All the Pretty Girls

All the Pretty Girls – my take on Ani Difranco’s Not a Pretty Girl album cover herunterladen.

2024 came in with a bang! I have not been gigging as much, but I’ve been doing some pretty significant work anyway, and I just want to talk about it for a minute origin spiel herunterladen.

One of the things that I love about performing regularly is the challenge of learning new music. I try to keep it seasonal, so that means more winter-y and holiday songs in December downloaden wordpress. Love songs in February. Irish tunes (both of the pop and traditional variety) in March.

This year, however, I decided to do something a little different in February herunterladen. A dream of mine for a very long time has been to do an entire show of music by my favorite all-time artist, Ani Difranco. This probably sounds easy enough if you don’t actually know who Ani is bab formular herunterladen. But if you know, you know.

Ani Difranco isn’t just an emotion- and thought-provoking songwriter. Ani’s guitar tunings get a little…. complicated. Here’s a crash course in guitar tuning. Standard guitars are tuned EADGBE. Sometimes we get fancy and do DADGBE (this is called drop D tuning and my favorite example is “Everlong” by Foo Fighters). Sometimes we can experiment with open tunings like DADGAD – this means you don’t have to press any strings down with your left hand, you can just strum the strings with your right hand and it will sound pretty cool.

Most of Ani’s songs, on the other hand, are in quite a variety of radical tunings. I won’t even go into specifics but a very reliable website I have been using for years – anitabs.net – lists 33 different tunings, in addition to standard tuning. Some tunings are only used in just one song. Some she uses for just a handful. What this means from a performing standpoint is that if you want to do more than 3 of her songs at a gig, you’ve got to either be really, really good at changing the tuning of your guitar on the fly, or you’ve got to have multiple guitars ready to go and quite possibly – like Ani does – you’ve got someone else assisting you with tuning your other guitars for you.

I don’t have a guitar tech to come to shows with me – yet – but I did have a dream to fulfill. I learned the songs, I plotted out the tuning changes very, very carefully, and then on February 16 I did it. I played a 3-hour show featuring 26 Ani tunes and more music from some great female musicians – everyone from Janis Joplin to Amy Winehouse. I had a blast! And more importantly, I was pretty proud of the fact that I put in the effort and played a great show of a lot of new-to-me, challenging music.

I don’t know when or where I’ll do the next “All the Pretty Girls” show, but if you’re a venue that sounds interested in having this special show – let’s get in touch!

And we’re back!

Hello, my friends! It’s been a wild few months and on top of that, quite a few years since the last time I really actively blogged here on my site 500 ps download kostenlos. I’ve recently gone through a bit of a major life change (pandemics and months of quarantine can have that effect, I guess), and I really look forward to sharing with you more often here on my blog snaptube herunterladen fehlgeschlagen.

this is jut a random fun picture of me in my favorite pajama pants museum org painting download. nbd.

In the meantime, I’ve already done plenty of writing so far that you can still browse through. Everything from my Star Wars/John Williams conspiracy theory (pretty certain he spoiled the ending of Episode 9 all the way back in Episode 7) to my volunteer trip to Ukraine a decade ago, and a lot of thoughts on music in between fiesta kostenlos downloaden. So feel free to scroll back through the archives if you’re bored.

Also please check out the new sections of my website – “Performing” and “Upcoming Gigs.” Getting back into playing live was something I was trying to do right when the virus hit NJ hard and everything shut down Diary for free. Some people might take that as a sign, but I am not some people. Now that businesses are opening back up again, I am looking forward to playing some local venues around NJ (have a local venue around NJ automatically series synology? let’s talk!). I’m practically built for that chill, outdoor on the patio on a laid back summer night kind of vibe! Check out the “Performing” tab for a short playlist – an amuse-bouche for your ears, if you will. Enjoy!

Coincidence or spoiler?

Not a lot of people know this, but in addition to being a super busy music teacher and music business owner, in my spare time (I have it!), I’m also an extreme Star Wars nerd. Go ahead, ask me who my favorite Star Wars character is. You’ll never guess. Or maybe you will.

It’s John Williams.

