Music Theory and Lake Effect Snow
Jan. 4th, 2018 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisnewdayThe snow from the big storm that's moving up the East Coast has been falling steadily all day. I've shovelled three times and used that as an excuse for skipping my workout. I guess, technically speaking, its direction and source might indicate that it's not truly lake effect, but I've also heard that part of the one-two punch we're getting IS from an Arctic air mass sweeping down across the Great Lakes. Regardless of the terminology, it's cold, it's white, and there's a lot of it.
One good thing that came of it, I suppose, is that it forced cancellation of the grandson's soccer practice. Which is not, in itself, a good thing. But it did free up some time, this evening, for me to work with one of my granddaughters on some music theory that she had questions about. She's in the 5th grade, is a beginning keyboard percussionist with her school's concert band, and had requested some help before her next class.
It's been just over 50 years since I walked out of Mason Hall as an ex-music major, having returned my loaner French horn and, a while later, selling my trumpet. But in a funny turn of events, I've now gotten to use some of what I'd learned back then and to try my hand at the profession I'd walked away from. And to have some fun doing it.
I'd been thinking, recently, about buying or leasing a mellophone which is a sort of bell-forward cousin of the French horn. It has somewhat the same voice and range as the French horn but, with its front-facing bell, projects its sound much more effectively when used as a marching instrument. In the last 25-30 years, for example, it's become the mid-range voice of Drum Corps International's marching brass, both in the U.S. and internationally. (It's also known as a "marching mellophone.")
Anyway, at the very least, I'm gonna have to pick up a beginning music theory book because vaguely remembering something that I'd studied over fifty years ago is hardly sufficient when mentoring a young musician. Coincidentally, my music theory teacher at Fredonia was a young percussionist by the name of Danlee Mitchell who had just finished a stint with the Seattle Symphony before coming east to teach for a year.
He also performed with my hometown orchestra, the Erie Philharmonic, and would go on to become an eminent music educator in his own right, having retired over a decade ago following a long career as a teacher at San Diego State and as a protege, performer, and curator of the life works of composer and experimentalist, Harry Partch.
That having been said, Professor Mitchell, let me hasten to assure you that I was both awake and attentive during those Saturday morning classes that I was privileged to have with you; I learned much and respected you greatly. But Dude, fifty years is a long time.
And those years, it would seem, have fallen across the mind like a wind-blown curtain of lake effect snow...
LPK
Dreamwidth
1.4.2018
One good thing that came of it, I suppose, is that it forced cancellation of the grandson's soccer practice. Which is not, in itself, a good thing. But it did free up some time, this evening, for me to work with one of my granddaughters on some music theory that she had questions about. She's in the 5th grade, is a beginning keyboard percussionist with her school's concert band, and had requested some help before her next class.
It's been just over 50 years since I walked out of Mason Hall as an ex-music major, having returned my loaner French horn and, a while later, selling my trumpet. But in a funny turn of events, I've now gotten to use some of what I'd learned back then and to try my hand at the profession I'd walked away from. And to have some fun doing it.
I'd been thinking, recently, about buying or leasing a mellophone which is a sort of bell-forward cousin of the French horn. It has somewhat the same voice and range as the French horn but, with its front-facing bell, projects its sound much more effectively when used as a marching instrument. In the last 25-30 years, for example, it's become the mid-range voice of Drum Corps International's marching brass, both in the U.S. and internationally. (It's also known as a "marching mellophone.")
Anyway, at the very least, I'm gonna have to pick up a beginning music theory book because vaguely remembering something that I'd studied over fifty years ago is hardly sufficient when mentoring a young musician. Coincidentally, my music theory teacher at Fredonia was a young percussionist by the name of Danlee Mitchell who had just finished a stint with the Seattle Symphony before coming east to teach for a year.
He also performed with my hometown orchestra, the Erie Philharmonic, and would go on to become an eminent music educator in his own right, having retired over a decade ago following a long career as a teacher at San Diego State and as a protege, performer, and curator of the life works of composer and experimentalist, Harry Partch.
That having been said, Professor Mitchell, let me hasten to assure you that I was both awake and attentive during those Saturday morning classes that I was privileged to have with you; I learned much and respected you greatly. But Dude, fifty years is a long time.
And those years, it would seem, have fallen across the mind like a wind-blown curtain of lake effect snow...
LPK
Dreamwidth
1.4.2018
