Christmas-- it's sooner than you think!

Christmas is coming, and know what makes a great gift?  Music!  Contact me today to commission a new work written especially for your loved one or to book myself or other musicians I work with for the holiday season!  webguybrandyn@gmail.com (216) 630-0468

Eight ways to Practice Smarter

Sure, as musicians, we all need to practice.  But, how do we get the most out of our rehearsal time?  Use these eight tips to find a way to make your practice time more efficient and effective.

1.     1. Listen to the recording. Find a recording to the piece you are practicing.  With the advent of the Internet, this is easier than ever.  Often a good recording is just a simple Youtube search away. When you listen to a recording, have your part out and follow your line.  Can you sing along with the recording?  Even better.  Once the technique is there you may even want to play along.  First time through a recording, I listen with no score.  Then, I listen with my score out and be sure I can follow everything that's going on.  Then, I listen one more time, singing parts along and marking what looks like it will be scary.  When I'm rehearsing an individual part, I try to mark cues for entrances (oh!  Trumpets come in at Bar 18, and I enter in 20!) That's easier than counting endless bars of rests, lets you find places to jump back on if you're lost and also lets you see how your part fits in with others.  Also good to note- are unisons or choirs:  I see, the clarinets oboes and flutes have a nice trio at letter D.  Oh, it's just piccolo and tuba at four after L.  Mark these in your parts and you'll be armed with much more than letters and numbers to navigate.  It's kind of like using Google Maps street view rather than someone telling you that their house is located at Longitude 42.5 degrees West and 24.6 degrees North.  Sure, perhaps you can find that spot, but it won't be easy!  Giving yourself landmarks is vital.

2. Break it up!  Everyone encounters a nasty run of notes at some point.  Maybe they are eights or sixteenths or sixty-forth notes.  And they probably have the worst possible fingerings in a sequence you can imagine.  You think, I'll never be able to play that like Belinda does!  She's an experienced kazoo player with decades of experience in professional groups!  Woe is me!  Well, you can.  Break it into smaller groups.  For example, let’s say that you have a run of notes such as G F# E D C B A.  They come at you fast, and can be tricky.  First, I would practice them G-F, rest, E-D, rest, CBA.  Then smile that you've done it right, and do it again.  Then perhaps play GFE, rest, EDC rest BA.  Smile and repeat.  Then GF, rest, EDCBA.  Etc.  Try varying combinations of notes 2 or 3 at a time (and later 4 or 5).  Then put them back together.  Eventually it's G F# E D C B A.  For long 15-bar solos, do a bar or two at a time.  Then link them into 3 or 4 bar groups, and then do it all together after the parts are solid.

3. Play under tempo.  If a passage is hard, find a tempo you can play it at.  Sure, we may be going quarter=356 in rehearsal and the place you can play it comfortably is quarter = 10 because it's really hard.  That's fine.  Play it at quarter = 10 once.  Then do it six more times.  If you make a mistake, add three more.  (Yes, this one is tedious, but it works!) Once you can play it several times at that tempo and it's comfortable, smile, give yourself a treat, congratulate yourself, etc. and kick up the tempo slightly.  Do it again.  Six times at this tempo and you're good.  If you make a mistake more than twice in a repetition, go back to the previous tempo to make sure that one is solid.  Repeat until at tempo.  But wait-- won't that take about 300 times through for some of these bars?  It might.  But if it's just one bar then that should only take about four or five minutes.  Yes, this is time consuming and can be tedious.  Only use this one for your most difficult runs and passages, unless you have nothing else to do and lots of patience.  But do use it for the toughest bits.  (Music students often call this wood-shedding and will spend lots of hours with this technique over their careers-- or they should be.)  A word of encouragement with this one: Any bar that you do this properly with, you will be able to play. Period.  Your muscle memory will develop so well that your body will do it for you eventually and you will delight at how smoothly that bar went in rehearsal and probably ten years from now would be able to perform the same passage with only a glance at the page even if you haven't touched it in forever. 

4. Play things you enjoy.  Start off each time you practice or warm up, and even more importantly-- finish your playing sessions with something you enjoy playing and that you feel comfortable doing so.  Believe it or not, on viola that's Frere Jaques or Ode to Joy for me. Every time.  Thankfully, however, I’m a woodwind guy, and not a violist.  You always want to remind yourself of what you do well, and be sure to have some fun while practicing, even when the rest of your practice sessions may be really hard or not have gone as well as you liked.

