Finding Beauty in the Beats: A Conversation with Mingo Lewis

In a career spanning more than 45 years (so far!), percussionist Mingo Lewis has played with some of music's greatest names, including Chick Corea (and Return to Forever), Al DiMeola, Santana, and the Tubes. He has performed live and/or recorded with hundreds of musicians such as Third World, Miles Davis, Todd Rundgren, and Billy Joel. He has recorded over 100 records, many of which were Grammy winners.

Far from being content to rest on the laurels of an undeniably full career, Mingo is still actively performing and teaching, continuing to stretch his boundaries further.

Contributing writer Elijah Tucker recently had a chance to sit down with Mingo in his home in Oakland. Here's what he had to say:

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"Playing a conga is like being a magician. You can't even see the shape of the hands change to make these different sounds, but all of a sudden you're hearing four, five, even six different tones out of one drum. That's what is beautiful about a drum."           --Mingo Lewis

Mingo Lewis is a man of many talents, musical and otherwise. Walking into his Oakland home studio, I admired the funky laid-brick floor and richly painted walls. This studio, which he built from a dirt floor cellar into the three-room complex that I saw before me, was impressive; my admiration was soon to skyrocket when he began to tell me of his career.

Early days

Mingo's childhood was saturated with music and musicians. His father, Jimmy "Babyface" Lewis, was a blues singer and guitarist, well-known at New York's Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. Jimmy's closest friends were Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, and the two would often visit the family: "Monk would make me sit next to the piano and ask me all these crazy questions," Mingo reminisces: "'What chord is this? What note is this?' I'd hide when he came over."

With such musical luminaries surrounding him, it was inevitable that the boy would begin playing early. He started with brushes on just a snare drum and a cymbal, jamming with his father, who would wake young Mingo up in the middle of the night to play with him and his friends. Over time, Mingo learned to groove with the masters. Monk, Miles, Max Roach, Art Blakey and countless others were frequent visitors to the house.

3-year-old Mingo

While still in elementary school, Mingo started gigging. He spent days and nights at Harlem's Apollo Theater, sitting in with James Brown and King Curtis, witnessing the basement dice games between the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, and members of the Four Tops - all before the age of 12.

Mingo learned through immersion, rather than formal study, and to this day contends that the best practice technique is to play along with music. "The best way for anybody to learn is through practice with their favorite music. Anything that feels good, put that on and practice to it, because you already have an affinity for that music," he says.

From age 6 to 12, he was steeped in jazz, funk and soul music. Upon entering junior high school, he became enthralled with Latin music, quickly becoming involved in the swinging Latin music scene in New York. Absorbing the playing of the bands of Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Ray Baretto and Johnny Pacheco, he was primed for a transformation.

"I was at a place in New York called the Corso. I was waiting for Ray Baretto to come on, and all of a sudden, this little guy walked up to Ray's congas, and started playing. I freaked out. It was the first time I had heard drums become so melodic." The mysterious conga player was Carlos "Patato" Valdez, who, along with Armando Peraza, would become Mingo's single biggest influence as a conga player. It was at this point that Mingo moved away from jazz and funk, focusing exclusively on Latin music and conga playing. He spent time at the popular drummer's hangout in Central Park, The Fountain, and around City College, where he put together his first Latin band. During this time, fresh into high school, he became a major presence in the scene, sitting in with Mongo Santamaria and many of the other great bands that came through town.

Mingo with Santana, 1972

A turning point

One night, the Santana band was in town to play at Madison Square Garden. It happened that the percussion section had quit the afternoon before the gig, and Carlos and the band were left scrambling to find a replacement. When the show's promoter got word that Mingo, who had been dragged to the show by a friend, was in the house waiting for the show to begin, an impromptu audition was arranged, and with only minutes to spare, Mingo filled in. It was the beginning of what would become a three-year relationship with Santana, during which they toured the world and recorded the studio albums Caravanserai and Love, Devotion and Surrender and the live LP Live at the Crater Festival.

After three years had passed, a good friend played Mingo the debut recording of Chick Corea's band Return to Forever. Hearing this music proved to be the catalyst for the next stage in Mingo's career. "I heard the song 'Some Time Ago' and I just freaked out. That night, I knew I was gonna quit Santana. I had to move on," Mingo explains. "I wasn't growing." It wasn't with the specific purpose of joining "Chick's band" that Lewis left Santana, "but I knew I was gonna get there somehow."

He soon got a call from RTF's first drummer, Lenny White, inviting him to sit in with the band at a local gig. Thinking that this was simply a jam situation, as opposed to the secret audition that it was, Mingo approached Chick after the gig and said, "I would really love to play with you." He passed the audition and stayed with the band for close to two years.

Recording and teaching

Over the ensuing years, he worked on some highly acclaimed pop and fusion records, including Billy Joel's Turnstiles, Todd Rundgren's Nearly Human, XTC's Skylarking, David Byrne and Brian Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, and a handful of Al DiMeola's early works. Additionally, he began to develop a teaching practice, one focused on understanding each individual student and teaching according to his or her needs.

"You cannot teach from a format," Mingo insists. "Everyone is an individual. As a teacher, I try to get inside the student; each student is different, and everybody has a different learning curve. When I was a little boy, my mother sent me to study with Ted Reed" - the lauded author of Syncopation for the Modern Drummer - "and I went to one lesson. After that, I was straight to the movie theater! Because what he did was, he sat me down with a snare drum and a book, and he had me playing all this rudimental stuff. I was already out gigging. I knew how to play." Reed's didactic method "was very boring to me."

Mingo's students have arrived to him with a wide range of strengths and weaknesses. He recalls an MIT graduate who came with an uncanny mathematical genius for deconstructing any pattern or rhythm instantly. But the student's playing lacked a sense of emotion or feeling. "The playing was very robotic, very stiff. My whole feeling about teaching him was that I had to teach him how to feel music."

Other students have struggled with one rhythm for a year, but once they got that rhythm, Mingo reports, "the feeling was intense."

When Mingo takes on a new student, he is interested in seeing that student take what he has to offer and begin to develop it for him or herself. "I teach people how to learn and understand music--not strictly drums, but music. I like to give them as much information as they need, as quickly as possible, and then let them go. I don't like to hold on to students.

"I really like teaching beginners, because I can start them off right: I can tell them who to listen to, make sure their tones are right, that they understand timing, how to feel time, and that they are playing relaxed. I also love teaching really advanced players, 'cause then I can sit and really stretch the imagination of this person; I can go to other places, rhythmically. Then you get into the real sick stuff. That's really a lot of fun."

New projects

Mingo is getting into some dizzyingly complex stuff of his own. A recent endorser of the PanArt Hang [pronounced hung] drum, he has been exploring the capabilities of this new instrument. He recently recorded with the Hang, applying conga technique to this melodic wunderkind of an instrument; the results are breathtaking. He has also recently begun studying tabla, and has fallen in love with the courtly North Indian drums. As so many great masters do, Mingo is constantly pursuing new directions.

A new project, called X-Revue, is three bands in one. In Vortex Tribe, he plays drumset. It is a world-beat/jazz fusion project, with keyboards, guitar, bass and the flute of Deborah Yates. The second band, Room of Voices, plays a brand of funk/pop heavily influenced by the classic funk of James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, et al. Mingo is conguero and singer in this group. The third project under the X-Revue umbrella is Temple Rhythm, a deeply funky exploration of world rhythm - Arabic, Middle Eastern, Indian Punjabi, etc - that will feature a variety of master percussionists of the world.

With X-Tribe, Mingo is able to explore the range of his passions in a loosely unified format. In live performance, he hopes to put on a revue-style show, where the "house band" is X-Revue. As different featured performers take the stage with the house band, the act, in name and feeling, changes. The lines begin to blur, and the show concludes with an all-star collection of the featured artists around the X-Revue core.

As a player/composer/producer, Mingo Lewis is in the business of making real music, in real time, with real people: relaxed, breathing, grooving music. As a teacher, his project is to convey the depth and beauty of music, as a whole, to whoever is lucky enough to cross the threshold of his basement studio.

My Trip to Mandolin Camp

"Is this really going to be worth all the money?"

Since arriving in Santa Cruz two days earlier, I'd sat in the same room with several of my musical icons - but I hadn't yet come away with any concrete knowledge. More than I'd received actual instruction, I'd heard other students gush about the instructors' playing styles, drooling when they played a particularly tasteful solo.

Come on, I thought. Teach the workshop - don't just open it up to the class for questions. We only have so much time. Then it happened; I attended Mike Marshall's class entitled "Chords, Chords, Chords". Finally I found myself in a classroom setting where the teacher had prepared a curriculum and was teaching it. At last, a workshop started out comfortably and quickly moved to territory which would make me work to push my skill level. This is why I spent the money. This is the reason I traveled from Seattle down to Santa Cruz, California to the fifth annual Mandolin Symposium.

