Bösendorfer piano. The removable capo d'astro bar is located across the upper two (treble) sections of the cast-iron plate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
What’s the best piano you’ve ever played on? What’s the worst? Can the quality of pianos that are used for composing and performing seriously affect your musical output? Here are some thoughts.
Two of the most remarkable pianos ever built are the nine-foot Steinway and the nine-and-a-half foot Bosendorfer. The Bosendorfer is more of a conversation piece because of its additional low notes, used for extra resonance when playing the sustain pedal. Both brands are of the highest quality and produce a sound and key action second to none.
There are so many quality brands these days that deserve honorable mention. Heintzman pianos are generally gems and Yamaha is producing wonderful instruments. I could go on, but I’d rather talk about lousy pianos. It’s more fun.
Terrifying pianos are just another name for poorly maintained pianos. Although these types of pianos can be found virtually anywhere, occasionally they are found in schools and in retirement homes. What a shame!
A bad piano in a school supplies students with lesser music education. Musical demonstrations by an instructor are out of tune and private piano tutoring is a disastrous effort on such instruments.
Retirement homes with bad pianos are truly tragic circumstances. Just because residents in a home are retired, doesn’t mean that the poor piano has to retire from a life of tuning and maintenance. Yours truly encountered one such piano in a retirement home in Baltimore, Maryland. The year was 1988, and it was the year that I came closest to breaking a finger. While playing a Chopin study (opus. 10 no. 8), my right-hand third finger actually got stuck in between two black notes!
Ouch! One of the black keys was too close to the adjacent black key, either through poor construction or through some sort of warping process over time (probably the latter). The otherwise happy Chopin Etude must have had a painful emotional feel to it from about the midway point of the composition until its conclusion. Thankfully, this was the last piece on the program. Suffice to say, there were no encores.
Here’s another gem of a piano. When first arriving at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, I was invited to the house of a friend. After dinner, I was asked by our charming host to perform on their piano for the three couples that were also invited to dinner. On this occasion, I decided to play the Chopin Barcarolle. To my great surprise, the piano was out of tune by more than a semitone. To a composer with perfect pitch, this is a death sentence.
Before going on, no implication was intended in labeling Baltimore and the surrounding areas with an infestation of bad pianos. Two bad pianos in one state is nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence.
From the above past experiences, it can be concluded that badly maintained pianos can most definitely have a negative impact on performers. However, can the quality of a piano actually improve one's output? After all, it can be argued that music comes from within and that true emotion will not be subdued, regardless of the instrument that one is composing or performing on.
In the practical world, good equipment is always an asset. If a piano delivers a quality, singing tone, it becomes addictive to play. That, alone, is an extremely positive consideration. Any composer or performer that has the incentive to remain at their instrument for greater lengths of time is bound to produce positive results.
Another point to consider is that a singing tone makes ones soul sing. Any performer or composer that is brought to a state of singing is in a very positive creative place.
As a final thought, a well-maintained piano makes for a happy performer, composer, and piano. The better the instrument is, the better the chance of a successful emergence of profoundly moving performances and compositions from performers and composers respectively.
Even non-musicians are familiar with keyboard instruments. Few people reach adulthood without having had at least one opportunity to bang on a keyboard of some type. However, many people (including musicians) aren't aware of the history behind keyboard instruments. Their evolution is both fascinating and surprising.
Many people mistakenly believe that the harpsichord was the earliest keyboard instrument. Harpsichords were undoubtedly a precursor to the piano. However, the pipe organ actually predates the harpsichord by some 1100 years. In fact, the pipe organ was the only keyboard instrument until the invention of the clavichord and the harpsichord.
The earliest pipe organs were massive structures. Upon their emergence, few companies actually made pipe organs. Even fewer people were trained to install and repair them. Their size and complexity made them difficult to work with, although the sound they produced was magnificent. Pipe organs often contained multiple keyboards to operate the many pipes and produce the rich sounds that the instrument is associated with. Naturally, this was not the type of instrument that the average person played at home. Most pipe organs were located in churches and concert halls.
Eventually, more compact versions were invented. Pipe organs evolved into regular organs, which most people of today are familiar with. They were more easily afforded by smaller parishes and even private owners. They were also much more compact and easier to repair.
Various keyboard instruments (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The clavichord entered the scene in the early 15th century. It first emerged as a "practice instrument." Since not all musicians could afford or had easy access to an organ, the clavichord became a convenient alternative. It provided organists a means for practicing at home without having to go to a church or other location to find an organ. Clavichords were smaller than today's piano and may be compared to today's smaller keyboard synthesizers, minus the need for electricity.
It was likely very shortly after that the harpsichord was invented. The harpsichord more closely resembled today's piano. This may be part of the reason that people believe the harpsichord was the first keyboard instrument. Modern pianos are based on a very similar design to its predecessors. Harpsichords, however, were much smaller (though larger than the clavichord). The harpsichord had many variations that operated on the same basic musical principles. Some of these include the virginal, the spinet and the clavicytherium.
Hieronymus Albrecht Hass, Hamburg, 1734 - clavecin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Like music trends always do, the harpsichord fell out of fashion upon the advent of the piano. The piano, though usually a bit larger, produced a cleaner sound. Harpsichords became all but obsolete within just a few decades. Ironically, harpsichords have come back into fashion in recent years because of their unique and distinctive sound. They are often heard as part of the backup for many contemporary songs, though relatively few people actually own a genuine harpsichord.
The piano is by far the most common keyboard instrument today. They are found in nearly every school and church in North America, as well as in millions of private homes. Most every music student has at least some piano training. They are one of the easiest instruments to learn to play and provide a good musical basis for learning other instruments.
