Introduction:
I, the author, am Michael Heise. In this article I shall attempt to describe a performance I attended on the campus of the University of Texas at Dallas. I hope to explain various foundational concepts of musical performances and how they relate to the event "Side Show: The Musical". Let me first admit that I am not an avid follower of musicals and the music culture surrounding them. Even though I am not an expert regarding the event's music culture, I am still capable of noting various aspects of this musical performance as well as the various aspects that genuinely surprised me. Now that I have established my background with this music culture I would like to give more specific information regarding exactly what performance I saw. It was a Friday evening of April 9, 2010 that I saw the performance. The performance was held in the university's theater. The performance was scheduled for eight o'clock; however, the performance started approximately three minutes late according to my watch. This was not a large delay and could have been caused by late arriving patrons and attendees. Hopefully this brief introduction shall be enough background information to help the reader understand the performance I saw as I explain the aspects of the performance.
Music:
The music consisted of a relatively small group of people playing the accompaniment as the actors sang the script as lyrics to the songs being played. Quite a few of the songs were light hearted and had relatively fast tempos to demonstrate feelings of happiness or joy. Some of the songs were slower in their tempo and expressed somber feelings such as loneliness or rejection, which were recurring themes in this particular musical. The direction of the various vocal talents changed from song to song, for instance one song had men singing one part and the women the other while other songs had groups of men and women singing together. Some songs would have only one singer while others would have many singers. The lead singers were primarily sopranos or tenors depending one which roles they played in the musical.
Performers:
The performers’ interaction with the crowd was astonishing. Normally when I attend an event that has a stage with side entrances to the stage I am accustomed to the performers entering from the stage's entrances; however, the performers entered the stage from the rear entrance where the audience is enters and exits. They had even sung their first song while still standing on the various elevated ledges next to the end seats. Since I was sitting in the fourth seat from the end I was very close to the performers as they began the show. The performance continued throughout the night without any noticeable mistakes. The performers must have practiced quite a bit to perform without any noticeable flaws. Furthermore, this was particularly astonishing to me since one of the performers was wearing elevated heal shoes throughout the performance and danced doing high kicks in close proximity and parallel with another performer in those shoes.
Audience:
Prior to the performances start the audience was rather restless. It seemed primarily filled with students of the university; however, there also seemed to be non-student and non-faculty attendees during the performance. The audience seemed to nearly fill the seats. I approximated about seventy five percent of the potential seats were filled. Once the musical began the audience watched tentatively and applauded the performance.
Time and Space:
This performance was held the Friday following the Thursday premier. The Thursday premier was free to all attendees while the performance I attended only to UTD faculty and students. Thus, I was impressed that there were what appeared to be several non-faculty and non-student attendees. Perhaps the large turn out was due in part to it being Friday and thus a day that most people have the evening free to do as they please.
