Today I had a good Aural Skills class, and learned in composition that I have to write something in a week a perform it next Friday. Hm...
Singers was good, and after that there was a very lengthy but very entertaining master class by So Percussion, in which they had some chamber groups play without their music even though it wasn't memorized, and play wrong on purpose together just to achieve a better sense of ensemble awareness. There was also some singing of parts as an example of how to practice without instruments, and some general life lessons. Oh, and one of them has a blog:
goingindifferentdirections.blogspot.com
I'm meeting all sorts of cool people with blogs this week.
After that I caught up on the Daily Show and headed over to the Music Annex to pack up the drums for African Ensemble. We played a short little concert tonight, 15 minutes, at a private school (I think?) just east of Denton. They were doing a series of little presentations on the world, and each little class picked a country, and all of the kids from Pre-k 3 (isn't that pretty young?) to 5th grade had a little skit. We were the grand finale, and I thought we sounded pretty nice. A lot of us showed up, which is pretty unusual.
We got home after the concert and their dinner, and I relaxed for a little bit before biking down to Hailey's off the square to go see SNARKY PUPPY ahhhhhhhhh. I got there at like 9:40, expecting to be fashionably late, since the doors opened at 9, but I don't think anyone started playing until at least 10:30, and they had a guest vocalist come sing with them as an opener, so they didn't truly kick off until about 11:30. But when they did finally get around to it, they blew a lot of minds, melted a lot of faces, and rocked very hard. They played all of their funkiest material, and had some extended solo breaks and slow jams just to please the crowd. The drummer was fantastic, but then they brought on some 16 year old kid from Booker T. Washington School for the Arts, and he was literally unbelievable. Some of his ideas coming through the drums would have probably never in my lifetime come from my own head, and at times it seemed like he was outplaying the actual drummer. I was really impressed, with the whole thing, and I danced like a white fool right in front of the stage and I had a blast. I got a t-shirt. I'm really glad they're coming back in April.
It's been a really good Friday and the beginning of a really good Saturday, and I'm excited.
M
I'm meeting all sorts of cool people with blogs this week.
After that I caught up on the Daily Show and headed over to the Music Annex to pack up the drums for African Ensemble. We played a short little concert tonight, 15 minutes, at a private school (I think?) just east of Denton. They were doing a series of little presentations on the world, and each little class picked a country, and all of the kids from Pre-k 3 (isn't that pretty young?) to 5th grade had a little skit. We were the grand finale, and I thought we sounded pretty nice. A lot of us showed up, which is pretty unusual.
We got home after the concert and their dinner, and I relaxed for a little bit before biking down to Hailey's off the square to go see SNARKY PUPPY ahhhhhhhhh. I got there at like 9:40, expecting to be fashionably late, since the doors opened at 9, but I don't think anyone started playing until at least 10:30, and they had a guest vocalist come sing with them as an opener, so they didn't truly kick off until about 11:30. But when they did finally get around to it, they blew a lot of minds, melted a lot of faces, and rocked very hard. They played all of their funkiest material, and had some extended solo breaks and slow jams just to please the crowd. The drummer was fantastic, but then they brought on some 16 year old kid from Booker T. Washington School for the Arts, and he was literally unbelievable. Some of his ideas coming through the drums would have probably never in my lifetime come from my own head, and at times it seemed like he was outplaying the actual drummer. I was really impressed, with the whole thing, and I danced like a white fool right in front of the stage and I had a blast. I got a t-shirt. I'm really glad they're coming back in April.
It's been a really good Friday and the beginning of a really good Saturday, and I'm excited.
M
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