Of course, with an electronics-loving society came the natural evolution of the piano to a plug-in version. These are commonly referred to as synthesizers. Aside from the obvious difference from the piano in the requirement of electricity, synthesizers are capable of mimicking many different instruments. Even the most rudimentary of synthesizers usually have several different instrument modes. The more complex the machine, the more sounds it is able to reproduce. More expensive models are extremely complex and technical. Their technology is of such quality that it can be difficult to distinguish their sound from the actual instrument they are mimicking.
New advances in technology, especially in computers, are being made every year. How this will affect the further evolution of keyboard instruments remains to be seen. It appears, though, that the good old fashioned piano is here to stay for a while.
George Frideric Handel, by Balthasar Denner (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A great gift to music entered into the world on 23 February 1685 in Halle, Germany. A life of great musical interest; one filled with an unbelievable talent that would become a beacon to many throughout the European continent and span centuries past its lifetime. It is a life that would become centered around a great mystery of how the musical talent would blossom into a recognized and celebrated gift; a life that would alter the musical landscape and the spiritual worship realm in a short 24 days, and a life that would become so influential that it would dictate musical compositions for many years afterward.
A musical life that in the beginning would find itself struggling to exist; a life that will be forever known in George Frideric Handel. It is through Handel that we credit many great musical accomplishments; accomplishments in the mixture of homophonic and polyphonic textures, through the creation of his own unique works through the process of combining German, Italian, French, and English musical traditions into his highly successful English Oratorios. And most importantly through the lasting effects of Handel's single greatest gift to the world, and the world of music: The Messiah. But how does the work of this single musician leave such a strong impression on the music that we have today? What could possibly make the music of Handel something that would be hailed as electric, memorable, unique, and even cutting edge? And most importantly how could one person alter the musical idiom through a single twenty-four-day creation of a setting of Christ's life? Through these questions, I will explore Handel's impact on music in a way that shed's light on the significance of Handel as a musician, a teacher, and inventor and as a religious preserver. It is with Handel that we credit a great deal of musical advancement.
Adversity in Handel's life was something that he encountered early on in life. At an early age, Handel found himself faced with a father that did not support a career in music, in fact, his father was a person that greatly hated music; noting that it was a pastime that served the sole purpose of casting a light on the weakness of character found within a person. It was his father that wished he would strive to obtain a career as a lawyer, a position that would come with a great deal of security in position and financial stability. This was something that Handel himself would have to come to terms with, because he himself was born with "signs of a fierce ambition, born of an awareness of his superiority as a musician, and with a determination to maintain his independence." This determination to advance his musical skill became a task that took a great deal of hard work and convincing; though it was Handel's mother that provided access to a clavichord hidden in the family's attic. The hours spent hiding from his father in the attic, covering the strings of the clavichord with cloth to dampen the sound, allowed young George the time to practice his musical development and eventually the knowledge of how to play both the clavichord and the organ. This early study is most likely what saved the musical career for Handel because it was during the time stuck in the attic that a young Duke passing by heard young George playing in the attic and was so moved by what he heard, that he stopped to listen. After hearing young George play the organ, the Duke pleaded with George's father to allow him to travel to Berlin and begin to take music lessons. The young Handel began taking lessons at the age of eight, and was easily able to conquer learning the violin, composition and theory techniques, harpsichord, and reinforce the organ playing skills. By the age of 11, there seemed little that any music teacher could teach George; it was at this point that George's father began angrily and again expressed his desire for George to cease playing in the music, and to return home and do as he wished. Handel at the request of his father did, in fact, return home, only to arrive at his father's deathbed. This was a dark period of struggle for the young Handel, compelled to honor his father's wishes, George decided that it was best to keep to his studies in law; though during this same time he continued to also sharpen the musical skills that he knew he possessed. It was during this time that Handel began to write cantatas for the various churches that he was serving in as an organist. It was the service in music that called out to Handel, and by the time he reached the age of eighteen, Handel had realized that it was, in fact, his destiny to become a great musician noting that he was destined to improve his musical abilities and his knowledge of music.
Leaving his birth city of Halle lead him on a series of travels that would shape the musical aspect of the outlook that Handel would eventually have on music. The various travels and cities that Handel was to visit would begin to influence every aspect of music that Handel would come to know and appreciate, and it was his first destination in Hamburg that would lead Handel on the path of musical greatness. It was during his time in Hamburg that Handel was really introduced to opera, and it took no time before Handel was given a position in the orchestra on the second violin. The time at the Opera house playing the violin was a period that would bring the birth of what people would come to see as a man that was described as a "large and very portly man", one that was full of a short temper and one that had a general appearance about him that was "somewhat heavy and sour." The personality of Handel would be something that many really would see as a double-edged sword, in one aspect he was an intelligent man that had a good sense of humor, one that shows a remarkable sense of integrity, reliability, and absolute honesty in all aspects of his life; but at the same time, Handel was a person that possessed a short fuse, and hot temper. He was a man that was short-tempered and vocal about his opinions of life in general, and especially music. This personality would be a defining part of Handel's musical career, as it was shortly after he started working in Hamburg at the Opera house, that George was given the opportunity to display his tremendous talent at the harpsichord; though it was also this talent that caused young George (now approximately age 22) to vocally disagree with composer Johann Mattheson on a composition Mattheson had written. It was this short fuse of Handel's that nearly ended his career, and life; though this spunk Handel exhibited also gave him the opportunity to catch the eye of a young prince, Prince Ferdinando de' Medici, which would become impressed with the music Handel was performing. This leads to Handel being asked to leave his home, now Hamburg, and make the journey to Italy where he would again be placed in a situation of being surrounded by new composers and styles of music.
