“See” the Melody, “Hear” the Beauty -- Concert review of “Eye Ear I Hear”
On September 20th, I attended the piano concert called “Eye Ear I Hear” performed by Professor Jennifer Blyth at the Rubendall Recital Hall, Weiss Center for the Arts. The concert was present in a unique way that integrate music and written text are combined together in order to convey the audience a sense of unconstrained free association. The concerts mainly consists of two parts – the music works with polyphonic textures created by composers like Bach and Rzewski in the first half, and those pieces with recent technological developments which represent the modern American culture in the second half. I have been greatly impressed by Professor Blyth’s concert and would
…show more content…
There are a lot of jumps in Blyth’s fingers and the beginning part drew us a picture of harmony and peace. I noticed that Blyth stepped on the paddles a lot of times in order to make some intervals between sections which split the notes up. Through this technique used on peddle, a delightful and dynamic tone was made and one can easily feel the sense of optimism and vitality that the music conveyed. As the melody moves gradually towards a fierce and angry emotion tone, Blyth made big jumps between left and right hands, bouncing back and forth heavily between different ranges of the keyboard. With her body slightly inclining towards the piano, she made some powerful sounds by using the weight of her arms when she dropping her arms onto the keyboard. This also reminds me of some problems in my own practice. When playing some chords, I use the strength of fingers instead of the arm’s, which made it harder to extend the volume and restrict the clearness of the notes. In addition, after the piece reached its climax and getting close to the end, Blyth had her fingers make some small “pinch” to make slight emphases on some notes, without ruining the soft and restful atmosphere in the background, which gave me some inspiration for my future study on piano performance.
In conclusion, through observing the piano performance of Blyth’s concert, I was greatly inspired and learned some performance skills which are
Romanticism and The post impressionism era are two major periods on the time line of art history. Different forms of art including paintings, music, and architecture showed tremendous growth, and ended up making history. This essay compares and contrasts pieces of work such as Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night and Joseph Mallord William Turner’s The Slave Ship. These two pieces both represent their own individual time periods, yet have similar characteristics. Both of these paintings have a way of uncovering a story without using a single word.
He does not create scores with orthodox musical methods and his music can be unpleasant or even irritating to some; yet by using a technological process, he reveals a naturally occurring acoustic phenomena and demonstrates it an unforgettable physical form. In the simplest way one could imagine (play-record-play-re-record-repeat), Lucier successfully guides the audience to pay attention to listening itself, to sound itself, to the space that we stand in, to the effect that the surrounding environment may have upon us. Other composers may deliver emotions or opinions through their works, but Lucier manages to erase all these subjective judgements, triggers a self-reflecting thinking process and initiate a borderless experience that all audience shared
During a musical performance many elements to be looked are not easily recognized by the average critic. A musical performance has multiple interactions taking place between the music, text, performers, audience, and space that all can contribute to a great performance. Overwhelming majority of the audience does not realize so much can be looked at during a single performance. At a performance by the University of Maryland Marching Band I was able to analyze the Musical Sound, Contexts of the Performance, and Interpretation of the Performance.
I believe that as a composer himself, his appreciation for music must be boundless. And to see that “most people only listen to music in a primitive way”, he is propelled to explain the process of listening and how to appreciate musical works.
On the 27th of April, I attended an open rehearsal for the New York Philharmonic at the David Geffen at Lincoln Center. Going to the David Geffen Hall for the first time, I came with high expectations on the size of the place. The venue wasn’t as big as I thought it would be, but it was big enough for the standard orchestra size. The setting of the place as I entered was quiet and serene, with the spotlight on the orchestra and conductor Alan Gilbert. In order to fully enjoy the performance no phones or speaking were allowed when they performance went on. The audience followed this rule with conviction, and made it easier for a “new comer” like me to try to understand the pieces that were being played. One thing that impressed me with my fellow audience members was that fact that they were able to identify the pieces
On November twenty-ninth, I attended APSU Student Recital at the George and Sharon Mabry Concert Hall. The performance consisted of only three pieces, yet both were met with enthusiastic applause and praise. When I attended the performance I hear and seen exactly what I expected which were student performing amongst their peers. This particular performance was different because I never experience a student recital. I was very pleased by the performance I thought it was very entertaining and interesting.
How the media portrays those living in poverty initiated many new chapters in scholarly research. Very few, however, address the media’s depiction of the poor during times of disaster (natural or manmade). The issue of poverty is mostly understood through the frames in which the media presents it. As the media continues to use episodic frames (individual causes) over thematic frames that seek to address poverty in its entirety (Iyengar, 1990), the frames deliver largely inaccurate and stereotypical interpretations of those in poverty. Episodic frames often ignore the larger structural factors, such as unemployment, (Kendall, 2011) thus creating a fractured image of poverty and those who live within
Every time I hear about famous composers, like Bach or Mozart, the names themselves put me to sleep quicker than any anesthesia ever could. So, it was no surprise that I absolutely dreaded the idea of seeing a piece written by any of these composers. I attended Mozart’s requiem at the Seattle symphony, I grunted at the idea of paying $38 for something I wasn’t even interested in. How dare they charge an absurd amount for something that was written before time itself? I took my seat and looked out at the sea of older retired couples and couldn’t believe this would be my fate someday. Ludovic Morlot was conducting for the evening, I have never heard the name in my life and only learned of it from the magazine I was handed before taking my seat. Morlot is French born musician, and currently the music director for the Seattle symphony.
