While searching Youtube for a dynamic piece I’d heard on the radio the other day, I stumbled upon an excellent audio-visual history of music in 20 chapters. Each video features key works from the specified historical period, the composer’s dates and photograph (or portrait). Simple idea, excellently done - and ideal for SQA Listening revision. You can access all 20 videos below:
Yesterday I took part in an interesting CfE exercise at MGS where class each class teacher teamed up with another from a different department to investigate common ground and curricular connections. As an instructor, I was not really programmed into this but was very pleased to be included, having put out some gate-crashing feelers. The power of Maths decreed that many would be paired up with teachers of the subject and I was pleased to see that one member of the Music Department was Maths-bound.
As all expected, there were many overlaps. However, there were also a few false friends – words, the interpretation of which in either subject, is so different that we ought now to be on the lookout for understandable confusion. Examples?
Scale: referring in Maths to order of magnitude but in Music to the various spellings of stepwise movement in a melodic line
Time: time is relative in Music and absolute in Maths
Happily, the connections outweigh the differences by miles – is that a mixed metaphor? I’ll ask the English Department when we pair up with them 
… on the day of the last official rehearsal before a Christmas concert than this?
New pay-along midi files for the East Lothian Guitar Ensemble have been posted on the Guitar Group Midis page.
I first came across the idea of mirror neurons in February 2001. How do I know this with such certainty? Because I wrote to New Scientist about the article concerned. The notion has featured recently as several pupils are playing pieces with a moto perpetuo right hand pattern. Here are three examples of such pieces currently being studied by pupils:
Ana Vidovic playing Etude No. 1 by Heitor Villa Lobos:
Ben Kearsely playing West Coast* by Helen Sanderson:
Peo Kindgren playing Estudio No. 6 by Leo Brouwer:
The essential thing in learning such pieces is to master the right hand pattern, by playing it without any distractions from the left hand. The hope in so doing is that the pattern will soon run on auto-pilot. That way, pupils will not be distracted when the left hand re-enters**. As such patterns are soon memorised, pupils are free to look away from the music and I ask them to look at my right hand while they continue to play the pattern. It may be my imagination but, almost without exception, pupils seem to relax the hand and play in a more economical way than might normally be the case. Could mirror neurons be at work here?
* I would describe this piece as the single most successful teaching piece I know
** An interesting half-way stage between playing without left hand and including the left hand is to introduce an unchanging chord shape which descends one fret-at-a-time. This way the hands can begin to come together in a way which falls somewhere between having no left hand involvement and having very varied (and therefore distracting) left hand content. A diminished 7th chord shape serves this purpose very well and, in fact features in the Villa Lobos Etude(from 0:41 to 1:17 on the Ana Vidovic video above)
I should also point out that some doubt has been cast on the theory of mirror neurons.
Further links on the topic of mirror neurons:
And here are two short videos on the topic:
And more generally - Sergio della Sala on neuroscience and learning about learning.
Haddington-based guitar teacher, Liz Mercer, is putting on a weekend of events featuring her former teacher, Carlos Bonell.
In order, they are:
Saturday 28 November at 12:30
Children’s Matinee Concert in St. Mary’s Church, Haddington. Ticket price £7 per adult, which includes entry for two children.
Saturday 28 November at 19:00
Evening concert in St. Mary’s Church, Haddington. Ticket price £14 (limited place senior citizens price £7)
Sunday 29 November at 14:00
Masterclass in Town House, Haddington. Participant price £15, Observer price £9.
Tickets can be ordered directly from Liz, using this booking form which contains all necessary contact details.
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