Student Accomplishments 2018-2019

2018-2019

Fall Festival

Event sponsored by NVMTA. The requirements include two memorized pieces one of which must demonstrate contemporary compositional techniques.

Underlined and bold means superior from both judges.

Adam Baker, Zaria Bartel, Ellie Cox, Sloane Dorotheo, Qing Shuang Downing, Quinn Downing, Peter Hinckley, Lawrence Madi, Bradley McMullin, Henry McMullin, Jack McNair, Myla McNair, Walker Schmidt, Sam Youkeles

PTA Reflections Composition Contest

Annual event sponsored by the Parent Teacher Association and run through the local schools.

Peter Hinckley-1st place in Middle School, 1st place in District, 1st place in VA State and competed at the National Level with “SuperHero”

Alma Grayce Miller Composition Contest and Honor’s Recital

An NVMTA event. Students enter their original compositions. Prizes include cash, and an opportunity to have their piece performed by the McLean Symphony if chosen.

Peter Hinckley earned Special Recognition for his piece “SuperHero”

Quinn Downing earned Honorable Mention for his piece, “Altered Reflection”.

Theory Mastery Day

Virginia Music Teachers Association event with 16 levels of graded, written tests include aural exams.

Students who achieved over 90% in bold, top three scores **

Ellie Cox (1A), Myla McNair (2A)**, Lawrence Madi (2B), Zaria Bartell (3A),Sloane Dorotheo (3B), Quinn Downing (3B), Qing Shuang Downing (3B), Henry McMullin (3B), Katie Dinkelman (4), Jack McNair (4), Peter Hinckley (5)**, Walker Schmidt (5), Sam Youkeles (6)**, Adam Baker (6), Bradley McMullin (7)

Bach/Baroque

NVMTA event where students perform one piece by J.S. Bach and another by him or a different Baroque Composer. Students can play their pieces on a harpsichord. There are honor’s recitals for this event if chosen.

Student who achieved superior in bold.  Called for 2nd Round*

Bradley McMullin*, Adam Baker, Sam Youkeles, Peter Hinckley*, Lawrence Madi,, Henry McMullin, Quinn Downing, Qing Shuang Downing

Piano Concerto Festival

NVMTA event, Very competitive event with 1st, 2nd, 3rd awards.

Henry McMullin, Bradley McMullin

Others who learned concertos this year:  Qing Shuang Downing, Sam Youkeles, Terry Burridge

Piano Ensemble Festival

NVMTA event where students prepare duets or duos (2 pianos) and perform for judges either in festival (comments only, requires one piece) or competition (requires two pieces).

Bradley McMullin and Adam Baker

40 Challenge

Studio event. We document all pieces passed off during the year. In 2018-2019, I noticed a trend: a group of students who passed off 20-25 pieces in a year and a group that passed off over 40.

Recommended practice time to meet this goal is 5 days of practice for at least the length of your lesson.

Ellie Cox (81), Henry McMullin (70), Adam Baker (54), Lawrence Madi (48), Terry Burridge (45), Bradley McMullin (41), Peter Hinckley (40)

First Recital

Congratulations!

Elizabeth Zuckerman and Kyla Dorotheo

Fall Festival--Celebrating Contemporary Music

We are in the final month of preparation for Fall Festival now. I enjoy doing this festival each year because it gets all of my students off to a great start in the fall. Whenever there is a recital or an event that they are working toward, they work harder and concentrate more. At the September class lesson, they shared their music with each other (memory wasn’t required). At the upcoming October class lesson, they will share the same pieces, memorized this time, and much more refined, ready for festival and recital.

The focus of Fall Festival is to introduce students to contemporary sounds. I will review of few in this blog post and provide links for some examples. Maybe you can look and see which categories are present in your music. Often contemporary composers will use more than one of these categories in their compositions. These characteristics are very distinct from other eras of composition.

Melody

1. Melodies are fragmented, irregular, or disjunctive.

2. Significant parts of the piece, or even the whole piece, lack melody.

3. The melody is constructed by chance or serial technique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bkQa2Rowvw

4. The melody is built from non-traditional scales such as modes, a scale with “blue” notes, etc. Some examples of Taylor Swift music with different modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixUpXB2zJ8M

   Harmony

   1. Chords are unrelated to a major-minor system—clusters, altered chords, quartal or quintal harmony. Here’s an example of quartal harmony (uses 4th’s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2loKj2-SU4

   2. The composer makes simultaneous use of two chords or keys (bitonality).

   3. The piece is not in any definable key (atonality).

   4. Unresolved dissonance is common. (Henry, Bradley, Katie, Ellie, Qing Shuang, Jack, Myla)

   Rhythm

   1. The piece or large parts of it contain no bar lines.

   2. The meter is irregular, such as 5/4. (Sloane) Here’s an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPRtRoH4zcA. See if you can count along (9/8: count 2,3,2,2)

   3. There are frequent meter or tempo changes. (Sam, Zaria)

   4. Cross rhythms (polyrhythms)—5 against 4, 7 against 8, etc.—are prominent.

   5. Jazz rhythms prevail. (Walker, Adam, Peter, Quinn)

   Other considerations

   1. Non-traditional notation.

   2. Knocking, tapping or plucking some part of the instrument not traditionally used in this way. (Lawrence)

   3. Use of prepared piano. Only do this with permission from the owner of the piano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgph8aPmRJs

   4. Use of extreme range on the instrument.