For one week in June every year, a musical community gathers to celebrate a small stringed instrument many people wouldn't be able to identify. Hosted by iconic players David Grisman and Mike Marshall, the Mandolin Symposium encompasses all aspects of the eight-stringed family of instruments. Attendees from all corners of the world ensure that the event spans a number of genres, including bluegrass, Celtic, Brazilian, jazz, and classical. The symposium features world-class players and instructors giving workshops and concerts daily for the duration of the event. In addition, students participate in a group ensemble of their choice and spend most of their free time wandering amongst the many ongoing jams. For a solid week, we spent all day, every day, living and breathing music.

Getting Settled

This year's symposium was held on the campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz, located in the hills just above downtown and surrounded by a lush redwood forest. After registering, I went to check out the on-campus housing where I would stay during the symposium. It was located conveniently close to the classrooms where my instruction would be. It felt like going back to college again - only this time there was just one subject: playing music on the mandolin. My private room shared a kitchen and common area with another student - on our first meeting, we started our relationship off with a musical jam. It was never this easy to make friends in college!

The symposium kicked off with an orientation meeting for all the students and staff in a small on-campus theatre called Town Hall. This would be the daily "general assembly hall" for the duration of the event. The purpose of this first gathering was to welcome the students and briefly introduce all of the instructors. This year's lineup was nothing to scoff at - in fact, it was the reason most of us decided to attend in the first place.

The Teachers

One of the most creative figures in modern mandolin music, and the camp's host, is David "Dawg" Grisman. He is a prolific composer and an adept performer, combining so many different genres that he is widely recognized as having defined a genre of his own - "Dawg" music. Grisman was a long time collaborator with Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. Starting in the 70s the two collaborated, first in a bluegrass band called "Old and In the Way" and up to Garcia's death in the 90s under the name "Garcia/Grisman Band."

A mainstay in the acoustic music world for over thirty years, David Grisman is the guy a lot of us came to the symposium to meet, listen to, and learn from.

The author with bluegrass legend Ronnie McCroury

The other head honcho was Mike Marshall. Marshall is one of "those guys" that can play any stringed instrument, and do it about as good or better than anyone else. While his main focus is mandolin, he's also quite formidable on the mandocello, which can replace a bass and or guitar in many situations. Mike is not quite as well known as Grisman overall, but in the mandolin world, he's among a small list of peers with (at least) equal facility on the instrument. Mike is also recognized as one of the foremost mandolin instructors: he explains his strong grasp of music theory in a clear thought-out manner, while directly relating it to the mandolin. Mike has published a series of instructional books detailing his various "fingerbuster" exercises for melodic playing, as well as a collection of Bach pieces transcribed for mandolin.

Other instructors included one of my personal favorites, bluegrass mandolin wizard Ronnie McCoury from the Del McCoury band. North Carolinian Tony Williamson, who is primarily known as a bluegrass player, also brought his extensive knowledge of swing styles and his expertise on vintage instruments. Caterina Lichtenberg, from Germany, came to teach the original European tradition of classical mandolin. One of the more eccentric instructors was Andy Statman. Statman is a Hacidic Jew who incorporates clarinet and mandolin into his jazz, bluegrass and Balkan music. He leans toward making purely improvisational music that always keeps listeners guessing what he'll do next: In his faculty performance the year before, Andy led Mike Marshall through a 55-minute long improvisation for mandolin and mandocello. From what I heard, it had been brilliant, inspired...and exhausting.

Rich Delgroso was invited to the symposium to teach traditional blues on the mandolin. Though we don't often say "mandolin" and "blues" in the same sentence any more, several early blues musicians did use the instrument to create the style of music we know today. Rich is the type of guy you could easily imagine hanging out with at two in the morning, sipping whiskey as he tells stories of all the old blues cats he's known. Another bluegrass icon in attendance was Herschel Sizemore. A friend of Bill Monroe, Herschel turned down many fulltime gigs to remain at home with his family until finally joining Jimmy Martin's band in the late 60s. He has continued to perform regularly since then. Known for composing several bluegrass standards and revered for his sweet clean-toned playing, Herschel was the elder statesman in attendance this year.

Of all the genres represented at the symposium, none of them had the excitement and exotic appeal as the choro musicians from Brazil. Dudu Maia and Danillo Brita, two young virtuosos in Brazil's most beloved folk music form, performed with a passion and fluidity that was truly inspiring. I think Danillo received a standing ovation almost every time he played his instrument. However, his teaching ability was hampered by the fact that he speaks very little English, except his catch phrase taught to him that week: when asked, "How are you?" Danillo always replied, "I'm cooool, maan!".

A Day at Mandolin Camp

As I settled in, my days at the camp began to follow a predictable pattern. Each morning at 7:30, I hiked the half-mile to the cafeteria for breakfast, often passing early morning deer feeding along the way. At 9:30, we convened in the Town Hall for the music appreciation class, where Grisman and Marshall interviewed a different instructor each day about their musical background. The conversation often included the teachers' influences, favorite players, and instrument instrument choice, and was always accompanied by a multimedia presentation including photos, videos and audio samples. This was a very informative part of the event and allowed us to become much more acquainted with the instructors.

Left to right: Dave Grisman, the author, Sam Grisman.

After music appreciation we headed to one of the elective classes, which were separated by students' skill levels and the genres they were interested in studying. Class sizes were around 20 students, and depending on the instructor, could serve as an exercise in patience. I say this because some of the instructors weren't well-prepared to lead the class - instead, by answering every question that was posed, they allowed the students to guide the topic being discussed. What was it like? Just imagine a roomful of fans meeting one of their musical idols for the first time. I felt like I was in the Saturday Night Live sketch were Chris Farley interviews Paul McCartney: "Remember when you were in the Beatles... and uhh... made the record Abbey Road? That was awesome!" More than to admire, I was there to learn, and some of the eighty or so electives offered fell short of that mark. However, others were, as Farley would say, "awesome".

By contrast, each day's lunch was actually a fairly productive time. While the instructors almost never ate with the students, this was a time when we, the campers, got to compare notes on how the various classes stacked up against each other. Since you could change electives right up until the class was scheduled to begin, talking with other students was invaluable in helping to pick the best classes.

After lunch, we headed back to class for the second workshop of the day, which was followed by the mandolin ensembles. Each instructor led an an ensemble representative of their chosen genre. I joined David Grisman's ensemble and we rehearsed two of his original tunes. This was one of favorite parts of the symposium; I was learning new tunes and playing them with one of my musical heroes. At the end of the week, all of the ensembles would be performing in a public concert to finish off the camp. We also planned to play a few pieces as an all-symposium mandolin orchestra.

The all-symposium rehearsals were somewhat frustrating. The tunes we rehearsed were arranged for a classical mandolin orchestra: first mandolin, second mandolin, mandola, and mandocello. However, we were seated fairly randomly, instead of by section. As a result, it was very hard to get a cohesive sound from each section, a problem aggravated by not getting any feedback the director as to whether I was playing parts correctly or not. Having never played in an orchestral context before, it was hard to rehearse without any guidance for our particular parts. I did have the opportunity, however, to borrow one of David Grisman's personal mandolas (a John Monteleone F-style). After the series of slapdash rehearsals, the concert performance was surprisingly tight.

Mike Marshall teaching the group.

One of my favorite classes was Mike Marshall's master composition class, which gave indivdual students an opportunity to perform for an instructor to critique. There were about 20 people in this group - everyone put their name down with a song they wanted to perform. There wasn't enough time to hear everyone's tunes, so Marshall chose three people to perform, two of which were acquaintances of his already. And Mike's third choice was me! I chose a tune which I described as 'original slow groove'. I told Mike the tune was complete but that I'd like to explore the harmonic possibilities of chord changes, which weren't the most obvious. Needless to say, playing an original tune of mine with Mike Marshall in front of a class was a thrilling experience. He shed some light on building chords around the appropriate melody notes and how that affected the feel of the song. I think that particular segment of the class was helpful to many of the students and I also got very positive feedback about my song, from Mike and the class.

Summing It Up

As you can tell I have some critical feedback about this event. However, after it was all over, I returned home with a great sense of inspiration and motivation to learn more about my instrument. That, and the friendships I made through the week, are really what attending an event like this is all about. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a music camp I can definitely recommend the experience - and I might just make a return trip to the Mandolin Symposium.

A Little Harsher By Design: A Visit with Lori Goldston

After fourteen years, forty silent film scores, an acclaimed new- and world-music ensemble, performances with numerous big names on the alternative music circuit, and now a teaching career, everyone still wants to ask Lori Goldston about her time with Nirvana.

"It's such a funny calling card," says the cellist, whose musical interests have never particularly pointed to playing in sports arenas full of screaming teens. "A lot of people get stuck being remembered for something they hated doing. I'm fortunate that I like that band and I like what I did with them."

