I am quite excited!!! In getting ready for this year, I have created a composition cart. I teach in a room in where I am unable to keep materials, so this is the perfect solution! I have included:

• On the Top Shelf:
  • Crayons ~ for tracing Note Knacks : in individual plastic snack bags with colored dots so that kids know what color crayons go into each (of course they are NK colors!)
  • Sharpened pencils ~ for writing conventional notation
  • Cap erasers ~ because you know the erasers on the pencils will last all of 5 minutes!
  • Colored binder clips ~ to hold compositions together: 2 of each of the 6 colors, one color for each of my classes.
• On the Middle Shelf:
  • A pointer ~ for kids to use when they are leading the group in singing their compositions
  • Pencil sharpeners
  • Stickers ~ because you never know when you need them!
  • Sentence strips ~ for compositions
  • Lesson plan book ~ I will write all of plans down, I will write all of my plans down 🙂
  • 3 line staff paper ~ for sol, mi , la
  • 5 line staff paper ~ for older kids
  • Note Knacks Lesson plan book 🙂 (plus any others I am using at the time)
• On the Lower Shelf:
  • A Large Classroom Set of Note Knacks 🙂

I remember as a young violinist in my youth orchestra listening to Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever and thinking how cool it would be to play the piccolo! I always get so jealous when he or she stands up at that precise moment and plays such a fun melody!

So in celebration of Sousa’s birthday on the 10th, here are some fun facts for you to share with your students:

1. Born November 6, 1854 and died March 6, 1932
2. It’s never too early to start learning an instrument:
   1. Was trained as a violinist (1) as well as when he was just six, he began studying voice, piano, flute, cornet, baritone, trombone and alto horn. (2)
3. This cracks me up!
   1. His father enlisted him in the Marines at age 13 as an apprentice after he attempted to run away to join a circus band. (2, 4)
4. No pressure:
   1. Conducted “The President’s Own” US Marine Band and performed for Presidents Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland and Harrison. (2, 3, 4)
5. …ok, you know this, but I have to include it!:
   1. Invented the Sousaphone J
6. Played violin in theatre orchestras, including Offenbach’s orchestra (1, 3)
7. Imagine a time when ragtime was just coming out…how exciting it must have been!!:
   1. Formed his own band (1) introducing not only his own music, but the “new” ragtime music
8. Wrote an operetta “El Capitan” (4)
9. I am always so impressed with men and women who contribute when they have already given so much:
   1. “During World War I, Sousa joins the US Naval Reserve at age 62. He is assigned the rank of lieutenant and paid a salary of $1 per month” (4)
10. Last piece he conducted before he dies was …you guessed it…”Stars and Stripes Forever”!!! (4)

Sousa said it best: “Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.” (This makes me smile!)

1. Norman Lloyd’s The Golden Encyclopedia Of Music
2. http://www.pbs.org/a-capitol-fourth/history/john-philip-sousa/
3. http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1106.html
4. http://www.dws.org/sousa/learn/timeline

As a violinist, Niccolò Paganini is, of course, someone I am in awe of! His compositions are extremely difficult to say the least, yet beautiful and exciting! David Garret, a violinist out of Germany, played him in a movie called “The Devil’s Violinist”. It is cheesy, but the violin playing is amazing! I have become obsessed with Caprice No. 24 as a result! You can check this movie out on Netflix, but I would fast forward to the violin playing…the story line is one I couldn’t even stay interested in… and I will watch almost anything!

In celebration of Paganini’s birthday on the 27th, here are some fun facts for you to share with your students…..

