From a Student

I received an email this morning from a senior in my Beginning Strings class. Thought I'd share.  

Hello Mr. Park

I thought you might enjoy this essay about a meaningful classroom experience I wrote for this program at Yale. As a side note, I could not be more thankful for the job you do as a teacher and the work you put into making every member of the beginning strings ensemble a stronger musician and team cooperator. Thank you Mr. Park, you are really nothing short of a miracle worker, and one of my biggest regrets is not taking orchestra earlier in my high school career.


Essay

Forced into taking a music course my senior year, and placed into the beginning strings ensemble, the only thing I knew about the violin was that it had two holes that looked like integrals. Beginning with a wildly unsuccessful foray into the Orchestra Expressions method book, followed by countless, futile appeals from my family to “shut the damn door!” and culminating with the thrice-interrupted Lullaby for Nicholas during the concert, the first semester of Beginning Strings taught me to not only acknowledge but also respect my inabilities. And, yes the slow melodic Lullaby for Nicholas was stopped three times during the winter beginning ensembles concert because, to quote our indefatigable instructor, Mr. Park “wading through such a beautiful piece just simply doesn’t do it justice.” For a person who has never “waded through” anything in their life, doing it for the first time on stage in front of two hundred people truly humbled my pompous teenage ego.

After months of diligent preparation, inculcation, and resuscitation, the concert ended in utter disappointment. Well, disappointment for me, but comedic onslaught for my parents, who had waited eighteen years for a moment in which they could publicly cackle at my failures. “It’s nice to know that he’s lousy at something,” quipped my ever charming, sardonic father. “The poor guy finally loves something, and it doesn’t even love him back.” That was my dysfunctional relationship with the instrument I for some reason decided to become infatuated with.A beautiful creation, crafted from the finest wood, hemmed meticulously into the perfectly curving, mildly sensuous pear shape that has mesmerized the likes of Mozart and Pearlman, the violin and I initially did not harmonize. Hacking at its tender fibers, scratching its spotless exterior, the instrument repaid my roughness with an equally dissonant and rhythm-less emanation from its strings. However, in my eyes, this well-worn, rented violin was a Stradivarius lost in the scroll of time. I, though, envisioned her seeing me through her f-holes as a scrawny and barely pubescent boy without the slightest idea of how to hold, caress, and bow a tender and elegant instrument such as her-self. How could this love story have a happy ending?

Well, certain relationships need a catalyst, and for us, it turned out that the concert failure set into motion a drastic change in our friendship. Listening to the atonal, cacophonous renditions NCP beginning strings performed inspired a fiery desire for improvement with in me and my 80 bassist, cellist, violist and violinist peers. I focused tremendously on the artistry of my bow stroke, listened attentively to the intonation of my finger placements, and realized that counting played just as an important part in orchestra as it did in calculus. To practice, I stumbled upon the on-sale with free one-day shipping Lord of the Rings Violin Solos for Beginners sheet music abusing my Amazon Prime monthly trial. Up until that point, we had nothing in common, no points of conversation, but once I opened that book and heard the tiniest vestige of the Riders of Rohan, I knew the violin and I were going steady, and until then, we have never looked back.

The music still doesn’t come naturally to me, and the shrieks of my family to please take pity on both them and the instrument still accompany the sounds that emanate from my violin, but at least now I can pick up and play without feeling bad about doing it. The spring concert exhibited marked improvement from our failures in the winter, and left my teenage ego entirely intact-even though the embarrassment of having to perform with the epithet of “beginner” jabs at all sense of pride. I can now successfully work through Concerning Hobbits and The Shire and although I cannot prove it I swear I saw a teary glimmer in my father’s eye during a particularly stirring bedroom practice session. With watery eyes he struggles through-dare I say-wades through, admitting that, “You are still lousy, but that damn music just gets to me!”

I decide to keep playing, slowly trudging along the green slopes of Middle Earth toward my circular-door Hobbit den, when an exhausted mother interrupts me with the now all-too-common “No more. It’s time to go to bed.”

“But mother,” I explain, “love, even of the orchestral variety, never sleeps.”

Citizen Musician's Brigade

A couple of years ago Yo Yo Ma and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra launched a community service initiative entitled Citizen Musicians' Brigade.  The premise of the initiative is to...

How about I just let Yo Yo Ma share with you what the Citizen Musicians' Brigade is all about via the link below:

Yo Yo Ma Discusses Citizen Musicians' Brigade

At Northside Prep, members of the Tri M Honor Society must complete an individual service learning project and submit a blog entry detailing the experience.  Check out some of this year's projects via the link below:

Northside Prep Tri M Honor Society Service Learning Projects

Serving the community, both locally and globally, is what an upstanding citizen does.  Musicians and artists in general tend to be compassionate beings who are committed to doing their part to create a better world.  By creating and sharing art with others, a select group of student musicians at Northside Prep are beginning to do their part in caring for their communities.  My hope is they continue to dedicate their musical gifts to those who might benefit from their kindness and compassion.

Digital Audio Workstation - It's All in the Picture

I love this picture.  It's why I wrote a little something about the power of digital audio synthesis.

In most high school music programs if you don't play an instrument there is no place for you, sans a general music class or something akin to music appreciation.  Perhaps the most creative outlet for non-performance students is rooted in the use of a digital audio workstation; something that more and more high schools are investing in, but not enough.  Never has there been a time in the history of music technology where someone could make a full length album, ripe with just about every sound imaginable, in a bedroom or basement - without having to spend thousands of dollars.  Why can't this music making take place in a more formal setting - like a music classroom - where the music educator can teach the fundamentals of music production and creation.  

There is something very liberating about triggering the sound of just about any instrument ever known to man with the simple stroke of a finger.  Why not liberate our students from fear or indifference of music creation by providing these digital audio workstations for them to explore and play with?  After all, isn't learning most fun when play and exploration is at the fore of an experience?  

Food for thought.  

Quote of the Day

There are regions of the soul which can be illuminated only through music.

                                                                                                                    - Zoltan Kodaly