Portrait of Georg Friedrich Händel - (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The move to Italy was an exciting time for Handel, as Handel was at a point of where his primary motivation for traveling to new areas was that of gaining experience, and in the case of the opportunity to visit Italy, the objective was to learn as much as he could from the composers of Italy, and their wonderful operas. It was in Italy that Handel made significant strides in his musical career and overall development. For when Handel made it to Italy he was exposed to the world's greatest forms of music consisting of compositions of the likes of Opera, Cantatas, oratorios, chamber cantatas, concertos, and sonatas. This was a period that Handel began the task of refining his knowledge and really defining the compositional talents he had been using to this point.
Handel was afforded the luxury of being able to set no limit on the boundaries of which his music would take because of the generous gift of being surrounded by people that we're able to support Handel and his daily needs. As a member of Prince Francesco Ruspoli court, Handel was given the freedom to explore compositional aspects and dig into the music that so highly intrigued him, though it wasn't until 1710 that Handel's musical world would come to full realization, and would establish Handel as one of the greatest musicians of all times. The year 1710 came with Handel's move back to Germany where he would fall into the role once held by Steffani in Hanover as Kapellmeister to the Elector, George Louis, who eventually become King George I of England. Once in Hanover Handel was quickly convinced to travel to England with Prince George to scout out the music scene in the country as Prince George's mother Sophia was married to the English Elector, meaning that Prince George would eventually assume the throne of England (which happened in 1714). During the early visits to London, the young Handel became highly intrigued in London's newest opera house, the Queen's Theater, and it was here that Handel decided that he would produce an opera that was Italian in nature and composed specifically for London. The opera Rinaldo was thus first produced in 1711, and consisted of slightly over a dozen performances, all of which were considered a huge success; thus paving the way for Handel's move to England, and what was to become the foundation for the overall success of Handel.
The move to England was a positive move for Handel overall, leading to his ultimate desire to become a British citizen. Once he was finally settled into his life in England, Handel was offered and accepted the role of music director for the Royal Academy of Music when it opened in 1720. The academy was the center for operatic studies for many years after opening; credited greatly to the presence of Handel himself and his ability to attract the best singers to perform the works he had written himself. Though as with any worthy project dealing with the biggest and brightest stars, the academy began to see a decline in stature and operation; attributed to the high demands the singers were placed on the academy both performance-wise and financially. This was only fueled by internal conflicts among performers, patrons, and rival composers. This was a time when Handel's short fuse and hot temper did not help, as Handel himself was part of many of the quarrels that took place, though he was clever enough to lighten the situation and make the tensions eventually come to an end through humor and quick wit. This did not help the academy in the long run as it eventually was forced to close its doors, but at the same time, it only freed Handel to focus on his career, and eventually give him the time to prepare for the needed shift in musical direction as the opera itself had reached a point to where it was no longer a viable musical performance option in England.
The shift from opera was one that Handel himself was easily able to undertake, for the ambition and determination to succeed in the music realm allowed Handel to develop an internal motivator that he looked to for resolve to win fame and fortune and to "make money; honestly, if you can, but make money." This was something that would serve Handel himself well because it is Handel's personality and desire to serve the music and the people that gave him the title of "musician of the people." This afforded Handel the ability to see a great deal of success with his music and career while in England going through the period of shifting from the Operatic style to that of composing English Oratorios. This also only aided Handel in popularity because many people saw Handel's music as "property of the people, familiar, understood, and loved" and this was related to many English subjects as to the "work of not another great master the wide world over."
The overall history of Handel is able to show that the experience and cultural exposure of his various travels, gave Handel himself a wide range and palette to work from. It is through the exposure to these cultures and musical styles, compositions, composers, patron, and musician employers that Handel was given the tools needed to succeed in the music world, but the experiences themselves did not create a unique character that was what was admired in Handel. It was the personal traits that Handel possessed that afforded him the opportunity to be loved by many and respected by all. The personality of Handel was a unique blend of every imaginable aspect one could possibly think of, he had a drive; a determination to succeed, the ability to make people laugh, a sense of quick-wittedness, a familiarity aspect, devotion to religion, honesty, integrity, and incredible love of music. But most importantly Handel never let anything stand in his way of doing what he loved: serving the people, the music, and his religion. An example comes in the form of the inability of anything to stand in the way of Handel's success. In 1737 Handel suffered a stroke that for the most part threatened to end everything. The stroke had left Handel's right arm paralyzed and thus prevented him from being able to perform and also had an effect on his mind. It was during this time that Handel fought to remain active and did through the writing of Italian operas though the public no longer favored them. Handel pushed through all obstacles that he encountered including eventual blindness that took a toll on his compositions and eventually left Handel performing his music for organs from memory. It was ironic that Handel had a determination to succeed because it was this determination that left him a person that was totally withdrawal from life and society, though loved by all. He did spend most of his time and life locked away from society and the daily life in order to focus on his music and thus never married nor had any children. He was a man that truly devoted his life to the people, his music, and changing the world of music.
