Welcome!
Greetings musical world,
This marks the start of my blog; hopefully it is the first post of many to come! I just want to start out by saying welcome, and thank you so so much for visiting my site and being interested in reading my thoughts. Hopefully what I post on here will be engaging for you all in some way!
Feel free to scroll down if you want to skip all of the introductory jabber.
Please check out the bio section of my website for more info on who I am. For you TL:DR folks, I am a San Francisco-based musician, actively performing and teaching around the Bay Area. I am a percussionist specializing in marimba performance, though I enjoy playing all percussion instruments. I am currently very passionate about increasing the repertoire through arranging works by monumental composers from throughout music history, providing the percussion community with access musical styles we otherwise would not have. I also really enjoy playing piano (yes, I know it is technically a percussion instrument), but I don't perform it publicly - it is what I do instead of watching TV. As far as teaching, my goal with all of my students is to introduce new ideas to them, and to cultivate in them the tools and thought-patterns to become proficient independent learners. You know, the whole "you can bring a horse to water..."
As for the content of this blog, I don't have a specific topic of focus. I'm a big thinker - always pondering what can be learned from any situation in life, and how that can apply to music-making. So you can count on my ideas having some music/arts perspective, regardless of the subject.
Here are some burning topics that I already plan to write about:
I don't claim to be an expert in any area. I just have a lot of thoughts and I'm not the type of person to force my ideas upon anybody. If you are interested in my viewpoint, this is where I'll be sharing it!
In the interest of not losing too many readers by over-rambling in my first blog post, let's get on to the video release!
This marks the start of my blog; hopefully it is the first post of many to come! I just want to start out by saying welcome, and thank you so so much for visiting my site and being interested in reading my thoughts. Hopefully what I post on here will be engaging for you all in some way!
Feel free to scroll down if you want to skip all of the introductory jabber.
Please check out the bio section of my website for more info on who I am. For you TL:DR folks, I am a San Francisco-based musician, actively performing and teaching around the Bay Area. I am a percussionist specializing in marimba performance, though I enjoy playing all percussion instruments. I am currently very passionate about increasing the repertoire through arranging works by monumental composers from throughout music history, providing the percussion community with access musical styles we otherwise would not have. I also really enjoy playing piano (yes, I know it is technically a percussion instrument), but I don't perform it publicly - it is what I do instead of watching TV. As far as teaching, my goal with all of my students is to introduce new ideas to them, and to cultivate in them the tools and thought-patterns to become proficient independent learners. You know, the whole "you can bring a horse to water..."
As for the content of this blog, I don't have a specific topic of focus. I'm a big thinker - always pondering what can be learned from any situation in life, and how that can apply to music-making. So you can count on my ideas having some music/arts perspective, regardless of the subject.
Here are some burning topics that I already plan to write about:
- Repertoire - marimba, percussion, or other
- Techniques / Approaches to playing
- Learning-related topics (how to learn well, cultivating productive mindset, etc.)
- New Audio/Video Releases (bi-weekly video releases this summer!)
- Reviews of music/arts concerts/events
- Inventions - I currently have a couple in the works and hopefully more to come!
- Life as a Musician/Artist
I don't claim to be an expert in any area. I just have a lot of thoughts and I'm not the type of person to force my ideas upon anybody. If you are interested in my viewpoint, this is where I'll be sharing it!
In the interest of not losing too many readers by over-rambling in my first blog post, let's get on to the video release!
Bi-weekly YouTube Video Release, Summer 2016!!
Alright, so this isn't the first video release of the summer - I've already released two videos over the past 4 weeks - but somehow I feel like this blog post marks the official start of the Summer 2016 bi-weekly video series. From now until I run out of videos, I will be releasing a new video on YouTube every other Friday.
For now, the series will consist of performances that I've accumulated over the past two years getting my Masters degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Eventually, I want to release more professional-quality recordings, but that takes a little bit more time, planning, and energy, so I'm starting with what I already have!
Remember, all of the videos (at least until I get to posting more professional recordings) are from an educational setting; the triumph of these performances is what was learned in the process, NOT how many correct notes were hit. Though, hopefully we get most of the notes right...
