Boss Composer #1- Percy Grainger

Almost nobody writes band music like Percy Grainger anymore. And no one really wrote like him back in his hey-day. Now, don’t get me wrong, Holst, Vaughn Williams, and others were fantastic, but when it comes to folk music, Grainger is by far my favorite.

First of all, he wrote so much music and many of his compositions he either wrote or arranged for band. It would be so cool if there was a completely Grainger concert (apparently there has been recently and I missed it) but it would be even cooler to play a program of all Grainger. Work in Colonial Song, Irish Tune, The Gumsucker’s March, Lincolnshire Posy, and maybe some other stuff like Children’s March and it would be, hands down, a fantastic show.

My personal favorites of Grainger are Colonial Song (not just because of the saxophone solo) and Irish Tune from County Derry. I’ve been fortunate enough to perform Colonial Song and read through Irish Tune (only to have it be replaced by Contra Qui, Rose). Apparently Colonial Song was not a big hit when it came out, which I think is cray.

It’s really hard to put how much I like Grainger into words. If you haven’t heard his music, stop whatever you’re doing and start listening. May I suggest:

Colonial Song- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07IOPHrg7Lg

Irish Tune from County Derry- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPDvAHgesYw

Molly on the Shore- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66wSECRpWIY

And there are some pretty good playlists on YouTube for Grainger.

Saxophones: Not just Jazz Instruments

As a saxophone player, I find saxophones to be some of the best instruments there are, in terms of tone quality, versatility, and overall sound. Although they lack the many years of repertoire that instruments like violin and oboe have, there is plenty of recent saxophone music that sounds nice and makes great competition pieces.

Often people think of saxophone as a jazz instrument. And in many cases, that’s true. However, saxophone is not just a purely jazz instrument; there are many famous classical saxophonists, like Claude Delangle, that have made and continue to make a good name for classical saxophone. There are colleges and universities that have classical saxophone schools as well as jazz saxophone schools. In general however, people consider saxophone to be a jazz instrument because the classical side is not as well known due to the big name jazz players like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.

I’m not a big fan of combo jazz, I prefer the big band setting, but saxophone got a good portion of its fame from combo players. Charlie Parker and John Coltrane are some of the more famous players of the peak of the jazz era but there are many thousands out there that write their own music and perform nowadays. Many jazz professors are saxophone players, and many classical saxophone players, but not all, play jazz saxophone as well. Jazz saxophone is wanted much more than classical saxophone; someone will pay to hear a saxophonist play John Coltrane but will probably not pay to hear a saxophonist play Christian Lauba (although Lauba is good, his modern repertoire is an acquired taste). Additionally, there is more permanent work for saxophonists in a traveling big-band than there is for a saxophonist in a major symphony, as not many symphonic works include saxophone parts.

Personally, I am a big fan of Claude Delangle and classical saxophone in general. I’m not that into jazz saxophone, probably on account of having not practiced enough to get very good at improvising. A few years ago when I started taking lessons from my current teacher, he suggested that I get Claude Delangle’s album, Under the Sign of the Sun. It is one of my favorite classical albums and has much of the repertoire that I have learned in the past few years including Tableaux de Provence by Paule Maurice, Concertino da Camera by Jacques Ibert, Scaramouche by Darius Milhaud, and most recently the Tomasi Concerto. Before I’ve performed any of these pieces for a competition, I’ve listened to the recordings multiple times and tried to imitate the parts of Claude Delangle’s playing that I like.

I especially enjoy playing saxophone in a wind band environment. I’ve played in the school’s wind ensemble for a while and have done summer camps, IMEA district, and soon IMEA state. I like the place of the saxophone in the ensemble; its place in the middle of the ensemble lets it play multiple types of parts. It’s not restricted to the bass part and low melodies like some of the low brass generally is and it isn’t restricted to the higher melodies of the flutes. It falls in line often with the French horn, which coincidentally is one of my other favorite instruments, although I cannot play it. I like the wind band repertoire as well; I enjoy the works of Holst, Grainger, and many of their contemporaries. It’s fun music and band is one of my favorite parts of the day.

So to anyone out there planning on picking an instrument to play, pick saxophone. There may be a plethora of saxophone beginners, but if you choose the path of classical saxophone, there aren’t too many out there, and the music is fun and rewarding.

Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse (Part 2)

When reviewing the previous week’s zombie apocalypse survival guide, I realize I left off a very important thing that will affect much of my discussion; objectives.

Objectives are important; in my opinion surviving a zombie apocalypse is great, but if all of humanity’s progress is lost, then the next generations (assuming that you were not the lone survivor in a given area) would have to rebuild from scratch and would likely die out. Therefore, my objectives will not be only survival; although that is the main objective, there are multiple other objectives regarding the preservation of humanity’s knowledge and works. Below are the objectives as I perceive them at the moment.