The Influence Handel had on music was immense, the style and techniques that he was able to incorporate into the daily musical vocabulary was a blending of the major European styles that Handel had experienced in his travels from Halle to Hanover, to Hamburg, Italy, and England. Simply put, Handel took the best of all the styles and created one Handelian style that would become a standard for the musical world, allowing him to "mature as a composer in England, the country than most hospitable to foreign composers." Handel had a solid foundation from the early Lutheran church music that he was around growing up, this attention to the harmonic structure and counterpoint of the music he was able to adapt a rich lush style in the compositions that he wrote from the sacred cantatas through the opera, and eventually into the English Oratorios. One defining feature of the style that Handel possessed is that he was ever aware of the changing trends of the time, though his style of writing stayed pretty much the same and didn't need much altering for he has such a gift for writing melodies that one would never realize that many times a harmony was not present under the melodic line. The melodies were bold and self-sustaining and thus needed no support from a harmonic progression to carry it through. A strong feature of Handel's compositional style was the process of "borrowing" materials. It is clear and evident that Handel borrowed musical ideas from others during his life as a way to create a new melting pot of musical ideas. But Handel also employed the technique of borrowing musical material, or re-use of musical material, from his own work; however, he did like to use material from other composers better. He did this in a way that varied, one method was simply to take entire pieces, or movements, from one work and reuse them in another, or to borrow material from a composer and then rework it to create essentially new compositions, as seen in the Choruses from Messiah and Belshazzar's feast; using the Italian duet "for unto us a child is born." The use of the borrowing technique is one that is unique to Handel because it was in the 1930's that it seems as if the practice ceases, though this could be because Handel found the need to shift composition styles, and thus opened himself to a wide range of materials to now pull from, thus making the reference of music harder to pinpoint. But the fact remains that the "borrowing does not affect his status as a composer" because Handel himself never based his career on any single piece of work that utilized music that was credited to the creation of another person. Thus it is not known if any single composer influenced Handel himself, however, it was obvious that Handel left an obvious influence on a composer that appeared during his time and certainly after his death in 1759.
But it was in the 1930s that Handel really would begin to impact and alter the trajectory of music and musical composition through the creation of the new genre of the English Oratorio. The English Oratorio was much like the Italian form of the genre as it set dialogue in lyrical and recitative verses but then was combined with foreign elements from the French drama, Greek tragedy, German passion, and most importantly the English masque. These characteristics combined together was enough to solidify the fact that Handel was to be the greatest musical figure of all time, and one of the most respected people in all of London and England. One of the most important contributions the Oratorio made was to the vocal setting, and through the addition of the chorus. What made this such a huge success for Handel and for the popularity of his music was the sheer fact that Handel was able to create unique effects with the orchestration of the vocal score to create a simple form that alternated in the written passages of verses from an open fugal style to that of a solid harmonic sound. This added with the orchestra, who normally was scored in a way to support the vocal parts created a work that was not only easy to sing but also made it accessible to the general public, making it established that "Handel is the musician of the people." This form of music was never meant to be suited for the church, the Oratorios were meant for concert hall performance settings and thus even though the Messiah, one of Handel's most well-known piece was written as an Oratorio, it was actually seen more as a "sacred entertainment" piece.
But Handel's contribution did not stop at the creation of the new style of music in the English Oratorio, but he actually found a great deal of success in writing instrumental works. The instrumental aspect of Handel's musical output was one that garnished him with a great deal of extra income and was a major factor in keeping the name of Handel fresh in everyone's mind and in their daily musical dealings. Though true to the nature of Handel, he was dedicated to being as successful as he could in all writing aspects that he undertook. Thus the two of his works in the instrumental category best know were written for the King and were meant to be for the public pleasure during the various outdoor performances and social gatherings. The first, Water Music was written in 1717 and was comprised of three suites for winds and strings that were meant to be played from a boat on the River Thames for the king's pleasure while he was entertaining socially those that he wished to stay in good graces with. The later of the works written in 1749 is the Music for the Royal Fireworks, a staggering piece written for an enormous wind section with strings later added in, meant to be played in an outdoor London park during a firework celebration. The work was written for many military instruments and was a work that excluded the use of stringed instruments, something that Handel initially had objections with. These two works directly play into the desire of Handel to continue to push the boundaries of what music was, and what it could do for the people, and how it could be enjoyed for all, in all aspects of life.
The most profound work that Handel ever wrote, one that would become the model work in the sacred realm of composition; one that would receive a great deal of homage by composers from all areas of Europe and for many decades, is the now infamous, Messiah. The Messiah is a remarkable piece simply from the process in which Handel took to write it. In a short twenty-four day span, the work would come to existence from a mere thought. A large part of the ability for Handel to become so musically genius was the way in which he typically broke, or even stretched out traditional styles of composing music in order to make a dramatic impact on the work he was involved with. He was able to do this through the way in which he personally lived his life and through the enriched skills he had developed throughout his extensive travels. He had acquired the ability to take raw talent and to polish it up into something of pure beauty and wonder. Since Handel himself typically chose various religious themes for many of his compositions, more and more of the British citizens began to approve using his music as a method of worshiping their god. It was fitting that Handel made his home in England because it is the English that "have always been a Bible-reading... god-fearing nation, with strong religious instincts and a reverence for sacred things". Messiah is Handel's most well-known work, and it is the best example of a work that can be used as a creative worship piece. The work is divided into three segments: The coming of the Messiah, The suffering and death of Christ, and the Resurrection. This work was composed and contained various features that gave way to a wide range of emotions: joy, sadness, fear, excitement, love, compassion, dramatic, and hopefully; but no matter what the need or feeling that way to be expressed Handel found a way to do it, and the Messiah was the catalyst to showcase those talents.
The Messiah composed in 1742 is seen by many as the best-written oratorio that has ever been written. The extensive piece contains some fifty sections of music and performance that takes nearly three hours to fully perform and celebrate. The most impressive aspect of the piece is the fact that it was composed in a mere twenty-four days; accomplished by Handel locking himself in his home refusing to be interrupted by anyone. During this time it was reported that Handel barely ate anything and slept very little. This was yet another nod to the dedication that Handel was known to have, and also played into the aspect that Handel had simply become part of his work, and thus always made sure that his full attention and thought were put into the music as it was composed. It might have been odd for Handel to write such a religiously profound piece considering that he himself was not a very religious person until the later part of his life; though there are accounts that lay claim to a "divine source" as the inspirational and motivational factor for the composition of the work. So profound was the work that Handel himself self-stated that "I did see Heaven before me, and the great God himself" when he had finished the widely recognized Hallelujah chorus. The work has had a lasting effect on not only the composer's reputation as one of the greatest advancers of the musical composition spectrum but also on the works of composers who have been inspired by the works of Handel; Mozart being someone that had become extremely influenced by Handel and in particular the Messiah. But there also have been effects of this wonderful composition on the tradition of the work, and the performance aspect of how it moves people to feel something nearly spiritual every time it is heard. It is reported that during the first performance of this composition in London, that the current King of England, King George II, felt so moved and religiously compelled to stand during the singing of the Hallelujah chorus that others fell in step with the king (as was the protocol of subjects to their king) and stood as well. This is a tradition that continues to this very day during the performances of Handel's Messiah.