Lori Goldston

Goldston was performing at a Seattle benefit for victims of the Serbian war when she was spotted by Nirvana bass player Krist Novoselic. (His parents are Croatian. ) She toured with the band in late 1993 and into the beginning of 1994, just a few months before Kurt Cobain's suicide.

In retrospect, Nirvana's last days would seem to define an era. At the time, for a young classically-trained musician who had moved from the East Coast to Seattle "on a whim," the tour was "a weird adventure." It was a gig, after all, and not necessarily the most musically rewarding one: "You're constrained in what you can do, because it has to be the same every day. People want it to sound like what they heard on the radio."

Goldston's work with Nirvana is preserved in the recording from the band's legendary 1993 appearance on MTV's Unplugged series. Her cello draws along a rich, steady bass undertow beneath the surprisingly gentle tone of the band in its made-for-TV acoustic configuration. Except for an otherworldly upwelling of passion from Cobain at the very end of the program — a final screamed verse of the Leadbelly classic "In the Pines" that could justify the entire grunge enterprise on its own — there's a subdued feeling to the program. It's true that there isn't much room for more than uncomplicated support from the backup players.

 

Goldston has positive words for the tour experience. "It made me really like teenagers, and the whole ritual of rock shows. The kids were so happy and having so much fun, just shining." Nirvana's following "was self-selective. These were smart, sensitive, nice kids. And there were great opening bands."

As for Cobain himself, plenty has been said over the last fourteen years, and Goldston doesn't want to add to it. When I ask her about the band, she says, "They were nice. It was fun." And then she falls silent.

If the Unplugged show is anything to go on, Goldston's description of the tour as a "weird adventure" is fitting. The funereal atmosphere onstage — candles, drapery, and white lilies, all placed at Cobain's request — is made only stranger by the bright television lighting. The singer reaches for cigarettes between songs and fidgets nervously in his office-issue ergonomic swivel chair. He tosses a smart-alecky four-letter insult at the audience before the final song.

The band hasn't quite figured out which songs to play when, or in what key, or which one is Cobain's solo, and they hash it all out between songs. Goldston looks on with a slight smile and an air of unruffled competence, bow poised over the instrument. As soon as they're ready to get on with it, she's ready to play.

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"Guitar was always my first language," Goldston explains. The grandchild of New York opera lovers, she immersed herself in music, playing classical cello and jazz guitar and singing in her high school chorus. Only later would she miss the folk and ragtime tunes of her childhood enough to start "playing the cello in more and more guitarlike ways," experimenting with techniques such as a finger-picked pizzicato.

"The world expanded really rapidly in college," when Goldston started doing a lot of free improvising. "I played a lot of percussion for a while, with some Brazilians I lived near. If people asked me to play something, I'd just agree and find a way to do it. I fell into a lot of situations that way." Providing improvised accompaniment for dance classes — something she still does sometimes — Goldston began developing a stylistic vocabulary that was far more flexible than her classical background. "For modern dance, you can make it kind of a crazy faux-feedback Beatnik freakout. For ballet class, you have to rein it in." After college, in the mid-80s, she chose Seattle for the freedom of its music scene.

Since then, Goldston has founded several ensembles with her partner, accordionist Kyle Hanson, and played on dozens of CDs. As a guest performer, she has appeared with a long lineup of notable artists, from former Talking Head David Byrne to alternative songstress Laura Veirs. Her name gets around. When the minimalist singer/songwriter Cat Power played in Seattle, she asked Goldston to accompany her.

"Nobody else plays like I do," the cellist explains. It's not a boast, just an observation.

When she branched out from the classical repertoire, Goldston made fundamental changes to her sound. "Some concrete things I decided to shift: I stopped playing with vibrato all the time. Other things I did unconsciously. I've played for so long now with drummers and guitar players and accordionists that I sound more like those things. Now on the rare occasions when I play with other cellists, it takes a lot of effort to blend my sound in with them.

"I think my sound has more punch to it now, the way a horn might — it's a little more focused and compressed, which most cellists try to avoid. It's a little harsher, by design. I've listened to John Coltrane and Albert Ayler way more than I've listened to almost any other cellist," she notes.

"I like mistakes and grit in the sound, like the grit on the contacts in an old organ. That's the interesting part to me — managing those textures."

Goldston insists that the cello has a lot to contribute to repertoires that don't traditionally make use of it. "It can have a really strong visceral emotional impact. It can make things sound really big, like there are way more people playing. Why wouldn't you want a cello?"

Goldston is also a composer. She has written commissions for dance companies nationally and internationally, as well as scores to accompany more than forty silent films. Most of these she performs herself.

Composition, she says, "happens under emergency conditions," when she gives herself a one-woman crash course in the context for the project. "I'm a really big researcher," she declares, whether she's playing in a new setting or composing. "If it's a Brazilian project, I'll go out and get all the Brazilian recordings I can find." Before developing a live solo score for the 1928 classic film The Passion of Joan of Arc — "a terrific, weird, weird, weird film" — Goldston read everything she could about the 15th-century martyr. "Books and books and books. I have shelves of binders upstairs, information for projects. Hopefully it all goes in."

When I interviewed her, I discovered what it feels like to become the object of Goldston's keen curiosity and intelligence. I couldn't get any of my questions into the conversation until she'd quizzed me in detail about my own musical interests. She pulled books off the shelf for background information. We traded listening recommendations, and she played an LP of 17th-century music she'd recently found in a dollar bin.

She describes her scores to old movies as "collaborations with dead people" — an endeavor that can be every bit as complicated as it sounds. One such project was to accompany a pair of films by Yasujiro Ozu, the influential WWII-era director, along with koto player Elizabeth Falconer. Ozu was firmly committed to the silent medium. "He hated to have any music with his films. I'm sure he was spinning in his grave. I felt bad, but I said, well, it's me or a recording, and I'm better than a recording."

Real-time presence is part of what Goldston values about live performance, especially when - as with film, theater, and dance collaboration — it involves something more interesting and complex than simply playing on a lit stage. Goldston says she's fascinated by the humanist role of the musician and by the "festive, public" aspect of performing.

"When I look at religious people or those with an activist calling, it's harder to think of music as essential. I envy people who get to save people's lives every day. But then, with music you get to promote empathy and bring out the best in people. It gets corny but it's all true."

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She met her partner Kyle Hanson while they were both working at a restaurant — "but we got to be friends because I had seen a really crazy dance piece that he and his sister had made." Hanson pulled her into a theater project on Tristan Tzara, one of the founders of Dadaism.

Goldston with the Black Cat Orchestra

Together, in 1992, Goldston and Hanson founded The Black Cat Orchestra. By her own admission, Goldston "can never figure out how to describe it." Influenced by diverse musical traditions from Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America, the ensemble gave its own sound to both traditional and original music. The group played on Chicago Public Radio's This American Life when the show toured to Seattle. Today a new configuration plays under the name Spectratone International, often touring and recording with the indie singer-songwriter Mirah. Sometimes Goldston plays guitar in the band, as well as cello. Goldston and Hanson also perform as a duo called The Shifting Light.

"Our whole operation revolves around music," she says. Their young son Isaac has accompanied them on tour. "We've been kind of merciless with the kid." A favorite family anecdote recounts how, as a toddler, Isaac thought that every adult could boast of at least one CD and every households had a drum set in the basement.

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Now that she's a parent, Goldston spends less time touring and more time teaching. Her students range from children and teens to retirees. For a musician with such an individual artistic vision, there's no ready-made teaching approach. Besides, it's the first time that she's seriously focused on teaching. "I don't know what I'm doing," she confesses. "I have to figure it out for myself."

In fact, though, she has plenty of good ideas, from the tried and true to the truly innovative.

Some of Goldston's students want to go beyond technique and make the leap to improvising on their instruments. She is perfectly poised to offer her students "a more well-rounded education." Goldston, who has taught at a teen rock camp, looks for students who are interested in playing in bands.

One of her students "brings a CD of a song that she can't figure out the chord changes to, and that's my excuse to talk about theory. You need some basics, really dull theory things, to know what's going on. Then we'll talk about pop arranging: how this kind of voicing makes it sound especially spacey right here, how the flute's doubling that major seventh. At some point she'll probably be in a situation where she'll play cello in a band."

Teaching people how to improvise, she says, "isn't really an oxymoron, but it has the feeling of one. I haven't really hit on the solution to that question." Goldston gathers some ideas from watching dancers work. "Dancers are better at talking about improvisation, and they have systems for teaching it." She notes that there's also a wealth of books available on teaching dance to kids. The books' creative ideas for exploring one type or aspect of movement at a time, using imitation, or establishing a relationship in space or time to another dancer adapt well for teaching improvisation to musicians.