1.      Survive- Survival is important; if you don’t survive, you cannot complete any of the other objectives. Therefore, survival is the prime objective.

2.      Preserve knowledge- It’s important that the skills and knowledge of the past be preserved in order to create a functioning society.

3.      Create a functioning society- as mentioned in the previous part of Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse, it is important to travel with a group. A group can function as a small society on its own, and it is important that society continues after the zombie apocalypse.

These objectives are the paramount objectives, most other objectives can be derived from these (objective 2 can be derived from 3, but it’s important to explicitly state it, as not everyone would draw that conclusion). If objectives are added in the future, I’ll add them as subsections of the paramount objectives.

So, the first major thing in this post that I wish to address is that I’m going to contradict my first post; moving out to rural areas is not the best idea in regards to the 2^nd and 3^rd objectives. In terms of survival only, rural areas are fantastic. For preserving the knowledge of mankind, cities are the best choice, as they have the most information, museums, and historical documents. However, cities are also full to the brim of potential zombies. A functioning society can be made in many environments, so it will have a minimal factor in the decision on location.

Ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that a suburban area would be the best location, preferably a college town or a suburb with a college in it. Such examples are; Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, Bloomington, Indiana or Illinois, River Forest, Illinois, and others. Each town/city has a university in it (University of Illinois, Indiana University, and Dominican University and Concordia University).

You may ask, why a university? The answer is as follows; universities are places where the knowledge of mankind is not only stored, but it is taught as well. Universities would have functioning cooking facilities, housing, and a variety of instillations for the management of the university itself (backup generators, water treatment, etc.) that would allow for some modicum of civilization without the need to run massive power plants. The layout of universities and the buildings would be conducive to building a functioning society. In addition, many of the university students would be sent home during the zombie apocalypse or would chose to go home, making the campuses largely vacant and reducing the number of potential zombies.

The four universities mentioned above each have their advantages and disadvantages. Concordia University and Dominican University would be defendable; they are small enough that small walls of cars and other objects could feasibly be created and are small enough that zombies inside could be easily eradicated. However, both of them are surrounded almost completely by suburbs, making farmland scarce which would cause the later generations significant problems. Indiana University, Illinois State University, and the University of Illinois have plenty of available farmland nearby, and have large areas such as quads where food could be grown. However, the size of these universities would be difficult to manage, as there are multiple buildings that would have to be cleared of zombies, and creating a wall to keep out zombies would be difficult, if not impossible. It would be possible, and advisable if one was to use a large university as their zombie survival outpost/colony to first start at the central area of the university, the University of Illinois Quad for example and create a wall around that area first, slowly moving to the other areas and moving the walls as necessary. Due to the necessity of farmland, and the problems of large numbers of zombies in suburbs, of the four universities, the University of Illinois and Indiana University are the best choices.

Once walls are completed and the zombies in the area have been rooted out, then it will be possible to create a functioning society, survive, and preserve the knowledge of mankind. While food collection and food production is paramount at first, once the production and collection have been managed and are sufficient, other items, like books, valuables, and technology should be scavenged from areas and stored. These items will preserve the knowledge of mankind and can be valuable items to trade with other potential colonies after the initial deluge of zombies.

That’s all for this week, stay tuned for next week’s zombie apocalypse survival information.

USS Enterprise D, a French Horn, and Frank Lloyd Wright: Christmas Tree Time

“Shuttlecraft to Enterprise, shuttlecraft to Enterprise. Spock here, Happy Holidays, Live Long and Prosper.”

That’s one of my favorite sounds towards the end of November through December. It’s the sound of the Galileo Shuttlecraft ornament on my family’s Christmas tree (for those of you who don’t know, the Galileo was a shuttlecraft on the USS Enterprise from the original series of Star Trek). When I was younger I remember pressing the button to start the sound over and over again, hearing “shuttle shuttle shut shuttle shuttlecraft” again and again. When I got home on Saturday after visiting my grandfather and cousins, pressing that button was the first thing I did.

As per tradition, the Christmas tree in my house went up the weekend after Thanksgiving. Aboard the tree are a plethora of ornaments representing the different interests of my family throughout the past couple decades.

The first set of ornaments I notice are generally the Star Trek ornaments; Data at his console aboard the bridge, the USS Enterprise D, the USS Voyager, and the aforementioned Galileo Shuttlecraft. These ornaments are some of my favorites; I watched Star Trek frequently with my family during my middle school years (the complete 7 seasons of The Next Generation, the 4 seasons of Enterprise, a little bit of the Original Series, and a good amount of Voyager) and the ornaments bring back fond memories. The ornaments especially remind me of my first few Christmases and are always nice additions to see on the tree.

