Hi everyone. Sorry no blog last week. I was very busy with gigs, rehearsals and celebrations.
This week Pride and Joy continues its rehearsal for our many upcoming appearances and functions. See donpride.com for a complete listing. We've started working on some new original music and it is sounding great. We'll be at Tommy's Park in the Old Port on Saturday, June 5 from 2-4pm premiering several new tunes. We hope you can be there. Come up and say hi to us if you come.
On Friday night, May 28, I begin a series of campfire concerts at the Hidden Pines and Powderhorn campgrounds in Saco. Unfortunately, you have to have a camp there to come so I can't invite the public. But if you are in the mood for camping, by all means come. I just bring my acoustic guitar and do a lot of "unplugged" 70's stuff like the Eagles, Neil Young, Van Morrison and Jackson Brown to start with. As the kiddos begin to arrive I usually switch to campfire favorites like "Bingo", "Home on the Range" and lots of kids songs. It's a fun gig with lots of audience participation.
Speaking of audience participation, I'd like to ask, "What is some of your favorite campfire songs?" Maybe you can help me out with this. Last year one person told me "Crazy Train" by Ozzy was his favorite, so I did it! Hey, anything goes at a campfire. Some of you remember my Metal days with Sidekick and the semi-Metal Pinnocchio...
Also, next Sunday May 30, I'll be playing a couple of original songs at Farmington Assembly of God for their 10:30 am service. I'll probably do "The Call" and "Who Is Jesus?" but that could change...you never know. No "Crazy train", though. Pastor Dan Abbatiello will be the guest speaker that day. He is a great speaker, so if you are in the area, check it out.
Other than those events, I'll still be teaching guitar, piano and songwriting to my wonderful private students both here at my home and at Daddy's Junky Music, also in Portland.
I've also got to get back to work on the Classical guitar again. I'm currently working on Bach's Fourth Cello Suite and a fun but challenging piece written for Andre Segovia by Albert Roussel titled, well..."Segovia". It was written in 1925. I'm also working on Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's "Appunti", written in 1968 and rarely played.
On the writing front, I am in the midst of writing out charts for Pride and Joy to play.
I am also almost done with the first movement of my setting of the Declaration of Independance for Tenor soloist, flute, oboe and piano. I'll be mostly just writing in articulation's and dynamics and then I'll begin the arduous task of proofreading and printing parts. Because of this, it's on my low priority list right now.
That's what I'll be up to this week. Please comment if you enjoy this blog and maybe we can get some dialogue going.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
This week I had the privilege of playing for Phil James' funeral. Phil was a real patriot who fought in World War II as part of the Navy. He lost two of his brothers in the war and went on to be a beloved husband and father.
As I heard "Taps" played by his grave site, I was reminded of how much our servicemen sacrifice for us every day. We get caught up in day to day things and forget that there are people putting their lives on the line for us every day. I also thought about how much we owe the people who died for our freedom in World War II. Those people were true heroes and I appreciate them. If you are serving our country in any way I would like to sincerely thank you.
There were a lot of people at the funeral today. Obviously, Mr. James touched a lot of people in his life. Some of you may think playing a funeral is a depressing thing but that's not true. As a musician, I get to play on very significant days: weddings, showers, anniversaries, graduations, award ceremonies, retirement parties and even funerals. Many of these events make me stop and consider my own life. Today I was inspired by a man who had a positive effect on the world. He not only left behind a wonderful family but also fought for me.
Thank you, Phil.
As I heard "Taps" played by his grave site, I was reminded of how much our servicemen sacrifice for us every day. We get caught up in day to day things and forget that there are people putting their lives on the line for us every day. I also thought about how much we owe the people who died for our freedom in World War II. Those people were true heroes and I appreciate them. If you are serving our country in any way I would like to sincerely thank you.
There were a lot of people at the funeral today. Obviously, Mr. James touched a lot of people in his life. Some of you may think playing a funeral is a depressing thing but that's not true. As a musician, I get to play on very significant days: weddings, showers, anniversaries, graduations, award ceremonies, retirement parties and even funerals. Many of these events make me stop and consider my own life. Today I was inspired by a man who had a positive effect on the world. He not only left behind a wonderful family but also fought for me.