For now, the series will consist of performances that I've accumulated over the past two years getting my Masters degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Eventually, I want to release more professional-quality recordings, but that takes a little bit more time, planning, and energy, so I'm starting with what I already have!
Remember, all of the videos (at least until I get to posting more professional recordings) are from an educational setting; the triumph of these performances is what was learned in the process, NOT how many correct notes were hit. Though, hopefully we get most of the notes right...
Bunny Hop by Jack van Geem
This was a very fun performance! Well, it is always fun to perform with Jack (you will get to see another performance with him in one of my video releases later this summer)! Every time I play with him, I realize again what it means to be a top-notch musician. It is really obvious when playing with him that he has decades of experience as the principal percussionist of one of the top orchestras in the world. It's not even that he doesn't make mistakes (because he does). It's more in his fine-tuned concept of sound and musicality (and lack of ego) that span across anything that he plays. Another big part of it is how easy he is to work with - everything I've ever played with him was an extremely enjoyable, stress-free process, despite the fact that we had very few rehearsals before the performance! But that is enough gushing over Jack for now...
About a week before his faculty recital at SFCM, Jack asked me to play this piece with him. The marimba part wasn't the most difficult thing I've ever encountered by any means, but I'm not too experienced with ragtime, so a week was a little bit stressful to prepare for this performance! However, I think it turned out well and I really learned a lot! Sometimes you learn the most when you put yourself in a situation that seems difficult.
This performance was in my first semester at SFCM, before I delved much deeper into learning about music theory and arranging, and before I learned a lot about practice methods and how the brain works. It would be interesting to see how I approach it now that I have all of those additional tools at my disposal - the process would surely be different!
I hope you enjoy! Please check out the rest of my website and subscribe to the newsletter to get updates on my performances, blogs, and video releases! And while you're at it, if you have an extra few seconds, please subscribe to my youtube page too!
About a week before his faculty recital at SFCM, Jack asked me to play this piece with him. The marimba part wasn't the most difficult thing I've ever encountered by any means, but I'm not too experienced with ragtime, so a week was a little bit stressful to prepare for this performance! However, I think it turned out well and I really learned a lot! Sometimes you learn the most when you put yourself in a situation that seems difficult.
This performance was in my first semester at SFCM, before I delved much deeper into learning about music theory and arranging, and before I learned a lot about practice methods and how the brain works. It would be interesting to see how I approach it now that I have all of those additional tools at my disposal - the process would surely be different!
I hope you enjoy! Please check out the rest of my website and subscribe to the newsletter to get updates on my performances, blogs, and video releases! And while you're at it, if you have an extra few seconds, please subscribe to my youtube page too!
Past Bi-weekly YouTube releases
Bartók, Out of Doors, 3. Musettes
This arrangement was super fun to work on! At some point, I fell in love with this suite of programmatic piano pieces by Bartók and always have planned to arrange them. This is the only one I have gotten around to so far and I think it worked really well! Thanks to the quartet members, Scott Aldridge, Nigel Ng, and Katrina Shore (the other members of my masters class at SFCM) for working on this! I know when we first read it they were skeptical of whether it would work (so was I), but we really pulled it together for the SFCM percussion ensemble concert. As usual, I'm always trying to learn more about making my arrangements better, so constructive comments are greatly appreciated!
Stravinsky, Concerto in D for String Orchestra
This was another fun one to work on with the graduate student quartet! I actually started arranging this piece before coming to SFCM, but didn't really work on it until I found these 3 lovely people who were willing to play it. This was one of my favorite pieces for a while, and still is up there for me! This was truly a challenge for us to play - it was technically difficult and we were having to play in a style that we don't really get to practice very often as percussionists. We pulled off a pretty good performance for Scott Aldridge's first masters recital. I'd love to someday play this arrangement again and really get a high quality recording out of it. This is a lesser-known work by Stravinsky that deserves to be heard by more people!
Thanks again!
If you made it this far, I want to say THANK YOU once more for taking the time! I don't anticipate my future posts will be as long and rambling as this one. Hopefully they will be more topical and interesting. Please comment if there are any topics you'd be interested in for future blog posts!
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