Strings
Caitlin Callas: Viola Recital of Righteousness
Mike Block: Solo Faculty Recital
 |
Mike Block, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : String Department"One of the things that I’m interested in exploring with my students is the concept and implementation of group practice sessions. Like improvising chord changes, but instead of a backing track, improvising with someone else who is working on bass lines, and combining all the different components of music so that people can practice together and make practicing itself a social experience. There’s a lot of technical practice that you need to learn how to do in order to learn to play an instrument, and when you’re playing, a lot of these styles, you need to learn how to improvise over chord progressions. There’s a certain abstraction that happens, where you’re not playing any specific piece of music, but you’re practicing something very focused. The musician, student or professional, generally exists by yourself in a room working on something, and I think there are ways to actually get more out of practice sessions in certain contexts if you have somebody to practice with."
Read More |
Maeve Gilchrist, Instructor
DEPARTMENT : String Department“In general, the bar is very low for harp playing in contemporary music. It’s perceived as such a pretty instrument—associated with an ethereal, wispy kind of sound—so people are easily impressed. For that reason a lot of players stop at a certain level, or are satisfied with very little. I feel rhythm has a lot to do with that. I don’t want my students to play to low expectations. The contrapuntal, textural, and rhythmic possibilities of the instrument far outweigh its harmonic disadvantages, and it’s important that they are fully explored. I tell my students, ‘Don’t settle for anything less than the absolute best. And don’t be afraid of putting yourself over your head in musical situations. Making mistakes is your path to finding your own voice and your own way of navigating your instrument.’"
Read More