5. Practice time.  If you have 15 minutes to practice 5 days a week, that's great!  Try to do so.  We all have very busy lives-- but it is a proven fact that playing 15 minutes a day will have a much greater impact than 3 hours all at once.  If you have 30 minutes a day, great.  If your free time is in blocks-- that is okay too.  Mine is.  Practice 2-3 times a week for however long you can.  But don't do it just once and then put your instrument away for the week.  Your body needs to remember your practice as much as your mind, and your body's memory is often going to take more reinforcement for things than your brilliant brain.

6. Practice Smart.  If you have 30 minutes for rehearsal/practice time, don't play the easy stuff for 25 minutes and then look briefly at the scary stuff that you don't want to think about.  Instead, warm up for a few minutes, play something you worked on last time to review, and then spend about 15 minutes on something really challenging. Spend 3 minutes on something new, sight-reading, or something you haven't played in a while.  Spend 4 minutes on something fun.  (If you don't get distracted in between, you probably have a few minutes extra.  Play something else fun!) 

7. Practice Happy.  Don't feel like practicing today?  Don't!  But it's been three days and I feel guilty?  Still don't.  When you force yourself to practice you won't get anything done.  Take the day off, do something else you enjoy.  Do remind yourself the next day to practice, and perhaps at your next session add more of something fun or something you enjoy.  Or, just take out your instrument and play through your favorite easy selections or sight-read a little.  If you never feel like playing, then think about why you play the instrument you do and what you like about it. What pieces excite you?  When you do feel like practicing, however, be sure to make the time to do it and reward yourself for doing so with music that you like as well as work hard and the parts you don't.

8. Practice without your instrument.  Put the recordings of the music on your ipod, Zune, or burn a CD.  Listen to them while you do the dishes, relax in the bathtub, or drive/commute to work.  On a 25 minute train ride?  Whip out your scores and sing through your parts in your head.  Bored at the bank while waiting in line?  Pick a piece from our rep and see if you can mentally sing through it all the way and remember all of it beginning to end.  Have some free time in front of a computer?  Google/Wikipedia Brahms or Dvorak.   Sitting in rehearsal for five minutes while I work with that pesky kazoo section again on that darned soli?  Follow along in your part as rehearsal fixes for them might apply somewhere else in the piece for you, or try to figure out what your notes would be if we were playing the piece in C# major, or whatever your favorite key is.

            Music is kind of like Amtrak or Greyhound, or the NYC Subway.  It is a journey, and we're all heading different places and started from different places, but we're together for this leg of the trip and enjoying our time together on it.  We may have different skills, abilities, interests, and passion, but we're all here for the music and the friendship.  We're here because we like playing our instrument, want to make friends, or want to learn something new.  Some of us want to experience new repertory or to keep our minds active.  Some of us want to network or to get new resources. your goals or motivation, you're here.  Make the best of it by practicing as effectively as you can.

New Wind Quintet Available! (Treatments)

New Wind Quintet Available!  http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/Treatments-for-Wind-Quintet/19918538 

Treatments for Wind Quintet by Brandyn Metzko. For Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn. 20th Century. Advanced Intermediate. Set of Parts, Score. Published by Brandyn Metzko (S0.8591).

Treatments is a work for wind quintet. It is a twelve-tone serialist piece, which means that before any note of the chromatic scale may be reused, all other notes must be used. The twelve-tone sequence appears in retrograde, inversion, and broken up rhythmically between the instruments. A quartal-chord chorale section begins and ends the work.

from the Pilgrim Messenger

New Interim Choir Director position, and Organists Wanted

I am pleased to announce that I accepted the job of Interim Choir Director at Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Tremont, Ohio!  In related news, I am selecting skilled organists to accompany Sunday rehearsals and service.  Please contact me directly at webguybrandyn@gmail.com if you are interested.

Transgendered Individuals wanted for Interview/Research

So, in continuing the work of my song cycle, I would like to interview a few people about their life and what love/dating/relationships/experience growing up has been about.  If you are transgendered or have loved/dated someone who is transgendered, and would be willing to be interviewed online, please contact me at webguybrandyn@gmail.com.   This is part of my research for "A Place for Gay Men and Straight Women to Mingle", a song cycle written for mtf trans high voice and piano, and will be premiered by Alexandra Stjames Gray later this year.

The Recording Industry Association of America and Music Piracy

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade industry that supports the creative and financial aspects of American recording artists.  They do much work in protecting the intellectual rights of work created and provide standards for the licensing and distribution of digital music.  They also provide educational programs for classroom use in order to communicate the importance of intellectual rights with regards to media and how students can avoid piracy and enjoy music legally.