As you can see Handel had an enduring legacy on music and the compositional aspects of music. The dedication that Handel should to his life of music and the preservation of a lasting legacy has allowed Handel to really never leave us. His effects have been felt to this very day through the standing of the audience during the Messiah, to the compositional nods that composers give to Handel in their works. Handel is someone that proved to many that as long as there exists the desire to achieve, the object of their desire can be reached. Handel's life there seemed to be filled with adversity from the beginning. From his father not wanting Handel to participate in a career filled with music, to his struggles with changing musical styles, the sometimes-awkward positions that Handel found himself in as it relates to arguments; Handel persevered through it all. It was not until the end of his life that Handel showed signs of a frail individual not able to continue on. Blindness was a severe blow to Handel's career being that the production of, and revision of large-scale works was something that could no longer be done. Handel continued to do what he had done all of his life and find new ways to stay relevant and current with the musical needs and did so through the use of trusted friends that did most of the dictation work for Handel, however eventual total blindness left Handel in such poor health that even that had to come to an end. It was finally on April 14, 1759, that Handel left his body form and thus was not the death of Handel, but was the birth of an enduring legacy of Handel on the musical styling of what was to come.
Penelope Jean - Publicist, TV Entertainment Analyst, and Booking Agent (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the world of the music business, there are true singers who sing and singers who don’t, along with talent booking agents who book and those that couldn’t sell cotton candy at the circus. Is it drive, talent, or a mystical combination of “factors” that create singers and talent booking agents, or is it yet the pure unexplainable? Let’s look at some factors in this article as singers, looking to further their careers, try to find suitable representation.
As a former talent booking agent with the William Morris Agency, I can tell you that there are many factors that determine both effective agents and marketable singers and artists. While there are many explainable factors, there certainly is the element of luck, the right place at the right time and the “Who knows, it just happened,” phenomenon. Let’s start with what we can determine and hopefully, you will gain some insight into what effective booking agents look like and your securing one of them.
To begin with, there are many calibers of booking agents out there. As I’ve outlined in a previous article on booking talent, that you can find at ReelMusician, there is the order taking agents who book mainly headline acts, the agent who started in some agency somewhere and who branches out starting their own agency booking more of the “has been” acts and the lowest, but not always the least on the totem pole agents. These agents are usually friends of the artist or a manager looking to push their act before a major record deal signing, etc.
With each agent level comes a different approach. The order taking agent, with the larger well-known talent agencies, isn’t going to be interested in your act unless there are interest and ongoing courting from a major record label. These agents take the “baby” acts and use leverage, with promoters who want the headline act, into a must take the baby act as well deal – And most promoters don’t have a problem and understand that this is part of the deal when playing in the big boys club. Unless you have a record deal or are very appealing and are drawing some interest from the labels or a big-time manager, you won’t find yourself behind the desk of one of these agents. If you are trying to approach the agent at the top of the pyramid, you must recognize that image, packaging, appeal, and your knowing and talking the game to a tee, and not in artsy-fartsy language, is going to be key.
I recommend that you really have your act together and don’t even begin to bother these individuals, not that they’re necessarily the best agents in the game, but certainly have more power and influence from position alone, before approaching them. Your artist bio, pictures, artist demos have to look like there label ready. And before that, you really need to have a manager and a manager working on securing an agent on your behalf.
Again, many more articles on this and other topics can be found at ReelMusician. So, unless you really have your act together, with management in place, don’t bother wasting yours or the agent’s time.
The next level down the agent totem pole will not only be easier to gain access to but easier to gain representation from. The middle line agents are hard-working agents who make their bread and butter on the older, end of the product or market shelf life acts. These acts, because of name recognition, can make these agents a significant income. You will have to prove to this agent that you will not take up any more time than any other activity that they are promoting. Why should they spend all of their time trying to book your act with nothing or little in return? This is a key question. Ask yourself, as an agent, what do I get out of this? - Phone bills and mailing costs or am I going to see a valid positive cash flow return on all of my time expended on this act? I want you to think about that question and reflect. This alone will help you not only relate, converse knowing their difficulties in booking but ultimately help you secure a booking agent.
In the game of booking, you as an artist have to have something more than “hip and cool” and a “new” artist sound, but you have to be able to present to the seller, that being your agent, that he or she has something of value to sell with minimal headaches. You can’t possibly begin to imagine how hard it is to book some acts – when you start booking your own shows, with vested interest I might ad, you begin to touch on the realities of the agent’s day to day barrage of booking complexities. So begin to compile a mental list of positive booking attributes that you or your band can bring to the table.
As you look at either contemplating a manager, or a serious friend who wants a try at booking and management of your act, try to be reasonable in your business relationships. I’ve said it before, that everyone wants to be a star, but nobody wants to help pay for it. For the most part, artists just expect that booking agents and managers will pick up the exhaustive phone, mailing and press kit bills. You might inquire, if you are really serious about securing a business team, about helping out with some of the initial start-up costs trying to land your act on the map. It takes a tremendous amount of energy and money and just your willingness to help out alone, will tell a manager or booking agent that you are serious and not just “takers.” This alone, even if they decline the financial help, may be the key in determining the start of a successful relationship.