John Williams created not just the soundtrack to the Skywalker saga (and countless other movies) but the soundtrack to mine, and I’m sure, many other childhoods as well zdf heute app herunterladen. He’s created a rich and vast universe of music to pull from when scoring his Star Wars movies, from the original trilogy, the prequels, and now, finally, the sequel trilogy.

Say what you will about the final three movies, I personally feel that his music game was 100% on point. In these final films, he continued to create new, moving pieces as well as bring back some old familiar favorites to flesh out the story images from wordpress mediathek. In the process, he may have also given away an incredibly major plot point.

Or maybe it’s just a coincidence.

SO LOOK MY FRIENDS – FROM HERE ON OUT, IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE RISE OF SKYWALKER OR EVEN THE FORCE AWAKENS, YOU NEED TO STOP, BECAUSE THE ENTIRE POINT OF THIS SHORT ARTICLE IS TO SHARE SOME INFORMATION ABOUT A SPOILER.  YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

When “The Force Awakens” first came out, I picked up on this detail immediately and was surprised to not find one bit of commentary regarding it on the internet south park follow free download. So I thought, ok, maybe it’s just me. As I do with so many things, maybe I’m just overthinking it. And I didn’t really share my thoughts then. First of all, because if it turned out to be true, I didn’t want to be the one to spoil it, and second, if I was wrong, well, I just didn’t want to be another crazy fan theorist.  Even though I kind of am herunterladen.

However, whether John Williams meant to or not, he DID spoil a major plot point in The Rise of Skywalker. so let’s talk about it.

I’d like to bring your attention back to one of the few brief exchanges we see between Han and General Leia. It’s right after they meet for the first time amazon prime filme herunterladen android.

First, they talk about losing Ben to Snoke, and we hear Princess Leia’s theme (why they couldn’t put Han Solo and the Princess in there, I don’t know, but it’s fine, this is fine. We heard that theme when they were reunited anyway).

Then, as they talk about the aftermath, and how they both reacted, we hear Kylo Ren’s ominous theme lego dimensions inhalte herunterladen.

It’s this next part that gets very interesting.

Leia talks about redeeming Kylo. She says “we can still save him, me… you…” and as she says this, the familiar Force Theme plays.

Let’s stop here a minute. The Force Theme is only ever played in reference to Jedi and force users (obviously). During the original trilogy, it was a theme associated with Luke and Obi-Wan google play store für amazon-fire-tablets (apk) herunterladen. And because Han immediately brings up Luke, one might think that is why the sound cue is present. Except when you focus on their conversation, Leia reiterates the point that Han is the one who could save him, that Ben Solo is still in there somewhere.

Then they get interrupted and the scene ends.

Now. THAT FORCE THEME.  We don’t hear it because of Han, he’s not a force user kegelspiele kostenlos downloaden. Leia has a theme, Kylo has a theme – we just heard them. They mention Luke too briefly – Leia dismisses him basically the second Han suggests him. So, whether it is a coincidence or not, what one might extrapolate from the presence of this haunting melody during this conversation is that…

Han dvag online system.

And Leia.

Are going to be the ones to turn Kylo Ren back to the light so he can redeem himself to become Ben Solo once more.

Which, well, you know.

So.  Am I crazy?  Was it a coincidence?  DID JOHN WILLIAMS TELL ME A SECRET THAT I LITERALLY KEPT FOR LIKE FOUR YEARS?

I think the correct answer is probably… herunterladen. a little bit of all three.

Remembering Dean Drummond

It’s been a year, but I still have a hard time describing just how much Dean Drummond meant to me.  A year later, and his passing still touches me deeply panzerlied kostenlos downloaden.

Dean Drummond was just another one of my teachers in college.  I had taken classes with him, and I had been in his ensembles, and that may not sound like much herunterladen google traduction.   But to me and to a good handful of students like me, he was so much more than just a teacher.

Dean was in charge of the Harry Partch instruments, and beginning in the fall of 1999 (just like me) Dean and his unique group of instruments came to Montclair State University herunterladen.  Yes, we called them the Dr. Seuss instruments (go ahead and google the insane genius Harry Partch, I’ll wait), but those of us who got to know the instruments developed a strong love for both the instruments, the legend of Harry Partch and Dean himself outlook herunterladen mac.

