Here you go Lisa… you can access these from anywhere!
Milton_Elementary_School_Newsletter — this one is the RTF
Milton_Elementary_School_Newsletter — and this is the MS Word
This post will be deleted after you’re all set!
Category: Uncategorized
(Milton Mills, NH) Dreams of new windows and a fresh coat of paint for a local porch wall were smashed when an altercation with a local homeowner turned violent today. Homeowner Jeremy Burke of Milton Mills is now in custody after reports of the altercation were reported to local police.
Local Wall prior to rampage.
In a statement released late this afternoon, investigators indicate the altercation began several days ago when Burke’s foot went through a portion of the porch floor attached to the wall. Evidence on the scene indicates that during attempts to negotiate with the wall, Burke discovered that the wall had been secretly harboring significant quantities of mold, spiders and slugs, mostly embedded in the water-logged insulation place against the OSB used by a prior homeowner as a temporary repair. Upon discovering this information, Burke appears to have undergone some form of psychotic break and is reported to have attacked the wall with wrecking bars, a sledge hammer, and multiple power saws.
Aftermath
Officials on the scene indicate that that the wall’s remains are currently piled on the scene pending availability of appropriate disposal vehicles and have requested that local residents remain clear of the demolition zone pending conclusion of the investigation and disposal of the remains. Although the wall was a total loss, Burke suffered only minor scrapes, although it appears that a ruptured wallet may be a possibility. Burke was not available for comment at the time of publication.
In addition to the devastation to the wall, countless numbers of insects, spiders and slugs were left homeless as the result of this senseless tragedy. In an interview earlier today, former resident Slimy Sluggo stated “It just doesn’t seem fair. We all were just innocently living our lives in this wonderful damp, unventilated spot. I mean, is it our fault someone used wood that is such good food for us or forgot to put any vents in to let things dry out?” Authorities on the scene indicate that many of the former residents are refusing to leave on there own. Plans are currently underway to encourage them to move on later today.
Slimy Sluggo
In related news, shares in Home Depot increased 10% in anticipation of a likely spike in sales.
Plans for reconstruction of the wall have not been announced pending notification of Burke’s wife and family. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested memorial contributions be made directly to the Porch Wall Reconstruction fund.
An audio of the Taize service I mentioned a few days ago is now posted.
Just a word of warning – it’s a large file so be prepared.
How embarrasing! I wrote this final entry back in late October and thought I’d published it in early November… Obviously, I’ve been avoiding my blog for some time, but I did at least think I had published this. Oh, well….
So, the Rousseau Celebration has now come and gone. It was an incredible event, great to see so many great saxophonists and old friends and spend a weekend playing, listening, and talking about saxophone! I’m very happy to be able to say that my performance of the Heiden Solo went quite well. The performance itself, however, is not all that important. What is important are the final steps I took to be fully ready to perform.
First and foremost, know that what I do and how I practice the last week or so prior to a performance really is not all that different than what I do the first few weeks. The reality is that, if good practice techniques are being used from the start of preparation, there doesn’t need to be a major change in strategy in the last week. One of the best parts of practicing smart throughout the entire process is that, usually, there isn’t much of a need to panic at the end. That panicked feeling that can set in a week or so prior to a performance — you know the one where you don’t feel you’re going to be ready in time — often comes from using poor practice techniques early in the process of learning a piece. That’s not to say that poor practice is always the problem — issues such as misjudging the difficulty of a piece or simply not having enough time available can be a significant part of the problem. But, if the assessment of the difficulty was close and something like oh, the composer not getting the piece finished until the 11th hour don’t interfere, practicing correctly from the start also means no cramming, no desperate avoidance of everything except the literature, and a week of being able to fall asleep.
For this piece and this performance, if anything, I allowed more time than was necessary, so I was able to continue my normal practice routine, with a few exceptions. During the last few days of practice, I did not stop doing things like scales, long-tones, and other literature. For the most part, I also continued to practice the Heiden as I described earlier.
Some things that I did do differently, though. First of all, I spent more time playing from beginning to end, without stopping to correct mistakes. These practice performances were also done at my desired performance tempo. The goal of doing this is to practice maintaining concentration for the duration of the piece, and to get better at recovering from mistakes that invariably happen during a live performance. The ideal way to do this would be to be able to work with your accompanist, but that rarely works out. When this isn’t possible (translation … until I win the Powerball….) I find other ways to model playing with the accompaniment. Using Smart Music is sometimes an option (if your piece happens to be one that has a Smart Music accompaniment). Another option is to play along with a good recording, or to have your accompanist record just the accompaniment for you.