One of the many services they offer include the Why Music Matters website, dedicated tot the promotion of legal digital music and educating the masses about proper licensing and how to obtain music legally.  There is an about section that explains the categories of legally available digital music and a very cool directory of videos in which one artist discusses the music of another artist, presenting a unique perspective on their music.

Piracy is a huge issue worldwide.  Without the help of organizations like the RIAA to monitor and educate, musicians lose out on revenue and the arts economy suffers.  RIAA is doing some great work by giving music consumers the information and resources that they need in order to legally and appropriately access music digitally.

How Basic Chords Work -- Basic Music Theory Lesson

This is for my conducting students this week to review/learn their theory, but is also a great video for any musician to review their chords or who is interested in learning it.

New Song Cycle: "A Place for Gay Men and Straight Women to Mingle"

I am composing a new song cycle "A Place for Gay Men and Straight Women to Mingle". This work is being written for transgendered (mtf) voice and piano, and will be premiered by Alexandra St. James in Chicago later this year.  To hear samples of the work as I write them, visit https://soundcloud.com/brandynn-equality/sets/a-place-for-gay-men-and 

Thank you to my new sponsor-patron, Steve Drury

I have secured my first ongoing sponsor-patron as a composer and appreciate that so much!  Thank you, Steve Drury!  In exchange for monthly financial support of my work Steve will be getting regular compositions of varying types and the joy that comes from supporting the arts.

If you are interested in becoming a patron of my composition work, please contact me at webguybrandyn@gmail.com or message me on facebook.  Thank you again, Steve for your support!

Conducting Ensembles: Cues

New student?

Have a new saxophone student starting in a couple weeks.  Also, I'm taking new students still-- what have you always wanted to learn?

(I teach from my home studio on the West end of Cleveland, Ohio in Lakewood.  216.630.0468 for bookings, lessons, or to commission me for composition works.)

Sirena Huang: a master of violin-- and storytelling for brand management.

Sirena Huang may give one of most the dazzling violin performances you’ve ever heard from an eleven-year old, but her playing isn’t the reason I find her magical.  What captivates and inspires me about her is her own storytelling and branding ability.

She not only plays her instrument beautifully, but she has researched its construction and the physics theory behind it in order to find beauty in the sixteenth century technology.  She admires its elegant design--not just a musical instrument, but also as a innovative lightweight compact structure capable of large sound production ad a wide variety of timbres.

Huang speaks of the entertainment value of finding humor in music—she speaks of enjoying bow “swordplay” early in her musical career and relates anecdotes of humorous musicians she has had the pleasure of meeting.  However, I am most impressed with her own combination of lecture—a clear entertaining explanation of why she does what she does—with her performance.  Being able to speak about her art so eloquently and on a basic level that relates to her audience gives her a character far more memorable than so many other musicians who may surpass her in virtuosity.  Combine this with the fact that she is only eleven years old, and has learned how to brand and market herself and speak about why her work is important, and we find that Ms. Huang is an entertainment delight to be reckoned with.  Today barely a teenager, she gets the entertainment business as a total picture.

So, what can we artists and creative professionals learn from Sirena Huang?  We can learn that being amazing at what we do is only part of the battle.  We need to not only continually hone our craft, but we need to be able to market ourselves effectively in order to make sure we have a career.  And, it's really helpful if we can take time to stop and recognize the beauty and elegance of technology and design that go into creating the tools that we use to make art.

Gay Games as Community Renaissance

The Lesbian/Gay Band Association(LGBA) has been instrumental in helping its member bands develop community resources and provide safe spaces for musical expression in cities across the United States for nearly two decades.

In the midst of the current political climate surrounding gay marriage and rights quality, the LGBA is focusing on the future.  The 2014 GayGames in Cleveland, Ohio promises to be the largest LGBT cultural and sporting event the world has ever seen.  This event will provide increased visibility for LGBT culture, music and sports and show the LGBT community not just as a struggling group fighting for rights, but as an established group of individuals that has found strength in numbers and celebrates its successes and culture widely. 

This event will bring together hundreds of musicians and choristers from around the globe and unify them in music-making.  The event will be attended by millions internationally and will be a life-changing experience for many.  Some of the attendees will experience their community in ways they may have never before imagined and find reassurance in their identity. 

The Lesbian-Gay Band Association continues to be a beacon of culture and show people that no matter what the political climate, nobody is alone, and, in the words of Dan Savage, “it gets better.”