In closing, in order for you to succeed, you must remain in front of the masses and this is done not so much musically, but in your day to attitude and business focus and with your professional and well laid out blueprint for success. Feel free to contact us at the contact numbers that follow.
Adolphe Sax (1814-1894), inventor of the saxophone (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Saxophones are most commonly renowned for their use by jazz and pop musicians, although they are closely linked with instruments that include trumpets and trombones. This wind instrument will probably be generally employed in classical music but is just not commonly an instrument that stands out in such musical productions.
While classical and pop music is completely different music styles, composers like John Adams have been known to straddle the line that separates the two. He and others do so by making use of the saxophone as a classical instrument in his version of a Saxophone Concerto. Other's have been written prior to his composition, but Adam's is one of the less obscure versions.
John Adams selected solo musician Timothy McAllister to be the leader of the first functionality of his concerto in the states, together with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Adams had taken advantage of McAllister's virtuosic saxophone methods formerly for his compose, City Noir, and was eager to produce anything with a more complicated saxophone portion to showcase McAllister's skills. Clocking in at about 30 minutes, the Saxophone Concerto is definitely a showcase of difficult segments and complex polyrhythmic elements all centred on the broad range of articulation achievable with a saxophone.
Reported by McAllister, the piece is probably among the most complicated he has ever played. However, Adams has faith in McAllister's potential to achieve the relentless streams of speedy segments that cover the complete tonal spectrum of the saxophone. The North American release of the Saxophone Concerto by John Adams was held on September 20, 2013. You can find plans for it to become recorded within a studio very soon.
History of the Saxophone
Adolphe Sax unveiled the very first known saxophone in 1846. Although Sax designed the instrument with the purpose of filling the gap between brass and woodwind instruments, he pitched the saxophone based upon the instrument's sound as opposed to the traditional tunings used in classical music. He had initially created two versions of the saxophone. The very first becoming C and F pitched models which he intended to become employed in classical music. The 2nd being Bb and Eb models which have been intended for the military band usage.
In spite of his intentions, the C and F versions of the saxophone have never actually been made use of for musical arrangements, although the Bb and Eb are generally put to use within a number of compositions. Adolphe Sax constructed the saxophone with the goal of incorporating the projection and tone of the brass instrument and the playing method of woodwinds. The popularity of this instrument in solo jazz acts and pop music was largely due to its wide articulation range that offers expressive sound and an agile style of play.
"The Blueberries" on stage (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The essence of Jazz music is the ethereal atmosphere of the dimensional harmony created by a kaleidoscope of chromatic tones. It is the pulsating back beat of syncopating African rhythms through the rumble of the drums or soft sound of the brush to the snare.
The music is an expression of melody from the depth of the soul conveyed as gospel in many unique ways. These elements combined with the free impressionistic ambiance of instrumental tones in orchestration as a foundational juxtaposition of 7th, 9th,13th chordal harmony makes this style truly unique. The essence of Jazz music is music that is upbeat, full of pizzazz, yet laid back with style. One would never guess that this freestyle of music has a foundation that began with Baroque elements found in Classical music.
Classical music comes from the basic structure of homophony when two or more musical lines are played vertically in the same direction as sacred music. In fact, Jazz music is created with homophony in terms of the movement of chords to support the melodic improvisation. However, when it comes to playing intervals and chordal harmonies, Jazz is free from the restriction of classical form. For example, if a song is written in the key of C or a minor there are no sharps or flats written on the staff. Many times in Jazz music Accidentals are put in the music to cause a tonal effect found in chromatic tones. Tonal effects can occur when one or more notes are altered by raising or lowering a pitch by one-half step. Sharps are symbols in the shape of a number sign or tic tac toe board (#). Flats are symbols in the shape of a lower case B(b), yet shaped differently like half a heart.
In some Jazz pieces, both the sharp and flat can occur simultaneously in a chord. The result of such musical experimentation can be Dissonant chords unresolved for the purpose of producing a certain sound. Depending on what tones are used the sound is either full of color, or full of tension. On the other hand, Consonance is a stable balance of harmonic tones without tension. One example of the essence of Jazz Music is the song "Route 66" with a cluster of chords with dissonant tones that move from major to minor to diminished to create tonal color.
The Tones in Jazz music is always about the speech rhythm and the chordal harmony full of color as influenced by music in the impressionism period. The essence of Jazz music serves as a personal interpretation of the picture the performer wants us to think about. The icing to the cake is the vocalists and instrumentalists who perform how they feel from the soul as the music beckons them to reply to its statement. As the soloist plays or sings, the beauty of strong kaleidoscope tones in the harmony encourages one to soar especially in ballads.
All of this can occur when the harmony plays in the right position above the correct bass tones found in all Jazz masterpieces. The true essence of Jazz music is present in its ability to shape the music through tones, the syncopation of speech rhythm, the chromatic harmony, improvisational solos, and constant motion of the bass. It is the free structure made from a balanced structure, and a music expressed from the soul.
The acoustic guitar usually involves the following musical instruments:
Nylon and gut stringed guitars:
Taylor steel-string guitar. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
• Renaissance guitar
• Romantic guitar
• Classical guitar
Steel stringed guitars:
• Twelve string guitar
• Steel-string acoustic guitar
• Archtop guitar
• Battente guitar
Acoustic bass guitar
Russian guitar
Other instruments:
• Harp guitar
• Banjo guitar
• Guitar lute
The guitar can be divided into two categories, acoustic and electric
An acoustic guitar is not dependant on any external device for amplification. The shape and resonance itself have the ability to create acoustic amplification. Today there are many acoustic guitars available with built-in electronics and power to enable amplification.
