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October 15, 2009
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We're glad to announce that Sister Gail Buckman from St. Louis, MO, is our Grand Prize Winner, and the recipient of $2,500 in cash and a $500 JW Pepper gift certificate. Second place went to Bob Cieslinski of Kittanning, PA who will also receive a JW Pepper gift certificate plus $500 in cash. Garden City, NY's Martha Boonshaft took third place and is the recipient of $250 in cash and a $250 JW Pepper gift certificate. The remaining five finalists will each receive a $200 JW Pepper gift certificate as an Honorable Mention Prize. All the stories are posted on our contest page. The entire staff of MakeMusic would like to thank everyone who submitted a story and/or voted. We were delighted with both the stories and the enthusiastic voting and look forward to additional contests in the future.
The SmartMusic Blog launched on August 17. This blog is a great place to pick up new SmartMusic tips and tricks – and to read how others are incorporating SmartMusic and the SmartMusic Gradebook into their music programs.
We're having a lot of fun with the blog and enjoy the feedback we're receiving – we hope you find it entertaining, as well as an excellent source for information you can use in your music program.
In June 2009 MakeMusic's Dave Hawley caught up with Gordon Goodwin to talk about the Big Phat Band repertoire that has since been released in SmartMusic, and the role of listening as one learns to play jazz. After catching up on the old days (Dave had once played for Gordon when he conducted and performed with Johnny Mathis) their conversation soon turned to music education. Dave: Can you give us your impression of SmartMusic? Gordon: I think it's so ahead of the curve. It's so forward-thinking to come up with something new in an area that has been done a certain way for so many years. When I came up playing clarinet, I had to learn it on my own and try to make sense of it. To some degree I think rolling around on the ground on your own is how we figure music out. I get that. But I do know that you don't learn to talk that way. You don't sit there and learn grammar and syntax first – you learn to talk by imitation and understanding the context of language you know when your parents are speaking it. So, in this regard I think SmartMusic is revolutionary. And it's just so obvious that kids – especially when they're in grade school and middle school – get such a boost and a head start by being able to understand the music they're trying to play in the context of where it's going to end up. It just seems like it's such a great shortcut, especially for a band director who is – you know – pushed and pulled and prodded in so many different directions – and doesn't always have time to get into issues of nuance with the music – where the kids can intuit that just by hearing the tracks in SmartMusic. I think it's absolutely tremendous. In that regard, I think that people, as they discover this thing – I don't see why they wouldn't just dive in 100%. Dave: You mention imitation. As a kid I learned by the recordings. In fact, Paul Desmond's "Take Five," ran a little fast on my turntable, so I learned it in C# minor on my alto, and then later realized that it was a half step lower. Those were the kind of struggles I went through – which technology has made easier today – but clearly listening still plays a huge role. Gordon: Obviously you were a kid who was motivated to discover the music and try to figure it out and I was the same way. I remember I had Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" and I'm writing out these Cannonball Adderley solos and not being able to get them in tune and I couldn't play with them. I would wonder: "What is wrong with this? I know this is in the key of Dm, but it sounds like it is, somehow..." Then I found out years later, after reading a book on the making of that record, that one of the tape machines was out of alignment: I think half the record was flat – slow. They fixed it later, but I remember as a kid I thought: "Man, It must be me – my ears must be screwed up." Dave: Again, kids today have a leg up on stuff like that – but it still comes down to using their ears. When I'm listening to your wonderful Phat Band recordings, and those players – I'm an alto player myself, when I hear Eric [Marienthal] playing there, I think: "Oh my gosh, to emulate that!" Do you see including Phat Band repertoire in SmartMusic as a way to provide additional tools to students who want to use their ears to emulate these great players – as well as your great writing? Gordon: I think that's a big factor. I remember when I came up, the band and the composer that did it for me was Sammy Nestico, and his writing for the Count Basie band. As a young player – from probably eighth grade – I was so into the band. I would get my band director to buy Sammy's arrangements, and I wanted these arrangements to be exactly the same ones I that heard the Basie band playing (and then later on, you know, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Thad Jones, and those bands). But I would listen to the records over and over again to try to capture every bit of nuance – had there been a tool like SmartMusic at the time you would have had to pry me away from it. With the Phat Band one of the things we try to do is provide an experience – especially for young kids – where we provide a lot of special features on our albums. We have a DVD that comes with each record and there's commentary where we talk about how we recorded each song – what the process was – and there are interviews with the guys in the band, and solo transcriptions to really take the kids inside the music. Which is why SmartMusic seemed like such a natural fit for us as it's really doing the same thing. We're excited to play a part in taking SmartMusic to the next generation where we've added a video component to SmartMusic where kids can click on a link and watch a video commentary that I made with [Big Phat Band trumpeter] Wayne Bergeron. I just remember how inspiring that kind of information would have been for me.
Matt leverages his music education experience to great advantage in his role as an educational sales relationship coordinator at MakeMusic, helping ensure that educators can connect with someone who understands the ins and outs of school purchasing, IT administration, and daily use in the classroom. Matt also brings vast Finale and SmartMusic experience to the table. "I arrange and compose around 8-12 projects a year. When arranging for drum corps, Finale gives me options for file sharing, creating practice tracks, and exporting assignments to SmartMusic where other notation programs only allow me to be an arranger. Finale stays with me throughout the entire creative and educational process of writing, auditions, and weekly rehearsals. "I have used SmartMusic in the classroom, private lessons, and for auditions. For me, the strength of SmartMusic is in the variety of features that I have become dependent upon for each stage of the educational process. I can’t imagine managing a private studio without SmartMusic. When I was teaching 30+ students at a time, it was important for me to track individual progress and pick up where I left off. With SmartMusic, I can keep track of this progress within the 10 million other things I need to do as an educator." Matt clearly finds the process of teaching rewarding and experiences similar benefits in his work at MakeMusic: "I enjoy the moment when an educator realizes that technology can be simple and effective in their teaching. Teaching is my passion, so when I have an opportunity to teach a colleague something new, I get the rush of discovery and imagination that drew me to teaching in the first place." When not teaching, performing, arranging, composing, or helping educators at MakeMusic, Matt enjoys hiking and camping on Lake Superior's unspoiled north shore with his girlfriend, Megan, who is also an accomplished composer. When asked who his favorite composer is (and why), Matt replied "Charles Ives, for his commitment to experimentation and for taking the time to listen to his complete environment." One suspects that even when he's "away from it all," camping in the Minnesota wilderness, Matt, too, is listening to his environment and thinking about music. |
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in June we announced the launch of our "Share Your SmartMusic Story." This
contest encouraged SmartMusic educators to describe how SmartMusic has changed their
music programs. On September 15 we announced the top eight finalists (as picked
by an internal panel of judges) whose stories were posted on a 
Gordon
Goodwin is an Emmy and Grammy award-winning musician, composer, arranger, and bandleader.
Gordon leads the 
Matt
Ferry lives in the world of indoor percussion, marching bands, and percussion ensembles,
working as an arranger, educator, and adjudicator. Matt performed with the Cavaliers
Drum and Bugle Corps from 1999-2002, who were DCI World Champions from 2000-2002,
and were winners of the Fred Sanford High Percussion Section Award in 2000. Since
2003 Matt has been the Front Ensemble Coordinator and Percussion Arranger of Minnesota
Brass, Inc. Senior Drum and Bugle Corps. |
Copyright © 2009 MakeMusic Inc. |
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