The one other thing I find helpful during final preparation is to record myself practicing, and the practice performances are especially insightful. When I go back and listen to myself, I then have a realistic idea of any passages that are muddy, or any fundamentals that could use some work. It’s also really helpful in evaluating the musical content … basics like the pacing of dynamics, articulations that need attention, accents … all those details. Recordings never lie…
The last steps I take have little to do with actually playing. During the last 24 hours, I make sure I know exactly what the hall looks, and if possible, I go stand on stage so that I can visualize myself in the space. I try to get a good night’s sleep the night before, and on the day of the performance, I make sure to eat no matter how I may feel, but I keep it light.
… and maybe week 6, too? It’s late, I lost count, and I don’t feel like going back and figuring it out!
Themes of the last couple of weeks: consistency, memorization, hitting a wall, fighting boredom!
Consistency
At this point, I know all the notes, all the trouble spots, all the frustrations; I don’t need to work specifically on learning the notes. What I do need on any piece after the first couple of weeks is to work towards getting all the notes right all the time. There’s a saying that I’ve seen quoted several times… the difference between an amateur and a professional is the amateur practices until he can play something right, the pro practices until he can’t play it wrong. That’s exactly where I am by this point … I can play it right and now I’m working on not being able to play it wrong. Some of the strategies I’m using for this:
- repeating the difficult passages
- putting together longer and longer sections
- repeating the difficult passages slowly
- playing from beginning to end without stopping
- repeating the difficult passages even more slowly
- altering rhythms
- repeating the difficult sections — even slower!
- shifting the downbeat
- repeating the difficult sections — maybe not quite so slowly, but still slowly
- isolating the 2-4 note units that still aren’t quite right
- umm… repeating the difficult sections — slow….err, yeah, you get the idea!
Yes, the word “repeating” pops up a lot in there. I have to be honest here … I’m not really sure I need to repeat some of the things as many times as I do, but it’s been drilled into my head to play things over and over again, and yes, SLOWLY. (And no, that isn’t contrary to what I was writing about the other week…) My doubt about this actually comes from my own doctoral research, which indicated no real correlation between repetition and accuracy in the context of my study. Of course, my study focused on a single 30 minute practice session, so I’m not dismissing repetition as being a good thing. Maybe after the next study…..
With all of that said, the goal here is that ideal of not being able to play it wrong. All of the repetition, breaking of passages apart and putting them back together, playing them all in different contexts (rhythms, articulations, etc.) serves one purpose for me … to get the notes to the point that they are comfortable, natural, and more or less automatic … so that I can focus on the musical content and so I make as few mistakes as possible.
Memorization
Don’t get me wrong … I have no intention of playing this piece from memory in a couple of weeks! I’m allowed to have the music in front of me, so I’m using it. Still, it pays to memorize. Personally, I don’t find it at all necessary to be able to play from beginning to end of a piece without the music. What I do find unbelievably helpful — if not necessary — is to be able to look at a passage and to be able to play that passage without really looking. It is really the same concept as being able to look at a word and instantly know what the word is without having to go through it letter-by-letter, then expanding that to looking at a sentence and knowing the whole sentence rather than having to look at each word.
Hitting a Wall
No, this doesn’t have anything to do with a remodeling project … or a real wall! During the life of the learning process for any piece, I’ve always experienced a period of time that becomes so frustrating that I start thinking of literally hitting a wall. There is always a period (at least for me) during the learning process during which I feel like I’m making absolutely no progress no matter what I do. Intellectually, I realize that it is extremely unlike that I’m not making any progress, but it sure feels like it! Reality — there is a point at which just about everything in a piece is learned — most of the fingerings are down, most of the musical content — there are just those pesky details — a measure here, a connection there, maybe an altissimo note in another spot — that just seem to refuse to quit being a problem. My best solution isn’t one I’m comfortable with in this situation. This is normally a good time to put the piece aside for a few days or weeks and come back to it. But when there is an immanent performance looming, I don’t consider that to be the best choice.
My second choice is actually something I started a couple of weeks ago. I set up a microphone and recorded a couple of the problem passages back when I wasn’t doing so great with it, so now I can go back and listen to where I was 2 or 3 weeks ago and realize that I really am making progress — even if it is slow!
Fighting boredom…
AKA the Glazunov Syndrome! When I first heard and played the Glazunov Concerto, I loved it. Then, there was a point in my undergraduate days that I could have sworn every single saxophonist in the studio was performing “that stupid Glazunov Concerto” and I got to a point that I was so bored with it, I had a hard time tolerating sitting through a performance. A couple of years later, I still heard the Glazunov at least as much, if not more, but there was no longer an issue with being bored. What had happened was that I had gone from it being a new and exciting piece to thinking I knew it pretty well and then finally, to really learn all of the little nuances of the piece and loving it all over again. I’m hoping the learning curve I’m on with this piece is similar — but much faster! I haven’t come up with a really good strategy for this one, other than to just work through it and try to practice without thinking about whether I love the piece or hate it. We’ll see!
So, down to 2 weeks until D-Day! More to come…