Goldston gets teaching ideas from watching her own child learn, too. ("Having a kid changes your idea of everything!") At Isaac's preschool, she noticed, the teachers make sure to buffer the structured activities with "some free spazz-out time before and after." Goldston wonders about building this kind of rhythm into her lessons, with time for improvising, or even just relaxed movement, at the opening and closing of the hour.

In the end, she says, improvising comes down to "just doing it. Just fool around with the radio on." Having followed her own ears to a satisfying career, she places a lot of trust in turn in the musical sensibilities of her students.

Still, though, Goldston emphasizes the classical basics. "I'm a little bit conservative. I want to immerse them in that world. It's an endless, exciting universe. I don't need to push pop music; it's everywhere. I push the other stuff.

"I have Western classical music to thank for being able to get around efficiently on my instrument," she continues. "The attention to detail is hard to beat. And I still like that music. It's comfortable and homey, and playing chamber music is still one of the nicest ways to socialize. I don't feel that I've discarded it or moved beyond it or anything like that."

In addition to the standard sorts of method books and duet books that most classical teachers rely on, Goldston uses YouTube to give her students more perspective, sending them home to watch Casals master classes.

She laments that some students are turned off from classical music by the way it's presented by other teachers. "My students come in with a lot of orchestra music that they're not very excited about. And yet there's a whole world of nice orchestra music out there." In November, one of Goldston's students announced that she had decided to quit orchestra after being assigned a piece called "Santa's Fiesta." Goldston agreed that the sixteen-year-old was right to look for an experience better suited to her intelligence. "I said, yes, that's totally abusive."

Whatever inadequacies may be found in the school music situation, Goldston points to a silver lining. "If private instruction is the sole means of getting your kids a musical education, people take it more seriously. This means there are opportunities for people like us."

New Music Roundup: A Few Quick Picks

Classical Music

Shulamit Kleinerman's favorites this time around include:

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
Recital at Ravinia
Harmonia Mundi

Some of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's fans knew the acclaimed mezzo mainly from her roles and recordings in Baroque opera, and when she died too young in 2006, it was a revelation to discover just how much broader both her work and her audience were. Last year saw the release of two more posthumous albums and the awarding of a second posthumous Grammy. This spring's new CD is a live recital, on a program devoted to themes of love, that Hunt Lieberson gave with Peter Serkin in August 2004. The music ranges from Handel to Mozart to Brahms to Debussy, plus three encores: the grieving maternal love duo from Handel's Giulio Cesare with countertenor Drew Minter, the arrangement of "Deep River" by Henry Thacker Burleigh, and the arty, sad pop song "Calling You" from the movie Baghdad Cafe.

Hunt Lieberson had recorded most of this material previously, but the mixed recital format brings out new aspects. The Mozart songs sound like Schubert Lieder, and the Handel arias are drawn out slowly, with more reserve than in the singer's brilliant collaborations with period-instrument orchestras. The miraculous bloom of her voice, from silence to a cascade of sound, has always been unlike anything else, and it transforms the encores. Her outpouring of anguish in the wail of "I am calling you" turns an eighties pop melisma into something almost unnervingly her own. To me, the most beautiful moments on the album come in the duo with Minter, "Son nata a lagrimar," where the two singers lean achingly into each other's voices at the cadences and where Hunt Lieberson's tremulous cries of "Ah" over Minter's line reveal the deep, detailed intelligence behind her ravishingly expressive sound.

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Brooklyn Rider
Passport
In a Circle Records

From the ensemble's name, you'd never know they're a classical string quartet. It's all part of the boundary-defying venture of these four innovative young players, who in addition to maintaining a claim on the mainstream classical repertoire have worked together on cross-cultural, cross-genre projects such as Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. They're hip in a geeky Brooklyn way (suspenders, facial hair). They're passionate and knowledgeable about art: their ensemble's name makes reference to the Blue Rider group in expressionist painting nearly a century ago. They do shows in clubs, galleries, and the occasional Buddhist temple. Everyone but the cellist plays standing up, and when the music calls for it, they dig into their instruments with the exuberance of racehorses let out of the barn.

The quartet's repertoire runs to new music with world-music flavors. Passport opens with an arrangement of five Armenian folk songs. One is broad and muscular, Copland for the South Caucasus; another is an elusive old-world sing-song. The thirteen-minute album centerpiece, second violinist Colin Jacobsen's "Brooklesca," begins with one of the most exhilarating half-minutes of chamber music I've heard. A touch of percussion sharpens the groove that's already there. The highlight of Passport is its last two tracks, by composer and fellow adventurous string player Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin. On "Crosstown," the upper strings ride a slinky plucked cello ostinato into a landscape of almost embarrassingly rich harmonies, vista after vista unfolding. The string quartet is traveling well in the 21st century, and you don't even need a classical-music passport to rock out with this one.

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Richard Egarr, harpsichord
Henry Purcell: Keyboard Suites and Grounds
Harmonia Mundi

It's not just for harpsichord lovers: The prolific Richard Egarr brings to life Purcell's eight keyboard suites with warmth, sparkle, and tunefulness. The suites offer a kaleidoscopic view of all the French Baroque dance forms in miniature, along with an airy, frivolous English hornpipe or two. The style of the whole thing is gently theatrical and luxurious, from the lovely halting delicacy of the "Bell-Barr" Almand in Suite No. 7 to the cocky swagger of the same suite's Hornpipe.

The suites are interspersed with seven longer pieces on repeating ground bass patterns -- a wonderful programming touch that anchors the shifting dance movements with moments of gravity. Where Egarr highlights the dance movements' unfolding harmonic twists and turns, particularly in the short preludes that unspool to a single expectant cadence, he allows the grounds to lay out their more measured grandeur. A poignant aria from Welcome to all the pleasures turns a soprano solo into a thin, high harpsichord voice, which somehow makes it only more exquisite. The range and scope of the instrument is well plumbed in the playing and well preserved in the recording. Turn up the volume or you'll miss the last track, a dreamlike time-travel to a private musical moment, you might imagine, in some 17th-century London parlor.

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Matt Haimovitz (cello), Jonathan Crow (violin), Douglas McNabney (viola)
J.S. Bach, Goldberg Variations
Oxingale Records

Matt Haimovitz gets top billing here -- a few years ago the world-class young cellist won applause for his mission to play solo Bach across small-town America. But the three musicians on this album are equals. Colleagues in the string department at McGill University who had already recorded a Mozart album together, they share the kind of warm, congenial chamber-music interplay that rarely happens all the way. Beyond their lovely technique and sound and their exquisite musical sensitivity, the recording manages to capture a really special musical intimacy. You can literally hear the players listening to each other.

Their camaraderie is all the more remarkable given that the piece is Bach's Goldberg Variations, ordinarily the epitome of solitary music (not least when it came to the reclusive Glenn Gould). In the keyboard original, the music's "plot" lies in moving from the plainness of the opening Aria theme into the increasing complexity of the variations, and the reprise of the Aria at the end sounds a bit empty, as if all that decoration was just a dream. Dmitri Sitkovetsky's little-known arrangement for string trio turns the monologue into a conversation. In this performance, the Aria is rich and subtle and full of life. The musicians honor the transparency of the writing, hovering with delicate vibrato in its spaciously breathed phrases. When it comes back after the variations' bustle and grandeur, the reprise is all the sweeter.

This One Time, At Band Camp: Rocking out with Girls Rock! Seattle

When I was a kid, I spent many summers at sleep-away camp. It was usually somewhere up in the mountains, where the dining hall was disguised as a hunting lodge, where the girls cabin would sneak out at night to raid the boys' cabin, and more importantly, somewhere where there would be singing around a campfire every night. This summer I got to go back to camp, but the music wasn't by the campfire -- it was coming from a guitar plugged into a Marshall stack backed by a drum kit, bass, and stage lights! And I wasn't 11 years old anymore either -- I was the counselor, coaching a band of 9,10 and 11 year old girls at Girls Rock! Seattle Summer Camp 2009.

Yes, there really is such a thing as Rock Camp. And yes, it rocks -- this one especially, because it's just for girls! This summer, the nonprofit organization Girls Rock! Seattle (GR!S) kicked off its first summer camp session for 39 girls aged 9-16. Following on the heels of its Northwest predecessor and affiliate Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Oregon, GR!S carries the mission of building positive self-esteem in girls and encouraging creative expression through music. For one week in July, under the eaves of Seattle's Fremont Abbey, that is exactly what we did.

How I Got Involved

Band practice with "Red Umbrella"

I first learned about Girls Rock through volunteering at the Portland camp in 2007. As it turned out, a fellow camp volunteer went on to become one of the founders of GR!S. I had such a great experience as a band coach in Portland that I wanted to be a part of the Seattle kickoff -- so much so that it didn't really matter that I actually live in Los Angeles. My band Raining Jane has been based out of LA for about 10 years now, and we've made it a point to do as much outreach as we can, to give back some of what we've gleaned from our years toiling on the path of an independent, all-female band, and just to share our passion for the craft. The chance to support aspiring young female musicians means so much, and is beyond fulfilling. In fact, it even fuels my own music and writing.

