've been around the sun thirty times, and have been playing a clarinet for two-thirds of my life.

Did you know that the Happy Birthday To You song is still under copyright?  It is not public domain, which means that you need permission to perform it.  Haven't you wondered why some TV shows use a generic birthday tune when a character is having a birthday?

The melody of the song was written by sisters Patty and Mildred Hill in 1893.  They had written a tune called Good Morning to All, which became the basis of the Birthday song.  A copyright was finally given in 1935, and the rights were sold to Time-Warner Corporation in 1998.  There appears to be some controversy over the validity of the copyright claim, as the melody was likely lifted from other popular songs at the time of its being written, but, as it stands, the song won't enter the public domain in the U.S. until 2030. 

Tomorrow, I will be attending the Dave Matthews Band Caravan Chicago stop.  Happy birthday to me!

Don't screw up

Had a fabulous holiday weekend!  Mainly because I got to play for most of it.  That got me thinking though about pre-performance rituals.  I know athletes usually have some sort of pre-game ritual, but I bet musicians do too.

Mine tend to vary with the type of performance I'm going to do, and usually involve the pre-show food.  If it is an out-of-town big band/dance band gig, I will have a Red Bull (sugar-free), string cheese, and usually a V-8 vegetable juice.  If it is a wind ensemble, or band concert type of performance, I'll have a cup of hot coffee and will brush my teeth.

Before a rock band type of gig, I will sometimes have a pre-show adult beverage and on the way to the gig will listen to a high-energy live recording of a Dave Matthews Band show (or, occasionally, whatever current artist I'm really digging at the time).  Whatever will psych me up and put me into a good mood, ready to play the hell out of my saxophone.

And, when everyone is ready to go and the show is about to start, I'll tell myself, in a firm, but supportive way: Don't screw up!