Conclusion:
In summary, the performance was a little non-traditional in the way the performers entered the stage, but had some traditional elements in roles and they range of pitch that they sang and traditional in that the music is primarily used to support the plot.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
BTO Rock
So when doing a rock blog I thought I would use the following song since it will be familiar to a lot of people. It is Bachman Turner Overdrive's "Taking Care of Business". This song was released by Bachman Turner Overdrive in the mid seventies. The song is classic hard rock and since it is a rock song you can clearly hear the guitar. It was probably performed by a band slightly larger than your average rock band but still within the average number of players. The song's lyrics are humorous since they seem to me slightly contradictory, but that is probably part of the draw to this song. The song is about how a professional musician has a leisurely life style and taking care of business is fun for him. If you know how to count beats in music, then you will notice how this song like most rock music has a four beat cycle. Personally I have enjoyed music like this since I was a kid. My dad was a fav of a lot of different classic rock bands so I have heard music like this and many others as well. You might remember the add campaign by I think it was Home Depot had this as their song too. They were probably trying to pull from the nestalgia of the consumers.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Gullah
In the first video she was teaching the children about the music culture. She was attempting to continue the traditions of the music culture. In some respects you could say the the preservation of the music culture itself is a portion of the culture. Furthermore she focused on the importance of rhythm in the music culture. She also stated that another important aspect was the celebration within the culture. So self preservation, rhythm, and celebration are major aspects of the culture. They used drums heavily which makes sense in a rhythm heavy culture. There seems also a focus on freedom from slavery intrinsic within the music culture. Both videos contained speeches on the impact slavery had on the culture and how freedom is essential in this music culture.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
PerformanceReport1
Introduction:
In this paper I, Michael Heise, shall attempt to convey the fundamental music principles regarding the performance “Shakespeare in Song” as well as I understand them. Keep in mind that as I write this report that I am not attempting to criticize the performance or the performers; but, I am attempting to most accurately convey to the reader what was perceived in regards to my limited knowledge of this type of performance. This event occurred on the Friday of March twenty-sixth year two-thousand and ten. Its location was the on the main campus of the University of Texas at Dallas in the Erik Jonsson Academic Center in room number 2.604 known as the Jonsson Performance Hall. As one can probably guess due to the location of the performance, the performance was not performed by a professional troupe of art music performer, but was performed by our universities own local talent primarily if not exclusively. The performance was sung and acted by the UT Dallas Chamber Singers, Directed by UTD's Associate Dean for the Arts Kathryn Evans, piano accompaniment performed by Michael McVay whom also has affiliation with UTD, and costumes were due to the help of Karen Mitchell. There were slides shown on a screen during the performance; however, I do not know whom all to credit as provider for them. As per usual, this style of music is a lyrical form of poetry sung with music accompanying it. To my knowledge, in this Art Music style there are commonly two performers. A pianist would normally be accompanying a single vocal soloist; however, as stated above there were multiple singers since it was done by a UTD choir. This makes it somewhat nontraditional, but gave more variety and made the music seem closer to the Shakespearian plays it had been based upon.
Music:
The music varied quite a bit from piece to piece. Some pieces would have the performers singing in sub groupings, such as males or females, at different points in the song and others would be sung with solos, and several were sung with the full participation of the choir. Obviously such variations would change the vocal timbre of the songs depending upon the participation or lack there of by members of the choir. The texture of the music changed dependant on who is supposed to be the dominant musician during a given piece. Some songs were happy and had a fast tempo while others were more sullen in theme and had slow tempos.
Performers:
The performers were primarily college students that perform for the UT Dallas Chamber Singers; however, as stated above some of the performers, such as conductor, were staff and thus the age of the performers was ranged. All of the musical performers including the conductor had been dressed in costumes one would expect to see at a Shakespearian theater performance or at a renaissance fair. The performer’s initial positions were such that the pianist was seated at the piano on the left side of the stage from the audience’s point of view, the choir was standing in four progressively elevated rows near center stage facing the crowd, and the conductor was center stage in front of the choir facing the choir members so as to give them direction during the performance. The choir members would move as needed to allow soloists to move to the front of the stage as arranged. Up to four soloists were standing on the right side of the conductor at any point and one soloist might stand to the left side of the conductor.
Audience:
The night that I attended the seats were approximately half full. This estimation along with the estimation on the total number of seats suggests that around one hundred members were seated in the audience. Due to the stage and performer setup, if one followed the Opera’s standard of appropriate times to applaud, the most appropriate time to clap would be after a solo had been performed; however, the audience, as one might expect, was not fully aware of when to clap and thus the timing of applause was somewhat awkward. The conductor did attempt to a lot certain times for applause such as to instruct the audience on when to clap; but, not all members of the audience were necessarily aware of this attempt. Some comedic elements from the plays were used and the audience, in large, understood the humor and laughed during these moments as should be expected.
Time and Space:
Since this was the first live showing of this performance to a crowd, perhaps some elements could have been better polished such as a few minor slips during solos; however, on average this was a very well done performance.