The next ornaments I noticed this year were the multitudes of ornaments of characters from children’s shows and children’s movies. There are innumerable Mickey and Minnie Mice that adorn the tree in concert with Winnie the Pooh, Goofy, Simba, and many others. Disney characters were very prevalent in my childhood, as, like other children, I watched Disney movies such as A Bug’s Life, The Lion King, and the Pixar movie Toy Story. Woody and Buzz Lightyear are on the tree as well, relics of a long past era (although Toy Story 3 was rather recent and was very good).

In addition to the Disney characters, Thomas the Tank Engine and his friend Percy also are present. Thomas was one of my favorite shows as a child, and I still remember countless hours playing with the train sets that my parents gave to me.

The most frequent kind of ornament on the tree is the kind from an interesting place in the world. There are ornaments from all over; Washington DC, Mount Rushmore, India, Greece, Chicago, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and many other countries. The ornaments themselves are rather interesting; they range from orbs bearing the name of their origin (not the origin of their production or they’d all be saying China) to little Greek soldiers and blue and white Greek houses and an elephant from India. The number of these ornaments increases as the number of places my family and I visit increases; no doubt there will be an Argentinean ornament at the end of the year.

Then comes the occasional Frank Lloyd Wright ornaments. My dad, being a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright, has accumulated a few interesting Frank Lloyd Wright ornaments. I’ve counted one or two, but have not found more, probably because I haven’t looked hard enough.

Musical instruments are surprisingly infrequent on the Christmas tree; I’ve seen a cello and a French horn, neither of which anyone in the family plays. I swear I’ve been given a saxophone ornament in the past the location of which is unknown to me.

Last but certainly not least is the lone R2-D2 ornament without any other Star Wars paraphernalia on the remainder of the tree. As a member of a family that enjoys Star Wars, I am surprised by the lack of additional Star Wars ornaments. However, I can’t imagine that a random Jedi would look good on the tree; Kit Fisto hardly invokes a Christmas spirit.

For the next month and a half, I’ll be able to look at the ornaments on the tree and remember the past Christmases I’ve had. It’s an enjoyable experience, and I can expect to hear many more holiday greetings from Spock through January.

Top Ten Songs to Run Around and Play (In Ascending Order)

Occasionally, I have the urge to run around somewhere and play a fun song. And I have (ISYM 2011). More than once. Marching band is the number one way to find fun songs to run around and play, but there are other ways as well, particularly Youtube. Below, is my list of my favorite songs to play in a fun environment. Pick one, and play it on your local main street some time.

1.      Land of 1000 Dances- It’s a pretty cool little ditty. It’s nice to play in a large group (marching band) and it’s fun to take the mellophone (not in Word’s dictionary) part up an octave. It’s fun to play at football games, but it’s hard to play without all the band, so it can’t qualify for the most fun song to run around and play because you can’t run around and play it.

2.      Let’s Go Band- This is a classic. Just whip out a trumpet and play it, and everyone recognizes it. But without a band, it seems kind of pointless to play.

3.      Bad Romance (Just the first part)- People love Lady Gaga, and the first part of Bad Romance is really catchy. Problem is, after a while it gets kind of old going C,C,G,G,Ab,G over and over and over again. But it’s fun to play. Not worth making a Youtube (also not in Word’s dictionary) video over.

4.      Go, Fight, Win- Another really fun thing to play on trumpet. It also reaches the problem of seeming out of place when there isn’t some kind of sports event going on.

5.      Frankenstein- It just sounds plain awesome when played by a marching band in the stands at a game. Only problem is, nobody knows it. It isn’t exactly a pop tune, so nobody knows what it is and they don’t remember it when you play it a second time.

6.      I Want You Back- Classic Michael Jackson. It’s perfect to play all day erryday. Everyone knows it, and it’s always a big hit with the crowd and the band. Great to play, but unfortunately does not make a great solo thing to run around and play.

7.      Soul Finger- A big hit in the marching band I’m in. It sounds fun and there are some pretty cool motions you can do while you play. And the trumpet parts are pretty boss.

8.      The Hey Song- If I had two or three sousaphone players, a trombone, and some trumpets, I would love to go downtown (as in downtown OP) and play this. It would get everyone energized, but like most the aforementioned songs, it requires more than one person.

9.      Yakety Sax (or Yenkety Sax in Boots Randolph’s 1963 album)- One saxophone player can run around and play this for any situation, whether it be while someone runs after a bus or while a police officer chases you away for playing on private property. It was also the Benny Hill theme song, so that gives it a bit more street cred. Any alto or tenor saxophone player (and soprano) should give this a try (not bari, you can’t run with a bari that well).