When I tell you that Dean is the main reason why I remained at Montclair, it is not a lie or a stretch of the truth.  I could have studied music theory anywhere; there is only one college where a student could study on the Harry Partch instruments, and that’s at Montclair State University ebook op ipad.  I didn’t go there with Partch in mind, but this is one happy accident that I am most thankful for.

Even after I left Montclair, I was still happy to hear about the program flourishing wie kann man filme kostenlos herunterladen.   Dean once even assured me that the “Partch students continue to be the coolest students in the music school” (yes, that’s a direct quote from an email he once sent me) herunterladen.

To honor Dean’s memory, the university has so kindly decided to kick the instruments off campus.  Well, I guess I should be a little clearer music download for free austria.  It’s not like whomever makes these kinds of decisions sat down and said, “what’s the most insulting thing that we can do for a faculty member who has passed away?”  but that’s essentially what they have done, and I know I’m not the only one who is livid about this decision mp3 file.

However.  I’m not going to dwell.  At least, I’m not going to dwell on the negative.  Instead, here is a roundup of articles written about Dean, leading off with my favorite herunterladen.  The author, Elizabeth Brown, is a composer who wrote a few pieces for the Partch instruments.  It is my favorite of all the articles written in the last year because of her close ties with Dean.  They had a long and great working relationship, and the article is peppered with email correspondence between she and Dean.  I miss his humor.

You could, of course, read his obituary in the New York Times, or in the LA Times, or jump right to his wikipedia page. You could also have a listen to an episode of New Sounds that aired the Thursday after Dean passed last year.

One last thing I’m going to do, and I hope you will do as well, is visit this fundraiser on Indiegogo.  It’s not specifically for anything directly Dean related, but it’s for Partch, and Partch is what Dean devoted much of his musical career to.  There is a production of one of Partch’s bigger pieces, The Wayward, planned for Carnegie Hall, and they additionally are filming a documentary on the production as well.  It is my hope – and probably the hopes of many others – that this documentary will have a positive impact on the music education world, and the Partch instruments will find a new home where students can continue to learn about and explore the magical world of Partch.

It’s what Dean would have wanted.

In Honor of St. Patrick’s Day

The year was 2008, or maybe it was 2009, and I was at the annual Mid-Atlantic Music Teachers Guild’s Spring Festival – a weekend long event that prominently features competitions for music students of all ages from the NJ/NY/PA/CT (and beyond) area, among a few other interesting activities tarifvertrag herunterladen.  And by “interesting activities,” of course, I mean, “accordions.”

For reasons that will only detract from this absurd narrative, there is always a high concentration of accordions at this event, and I always strongly encourage my students to go check them out davinci resolve kostenlos download.  I mean, when is the next time you’re going to see an accordion, let alone this many all at one time?  I, too, check out the accordions when I get a chance, and that is exactly what happened in the Spring of 2008. cewe bestellsoftware herunterladen. or maybe 2009.

Competitions take place on Friday night, all day on Saturday and on Sunday morning.  Late Friday evening and Saturday night are left for pure exhaustion (depending on how much time one may have spent at the competition that day) or a little bit of socializing with colleagues you only get one chance out of the year to see nero free download windows 10.  On this particular weekend, there was an accordion performance on Saturday night that featured both soloists and an accordion orchestra.  Please, let’s all just take a moment to appreciate the idea of an “accordion orchestra.”  It is kitschy old fonts to download.  It is glorious.

I had nothing else on the agenda that night, so after dinner, a coworker and I went to the concert, to see what was up.  What was up was too much nerdy musical awesomeness for one room outlook download free full version windows 10.  I texted another of our coworkers, one of the guys that works in our store and repairs instruments.

“Do we have an accordions on consignment right now?” (sometimes, this is, in fact, a thing) deutsche schrift herunterladen.

The answer came back.

“Are you drunk?”

“That’s irrelevant!  Do we have any accordions or not?”

“No, sorry.” (I think he still thought I was drunk)

This sounds like a sad ending to a weird tale, but I have to tell you minecraft download kostenlos deutsch vollversion.  This is not the end of the story.

The following Monday morning, I get a text.

“Were you serious about that accordion?”

“Of course, why?”

“Because a guy just came in and gave us one treiber herunterladen kostenlos.  Didn’t even want any money for it, just wanted us to make sure it went to a good home.”

