Category: General Music

Confirmation Bias and the Art of Music

~ wilktone ~ 1 Comment

In blog posts lately I’ve been noting confirmation bias and its role in determining how teachers and players determine the best pedagogy or best way to practice.  My personal example of fooling myself into thinking I could accurately predict a player’s embouchure type by looking at their anatomy alone is one example of what I mean by this.  Crunching the numbers showed that very few of the physical characteristics I thought would be helpful predictors turned out to be statistically significant.  There are plenty of other examples of how our biases can even change how we perceive the exact same performance.  Science itself is a process which strives to distance ourselves from confirmation bias and control for it in such a way that we don’t fool ourselves.

But there is another side to this discussion that I haven’t really written about too much before, how confirmation bias affects the musical perceptions and enjoyment of the art music making.  Writing for the Scientific American blog, Samuel McNerney explores this topic. Continue reading “Confirmation Bias and the Art of Music” →

Military Band Budget Restored

~ wilktone ~ 2 Comments

Good news for both military musicians and fans of military ensembles.

By voice vote Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House restored $120 million for the armed services’ 100-plus military bands — money that budget-conscious members of the Appropriations Committee had cut last month.

While I’m not a veteran, I did audition for military bands twice (didn’t win either audition).  I am, however, a huge fan of many of the military bands.  I have a particularly soft spot for the Airmen of Note, as two of my teachers are former members of that group (Tom Streeter and Doug Elliott) and I worked on the old Online Trombone Journal Forum with the current MD and lead trombonist, Joe Jackson.

Many people don’t realize that military bands are more than marching band style groups.  There are many jazz bands, chamber groups, even rock and country bands.  Performances and recordings by the groups are generally free (or I should say, paid for by your tax dollars already) and the quality of many of these groups is as good as any professional ensemble you’ll hear.  They don’t just play for troops, either.  They often go on tour and if you look around, you’ll probably find that a military band is playing a free concert in your area this summer.  Do yourself a favor and go listen to a high quality band performing a free concert.  You’ll not only hear great music, but you’ll also be helping to support our troops and the musicians who support them.

Update:  Bad news.  Navy musician Rich Hanks commented here that the House has done a switcheroo, and now the cuts to military musicians are back in.  Please write your congressional representative and let them know that you value the work that our military musicians do for both our troops and all our citizens.

Mozart or Salieri?

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Many musicians work very hard to develop their listening skills and knowledge of musical styles.  The “drop the needle” or “blindfold test” where you don’t get any knowledge of the music in advance is a common way to test music students’ progress.

Here’s a short quiz you can try out yourself today to see how good an ear for the styles of Mozart and Salieri.  There are 10 excerpts from pieces that were either composed by Mozart or his professional rival, Salieri.

Can you beat 80%?  I have to admit that I guessed on most, but I tried to make them educated guesses.  Probably I got lucky on a few.

The Vertical and Horizontal Aspects of Musical Phrasing by Norman Bolter

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Trombonist and composer Normal Bolter has produced some YouTube videos where he discusses the vertical and horizontal aspects of musical phrasing.  As I mentioned a couple of days ago, we often have a tendency to evaluate our practice on an objective level (correct notes, in tune, etc.) rather than the more subjective musical expression.  Good technique is extremely important for a musically satisfying performance, but we also need to practice expressive playing.

What makes playing expressive, though?  Bolter discusses this question, using Morceau Symphonique by Philippe Gaubert and a Rochut Melodious Etude as examples.  You can check it out here or on his blog.

How Important Is Soundtrack Music?

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It’s a busy time for me just now, so I’m afraid updates will be a little longer between for a bit.  At any rate, here’s something interesting I just saw.

It’s a good demonstration of just how powerful an effect the music has on our perception of the action in a film or video project.  I’ve done something similar a few times with students by recording someone walking down a hallway and dubbing in different music  for the that exact same scene.  As the music changes, so does the feel you get of the person walking.  In the above video, the change in music makes the happy Sound of Music turn into a dark and terrifying drama.

