William D. Revelli Discussable Comments from a Legend Band Director 1. The Pursuit of Perfection Former conductor of University of Michigan Symphonic Band. Dr. Revelli demanded and received perfection - from 'some' of his students! What he really wanted was simply for them to do their best - nothing less!
2. "I Knew Sousa" William Revelli
3. All music is sound, but is all sound music? 4. All musical instruments make sound, but can all devices that make sound be considered musical instruments?
5. "You never learn anything when you are talkin', only when you are listening!"
6. Rhythm is the 'sugar' of the three basic elements!
As a verb, to 'muse' is to consider something thoughtfully.
As a noun, musemeans a person — especially a woman — who is a source of artistic inspiration. In mythology, the Muses were nine goddesses who symbolized the arts and sciences. Today, a muse is a person who serves as an artist's inspiration.
Muse can also refer to thinking deeply. If you muse about something, you're giving it serious thought. You can't muse in five seconds. People muse on certain ideas for years.
Ok, so knowing that the prefix 'a' - means 'not', then when you put it together with muse, what do you get? Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo? No, you get 'a-muse;' you go to an 'a-muse-ment park' - hmmmmmmm
With what other words do we associatie with being amused - amusing ourselves, entertain, entertainment, etc. Ok, then let's define the word 'entertain' - to provide (someone) with amusement or enjoyment.
Can the lack of musical structure & form; the constant chant of beat and loud bass repetition step into play when we are being 'amused' with our music? Do we ever quit thinking when we listen to music? Do we allow the chant - the repetition to take over our thinking process - so we just tend to follow music without thinking - thus allowing the hypnotic rhythm to take over - all the while we consider ourselves being amused?
Do our kids and young adults today follow 'all kinds of music' like the rats following the Pied Piper of Hamlin?
Does a Good Music 'Performance' Really Make You Smarter?
We’ve all heard that music study can make you smarter, but do we really believe it? Having taught music for a couple of decades, I can tell you with certainty that the transferable skills needed for success in any domain are necessarily present in preparation for all competent music performances, and performance cannot exist without it.
And if you think about it; performance is the goal of all learning.
Consider this – there are no B+’s in music. Eleven percent of a 90-minute performance is 10 full minutes of errors. Not 10 errors but ten full minutes of them. The plain truth is that in order to be considered as competent as our teaching counterparts, where 89% can be considered pretty successful, music teachers must get entire performing groups to about 98% or better. The really good ones get awfully close to 100%, and we don’t do it by finding ‘talented’ students. We do it by taking anyone and everyone and know that if they will follow directions (the learning process in its purest form) they will get good – every time.
It is interesting that if we were to get our dry cleaning back with 89% of the stains out, or our Happy Meal missing 11% of what we paid for, we would find that unacceptable! Yet we can consider those numbers a successful level of competence in other areas.
The goal of all learning is competent performance, and music shows us how to teach it.
Because of this, music teachers, as a natural course of doing their jobs over the last few centuries, have had to learn the essence of the learning process and immerse students within it, literally rewiring the brain physically and functionally.
This process has been around as long as humanity, and is responsible for all great human achievement from the Renaissance to Beethoven’s symphonies as well as to Jimi Hendrix’ guitar work.