Conclusion:
To best summarize this performance, I would state that it was a night filled with well known Shakespearian themed Art Music performances. It contained well versed songs and enjoyable humor that entertained the crowd as the evening progressed.
*UPDATE*
I had used the Program notes from the concert to list some of the participants names. Unfortunately I cannot find the program guide anymore, but information regarding the performance can be found here.
In this paper I, Michael Heise, shall attempt to convey the fundamental music principles regarding the performance “Shakespeare in Song” as well as I understand them. Keep in mind that as I write this report that I am not attempting to criticize the performance or the performers; but, I am attempting to most accurately convey to the reader what was perceived in regards to my limited knowledge of this type of performance. This event occurred on the Friday of March twenty-sixth year two-thousand and ten. Its location was the on the main campus of the University of Texas at Dallas in the Erik Jonsson Academic Center in room number 2.604 known as the Jonsson Performance Hall. As one can probably guess due to the location of the performance, the performance was not performed by a professional troupe of art music performer, but was performed by our universities own local talent primarily if not exclusively. The performance was sung and acted by the UT Dallas Chamber Singers, Directed by UTD's Associate Dean for the Arts Kathryn Evans, piano accompaniment performed by Michael McVay whom also has affiliation with UTD, and costumes were due to the help of Karen Mitchell. There were slides shown on a screen during the performance; however, I do not know whom all to credit as provider for them. As per usual, this style of music is a lyrical form of poetry sung with music accompanying it. To my knowledge, in this Art Music style there are commonly two performers. A pianist would normally be accompanying a single vocal soloist; however, as stated above there were multiple singers since it was done by a UTD choir. This makes it somewhat nontraditional, but gave more variety and made the music seem closer to the Shakespearian plays it had been based upon.
Music:
The music varied quite a bit from piece to piece. Some pieces would have the performers singing in sub groupings, such as males or females, at different points in the song and others would be sung with solos, and several were sung with the full participation of the choir. Obviously such variations would change the vocal timbre of the songs depending upon the participation or lack there of by members of the choir. The texture of the music changed dependant on who is supposed to be the dominant musician during a given piece. Some songs were happy and had a fast tempo while others were more sullen in theme and had slow tempos.
Performers:
The performers were primarily college students that perform for the UT Dallas Chamber Singers; however, as stated above some of the performers, such as conductor, were staff and thus the age of the performers was ranged. All of the musical performers including the conductor had been dressed in costumes one would expect to see at a Shakespearian theater performance or at a renaissance fair. The performer’s initial positions were such that the pianist was seated at the piano on the left side of the stage from the audience’s point of view, the choir was standing in four progressively elevated rows near center stage facing the crowd, and the conductor was center stage in front of the choir facing the choir members so as to give them direction during the performance. The choir members would move as needed to allow soloists to move to the front of the stage as arranged. Up to four soloists were standing on the right side of the conductor at any point and one soloist might stand to the left side of the conductor.
Audience:
The night that I attended the seats were approximately half full. This estimation along with the estimation on the total number of seats suggests that around one hundred members were seated in the audience. Due to the stage and performer setup, if one followed the Opera’s standard of appropriate times to applaud, the most appropriate time to clap would be after a solo had been performed; however, the audience, as one might expect, was not fully aware of when to clap and thus the timing of applause was somewhat awkward. The conductor did attempt to a lot certain times for applause such as to instruct the audience on when to clap; but, not all members of the audience were necessarily aware of this attempt. Some comedic elements from the plays were used and the audience, in large, understood the humor and laughed during these moments as should be expected.
Time and Space:
Since this was the first live showing of this performance to a crowd, perhaps some elements could have been better polished such as a few minor slips during solos; however, on average this was a very well done performance.
Conclusion:
To best summarize this performance, I would state that it was a night filled with well known Shakespearian themed Art Music performances. It contained well versed songs and enjoyable humor that entertained the crowd as the evening progressed.
*UPDATE*
I had used the Program notes from the concert to list some of the participants names. Unfortunately I cannot find the program guide anymore, but information regarding the performance can be found here.
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