Thank you, Phil.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Welcome to My Blog
I will be using this blog to let you know what I'll be up to each week.
This week I will be finishing up two huge final papers for school. I am currently at USM persuing a Masters in Composition.
The first paper is on Gyorgy Ligeti's First and Second String Quartets. The paper looks at how Ligeti was able to develop a new musical language between the time they were composed. At the end of the paper, I show how Ligeti seemed to be dealing with horrible childhood memories from growing up in war-torn Hungary in the 1940's and 50's when he wrote the Second String Quartet in 1968.
The paper gets into quite a bit of musical analysis but I think a lot of my students could understand the analysis if they take their time with the paper. When the paper is completely done I will have a link here to a pdf if you are interested.
If you want to get into Ligeti's music for the first time, there are some excellent budget priced box sets available to order at Bull Moose. The Ligeti Project is a great set that has a lot of his famous compositions for orchestra on it, approved by the composer himself. If you want almost everything else he ever composed, pick up Ligeti: Works on Sony. This has the String Quartets, the Piano Etudes and even a piece for 100 Metronomes. If you are truly adventurous, musically, you need to hear Ligeiti's music. Trust me on this.
The second paper I will be finishing this week is on Let It Be...Naked a re-release of Let It Be by the Beatles that gets rid of Phil Spector's added production and strips the songs down to "just the original tapes". My paper compares the two albums and asks the question, "Is Let It Be...Naked Really...Naked?" I originally really liked Naked a lot better, but as I looked at the two albums more closely I started to think differently. If you love the Beatles and reading thoughtful words about their music you might enjoy this. Again I'll have a pdf attachment for you to download this later on.
Besides teaching private lessons and practicing guitar that's what I'll be up to most of this week. I look forward to doing more playing in the Summer. Check out my calender at donpride.com. The calender is starting to fill up so I'll be adding more dates soon.
Check out Ligeti and Let It Be... Naked and let me know what you think. (My son says Ligeti goes great with video games.)
This week I will be finishing up two huge final papers for school. I am currently at USM persuing a Masters in Composition.
The first paper is on Gyorgy Ligeti's First and Second String Quartets. The paper looks at how Ligeti was able to develop a new musical language between the time they were composed. At the end of the paper, I show how Ligeti seemed to be dealing with horrible childhood memories from growing up in war-torn Hungary in the 1940's and 50's when he wrote the Second String Quartet in 1968.
The paper gets into quite a bit of musical analysis but I think a lot of my students could understand the analysis if they take their time with the paper. When the paper is completely done I will have a link here to a pdf if you are interested.
If you want to get into Ligeti's music for the first time, there are some excellent budget priced box sets available to order at Bull Moose. The Ligeti Project is a great set that has a lot of his famous compositions for orchestra on it, approved by the composer himself. If you want almost everything else he ever composed, pick up Ligeti: Works on Sony. This has the String Quartets, the Piano Etudes and even a piece for 100 Metronomes. If you are truly adventurous, musically, you need to hear Ligeiti's music. Trust me on this.
The second paper I will be finishing this week is on Let It Be...Naked a re-release of Let It Be by the Beatles that gets rid of Phil Spector's added production and strips the songs down to "just the original tapes". My paper compares the two albums and asks the question, "Is Let It Be...Naked Really...Naked?" I originally really liked Naked a lot better, but as I looked at the two albums more closely I started to think differently. If you love the Beatles and reading thoughtful words about their music you might enjoy this. Again I'll have a pdf attachment for you to download this later on.
Besides teaching private lessons and practicing guitar that's what I'll be up to most of this week. I look forward to doing more playing in the Summer. Check out my calender at donpride.com. The calender is starting to fill up so I'll be adding more dates soon.
Check out Ligeti and Let It Be... Naked and let me know what you think. (My son says Ligeti goes great with video games.)
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