“IT’S MINE.”

By that Tuesday night, she was home in my apartment, and we have been terrorizing the poodles and confusing small children ever since fernsehsendungen.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is how the one and only Holly Scandalli came into my life.  This is how ALL accordions should enter their players’ lives, in a slightly mysterious and absolutely zany fashion.

The one, the only, Miss Holly Scandalli.

The one, the only, Miss Holly Scandalli.

Who I’m Thankful For

There are many things I am thankful for, both personally and musically.  I have spent a lot of waking hours so far this year, thinking about who I am thankful for, musically, and today, on Thanksgiving 2013, I want to tell you about a really awesome person in my life, who unfortunately, is never going to know the impact he has had on me funda 360 foto downloaden.

I started college in the fall of 1999 at Montclair State University.  I was a music therapy major at the time (something that lasted only about a year) youtube video downloaden safari.  Our freshman class was split into two sections for Theory I and Aural Skills I.  I just so happened to get the class with Dean Drummond, who was also new to Montclair State University that semester herunterladen.  If me-from-now told me-from-then that this guy would become the most influential person in my college career, I probably would have laughed at you.  At the time, I think I wasn’t even sure if he was going to give me a passing grade in those two classes herunterladen.

On a whim, I decided to try out the ensemble he ran, on the instruments invented by himself and by Harry Partch (another story, for another time).  The students in the music department mostly referred to them as the Dr herunterladen. Seuss instruments.  Of course I was interested.

Over time, the instruments, and Dean, became the true constant of my college career.  Through deaths in my family, through a personal health scare, through FOUR changes of major (one of which Dean personally helped to make possible), there was always Partch ensemble herunterladen.  It wasn’t just an ensemble for me (and for many of the students who participated over the years), it was my main form of socialization (Partch kids became some of my closest friends), it was a place for me to hang out, it was a place for, sometimes, hiding from the world outlook gratisen nederlands.  Through the Partch ensemble, I got to premiere a few awesome works of music, and I got to perform off-campus (which was, and is, still a big deal for any ensemble) css herunterladen.   I got to learn about a teeny, yet infinitely awesome niche in American music history.   The kind of thing where some people say, “You play the Cloud Chamber what?” and other people say, “OHMIGOSHYOUPLAYTHECLOUDCHAMBERBOWLS!?”

Dean wasn’t just a musician who also happened to be a teacher, he was the kind of person from whom you  could learn something every time he opened his mouth or just did. liebessprüche zum downloaden. anything. I have been thinking a lot this year about him.  From my dedication to practicing, to the way I run rehearsals with my students, I have learned a lot, musically, from Dean navigation kostenlos herunterladen.

I’ve learned a lot of life lessons from Dean, too.  I’ve learned it’s never too late to learn something new.  I’ve learned that you just don’t have to iron your shirts if you don’t want to.  I’ve learned that if you truly love what you’re doing, you will never dread going to work a day in your life.  I’ve learned to keep a great sense of humor about everything and all things.  How did I learn these things?

Because one afternoon, Dean asked me to show him how to do a pirouette (also, he was just getting into karate).  Because Dean Drummond plays a kithara, and in his mind that means he doesn’t have to iron his shirts if he doesn’t feel like it, and I play kithara so I’m not ironing my shirts, either.  I witnessed the fact that Dean Drummond had dedicated his life to pursuing new music, and exploring all the possibilities of sounds to create, and I saw how that took him all over the world, and to my little corner of it, and how, no matter what the university threw at him (and anyone from MSU can tell you that Montclair can throw it’s fair share of curve balls and put up road blocks), he was living a life to be proud of, to be satisfied with, to be happy with.  I’ve also witnessed Dean leap like a frog across the room, attempt to walk through walls.  I’ve seen him wear ridiculous hats and make silly faces, all in the name of music.

I’ve been thinking about Dean a lot because Dean had been sick, and Dean finally succumbed to his illness in April of this year.  I, like many students, was actually pretty devastated.  I think I still am.  With the tears welling up in my eyes as I type this right now, I think I was under the impression that Dean was going to live forever.  I mean, hey, he could walk through walls, so it was absolutely possible.  Until, of course, it wasn’t.