This summer, I attended Girls Rock! not only as a band coach, but also as a songwriting instructor. I've written songs since I was 15 years old, but for the last few years, I've been plunging my energy into it in a whole new way, reading books, going to writing retreats, and taking workshops from a number of different songwriters and teachers. It was exciting to think about putting together my own curriculum for a songwriting workshop for young girls, some of who might be attempting to write a song for the very first time in their life! I teamed up with another singer/songwriter friend of mine, Sarah Sample, who lives in Seattle, and together we mapped out our plans for the workshop.

Camp Schedule

Camp took place for one week, Monday through Friday from 9am to 4pm. Each morning, girls arived for morning assembly, did fun activities to loosen up and get to know each other, and then broke into 2 major age groups (9-12 and 13-16, playfully referred to as the "cassettes" and the "vinyls") for the rest of the day's activities. Each day included about an hour and a half of instruction on bass, guitar, drums, or vocals (each camper signed up for their instrument of choice prior to camp), followed by creative/educational workshops, lunchtime entertainment, band practice, and then closing assembly with the camp song played by the "staff house band" and, of course, sung by the entire camp in thrilling unison.

During the course of the week at camp, the girls formed bands, wrote a song together, and prepared for a big showcase on Saturday, where they were to perform their own original song in front of hundreds of enthusiastic supporters. This year's showcase was to be held at the Vera Project in the Seattle Center, and as you might have guessed, it rocked.

Workshops and Activities

Campers design and print their own band
T-shirts in the Screen Printing Workshop.

I was really impressed with the selection of workshops at camp. Along with Songwriting, the campers also got to take each of the following: "History of Women in Music", "Stage Presence", "Rock-It Science" (studying the electrical/magnetic components in amplified music), "Self-Defense", "Body Image", "Zine-Making", "Jewelry-Making" and "Screen Printing" (where they screen-printed their own band T-shirts by hand!) I thought this was a terrific curriculum, and an impressive amount to cover in just one week. More importantly, each workshop really gave the girls an opportunity to tap into their own strength, learn about themselves and each other, and to express themselves in creative, brave and empowering ways.

These are the ways in which I think camp will have the biggest impact on the girls; not only did they get to learn a lot of cool stuff on the spot, but those experiences will very well shape the strong and creative women they'll become. I actually had a couple parents come up to me during the course of the week, sometimes in tears, other times with looks of sincere gratitude, telling me that I had no idea how much this was contributing to their daughter's life. One parent said to me with enthusiasm, "Every day I pick my daughter up after camp, she looks so different compared to when I dropped her off!"

Another camp highlight was the lunchtime entertainment -- clearly more than just entertainment, it was one of the best ways for the campers to see, hear and be inspired by actual female musicians. How often do 12-year-old girls get to go out and see a live all-female band rock?! The variety of musical acts spoke to the diversity that the camp valued. There was everything from rock, to electronica, hip hop, alt/indie and punk. There wasn't much of the softer stuff like folk or americana, which I would've liked to have seen since it's more along the lines of what I play, but the point was clear: that any kind of music is possible and awesome, as long as you are inspired and want to do it!

The Songwriting Workshop

When the first day of camp arrived, and I got to see all the campers' eager faces, I knew we were in for something special. Not only were they all excited to be there and take music to the next level, but some of them were about to get involved in music for the first time in their lives!

The songwriting workshop was scheduled for the first day of camp. At first I wasn't sure if that would be too early, in case the girls weren't settled in yet, but it turned out to be great timing. In fact, I think it may have helped set a good tone for the week because the workshop's theme was "Finding your Voice - Finding your Song." We wanted to emphasize that everyone has a unique voice, and a unique story to share. Since those represent core values of the camp, it seemed like a great way to start the week.

Mai and Sarah leading the Songwriting Workshop.

We gave the workshop to the girls broken into their two different age groups (9-12 and 13-16). Both workshops covered a series of different writing exercises, discussed some basic tenets of songwriting, and involved some interactive sharing. They both went well, but we couldn't help but notice some differences between the groups. We were struck by how eager and pleased the younger girls were to share what they had written, compared to the older girls who seemed much more protective and hesitant. While we weren't judging one or the other, we couldn't help but wonder what kinds of shifts and changes take place in girls' lives that affect their self-expression and confidence.

On the other hand, what we heard from the older girls when they did share was amazing. As someone who really loves words and the magic they carry when placed together in intuitive ways, I was floored by some of the things they came up with. That kept me on my toes, and wanting to learn more from them!

I also learned a lot myself in my preparation for the workshop. It really made me focus in on my songwriting process and the things that I've learned over the years. It's one thing to "do it", but it's another to "understand and teach it". So to my surprise, the workshop helped me feel a lot more focused and informed too. Sarah and I also gave ourselves a challenge while we were there, to write a song in the evenings when home from camp. And I found that to be a great addition to the experience; putting ourselves on the spot seemed to help give us an appreciation for what the campers were up to that week. Actually, I think they may have rocked harder because they finished their songs and we didn't!

The Band Coach Experience

On day one, the campers form bands. It's a miraculous thing to witness, because it happens almost effortlessly, and before the girls really even know each other. Catalyzed by a fun team-building exercise, 39 campers managed to break themselves up into 9 bands in about 15 minutes. Amazing. I can't imagine many adults being that willing and ready to collaborate in a committed project with the stranger sitting next to them. It showed us how open and ready they were to have fun, jump in, and work with one another. There was no competition, rivalry or jealousy. And that's how it continued. From that point forward my co-counselor and I coached a fantastic group of girls aged 9, 10, and 11.

"The Rocked Out Toasters" run through their song at the showcase rehearsal.

During each day's dedicated band practice time, I helped the girls hone in on their song, and figure out what and how to play together. I was impressed with how quickly they were able to write the lyrics, and that they did it collectively; we were sitting in a circle discussing possible song topics until they firmly agreed that the song should be about a party -- a Halloween party no less. And then they just flat out wrote the whole thing! They probably could have discussed their costumes and the back-story to the song for the whole day if I didn't finally tell them there wouldn't be much need for costumes if there wasn't any music to play. Of course that's when we started focusing on the instruments. And of course, that's also where my lesson in patience began.

The first couple of days the girls were quite rambunctious. It's hard to quantify the amount of energy and sound that you hear coming from 5 band practice rooms at the same time. But it's something. My Portland experience had prepared me, however, (and the campers were all required to wear earplugs!) so I pulled through, and helped keep the girls on track.

Over the course of the week, we got to know each other better and that helped build more camaraderie and trust. By the end of the week, I was just so impressed with my band. They were actually playing together in tempo! Sure, it was just 2 chords, but hey, there were verses and a chorus, and a bass line and the drummer had a couple different grooves and breaks, and the singer started dancing, and the guitarist finished with some super Pete Townsend arm swings. It was going beautifully.

By Friday, the last day of camp, all the campers had grown quite close, and were really pumped up about their songs. In preparation for the showcase, we did a rehearsal at camp, so the girls could get a taste for the stage, and what they were or weren't quite ready for. With one more band practice afterward to work out any last kinks, they were ready. And off they went armed with their hand-made band shirts, song lyrics, zines and ambition, ready for the final showcase -- ready for the rest of their lives.

Final Showcase

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, at Seattle's Vera Project, 39 girls showed up to rock the world. In fact, they rocked for over 400 attendees! Their songs told stories of wanting to be heard, speaking out, being alone and celebration, among other themes. It was beyond impressive to see all these girls get out on stage and thoroughly rock their way through an entire song that they wrote in less than 5 days, with people they'd never met before, on instruments some of them had never played before. Now that is empowerment!

One of the most poignant moments for me that day was watching the last band (The Face Melters) perform. These were some of the older girls, so some of them had been to band camps before. In fact, the lead singer had actually been in the band I coached in Portland a few years back, when we were both newcomers to band camp. As I watched her walk on stage, I thought back to her showcase performance years in Portland two years ago; I remembered how she had gingerly, yet bravely written these honest lyrics, and the courage it took for her to get up to sing them, only to get so nervous and overwhelmed that she forgot an entire verse and stood numb on stage for a good portion of the song. But on this day, when I watched her walk up to the middle of the stage, she carried a beautiful confidence. She sang with such grace and authority, and her voice soared louder than ever. I watched in awe at what felt like a transformation before my eyes.

We don't always get to see the impact of our small contributions. Most often, charitable work isn't about the acknowledgement you do or don't receive so much as it is about the experience of giving something freely. That was my experience volunteering at Rock Camp. But watching this young woman sing her heart out, and exemplify what's possible in music was all the confirmation I needed.

