William Grant Still: A Brief Biography

In 1923 one of Americas most prolific composers Clifton Williams was born in Traskwood, Arkansas. Later in the 1930’s Williams moved to Little Rock Arkansas and even though his family was having a hard time during the depression. Even through this Williams fared well in high school. during this time Williams learned to play the French horn, the piano and the mellophone . After high school Williams went to Louisiana Tech University where Williams studied composition for a year under

Tanner started his freshman year playing in the second best orchestra of three in his school. Here, he excelled musically and made new friends with upperclassmen. By January, one of Tanner’s older friends had convinced him to join choir, so he decided to audition for the upcoming year. As a sophomore, Tanner sang bass in the top choir, even though he did not have any prior singing experience. The same year, he also auditioned into Symphonic Orchestra, the top orchestra of his school. While he was in both the top orchestra and choir, he started student conducting for the lower orchestras and choirs. By senior year, Tanner’s schedule was almost completely filled with music classes. Consequently, Tanner grew extremely close to his high school ensemble directors. It got the point where he could casually call his Symphonic Orchestra director “mom.” This inspired Tanner to make it a goal for himself to form strong relationships with his future students. Through his experiences conducting his high school orchestras, and choir, Tanner found that he really enjoyed teaching music and decided to study music

Throughout the reading this week, the information presented in David Elliott and Bennett Reimer’s texts stressed the importance of music and more specifically, music education. “People everywhere find music rewarding, and everywhere we find people engaged in formal and non-formal efforts to teach and learn music.” (Elliott, 2014, p. 4)

He also spent time learning from George Whitefield Chadwick at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston; later, he was instructed by Edgar Varèse. Still’s compositions from the mid-1930s

“ He continued his music lessons after high school graduation, in 1921 he went to France to study at the American Conservatory in

Over the course of history, the arts have played an important role in aspects of people’s lives. More specifically, music is something that has been around for centuries and will continue to play a part in shaping people into who they are. There have been numerous talented composers in America, but some worth mentioning are Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin.

In W.C. Handy’s early life he had been a composer, musician and music publisher. William Christopher Handy was born to Elizabeth Brewer and Charles Barnard Handy. At a very young age Handy had shown his love of music, and was supported in the pursuit of his dream only by his maternal grandmother, everyone else

what he became and did not let anything get in the way of becoming a musician. In this

Throughout history music has played an important role in society, whether it was Mozart moving people with his newest opera or the latest album from the Beatles. Where would society be today without music? With schools cutting their music programs, the next Mozart may not get his chance to discover his amazing talent. Music programs are essential to education. To fully understand this one must understand how music helps the human body, why schools have cut music programs, and why people should learn music.

Elementary schools and high schools across the U.S. have lately suffered from financial strain. Because of this, budget cuts have to be made and music programs often suffer before sports and academics. Although some people believe that music is not a key component in preparing for employment and higher education, yet several others express otherwise, who say music has been shown to stimulate other parts of a student’s mind that can help them excel. Statistics have shown that the correlation between music class and other academia is not only positive for students, but also can improve future scholastic abilities, and thus should not be cut from schools. Through the evaluation of various sources

Through weekly private lessons, chamber, wind, and orchestra ensemble playing, and assiduous independent practice, I have improved immensely as a trombonist and musician. My work paid off when I was accepted into Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute. At this nationally competitive program, I spent six weeks with talented, dedicated students while rubbing shoulders with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). I had never heard elite musicians live before the BSO. Their concerts brought tears to my eyes and my drive to make music at the highest level grew. After receiving instruction from these musicians and hearing their own performances, I refined my technique and made more tasteful musical decisions.

When he was taking high school classes as an eighth grader he did not gel with the other students very well, but his overall high school experience was pretty good. He was only at the Berry Academy for high school Geometry for one year before the university scrapped the entire program. He started playing French Horn in 8th grade before starting high school and since then music has been a part of his life. He’d been taking piano as a child so it gave him a head start on understanding music. He played basketball at Berry Academy and with his church, but he stuck with band once he go to high school. In his church basketball league, Varsity players were not allowed to play because they wanted the atmosphere to be more relaxed and fun.

Charles Ives is known in our day as the “Father of American Music,” but in his day, he was known just like everyone else- an ordinary man living his life. He was born in Danbury, Connecticut on October 20, 1894 (Stanley 1) to his mother, Sarah Hotchkiss Wilcox Ives and father, George White Ives (A Life With Music, Swafford 4). His father was renowned for being the Union’s youngest bandmaster and having the best band in the Army (The Man His Life, Swafford 1). Little Charles was influenced early in his life by his father who had libertarian ideas about music (Stanley 1). Although Danbury prided itself as “the most musical town in Connecticut”, the people did not give the musical profession respect or understanding

The similarities that were between Aparna’s crush on Pranab and Usha’s infatuation with Pranab and Debroah is that they both didn’t have that much happiness and fun in their life until they met Pranab and Deborah. Usha explains how Pranab made her mother happy and crucial that she didn’t felt when she was to Usha’s father. She says “He brought to my mother the first and, I suspect, the only pure happiness she felt” (67). This shows how Pranab brought happiness to Aparna she never had before. Similarly, Usha explains that she hasn’t experienced what a family felt like until she started to go out with Pranab and Deborah.

Ever since my years in elementary school, I have had a love for music. This love developed in middle school where the notion of teaching music came to me. In high school, I knew the profession that was right for me was music education. After graduation, I began my journey to my calling by attending Shepherd University.