October 31, 2009
Hello, good morning, and welcome to the Saturday Morning News Post!
First off, readers, let me say a big hoorah! to all of you who offered your two bits in the brand new comments section which became (thanks to Chris Hold) the latest exciting feature of the SMNP. It’s great to read your opinions, feed back, stories, etc. So you get to voice your opinions on my uninformed views of life and the arts, whle I get to feel like I’ve got friends,…it’s a win-win folks!
As I write this weeks SMNP I am flying from Montreal to Vancouver to follow my one true passion, you guessed it! more…
October 24, 2009
Hello, good morning, and welcome to the Saturday Morning News Post!
Readers, something unusual happened to me the other night. I was listening to a recording of my song being rehearsed with the student 10-tet here at McGill; it’s a somewhat difficult piece and the read-through was shaky (as first read-throughs generally are), and then came the clarinet solo by yours truly…
If I can be at all objective about my own creative work I’d say this clarinet solo was somewhat, em,…lame. I was playing as loud as possible in order to be heard (it’s a loud kind of song but clarinet isn’t a very loud instrument), which led to tension not only in the sound but in my hands as well, which led to uneven (and “ungrooving”) technique and generally poor rhythm. I could even hear myself mid-solo realizing how bad it was sounding as I began to flounder for any musical ideas I could think of.
Now readers, I like to think my clarinet playing doesn’t usually suck that bad but this wasn’t the unusual part I speak of. The unusual part of it was more…
October 17, 2009
Hello, good morning, and welcome to the Saturday Morning News Post!
First off, my sincere thanks to all those readers who took the time to answer last weeks questions regarding changes to my web site and the SMNP.
Yes, thank you all,… all 3 of you. more…
October 10, 2009
Hello, good morning and welcome to another edition of the Saturday Morning News Post!
A surprising thing to me about writing weekly news posts (for almost a year now!) is that I don’t seem to run out of things to talk about!
I do however, run out of time when trying to write long-winded diatribes brilliant articles on such things as “The Institutionalization Of An Art Form”. Plus, after spending way too much time on such efforts I really don’t know who (if anyone) is interested!
Sooo, I’m going to ease up on the throttle a little this week and ask for some feedback from you, my dear, dear readers. The questions are:
1. What changes would you like to see made to my website? And…
2. What subjects would you like to see more or less of on the Saturday Morning News Post?
That’s right folks, go ahead and pipe up on what you’d like to see more/less of, or… what’s missing altogether!? (Lord knows, I’m happy to offer my uninformed opinions on just about anything). more…
October 4, 2009
Hello, good morning, and welcome to the Saturday morning news post!
My apologies for yet another late post this week. I’ve been trying to write these things earlier but inevitably the first draft kinda sucks and I have to scrap it. My SMNP readers deserve better damnit!…all 9 of you.
As some of you know, I’m a hypocrite when it comes to the subject of jazz education, I’ve often questioned its legitimacy and yet here I am, working away at another degree in music. Well folks, I’ve had a change of heart and it all began in a most unlikely place,…my jazz pedagogy class. more…