10.  Careless Whisper (Commonly known as Sexy Sax Man)- If you haven’t seen the video, watch it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaoLU6zKaws). This, I personally have done, with two other saxophone players, and it is incredibly fun. We serenaded the Papa John’s guy, a Jimmy John’s guy, some camp counselors, and a camp dance, and had quite the positive reaction. So if you ever get the chance, do this, it’s worth it.

Awesome Music of the Week #2

Piece: “String Quartet #1 in D, Op. 11- Andante Cantabile”

Composer: Pytor I. Tchaikovsky

Artist: Academy of St-Martin-in-the-Fields (Iona Brown)

Album: Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik – Neville Marriner

This pieces, Tchaikovsky’s “String Quartet #1 in D, Op. 11- Andante Cantabile” is one of my favorite pieces. I’ve listened to it countless times off my iPod on “Repeat 1” and have to say, it still doesn’t get old.

I was first introduced to this piece over the summer at the ISYM Saxophone Camp where my quartet played a Marcel Mule arrangement of it. I was on the baritone saxophone part, so I was able to listen to all the solo parts while I played the accompaniment part. It was very nice to be able to hear how all the parts worked together, and of all the pieces we played, it was my favorite (even in comparison to the Jeanjean).

I enjoy the pensive part at the end where three of the four parts take small solos while the others play background accompaniment. It is very melancholy, and I find it peaceful and relaxing.

I listen to it often now, even after I had my fix of it during the summer. It was by chance that I discovered I had a recording of it; I searched through the iTunes store to find the saxophone arrangement to no avail. Then one day I put my iPod on shuffle and it popped up, albeit a string quartet version. I have listened to it nearly every day since then, and it is my song of choice when playing Minecraft.

I probably like this song because it brings back the good memories of saxophone camp, yet there is still something else in it that makes me want to listen to it more. I’m not quite sure what it is, and I’m not quite sure I’ll ever know what it is, but I’ll keep listening to the song whenever I can.

Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving again and as usual, there are Facebook statuses of “Happy Turkey Day” and others about how the Pilgrims screwed over the Native Americans. These statuses are not only a bit cliché, but missing the point of Thanksgiving. The point of Thanksgiving is not to think about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans; they’re rather inconsequential to the point of Thanksgiving, they just provided the basis for the holiday itself. The true point of Thanksgiving is vocalizing what you’re thankful for. So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, here’s what I am thankful for.

1.      Family- Although people often assume that this goes without saying, I think it’s important to say it. I’m thankful for my family; they provide me with food and shelter, are genuinely nice people, and are great. Grandparents, parents, and siblings, all are important to my life, and I’m thankful to have them.

2.      Friends- I appreciate my friends, and although I probably don’t tell them it, it’s great to have friends. It’s nice to have people to talk to, whether it is about school, Knights of the Old Republic, Apple products, chemistry, Minecraft, and more. Having people to talk to at lunch makes my day not only more enjoyable, but it makes it different in a way that is hard to put into words. So to all my friends, near and far, I am thankful for you.

3.      Teachers- I would not be the person I am today, and will not be the person I will be in 20 years without teachers. Teachers have difficult jobs, and it is important to remember that they shape who we are. I would especially like to thank my band directors, math teachers, and science teachers, as these subjects are the highlight of my day and the classes would not be the same without each and every one of them.

4.      Pets- I enjoy having my two geckos and I enjoy other people’s pets as well, such as my grandmother’s cats. Pets are fun, and my geckos always seem happy to see me (or they just want food) which brightens my day considerably. So I’m thankful for pets; the companionship they provide is invaluable.

5.      Music- It has inspired me throughout my entire life and still provides inspiration for me today. I would like to thank everyone who plays music, writes music, and teaches music for the invaluable experience that it has been for me. I am also thankful for the music companies that manufacture instruments, such as Henri Selmer Paris, for the wonderful equipment they provide.

6.      Computer Games- I enjoy playing computer games; it helps me stop thinking about everything I usually think about and focus on entertainment. I thank Bethesda Studios and LucasArts especially for the great games they make and the endless hours of game-play they provide.

7.      Food, Water, Shelter, etc- essentially, I am thankful for the life that I have today. All over the world there are people who lack the basic necessities for survival. I am thankful that I have all the tools I need for survival, and am thankful for those who provide them for me.

So all in all, I am thankful for my life and everything that makes it up. Although there are things that I don’t like, I am thankful that they exist, as they are instrumental to making me who I am. To my friends and family who may read this blog, I am thankful for you.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving,

Sincerely,

Cody