Acoustic electric guitars
Some steel-string acoustic guitars are fitted with pickups as an alternative to using a different microphone. These are called electric acoustic guitars and are regarded as acoustic guitar rather than electric guitars. It should not be confused with hollow body electric guitars, which are more of electric guitars fitted with hollow sound chambers.
Free acoustic guitar lessons
There several free acoustic guitar lessons available online for beginners. The free guitar lessons are designed for guitarists of all playing abilities.
Acoustic guitar magazine
The acoustic guitar magazine is for acoustic guitar players, from beginners to performing as a professional. The magazine usually contains free acoustic and electric guitar lessons, tutorials and videos for both beginner and professional. Some of the great magazines include Flatpicking guitar magazine and Acoustic guitar.
Vintage acoustic guitars
Veteran musicians know firsthand that vintage acoustic guitars simply sound and feel better than their contemporary counterparts.
Vintage acoustic guitar body shape:
Steel-stringed vintage acoustic guitars come in two general body shapes.
Flattop vintage acoustic guitars - As the name suggests, flattop vintage acoustic guitars feature a flattop body. If you play blues, folk, bluegrass, or rock, flattops, which were pioneered by Martin, will suit you best.
Archtop vintage acoustic guitars - In contrast, archtop vintage acoustic guitars have a curved top and a hollow body. If you’re a jazz or country player, then look for archtops, which were invented by Gibson. (The most sought-after Gibson archtops are the larger models dating from the early 1930s to 1959.)
Acoustic guitar notes
A musical note is a tone. However, a musical-note tone comes from a small collection of tones that are pleasing to the human brain when used together. For example, you might pick a set of tones at the following frequencies:
• 264 Hz
• 297 Hz
• 330 Hz
• 352 Hz
Acoustic guitar reviews
Yamaha LLX-500C Acoustic/Electric Guitar
Price ranges from $2,399 or higher.
The Yamaha LLX-500C is hand built in Yamaha’s Japan factory. Features include a solid spruce top, mahogany neck, and solid rosewood back and sides. The headstock and neck of the guitar are attractive trim in ivoroid binding, and the Yamaha name on the headstock just look great. Unlike many acoustic electric, the Yamaha LLX-500C sides are solid instead of laminated.
Guild F50R Jumbo Acoustic Guitar
Price ranges from $2,499 or higher.
The F50R is based on the original F50 specification from 1960s to 1980s. The Guild F50R features an ebony fretboard and a rosewood bridge. Neck dimensions include a 25.6-inch scale and a slightly narrower-than-normal width of 1.69 inches. The F50R does not lack for fine details - the fret board has eye-catching abalone and mother-of-pearl inlays and two racing stripes that run from nut to sound-hole.
Acoustic Guitar Tabs
A tablature is a form of musical notation, which tells players where to place their fingers on a particular instrument rather than which pitches to play. Tablature is mostly seen for fretted stringed instruments, in which context it is usually called tab for short. It is frequently used for the guitar, bass and lute. But in principle it can be used for any fretted instrument includes banjo and viola da gamba.
Acoustic Guitar Strings
Guitar strings are strung parallel to the neck, whose surface is covered by the fingerboard. By depressing a string against the fingerboard, the effective length of the string can be changed, which in turn changes the frequency at which the string will vibrate when plucked. Guitarists typically use one hand to pluck the strings and the other to depress the strings against the fretboard.
The strings may be plucked using either fingers or a plectrum. The sound of a guitar is either mechanically or electronically, forming two categories of guitar: acoustic or electric.
George Gershwin was born on the 26th of September, 1986 in Brooklyn, New York. His roots were a mix of Ukrainian and Jewish roots, from Russia. The key to his interest was a violin recital by his childhood pal Max Rozen. He liked what he had heard. His parents bought a piano for his brother and future lyricist, Ira Gershwin. He took it from there and took to it more than his brother Ira.
Gershwin came from a family that had music in their blood. In addition to his brother getting into music, his sister too, started taking it up early in life but gave it up in favor of family life. Gershwin was tutored by a number of tutors who didn't make much of an impact on him and his music until he met his last piano teacher - Charles Hambitzer. Hambitzer taught him the proper way of playing the piano.
Paving his knowledge of European music history, introduced him to the music of the past and encouraged him to attend a concert when he could. When he eventually did this, he was quick at reproducing the same music note of note after returning home after the concert. He also studied with Rubin Goldmark and Henry Cowell.
When 15, George quit school and started working at Jerome H. Remick and Company as a "song-plugger" where he took a salary of $15 a week. His first commercial success was tasted with Rialto Ripples in 1917 but he really hit it big time in 1919 with his composition Swanee, which shot him to fame all over the United States.
In 1916, he worked with Aeolian Company and Standard Music Rolls doing the recording and arranging piano rolls. There is no official count of the rolls that he came up with, but it is said that he has hundreds of piano rolls to his credit. He credited his work here with a number of aliases - some which were Fred Murtha and Bert Wynn. He made rolls for reproducing pianos made by Duo-Art and Welte Mignon. He had a small little stint getting into vaudevilles playing pieces by Nora Bayes and Louise Dresser most often at the vaudeville shows that he performed at.
In 1924, he and brother Ira worked on their first musical together - a comedy - Lady be Good. The songs from Lady Be Good - Fascinating Rhythm and the title track Lady Be Good - were soon to be standards. Then on, a string of musical followed with most of them being very successful. Some of them are Girl Crazy, Strike Up the Band, Funny Face, Show Girl and Oh, Kay!. From among these, Girl Crazy became the first ever musical to win a Pulitzer Prize apart from spurning the hits I Got Rhythm and Of Thee I Sing.