Players strum real strings on latest music video game

On latest guitar game, players strum real strings
NEW YORK — An upcoming musical video game lets players strum a real six-string electric guitar instead of tapping buttons on a fake instrument.
"Power Gig: Rise of the SixString" is a game first and foremost. But its maker, Seven45 Studios, said players will be able to plug the guitar that comes with it into a standard amp and play real music.
"The leap to (playing) guitar will be seamless," said Jeff Walker, vice president of marketing at Seven45.
Games such a "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" soared to popularity over the past several years. But lately they've been faltering, in part because customers have been reluctant to shell out big bucks for the fake musical instruments needed to play the games.
Seven45 hopes "Power Gig" will lure gamers ready for a new challenge, one that feels closer to playing a real instrument than strapping on a "Rock Band" accessory and tapping buttons. It helps that Seven45 shares owners with musical instrument maker First Act; the two are working together to make the game.
The game includes a "beat-matching" mode that players of "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" are familiar with. In this mode, players must follow on-screen beat sequences with their instruments.
In a challenge that comes closer to playing an actual guitar, "Power Gig" players hit specific strings to produce chords.
Boston-based Seven45, which is introducing "Power Gig" at this week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, hasn't announced a price, but said it will be comparable with existing music games, which now cost as little as $70 and as much as $200 for a limited edition "The Beatles: Rock Band" bundle.
It will be available in the fall for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 gaming consoles. The "Power Gig" guitar will work with existing "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" games.

Finding Scripts to Stage Your Own Puppet Shows

The fun and creative rewards gained from helping children stage their own puppet shows are immeasurable. Too often, however, even after you've assembled your puppets, a puppet stage and a troupe of little actors, the missing ingredient is the script. While there are a few sources of scripts written specifically for the puppet theater, there's a wealth of other resource materials to create your own puppet show scripts - some ready to perform, some easy to adapt.

Since comedy is a great form of entertainment for children, one place to find source material for puppet shows is in existing comedy routines. Classic comedy routine scripts and pre-recorded comedy soundtracks are available in libraries, bookstores and throughout the Internet. The Web is full of comedy routines already in script form. The Creativity Institute website offers links to several of these classic collections, as part of our mission to help bring out the creative potential in children. Plus, we are constantly researching and updating these resources. Simply find something that suits your puppet theater cast in level of sophistication and in the number of parts, and you're ready to go.

Puppets are as versatile as your imagination. It doesn't really matter what puppets you have, even when the puppets don't match the parts in a script. This is especially true of animal puppets. Because they're such a departure from human roles, they can easily be substituted for almost any role and even add an extra dimension to the show. Just tell the rabbit puppet that he's Abbott or Costello and the duck puppet he's one of the Marx Brothers, and watch the hilarity start to happen. You can even do simple wardrobe modifications on the puppets to both enhance the production and help the puppeteers get into character. (Example: Use double-stick tape to attach a piece of black yarn above a puppet mouth for a "Groucho" mustache.)

The quickest way to start performing your puppet show is to use a pre-recorded script, such as an old radio show, comedy routine from TV or a movie. Saturday Night Live and Monty Python are full of great ones. Some classic old comedy routines, including The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers and Abbot and Costello, can be a lot of fun for children to perform and delightful for "audience members." The children don't even have to read lines, but just pantomime along with the dialog.

Additional sources of puppet script and performance materials include recorded songs, including children's songs, novelty songs, musical duets and multiple-part numbers. Think of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," "The 12 days of Christmas" and other holiday songs. The Muppet Show used to do wonderful things with these recordings. If the song is simple enough, such as "Old Mac Donald" with its multiple characters, you can let the children sing it themselves as they act out the different animal puppet parts.

Of course, you can always write your own puppet theater scripts. Maybe there's a real experience you or the children enjoyed that you want to relive. Or there could be a lesson you want to impart - about sharing, or getting along, or shaking the boredom of a rainy day. These themes can be turned into puppet show scripts that are as simple or as complex as you want, with as many characters as you feel like casting. If you don't have enough puppets, get creative. Introduce a doll or two into the cast. You can even create an impromptu puppet out of a rubber glove and a marker or just a simple sock.

The world of literature is another resource of dramatic material that can easily be adapted to simple puppet stage shows. Depending on the ages of the children, you can do the conversion for them or coach them in how to simplify and convert their favorite fable, fairy tale, nursery rhyme, children's book, and even scenes from movies or TV shows. Simply write out the dialogue, and indicate which child does which puppet part, or let them read right from the books, using Post-Its to show who speaks where. Often printing out the text or copying the page with marking or color-coding where the parts change is all you need to do.

As a sample of a non-script format story adapted for the puppet stage, we have a ready-to-perform script version of the Aesop's Fable "The Lion and the Mouse" as a free download on our website, CreativityInstitute.com. It includes stage directions and requires only two puppets and an off-stage narrator.

As we said earlier, puppets are as versatile as your imagination. They can sing, dance, fly through space and make an audience laugh or cry. Children often have their first experiences with role-play on the puppet stage. The puppet theater allows children to be in a valuable position to receive positive reinforcement from entertaining others and seeing their audiences react as they explore their character voices, antics, interpretations and ad-libs. Get your child in the act, and you'll be amazed at the possibilities.

The Creativity Institute is an online educational toy store and information resource dedicated to helping parents enhance creative development in children, from infant through school age. The store handpicks each educational toy based on its potential for bringing out creativity in children and includes such items as puppets and puppet theaters, toy musical instruments, art supplies and building blocks.

Tips for Staging A More Professional Puppet Show

Puppet shows on your own puppet stage are not only great fun for children, but are also rich with developmental benefits that include nurturing creativity, teaching pretend play and allowing positive reinforcement. Puppet shows are also dramatic performances, and some simple rules of thumb will help make performing easier and more rewarding for the children, as well as clearer to understand for their audiences.

CHARACTER VOICES: Encourage each child to make up a character voice they think suits the puppet, or that they can perform well. Remember there's a great deal of flexibility and creative license in matching the role to the puppets on hand. The child can mimic a specific character from movies or TV that suits the part, such as the Cowardly Lion from "The Wizard of Oz," Mickey Mouse's high falsetto, and so on.

WALKING: To simulate a puppet walking or running across the stage, encourage the children to take it beyond merely sliding the puppets across the stage. Rather, have them bounce the puppet slightly up and down to represent each step as they move from one position to the other. These small "step-size" bounces can create more of a sense of excitement on stage and also allow puppeteers some great opportunities for jumping from view and other fun, dramatic moves.

BODY LANGUAGE: Show your children how to use pauses for dramatic or comedic effect, explaining to them how controlling the puppet's body moves is as important to their acting as their enthusiasm on stage. A pause and a slow turn by the puppet to the audience can pull the viewers into the puppet's exasperation or its "thought process." Paul Winchell, the great puppeteer and ventriloquist, was a master of the slow turn. Think of all the other ventriloquists and puppeteers you've seen. Sometimes a hesitation plays as well as a spoken line. Slightly vibrating the puppet can communicate fear or can be used to create a double-take of surprise. Holding up the puppet's arms can communicate glee. A puppet's hand on its chin shows it's thinking. Hunching the puppet forward can mean sadness. Help the children develop their own "body language" moves. Most animated cartoons use the same techniques.

TALKING: With moving-mouth puppets, the natural tendency for most is to SHUT the puppet's mouth in sync with each syllable. But humans do the opposite, and so should puppets. It may take practice, but try to teach each child to OPEN the puppet's mouth with every syllable. Sid worked with the Muppet puppeteers once, and that's the first thing they taught him.

GENDER NOTE: In adapting our collection of Aesop's Fables scripts, we've referred to the animal characters in the neuter "it," because we don't know if a boy or girl is ultimately going to play the part. (Aesop seemed to assume all animals were male.) When you find a script to adapt, you may have to switch pronouns, too. But the children will usually point that out right away. Don't let the gender of the original material keep you from performing a script you think works well with your puppet cast.

Puppets aren't, by construction, as fluid and flexible in communicating the emotions as humans are. As humans, we can roll our eyes, frown, smile and show how we feel in the subtle ways. If a child is having difficulty making the puppet communicate a certain emotion, have him stand in front of a mirror and try to express the emotion without the puppet. Point out if the child has tilted his head, drooped his shoulders or any other natural movements he has drawn upon to express the emotion. Then help him to translate these movements to the puppet. This will help the child become more aware of and comfortable with his emotions, and your puppet show will be richer and more enjoyable for everyone involved.

The Creativity Institute is an online educational toy store and information resource dedicated to helping parents enhance creative development in children, from infant through school age. The store handpicks each educational toy based on its potential for bringing out creative potential in children and includes such items as people and animal hand puppets and puppet theaters, toy musical instruments, art supplies and building blocks.