“The Art of Practicing is about art, about creating something fresh and genuine. In this approach, practicing is not so different from performing” (Bruser 11). The author tells the story when years ago, she was practicing for a long time and suddenly she started to focus on listening to the sound that was coming out of the piano rather than imagining what sound she wanted to hear. For the first time, she truly heard what she was playing. Ms. Bruser says that she felt free and spontaneous, just like if she were performing on a stage. We can all practice this sensation every day during our practice sections.
On April 29th, 2016 the Yale School of Music with the Yale Phillharmonia had conductor Peter Oundjian as their season closer, which featured Motzarts Symphony No. 41 in C Major, “Juipiter”, and Hoslt’s “The Planets” as their featured pieces. When I first walked into the concert hall, I noticed the depth of the sound when people were talking. The sound seemed to echo even though people were talking in hushed tones. The sound seemed to vibrate off the walls just from pure conversation so I was excited to see what the pieces would sound like initially when the concert first started. I also noted the decent size of the concert hall. I thought it was going to be tiny, while it wasn’t huge it was a very good size and could hold a lot of people.
Every semester, Dickinson College has a Noonday Concert series, in which Dickinson students perform musical pieces they have been working on for our community. The Noonday Concert on October 29, 2015 featured only a few performances that were all beautifully done. However, the one performance that truly left me in awe was Shucheng Yang’s rendition of Chopin’s Étude Op. 10, No. 9. Not only was Yang’s piece the only one of that concert that was not accompanied by a vocalist, but his work allowed me to truly use the skills I have learned in my music classes to develop a deeper appreciation of music. Yang’s demeanor as a pianist, his talent, and his attention to detail allowed him to transform Chopin’s piece into a piece all his own. I have a deep appreciation for Chopin, but I had never been able to see his pieces performed live before I came to Dickinson. The classes I have taken at Dickinson helped give me the language to interpret music, analyze performances, and finally understand why I am so passionate about this form of art.
This speech is Karl Paulnack’s welcoming address for incoming freshman students. He addresses that music isn’t apart of arts and entertainment rather music is an invisible force that helps us piece ourselves together. Paulnack believes that music is an essential part of life and goes to prove it by telling his experiences with it. He describes the first moment he truly understood music and the impact it has on people. Paulnack portrays the day after 9/11 after he struggles to find any meaning in being a pianist. After a long time of questioning himself he observes the city and notices something. He sees that in this time of grief and sadness people are singing. From this he learned that music is a form of expression, it allows people to express their feelings when they have no other words to describe them. Paulnack goes on to describe what he says was the most important concert of his life. He and a friend were playing a concert at a nursing home. During their performance, one man began to cry, it was at that time Paulnack knew the man was a veteran. After Paulnack and his friend finished the piece, they announced that the piece they were playing was Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was a work
I am a musician and composer. My work allows me as an artist to use music as an inherent and universal means of communication to invoke my audience in a period of time on an emotional level. I choose music because I feel an image can be interpreted in a plethora of ways while music generally elicits a unanimous emotion that convey a theme instead of being restricted to one central focus. Bheetoven’s, Moonlight Sonata was written for a Countess Giulietta Guicciard whose beauty he said, reflected that of the moon. The musical composition envokes a sense of elegance and imperfection. Like that of an image of nature in a glass of water one could conclude deduce that Bheeetoven’s composition invoked beauty in both its radiance and imperfections.
As a child, I sat with young, fascinated eyes, engaged with the amputee pianist upon center stage. With mellow lighting, the Stienway and Sons reflected the most beautiful hues of gold upon the inner lid, soft and fluid in form. Dressed in a fanciful tailcoat, the one-handed musician remained motionless and reflective at his instrument as though it were whispering angelic secrets to him. Enchanted by his image, the rumble of cellos felt deep within my chest may have very well been the cries from my own mouth. Bittersweet emotion evolved as the soloist hung in the timelessness of sonorous strings, waiting to come forth with his own voice.
Crime is an issue that has been affecting society for years now, it is a phenomenon which has always been present. It is now almost impossible to imagine a society without crime as it is something which is all around us in the news primarily in the media through the TV and internet. In a sense we do not need to experience crime directly to be affected by it. News reporting has made us far more aware of crime for better or worse. However whilst our knowledge of crime has