The same year he made music for a musical, he also composed his first classical piece - Rhapsody In Blue. The piece was, orchestrated by Ferde Grofe, played by Paul Whiteman's band. He tried a hand at learning something from greats like Nadia Boulanger and Maurice Ravel, but Ravel rejected the proposition to teach him saying that bring his technique mainstream would ruin his jazz specialty.
His stay there inspired the piece An American In Paris. The piece didn't do well at the press and with critics when he played for the first time on the 13th of April in Carnegie Hall. But it, like some of his other early hits, became many jazz band's standard repertoires.
After getting fed up with the music scene in Paris, he decided to return home to the United States. His best was yet to come. Two years before his death in 1937, he composed his most appreciated work yet. Porgy and Bess premiered on Broadway in 1935.
In 1937, Gershwin began complaining of being able to smell burnt rubber and of headaches. He was diagnosed with a condition of a brain tumor called glioblastoma multiforme. Despite the condition, he continued to work. He played with the San Francisco Philharmonic Orchestra in the same year.
This was his last performance before he collapsed and died and dies while working on the score of The Goldwyn Follies.
Two months after his death, the score of They Can't Take That Away From Me, from the film Shall We Dance won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
You can learn to play the flute through a variety of ways, not just the traditional private lessons once a week for 30 minutes or one hour. If you're an adult beginner, this style of flute lessons is very difficult, sometimes impossible to stick with.
You're busy with work, taking care of your family, and all the other activities that adults have to deal with.
And how about finding free, uninterrupted practice time? No wonder adults want to give up before they even start!
And it's too bad, too, because the dream of many adults is to learn to play the flute. For whatever reason, an adult didn't learn to play the flute as a young person in school. Maybe they thought the band was dumb, faced peer pressure not to be in a band, their school schedule didn't permit it, or their family couldn't afford to have them play in the band.
No need to wait any longer! Today you can take flute lessons on the internet! Your lesson time is whenever is convenient for you. Break free from that rigid schedule the teacher sets up.
Sure I understand that teachers' time is valuable. If someone sets up a lesson time, then the teacher should be paid for that time. Otherwise, a teacher couldn't stay in business. But if that schedule is too constrictive for the adult student, well, the adult student will probably not start to learn to play the flute or quit.
Somebody is always throwing a monkey wrench into adults' schedules: the boss, children's school, or any number of small crises that pop up.
On-line lessons are a convenient way to learn to play the flute. Fire them up whenever you're ready!
Are you worried that these prerecorded lessons won't cover the topics you have questions about? Learning to play the flute is pretty basic and there is a very good possibility that everything you need to know has already been addressed. If not, e-mail the teacher or web site owner and ask for another lesson on that trouble spot.
Hey, don't give up that dream! If you want to learn to play the flute, you still can! Turn on your computer and get out your flute--it's your lesson time!
Folk marimba with gourds, Highland Guatemala (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Marimbas are wooden keyboard instruments in the percussion family of instruments. Players usually strike the keys with two - four mallets and one instrument may be played by one or two players; depending on the orchestral piece, you may even see three or more marimbists playing the same instrument. Marimbas are wooden instruments that resemble xylophones and they accentuate the unique harmonies and rhythms of the music.
Other instruments in the percussion family include such instruments as cymbals, chimes, the triangle, bells, to name just a few. The marimba is a pitched percussion instrument. Other pitched percussion instrument examples include the timpani, the vibraphone, the glockenspiel, and chimes
Marimbas are used mainly for 20th Century music orchestral music, usually, as a sound effect or as a solo instrument. The marimba actually had long solos in the soundtrack to the film American Beauty.
The marimba keys are arranged like the keys of a piano and they may have as many as 4 - 5.5 octaves of professional Orff-style marimba bars. The bars are tapped to play the notes, similar to the xylophone. Marimba bars are finely crafted from hardwoods such as rosewood, mahogany and padouk. The keys are fine-tuned to reflect the tones played in African societies.
For marimbas in the United States, the resonators under the wooden bars are usually metal and most likely aluminum. They are hollow metal pipes of different lengths with holes covered by thin cellophane (similar to the West African balafon). This is so that when the marimba is struck, you can hear the buzzing sound characteristic of these instruments.
The mallets generally have wooden shafts but may be made of fiberglass, as well. Rattan shafts are also available and they have a little bit of "give" to them while other materials do not. Depending on training and preference, a marimbist may like the flexible shaft better than the ones with no "give" or vice versa. The material that actually strikes the key is usually some type of rubber wrapped in yarn. The marimba keys themselves will define which type of mallet is used on which part of the keyboard. The harder mallets are usually used to strike the high notes and the softer mallets for the lower notes. This is particularly important in playing the marimba because a mallet that is too hard for the keys it strikes may damage the instrument.
Most marimba music calls for several mallets to be used in one composition. It is not uncommon to find 2-3 players stationed at the marimba during a performance. Because two or three people will wield four to six mallets, it is possible to hear beautiful chords coming from the instrument. Many marimba players also play with more than one mallet in each hand. Different methods have also been developed to hold the mallets necessary for a piece of music in one hand. The Burton grip and the Musser-Stevens grip are the two common methods of gripping multiple mallets and each has its advantages and disadvantages.
The repertoires of bands in the United-States tend to overlap, probably due to the fact that most of the marimba music is composed by the Zimbabwean musician Dumisani Maraire. He is one of the key people who first brought Zimbabwean music to the West, moving to and working at the University of Washington in 1968. He was a master at playing an instrument known as the mbira which greatly resembles a small hand-held instrument known as the thumb piano.
A marimba is an expensive but beautiful instrument. Professional marimbas start in the $2,000 range for a used instrument. They add an open tone to many different compositions that make them very unique and sought after in the instrument family.