But I am thankful that my life’s path crossed with that of Dean Drummond.  I won’t get too existential about it, but the only reason I came to Montclair was for a major I completely lost interest in, and in many ways, if it weren’t for Dean, I may not even have eventually become a musician.  If he hadn’t ended up at Montclair, I don’t know where I would have ended up.  So for that, and for so much more, Mean Dean the Theory Machine, I say thank you so very much, wherever you are.

Dance Accompanying: Who am I and what do I know anyway?

Yes, if you’re here, you probably do already have some sort of acquaintance with me. Maybe we’re friends, maybe I teach your kid, maybe you’ve seen me perform star wars battlefront 2 pc. But I wanted to talk a little bit about a certain facet of my life before we keep going here on the blog, as I’ve already written a bit about a certain subject, and anticipate a few more posts before the summer is over microsoft officeen gratis 2016.

I’m a piano teacher and an accomplished player, yes. But I’m also, a few months out of the year, a piano accompanist as well, and this isn’t just any kind of accompanying, this isn’t me getting together with some of my other musician friends to work on some solos cello noten kostenlos downloaden. No, this is ballet accompanying, which is another beast entirely. This will be my third time accompanying for this group, the first being many years ago, the second being last year kostenlos bücher für kindle herunterladen. Both the first and second time I felt like the whole experience was very fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants and I didn’t really know what to expect, what to do (well, to a certain extent I did the second time) or how it would all turn out in the end netflix for macbook pro. This year I am going into this experience much more well prepared than I was the first two times (more on that later). We’ll see if that changes anything c64 spiele herunterladen.

I do also have a strong dance background. As previously stated, I accompany at a dance camp, where classes are every morning for about three hours, camp is two weeks long, and there are three separate sessions (so it’s six weeks of work total) herunterladen. I also attended this camp in my youth, and have 20 some odd years of dance experience – ballet, tap, and Ukrainian folk dancing, plus a little belly dancing tossed in for good measure polar express.

I have never FORMALLY trained as a dance accompanist. So I guess this is a bit of a disclaimer type of post. I did have to take a class on accompanying in college as part of my music major, but that really didn’t prepare me for this specific kind of accompanying herunterladen. What I do have is a strong music background and a strong dance background, so I suppose that gives me a very unique perspective on this whole dance accompanying thing teams kostenlos downloaden. I only really talk to one other accompanist on occasion, and he’s got no dancing history whatsoever (but he’s a terrific, terrific player!), and I have a feeling he is more the rule and I am more the exception when it comes to dance accompanists.

Because here’s the thing. I really only know that one accompanist. I know plenty of piano players. I know plenty of performing musicians in general. But I personally know very few (aka, one) other dance accompanists. Even finding resources online for accompanists is hard for me. There are actually some pretty great resources at the Royal Academy of Dance’s website, but as far as people talking about it? Not many, and not recently.

So while I don’t claim to be an expert on the topic, I do know that I am pretty knowledgeable, and pretty experienced (yes, I only do it for six weeks out of the year, but it’s the most intense six weeks of my life. Also, anything I read in the RAD’s book on accompanying I had already figured out on my own in just six weeks of accompanying, so there), and I just want there to be more of a discussion, just more words committed to it out there in the blogosphere (if that’s even a word people still use).

If there are other accompanists out there, I encourage you to share your experiences. Let’s band together and start a discussion! Exchange some ideas! Boost each other up! I don’t mind sharing tips with tricks with accompanists from other continents – it’s not like you’re going to go to my dance studios and get a job there before I could!

Dance Accompanying: How Dance Camp Turned me into a Ballet Accompanist

As a Ukrainian American on the east coast, I have had the distinct pleasure of really getting to experience, learn about and grow into the culture of my grandparents free games fishdom. Ukrainian Americans in the NJ/NY area have at least a dozen established churches they can attend, there are a multitude of festivals and dances throughout the year to attend across the tri-state area, and a little Ukie child has their choice of which group to learn traditional folk dance with how to download video from youtube.