Musical Activities for Guaranteed Fun

Music has the power to calm, sooth, energize and make everyone have fun!

Try these ideas at your child's next play date or sleepover for a guaranteed good time.

1. Jamming Art:

Turn on some music-upbeat or mellow-you decide. Without looking directly at the paper, draw pictures and designs to the beat of the music. Make several drawings from different types of music.

2. Animal Walk Parade:

Play your favorite tunes on the radio and dance and walk the way your favorite animal would. Remember, the more friends you invite to play, the more fun your parade will be!

3. Music Maker Box:

Fill a small trunk, box, or dresser drawer with musical instruments for when inspiration strikes. Purchase inexpensive instruments at garage sales, or make your own including tambourines, strands of jingle bells and film canister maracas.

4. Dance Party:

Invite your friends over for a dance party! Ask each guest to bring along a cassette tape or CD with his or her favorite music. Play a song or two from each CD and dance the night away. For super cool invitations, use a permanent marker to write the details of the party on those free Internet CDs that come in the mail.

Play Is Serious Business For Children's Intelligence

Too many parents consider play as simply a means of diverting and distracting their children. Playthings are often seen as a means of keeping children happy, rewarding them, keeping them out of mischief, and giving parents free time.

Not often enough do parents think of play and toys as fundamental aspects of a child's education, as a means through which children learn to understand the world around them, and as the primary method by which children acquire many basic skills.

Parents can help make their children's play stimulating by doing three things.

First, they can adopt an attitude of conscious, deliberate planning in which play is regarded as one of the most important aspects of their children's environment.

Second, they can see to it that their children are provided with the kinds of toys and playthings that will help develop the widest possible varieties of skills and abilities.

Third, they can assume a direct, participating role in their children's play.

Planning a child's play does not mean planning each activity for every moment of the child's playtime. On the contrary, children should have maximum independence in choosing their own activities. And, within the limits of the daily routine of the home, a child should also choose the time for their activities, as well as the duration of each. Good planning makes sure that play is as varied and stimulating as possible.

A child should play at different times, with friends, with parents, and by themselves. This play should include, within a period of about a month, all or most of the following types of activities, each geared to the age level of the child.

Here are 5 of them:

#1. Games

Games are perhaps the most basic of all forms of play. From peek-a-boo to chess, from pat-a-cake to baseball, games occupy a central role in the lives of most children from infancy to adolescence. Games may be physical or mental. In general they involve the development of skills, although some lead to the acquisition of information.

#2. Arts and Crafts

Arts and crafts give children many opportunities to express their desire to make things. Crayons, paints, clay, construction paper, scissors and paste, wood, leather, felt, and cardboard are among the materials that help children develop their creative imaginative, and aesthetic abilities. Arts and crafts also develop skills in manipulation, perception, and analysis.

#3. Construction Play

Construction play involves assembling objects from what are usually prefabricated parts. It is less creative than arts and crafts, but is also useful in developing many skills. Putting together a set of railroad tracks and trains is a form of construction play, as is play with erector sets, Tinker toys, blocks and the like.

#4. Projective Play

Protective play is play in which a child adds dramatic and emotional meaning to activities with representative toys-dolls, trucks, soldiers, homemaking sets, and doctor kits. Its great value lies in the role-playing done by the child rather than in the development of specific skills.

#5. Hobbies

Hobbies that cannot be otherwise classified will generally fall under the heading of collecting activities. Collecting stamps, coins, rocks and minerals, butterflies and insects, sea shells and leaves are all common and popular hobbies. While some help in the development of certain skills, their greatest value is in the considerable knowledge a child can acquire in pursuing them.

Most play can be classified in one of these five groups, and, ideally, play should include all of these types. Also, as skills develop, the activities should move to a higher, more mature level.

However, a child does not automatically vary his play or develop in it. This is where the parent's planning comes in -- continually making the child aware of the broad opportunities available to him in play; initiating certain activities during playtime; making suggestions when the child needs and wants them; buying toys that will, in themselves, lead to new pursuits; stimulating new interests and ideas in any of a variety of ways. The parent should not manage the child's play, but should try to nudge it in the right directions.

How To Be Creative At The Piano

So you want to be more creative when playing piano. Many students wish they could just sit down and improvise their own music but don't know how to begin.

They think if they can't play a fugue like Bach, they are untalented. Or, they think the music that comes out of them must be sophisticated or it's not worth anything. Fortunately, there is a style of piano playing that bypasses this academic snobbism and allows the beginning (and advanced) student to be more creative.

The New Age piano style is geared towards improvisation and creativity specifically because it requires very little in the way of technical know-how. What it does require is the courage to just sit in front of the piano and allow for the creative act; allow being the important verb here.

Many students wonder why they have problems improvising. When I explain to them that the problem is not with technique but attitude, they look at me surprised. After all, aren't they willing to learn? Of course! But they must first shun the "creative genius" persona and be willing to let go and let the music tell them where it wants to go.

Once students understand that they aren't in charge of creating music, they begin to have that knowing inward smile. They have discovered that the secret to being creative at the piano is to release all expectations of good or bad and focus on the process. Then they can relax and fully enjoy all that music has to offer.

Multiple Intelligences

We all have our strong and weak areas in learning. However, it is amazing to me, just how easy it is to find a way to use music to teach just about anything to anyone! If ever there was a "wonder-way" to teach and reach every student in the way they learn best, it's through this marvelous subject, music! No matter what the range of talent or ability in music, we all have an ability for enjoying a musical experience. Remember, there is no such thing as tone deaf. There are many folks who might disagree with that statement, but I have come to believe that the people that aren't able to sing in tune have just not been lead with the appropriate approaches. In other words, we just need to find their learning style strength and approach the ear-training from their particular point of understanding. There may be exceptions to this approach but it is my belief that the majority of out of tune singers simply haven't been given the opportunities to learn the way they learn best.
For some examples of ways to reach the out of tune singer, please see the articles listed directly below this paragraph and then after absorbing the thoughts brought forth by them, proceed through this article and learn other ways that you can use music as the vehicle to reach ALL of your students at their level, using their special areas of maximum comprehension.

It's important to be aware of the theory of multiple intelligences. There are now Eight Intelligences, the most recent one being added by Mr. Howard Gardner is, "The Naturalist". As you read through the explanations involved in these types of learning modes, keep in mind how easy it would be to incorporate music in each

The seven intelligences identified by Gardner include: linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and intrapersonal intelligence.

Linguistic intelligence - refers to an individual's capacity to use language effectively as a vehicle of expression and communication (Examples: poets & writers)

Logical-Mathematical intelligence - refers to an individual's capacity to think logically, use numbers effectively, solve problems scientifically, and discern relationships and patterns between concepts and things (Example: mathematicians and scientists).

Spatial intelligence - refers to the capacity to think visually and orient oneself spatially. In addition, spatially intelligent people are able to graphically represent their visual and spatial idea.

Discovering American Music with D.B. Rielly

If you were looking for an introduction to American roots music, you could do alot worse than New York based singer/songwriter D.B. Rielly. I'm willing to say that there aren't many types of southern-based American music that Rielly can't play and on his most recent album, Love Potions and Snake Oil, Rielly touches base on an almost exhausting number of domestic musical genres. From zydeco to the blues, rockabilly to hillbilly, Rielly leaves few stones unturned in his mission to enlighten the masses on the wealth of amazing styles of American bred music.
What's so great about Rielly though is not just his versatility but also how proficient of a songwriter he truly is. Love Potions may not sound like an album full of original compositions, seeing as how each song sounds familiar based on their roots in root music, but that's what's so fantastic about Rielly's song writing ability - he crafts songs that are both familiar and unique.
Love Potions and Snake Oil is a compelling debut by an intriguing artist. The physical release of the album comes in a cool little tin case with a label that makes it out to look like an old pill box. Once you start listening to the compact disc inside, you realize the major influences of Rielly were around when these types of pill boxes were en vogue. The sounds of the disc soon play out like a trip across the country, making stops in various spots around America. The accordion filled album opener, “One of These Days (You’re Gonna Realize)” starts things off with a touch of Louisiana. Right off the bat Rielly showcases his ability to play a number of varied instruments. “Don’t Give Up On Me,” moves things westward to southern Texas, featuring a slowed down Spanish flavored ballad. The country-fried “Loving You Again,” is a taste of classic country and “Changed My Mind” is pure banjo-paced delta blues. The emotionally charged “Got a Mind” may be my favorite track on the album. When Rielly snarls the line “I know it’s a sin but I don’t care/I’ll see him burn in hell,” it proves that Rielly, despite his play it by the numbers approach to a huge variety of music, doesn’t sound a bit formulaic when it comes to the emotion behind his lyrics.

