It has been a busy week (month?) around the Triton High School band room; this past Wednesday was our conference’s Large Group Music Festival. For those less familiar with the instrumental music realm; “Large Group” is typically the pinnacle point of an ensemble’s yearly performances. Several of my music colleagues and peers may disagree with this on the surface, but underneath it all, we know that this is the one chance many of us get to bring our ensembles into a competition ala football or baseball (excluding any broken bones). Following our competition, I found myself waking on Thursday swearing that it was truly Friday and the rest of the world had it wrong!
Unfortunately, majority still ruled and it was indeed a Thursday.
So today, Friday, looked to be a daunting task; that is, until a little technological fate chimed in…
Upon arriving at school today, I went through my usually routine of dropping off my lunch in the teacher’s lounge, grabbing a cup of murky coffee, and getting set for rehearsals. Today, however, I found myself prepared and ready to go with twenty minutes left on the clock before the school day began, so I decided to check out one of my favorite blogs and I was greeted with the following video:
This was a great anticipatory set to my day, and just the sort of relaxing “Ahh” moment that I needed. There are several things that amaze me about this video; first and foremost is the precision that goes in to each pitched bar that this little wooden ball strikes. From there, my amazement goes from precision to interpretation (or in this case, chance?)
Of all the observations I made when I was in Taiwan, the one that stands out very clearly is that the people of Taiwan, China, Korea, and Japan are all very precise people. I feel as if their architecture, industry, and culture all have very little (if any) room for error. This is the underlying beauty of this video – there are uncontrollable variables which give this piece character. Perhaps the designers of the project had instrumented planned ritardandos (“slow downs”), but they are still unable to control with air around them, and the exact path of the ball. So, in essence, the little ball is the musician and Mother Nature becomes the conductor. Each performance could easily have a different interpretation; thus reminding us that some elements of our lives are best left to fate.
From this video, I would be remiss if I did not talk about the other epic music/technology story of this week. Eric Whitacre (a hugely popular composer for choirs and bands) has unveiled the final product of his “Virtual Choir 2.0” and it is stunning. Whitacre recently went into great detail on this project at the 2011 TED event in Long Beach, CA; a lecture that I highly recommend watching.
For those looking to save a few minutes; this project was created with Whitacre filming himself conducting one of his popular compositions in silence. From this, over 2,000 international vocalists filmed themselves singing their part to this piece (“Sleep”) and posted their videos to YouTube. Whitacre and Co. compiled the videos into one mass recording and premiered the piece yesterday, April 7th (via YouTube).
This is an amazing project with unbelievable outcomes in regards to the importance of high quality art in all corners of the globe. This could change the way we look a music, the arts, and globalization.
(It is also a great way to unwind after a long week); please enjoy Sleep by Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 2.0
(note: the piece is roughly 4 minutes long; the remaining 4+ minutes of this video are the names of each of the singers involved in the final cut. Perhaps leaving us something else to ponder...)
(note: the piece is roughly 4 minutes long; the remaining 4+ minutes of this video are the names of each of the singers involved in the final cut. Perhaps leaving us something else to ponder...)
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