Victor Wooten on Music as a Language: Monday YouTube Fix

Victor Wooten is one of my heroes and this video is awesome.  In under five minutes, Victor touches on the importance of embracing mistakes and of playing often.

Warning: You are going to need to watch this video twice.  He is narrating over a video of him performing Amazing Grace and the performance is stunning.  I inadvertently blocked out all of the speaking the first time because the playing is so gorgeous even though I clicked on the video to hear him speak!

Rest assured, the message is just as good if not better than the playing.

Enjoy!

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/victor-wooten-music-as-a-language Music is a powerful communication tool--it causes us to laugh, cry, think and question. Bassist and five-time Grammy winner, Victor Wooten, asks us to approach music the same way we learn verbal language--by embracing mistakes and playing as often as possible. Lesson by Victor Wooten, produced by TED-Ed.

The Entrepreneurial Musician: Jeff Nelsen

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Jeff Nelsen discusses his phenomenal career as a member of Canadian Brass, how he won four orchestral auditions, and how he started Fearless Performance, a method for mastering the mental process of performance.

He is one of the most uplifting people I've ever met and that is reflected in Fearless Performance.  In this interview, he discusses selling yourself as a musician (which he prefers to refer to as sharing), how to get the best out of yourself on stage, and most importantly how he took the idea for this program and made it a product in the form of seminars, lectures, and books.

As with Dr. Tim in the last episode, this will leave you fired up and ready to follow through on any ideas you have kicking around in your head!

Links:

Jeff's Website: http://www.jeffnelsen.com/

Fearless Performance: http://www.jeffnelsen.com/pages/fearless-performance

Jeff's TEDx Talk: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxBloomington-Jeff-Nelsen-Fea

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Next Episode: Dean of the Lawrence Conservatory of Music and former ethnomusicologist for Microsoft, Brian Pertl

How to Become an Expert

"You can't win unless you learn how to lose."

—Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hall of Fame Basketball Player

"An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field."

—Niels Bohr, Atomic Physicist and Nobel Prize Winner

In the music world (especially the classical corner of that world) we are taught to never, ever make mistakes:

• Always look at the key signature and never play any wrong notes, even when sight-reading!
• Don't ever play any wrong rhythms.
• Always play in tune, or rather, never play out of tune.
   

There are hundreds of these rules.  

The problem is this mindset completely fails us when trying to either acquire new skills or to get our current skills to the next level.

Until you have stood on a stage facing a bunch of elementary school kids and tried something that didn't really keep their attention very well, you are not an expert at addressing a room full of 7-year-olds.

Until you have played a Dixieland gig with no music and played the changes as they seemed to fly by, you are not expert at Dixieland music.

(Side note: Tom Holtz mentioned in a master class recently that every single person sucks on their first Dixie gig.  Every one.  The experts who are playing along with the new guy or gal expect them to not be very good, just as they weren't on their first gig!)

Until you launch a podcast network and record an interview that it turns out is basically unlistenable due to technical problems and you have to fall on your sword and ask them to do the interview all over again, you are not an expert at podcasting. (Thank you Rex Richardson!)

Think of someone who you consider an expert at something.  I guarantee you they have sought out situations in life where they "lose", make mistakes, and fail at a number of things, every single day.

That is how they became experts in the first place.

So go fail!

How Playing An Instrument Benefits Your Brain: Monday YouTube Fix

"Playing a musical instrument engages practically every area of the brain at once."

This less than five minute video digs into the neuroscience of both listening to and playing music.  Why is it that we're always having to save school music programs from the chopping block?!

Enjoy!

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-playing-an-instrument-benefits-your-brain-anita-collins When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout.

Valuable Lesson from Amy McCabe

Tonight I saw a wonderful recital by the Seraph Brass here in the Washington, DC area.  The playing was fantastic and the program was enjoyable.

There was one thing that occurred during the performance that was a valuable lesson for us all.