Bruton Music

Bruton Music (sometimes known by its full name, the Bruton Music Library), was founded in 1977 by Robin Phillips, who was at the time employed by ATV Music chief Lou Grade. The name of the company comes from its address at the time of founding; namely, 12 Bruton street in London. The label was started as a subsidiary of ATV music, but at this time is owned by the BMG/Zomba company.

The label features the work of composers including Francis Monkman, Brian Bennett and others. The music released by the label has found something of a cult following, with tracks from the label being a favorite among many, particularly in electronic formats for downloads. In more recent years, Bruton tracks have also found a following with hip hop and electronic music DJs, who sample the works for use in their own compositions.

Much of the releases of the Bruton Music label fall into what many like to call "copsploitation"; that is, music which would sound not at all out of place in the context of a 1970's police drama film or television program. The music, especially the works by composer Brian Bennett bring to mind filmic chase scenes and other action sequences.

The label has also released music specifically composed for television and radio use, in the form of jingles. These not quite a minute long compositions are a special favorite with fans of the label and are frequently downloaded for enjoyment at home or on the go (in the interests of full disclosure, there are some of these tracks on the author's iPod at the moment).

Another interesting fact about the label is that none other than the self-proclaimed "King of Pop" himself, Michael Jackson is a fan of the releases on the label and was in fact for a time the owner of the company! Jackson purchased the company in 1982, but resold the firm in 1985 to the Zomba group (now a part of BMG).

The Bruton Music Library is a functioning label to this day and with its releases enjoying more popularity than ever before, it is a certainty that people will continue to listen to and enjoy the music they have released over the past three decades for some time to come. Whether as downloads, CDs or even the collectible vinyl releases, these records are something which are treasured by many all over the world.

Singing to Your Children

Many parents these days are quite interested in their childrens’ musical development, but sometimes feel that their own musical skills are somewhat lacking. Parents often do not realize that professional music training is really not necessary to instill a love of music in their children – it is much simpler than that!

When our parents and grandparents were growing up, there was a lot more music-making in the family. Parents regularly shared music with babies in the form of finger-play (“Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the door and see all the people!”) and tickling games (“Shoe a little horse, shoe a little mare, but let the little pony go bare, bare, bare!” while patting a child’s foot rhythmically and doing the tickle on the last “bare”). These kinds of games can still be played and enjoyed, and since the text is spoken, not sung, most parents can confidently perform the text with a sense of rhythm and fun, which is mainly what the young child is ready to absorb. Books full of these kinds of activities are available from GIA Publications.

“I am often asked by parents what they can do to help their child with music and more specifically what they can do to help improve their child's singing voice,” says Julie Swank, a music education professor at the University of Dayton. “I tell them it is simple. Just sing with them and to them. Often a sheepish response comes next. A father might tell me that he is afraid to sing because he feels that his voice might not be a good model. Young children do not know if a singer is singing in tune or not, but they do know if their parents (specifically their fathers) sing or do NOT sing. This action of singing or not sends a message.”

Children model many of their parents’ behaviors. I have noticed while teaching guitar that parents who do not sing will more likely have children who are uncomfortable when asked to sing even a single note, and these children usually require a great deal of coaxing and cajoling to begin the process of learning how to control their voice. Once these children start to sing, I have found their progress to be quite similar to children who are comfortable when asked to sing, so it really is not a matter of inborn talent as much as finding a teacher or a situation which can help the child get over the initial hurdle of singing in the company of others.

Should we as parents be concerned that our singing might not be of the highest quality? “In the home,” says Ms. Swank, “much leeway is given to family members because the experience of sharing an intimate moment involving a song overrides the presence or absence of musical accuracy. I am not sure when children realize that other singers (such as their parents, teachers, etc.) are off key. I can report that by January, after discussion, demonstration and examples, most of my kindergarten students can tell me when I sing "too high", "too low" or "just right" - like the story of the Three Bears!”

My advice to interested parents is to find your own voice, and learn to be comfortable with it. After all, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart and many others who are considered to be great musicians do not possess what most of us would call a beautiful voice, and yet they are very expressive singers. If you are concerned about how you sound when you sing, remember that singing is a learned skill, very much like shooting a basketball through a hoop. Most of us possess a voice that is much better than we imagine! Getting honest feedback from an understanding voice teacher or choir director can give you some good ideas and direction in developing a wonderful musical instrument – your voice!

A Very Merry Melody

In every culture, music is an integral part of most holiday seasons. It enriches the experience of the holidays by incorporating messages into the lyrics of songs and by our associating familiar melodies with past holiday experiences. Clearly, music is a holiday tradition celebrated by many.

For example, in our household we know the Christmas season is upon us when my wife puts on the scratchy Christmas LPs we have listened to for many years now. This time of year, many families have music-centered traditions ranging from caroling to attending a Nutcracker performance. Children especially identify with the sounds of the season.

Our extended family has a number of young grandchildren and we have been building a tradition at family gatherings for a few years now. At some point in the evening, I sit down on the living-room floor, pull out my guitar and tune it up. The children, now ages 4 through 7, gather around immediately with looks of expectation on their beautiful faces. They begin to sing holiday songs together, and they take turns strumming the guitar while I finger the chords. Parents and grandparents gather round and enjoy watching us make music. The children, uninhibited about hamming it up, usually get up off the floor, dance to the music and put on a show to everyone's delight.

After dinner, we often sing holiday songs, a cappella or with simple rhythm instruments for accompaniment. The children have absorbed these musical experiences over the years and it has become a tradition that we all enjoy.

Does music-making together sound like an impossible stretch for your family? Over the past 50 years, with the growth of audio and visual media production, Americans have in general been listening more to music rather than creating it. After all, it is much easier to put in a CD and listen to professional choirs and orchestras perform holiday music, as opposed to actually making the music.

It is important to understand that you do not need a professional musician in your family to make music happen at gatherings. For example, holiday songs can be accompanied on the guitar after only a very few months of study and practice. With or without basic instrumental proficiency, the most important thing in a home setting is that children are included in the music making, and that everyone has fun doing it together. You might supply your children with bells to accompany a hearty rendition of Jingle Bells or search for basic household items that could double as an instrument. Starting when children are very young, say, two to five years old, is a definite plus because at that age they love all musical activities, even the simplest ones. They are not at all critical of the technical aspects of the performance. They are connected to what the music feels like, and the experience of doing it with their family, not caring at all if the singing is concert quality, or even in tune!

Traditions have more meaning when families actually do things together. This year, try music!

Music Therapy - For Kids in Need

When we think of music in our culture, we usually think of it as entertainment, or perhaps as an artistic activity that stimulates both our children and ourselves. Music has another important function which is becoming widely known: music therapy.

As stated on the American Music Therapy Association website, “Music therapy is the prescribed use of music by a qualified person to effect positive changes in the psychological, physical, cognitive, or social functioning of individuals with health or educational problems.”

What exactly does a music therapist do? Says Professor Susan Gardstrom, director of the music therapy program at the University of Dayton, “We listen to music (for relaxation, for stimulation, to structure movement experiences. etc.), we create music (through the immediacy of improvisation or the more thoughtful, generative process of composition), and we sing and play music that has already been written (sing-alongs, choir chime groups, combos, etc.). Each method places a specific set of demands on the client, and each has unique benefits in stimulating development. For example, a child with a speech disorder would benefit more from singing than listening. A child with a physical disability may need to play instruments that require coordination and endurance in the affected area. A child with cancer may need to improvise on instruments or create a song in order to express feelings. It’s an individualized process.”

“Music therapists work with people of all ages, including neonates, young children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly,” says Gardstrom. “Settings include hospitals, schools, residential treatment facilities, psychiatric clinics, prisons, nursing care facilities, rehabilitation clinics, and community-based programs, to name a few.”

To prepare for this profession, music therapy students at UD pursue a four-year course of study as music majors who follow a curriculum designed to help them prepare for work with incredibly diverse populations, with whom they get practical experience in the field at local hospitals and schools. Upon graduation, they enter into an internship (over 1,000 hours) after which they take examinations to become board-certified. Programs offering advanced degrees in music therapy are also offered.

For many children, music therapists present activities that are used to strengthen nonmusical abilities that are important for daily life such as communication skills and physical coordination. They are often hired in schools to provide services listed on the Individualized Education Plan for mainstreamed special learners. Music therapists also work in private practice.

One of the biggest misconceptions about music therapy is that the client or patient has to have some particular music ability or talent in order to benefit from the activities. Professor Gardstrom recognizes “the musical child inside all of us that strives for expression,” and a good music therapist can bring that to the surface even if music has not been an active part of a client’s life.

Some of the most exciting music therapy work is being done in neonatal wards at hospitals, where it has been proven that its use has resulted in very positive outcomes for the babies, such as increased weight gain and other physiological factors. Says Gardstrom, “It also offers an opportunity for parents of premature infants to nurture their babies at a stage where traditional activities such as holding and breastfeeding are not yet possible.”