1. Born in Genoa, Italy, on October 27, 1782 and died on May 27, 1840 (a/ Wikipedia)
2. The third of six children born to Teresa and Antonio Paganini (a)
3. He became extraordinary because he practiced incessantly:
   1. “…set his own schedule of rigorous training, sometimes 15 hours a day, practicing his own compositions, which were often quite complicated, even for himself.” (a)
4. He was thought to be touched by the Devil because his playing was so amazing…not that he didn’t play that up a bit!:
   1. “Paganini’s reputation began to take on mythic proportions—he was often mobbed in the streets. His pure talent, showmanship and dedication to his craft was further augmented by possibly two physical syndromes: Marfan’s and Ehlers-Danlos—one giving him particularly long limbs, especially fingers, the other giving him extraordinary flexibility. These certainly would have factored into his exceptional virtuosity, earning him nicknames such as “the Devil’s Violinist” and “Rubber Man.” But he also perpetuated the mythology with stunts like severing strings on a violin and playing a piece such as the Witches Dance on a sole string.” (a)
   2. “He would dress all in black and occasionally arrive at his concerts in a black carriage pulled by four black horses. His physique was always quite emaciated and pale, which contributed even more to his “demonic” appearance. Whenever he performed, Paganini’s thin body would sway back and forth eerily on the stage, and his eyes would look white from them having rolled up inside of his head. With his long, wild hair swaying to and fro, he embodied the perfect image of the damned artist.” (d)
   3. “Another vowed he had seen he had seen the devil helping Paganini with a particularly impassioned performance.” (a)
5. In fact, this myth helped him score the best instruments:
   1. “After borrowing a Guarnerius violin for a single concert, the lender begged him to keep it for fear of coming under Paganini’s supernatural powers. He also won a Stradivarius violin in a similar manner by playing a technical piece by sight which was insisted that nobody could perform even after preparation.” (b)
6. Perhaps he took it a bit too far:
   1. “He was once forced to publish letters from his mother to prove he had human parents.” (b)
7. One never thinks about how the greatest composers had heroes, as well:
   1. “Franz Schubert was mystified by him, Rossini was appalled by him, and Meyerbeer followed him from one concert to another not being able to get enough of his playing. Berlioz has described Paganini as “one of those artists of whom it must be said: ‘They are because they are and not because others were before them’.” In Paris, Liszt came under Paganini’s spell and was so stimulated by his fabulous technical virtuosity, determined to accomplish similar miracles with the piano, and pushed his technique to the highest limits.” (b)
8. He was the rock star of his time.
9. Imagine the Beatle in the 60’s:
   1. “…audiences were said to have burst into tears at his execution of tender passages.”
   2. “…a famous quote by Paganini: “I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet”. (d)
10. And in the words of Lenny Cavallaro:
    1. “I think the true measure of Paganini’s greatness can be determined by the many innovations he introduced and popularized – the use of harmonics, the dazzling arrays of double stops, the excruciatingly difficult passages featuring arpeggios of unprecedented lengths and the virtuosic use of even so mundane a practice as pizzicato (plucked strings). Before Paganini burst onto the scene, these notions were unheard of, as indeed was the idea of the virtuoso himself. He clearly inspired Liszt and Chopin, who in turn greatly increased the possibilities for the piano.” (c)

a) http://www.biography.com/people/niccol%C3%B2-paganini-21196451#synopsis
b) http://www.guitarramagazine.com/nicocolopaganini
c) http://www.staythirstymedia.com/201202-066/html/201202-cavallaro-interview.html
d) http://www.lifeinitaly.com/music/niccolo-paganini.asp

If you research Japanese composer Rentaro Taki, you would find very little. Yet this man’s folk song “Kojo no Tsuki” is so popular in Japanese culture that is was recorded by both Thelonius Monk and The Scorpions. All I was able to find on this young composer was in Wikipedia which is not necessarily the most reliable source.

Some basic facts:

• Born on August 24, 1879 in Tokyo.
• Studied at the Tokyo Music School and Leipszig Conservatory in Germany
• Composed Kojo no Tsuki, his most famous piece, which is included in the songbook for junior high school students along with another of his works
• contracted Tuberculosis and became seriously ill
• died soon after at age 23 on June 29 in 1903

It is understandable that there is little information available given that he died at such a young age, but I found the lack of information to be very peculiar.

When I looked at old music books I studied in college, I realized that all were based on Western music. Most of the music textbooks we use for teaching are focused on Western Music. We study Bach and Beethoven, sonata form and counterpoint, etc… We touch upon music of different genres and cultures, but we more often than not make sure our music has a steady beat, some kind of logical chord progression and of course, we must end on the tonic. How limiting!

When I dug around into traditional Japanese music, something struck me: “One of the defining characteristics of traditional Japanese music is its sparse rhythm. Regular chords are also absent. It is impossible for a person to beat time to the music. All of the rhythms are ma-based, and silence is an important part of the songs. The focus is on creating music that flows in an attempt to mirror the behavior of nature.” (Reference) First, I am still trying to find out what a “ma based” rhythm is. (If you know PLEASE post below). Second, if you listen to this music, it doesn’t sound chaotic or random. There is beauty and order, yet we don’t really pay a whole lot of attention to it in the Western world.

When I speak to composers, they all stress the importance of generating ideas. They also describe finding inspiration in a variety of places. A composer can find inspiration in the sound of a car horn or crowd noise and use that as the basis for an entire composition. I wonder what Bach and Beethoven would think of that?

Rentaro Taki wrote beautiful music. The funny thing is it sounds like it was based on Western Tonalities and chord structures. I wonder if that had anything to do with its popularity? In any case, it is music that one feels in their soul. As I am planning for the upcoming school year, I am excited to be able to share a new found piece and open up my students to music of other cultures with other ideas.

To read about Taki on Wikipedia, click HERE.