During the great Jack Gale arrangement of Porgy and Bess (which was recorded by the Empire Brass way back when) Amy McCabe, trumpet player for one of the premier military bands, had a little bit of an issue that she said I could feel free to share here.  And it had absolutely nothing to do with her stunning playing!

During a fermata she leaned over to quickly pick up her plunger mute and her tuning slide fell out right onto the floor! She smiled as it took her about five seconds to get the thing back in.  Five seconds of dead time on stage feels like an eternity.

Amy handled this like the pro she is.  She didn't panic.  She didn't get even remotely upset.  She even turned to the audience right after the tuning slide was back in and said "Well alright!"

Everyone laughed and she actually created a real bonding moment between the performers and the audience.

It was the absolute perfect response to the situation when many of us would have become upset.  She kept the audience in mind above everything else which is the only thing that matters.

The Brass Junkies: Rex Richardson

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Lance and I had a blast interviewing our good friend Rex Richardson for the latest episode of The Brass Junkies podcast.  Rex is one of the best trumpet players in the world and has one of the most interesting careers in the music business today.  He has played in more countries than any other musician I know.

We asked him about how he became so proficient at both jazz and classical music, about his travels are the world, and made a lot of fun of him for being a trumpet player.  You should be warned that we laugh an awful lot.

Thank you, Rex, for joining us!

Links That Make Me Think

Here is the latest installment of Links That Make Me Think!

This super short video is a great visualization of how a very small object (or action) can set off a huge chain reaction.

This article is a list of the neurological benefits that music lessons provide. And we have to constantly battle against school music programs being cut why?!

Here's a USC study that shows that orchestra students excelled at auditory skills essential for processing speech.  Again, what's with music programs always on the chopping block?

Brian Pertl at TEDx: Monday YouTube Fix

Brian Pertl is the Dean of the Lawrence Conservatory of Music and has an absolutely fascinating bio.  This talk he did for TEDx is titled "Music Education, Improvisational Play and Dancing Between Disciplines: Reimagining a Liberal Arts Education for the 21st Century" and it is fantastic.

"Creativity allows us to dance in between disciplines" is one of the many great lines that Brian has during this TEDx talk.  We could use more creative arts advocates like Brian to fight the good fight.  Every school administrator should be made to watch this video.

Enjoy!

Brian Pertl, Dean of the Conservatory of Music, Lawrence University - Dean Pertl gave a performance oriented, interactive presentation on how integrating music into K-12 curriculum can foster the thinking that is core to the liberal arts ideal.

The Entrepreneurial Musician: Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser

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For the latest episode of The Entrepreneurial Musician Podcast I was honored to have a conversation with one of mentor in the music business, Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser.

Dr. Tim has an energy, a genuineness, and a passion for his craft and life that is contagious.  He is one of the most savvy businessmen and entrepreneurs I've ever met and he shared a lot of his secrets in this interview.  I especially liked his comments about the entrepreneurial skills a young band director needs to have to thrive on the job.

If this one doesn't fire you up, you might be in the wrong business!

These are my quick thoughts from the conversation I had with Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser for Episode 4 of The Entrepreneurial Musician Podcast. Dr. Tim is one of the most inspirational people I've ever met and is one of my heroes in the music business.

Norman Bolter on Orchestral Auditions

"Interesting that the uniform of the orchestra is black and white just like a keyboard. And basically a person is auditioning to be a key on the orchestral keyboard."

-Norman Bolter (former 2nd Trombone of the Boston Symphony)

This is why it so imperative to know the excerpts you are playing backwards and forwards.  The people who win auditions can play a recording of the entire orchestra in their heads.  That includes a number of bars before their excerpt begins and several bars afterwards.

Few people on your committee (if any) will play your instrument.  They will be hearing their "key on the orchestral keyboard" while you are playing.  If what you are playing does not fit with the part they are hearing in their heads you will be sent home.  It is that simple.