Advice For Students Writing Music Papers

~ wilktone ~ 6 Comments

The last semester of 2010 just wrapped up.  Due to the nature of two of the lecture courses I just taught, I ended up with a lot of papers to grade during the last 3 weeks of the semester.  While reading them I made note of some of the common traps that my students run into when writing about music.  Even when I go over these mistakes in class, some of them are easy to make.

There are plenty of common writing issues that crop up regardless of the topic of the paper, such as grammar and proper form and style.  Different teachers will have their own policies.  Personally, I don’t care too much if the paper is done in MLA, APA, or Chicago style, as long as it is consistent (although I’m speaking here for mostly non-music majors taking elective courses).  Don’t make up your own system of citing and such.  Find out what your teacher wants you to use and make sure that you’re following it.

Here then are some common traps to avoid when writing papers about music.

Continue reading “Advice For Students Writing Music Papers” →

How To Mark Your Music

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Yesterday I mentioned Bruce Childester’s The Trumpet Blog as one of my recommendations for online brass resources.  A short time ago he had a great post on “How to Mark Your Trumpet Music” that I wanted to recommend.  He offers examples of several standard practices and other suggestions about how to mark music appropriately.

Some of his points I’d like to reiterate include only marking your music in pencil, so it can be erased.  Also, circled music means “tacet” (lay out), not look carefully at this.  Many music students will circle things they want to remember, but I encourage everyone to get used to only using circles to mean tacet.  You never know when you’ll need a sub last minute.  Your substitute may need to sight read a performance and might assume that circled parts mean lay out.  On the flip side, you don’t want to be the only one barreling through something you were supposed to lay out on because you didn’t know what that circle means.

One piece of advice I’d like to add to Bruce’s is the use of a dash and number (e.g. “-2”) over notes to indicate exactly when the note is released.  It’s common for students to release notes too early, so I often have them mark a whole note, for example, with a “-1” to remind them to release the note after all 4 beats (on the downbeat of the next measure, or off on 1).  It’s also useful for effects like “doits” and  fall offs (“-3” to mean fall until the 3rd beat, etc.).

While you’re at it, poke around a little at The Trumpet Blog.  There’s lots of good stuff in there.

Music From Ancient Sumer

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Ensemble de Organographia is a group that specializes in performing music of the ancient world on period instruments.  Recently, with some help from archeologists, they have recreated music from ancient Sumer.  Here are a couple of videos of what Sumerian music might have sounded like.

They have released an album of this music that also includes music from ancient Egypt and Greece as well.  Now perhaps the next time I teach Music Appreciation I should start the historical portion with ancient music, rather than with music from the Middle Ages.  I see they also have an earlier album of music from ancient Greece, so I have no excuse now.

Studying For Listening Exams

~ wilktone ~ 5 Comments

It’s midterm season for me, so I’ve been giving exam reviews and meeting with students who want some additional help preparing for upcoming tests.  Music students, including non-musicians taking general studies courses, almost all become familiar with what is sometimes called a “drop the needle” type of listening test.  The instructor will play a random excerpt from a piece that was covered and the student will need to recall things like the title of the piece, composer, musical elements, and historical significance based on hearing the excerpt alone.  From the teacher’s standpoint, it’s a very effective way to test if the students are grasping the materials.

From the student’s viewpoint, however, this can be very challenging to study for, particularly for students without a music background (e.g., non-musicians taking a Music Appreciation course for a general studies elective).  Since I’ve recently given a review session to two of my appreciation classes on how to better prepare for this portion of the upcoming midterm exams (and since a couple of my students have admitted to actually reading my blog occasionally, after brownie points, no doubt!), I thought I’d offer some of my advice for preparing for the “drop the needle” test here.

Continue reading “Studying For Listening Exams” →