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How to teach emotion

All aspects of music performance—composing, reper­toire selec­tion, pro­gram­ming, rehearsal tech­nique, con­duct­ing and baton tech­nique, recording—should stem from this fun­da­men­tal truth. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, when con­duct­ing our ensem­bles we… Read More »How to teach emotion

The language of music

The great genet­ic role of the right hemi­sphere of the brain is what cre­ates mean­ing in music and is what we mean by “musi­cal­i­ty” in performance.

Question Nr. 27

And those who seek for the best kind of song and music ought not to seek for that which is pleas­ant, but for that which is True.

Question Nr. 26

Pla­to presents ques­tions about the arts which are only answered lat­er when Aris­to­tle founds the new branch of phi­los­o­phy, Aesthetics.

The King Kong of Band Music!

Dan­ish com­pos­er Andreas Hal­lager pre­sent­ed a gift to Friedrich Wil­helm IV, King of Prus­sia, for his 47th birth­day: an almost 900-page score of a pro­gram­mat­ic com­po­si­tion for band.

Question Nr. 24

It both­ered Pla­to that not every­one agrees when it comes to describ­ing the beau­ty. In the end he com­plains, “All that is beau­ti­ful is difficult.”

Question Nr. 23

Beethoven said that music is a more lofty rev­e­la­tion than all wis­dom and phi­los­o­phy. What high­er wis­dom do you expe­ri­ence in music?

On the teaching of listening

Audi­ences are dis­ap­pear­ing not because of the reper­toire but because they haven’t been edu­cat­ed to con­sid­er music as some­thing oth­er than back­ground atmosphere.

Question Nr. 22

With 500 TV chan­nels, movies and sport­ing events beyond count­ing, should it be the school sys­tem’s job to pro­vide the pub­lic with more entertainment?

Wagner for Band: A Repertoire List

The music of Richard Wag­n­er has always been a favourite amongst band con­duc­tors. At times Wag­n­er him­self rec­om­mend­ed some of his music as an appro­pri­ate addi­tion to the band repertoire.

Question Nr. 20

Every musi­cian knows that the pur­pose of music is to com­mu­ni­cate feel­ings to the lis­ten­er. But this is first com­mu­ni­cat­ed in the choice of repertoire. 

Question Nr. 19

Pythago­ras (580–500 BC) as a teacher is still remem­bered for a num­ber of sym­bol­ic utter­ances. One was “Abstain from beans.”

Question Nr. 18

Por­phyry recalled that Pythago­ras (580–500 BC) allowed no one to become a friend or asso­ciate with­out first being exam­ined in facial expres­sion and disposition.

Question Nr. 17

Pythago­ras (580–500 BC) has been judged by Walther Kirch­n­er (1960) as “one of the most out­stand­ing math­e­mati­cians of all times,” but by Her­a­cli­tus (c. 500 BC) as “the chief cap­tain of swindlers.”

Question Nr. 16

Her­a­cli­tus (c. 513 BC) was one of the first philoso­phers to ques­tion the con­sid­er­a­tion giv­en by musi­cians to their audience.