I first started Ukrainian dance lessons when I was very young, maybe when I was 8 or 9, and I studied with the legendary Pani Roma Pryma Bohachevsky herunterladen. She came to my elementary school (my Ukrainian church’s kindergarten – eighth grade school), and we had class once a week, and a performance at the end of the year herunterladen. By the seventh grade, I was SO. WAY. INTO. UKRAINIAN DANCE. and I asked my mom if I could go away to this dance camp that Pani Roma ran every summer at the Ukrainian resort in upstate New York (near New Paltz, in Ulster county) called Soyuzivka lieder kostenlos downloaden mp3 youtube. I would go to camp for the next four years, and every year, it was the hardest, and most awesome two weeks of my life. And for the ensuing six years, when I was no longer a dance camper, I felt a twinge of regret every time August would roll around, and I was not making my pilgrimage to study folk dancing film downloaden laptop.

But I stopped attending dance camp because the real passion of my life was taking over. The summer of 1998 was when I started preparing for my college auditions herunterladen. I practiced piano a few hours every single morning, and taking two weeks off to dance just didn’t seem like an option.

A few years later (after successfully getting into college as a music major, and then going and changing my major to English with a journalism minor, haha) I was back at Soyuzivka, during dance camp time of course, and was doing a little practicing in the dining hall live chat app herunterladen. The dance camp accompanist, Ada Helbig, was there, and came over to chat with me. Would I be interested in accompanying ballet classes next year? Why yes, yes I would zoom app windows herunterladen!

The following summer, in 2001, I came to the New York mountains once again for dance camp. I would be staying for two sessions’ worth of camp, an entire month instagram videos android. It was a life altering experience, with a little bit of trial by fire thrown in. I did not have much preparation or coaching before I took this job. Pani Roma, while she was an excellent teacher, was not so clear in what was expected of me as the accompanist, and since these were pre-Facebook days I don’t even recall if trying to get in touch with Ada for advice even felt like an option. I was handed some music that I was expected to learn – I still have the book, but the task of learning a daunting 15-20 songs in just under two months was something that I at that point in my life just couldn’t do. The first few days of classes were rough, but we hit a groove and I made it through the remaining time, with only one trip to the ER because of such severe pain in my wrist we thought I had possibly broken something. I didn’t end up breaking anything, but I did get a very painful case of a carpel tunnel flare up.

After such an experience, what do you think I did? Switched my major back to music, of course. I dove back into piano playing, and finished school as a music theory major (which I liken to learning how to be a mechanic to help me be a better driving instructor). Though it was a painful and hard experience – and even though I wasn’t really ready as a music professional for it – I grew and learned a lot my summer as a ballet accompanist. It was probably one of the most influential summers of my life.

Dance Accompanying: Seeds

This summer I got back into accompanying ballet classes on piano again (it’s a thing, which is awesome, and preferred, if you didn’t know, which I will have to explain at some point in its own post because I foresee it popping up a few times in the next few articles I have simmering on the back burner) tia portal v15 herunterladen. And I came to this amazing realization.

I would not be accompanying ballet classes if it wasn’t for a friend of mine, Stefan Calka (an accomplished dancer and choreographer in his own right), requesting that I accompany his classes a few weeks ago during a dance workshop I was working at (mostly I was there to help wrangle kids, I was not actually there for music) minecraft für pc kostenlos downloaden vollversion.

I would not have even been able to accompany his classes had I not been heading home (and therefor able to pick up my music).

(I would not even have had ballet accompaniment music had I not already done this once before, about a decade ago.)

I would not have been playing piano for him to overhear me if I wasn’t working on a secret and awesome project with another dancer/teacher/choreographer, Orlando Pagan herunterladen.

I would not have started working on this project if I hadn’t worked at Ukrainian dance camp last summer.

I would never have worked at dance camp, if I had never attended dance camp in my youth office softwareen.

I never would have attended dance camp if I hadn’t been taking Ukrainian dance lessons at home.

And, of course, none of this could have even been set into motion if I was not a lifelong piano player windows media player 7 kostenlosen.

I sit here in my proverbial flower garden, and I am amazed at all the little seeds that had been sown here through the years. I am right now enjoying an amazing blend of two of my passions in life – music and dance – not because of a chance encounter in the summer of 2012, but because of a series of actions put into motion in 1986, 1987, 1994, 2001, and 2011 herunterladen. The winding path that has brought me to the moment I am in right now is absolutely astounding.