Musical instruments

I’ve always had bad stage fright. Ever since I was young, performing or even speaking in front of an audience has been incredibly hard for me. In seventh grade, I let this fear have power over me. Before performing the piece we’ve been practicing in front of Solo & Ensemble judges, each year we have an orchestra recital in front of our parents to help us prepare. The purpose is to allow us to adjust to playing for other people and to give our teachers an idea of how ready we are. When I was in…

The pianoforte, more commonly known as the piano, was invented around the year 1700 by a man named Bartolomeo Christofori. In this era, there was no keyboard that had a wide range of dynamics (the volume of an instrument). Consequently, Christofori saw a need and filled it with the piano. The piano has gone through only a few stages of design; it has been constructed essentially in the same way now as it was in the 1700s. However, the process of learning to play the piano skillfully has…

I began cultivating my skills as a violinist at the ripe age of seven. As a naive child, praise and flattery caused an inflated ego, and compliments became detrimental to my growth as a musician. My biggest regret is failing to realize at a young age that great violinists are not defined by their achievements, but rather their sphere of influence created as a result of music. My senior year of high school served as a rite of passage towards becoming a mature musician. I finally took the…

heart and expressing feelings I did not even know I could express. From the start of 6th grade, I joined band due to the fact that I loved music. I was about 12 or so and played the trombone, which was almost as big as me. So many kids had a new instrument in their hands; all showing the same emotion of excitement as me. As I looked around I came to the realization that these kids around me had the same love for music as me. A little sprout of hope started to form as I started to progress in my…

"Dumdiddleydumdum, dumdum" is the riff that has inspired multiple songs and many artists. In "Liberating the Students Voice" Mark Holding explains to his students how this applies to college essays. They all must follow a set of rules but in the end, they are all completely different. This seemed very interesting to me since I have never seen it in that way. For instance, The Who and Bow Wow Wow are both from complete two different music genres but they somehow found a way to use the same riff…

The musician I did for my paper was Sharon Kam. Sharon Kam is a 45 year old classical clarinetist. Her major career started when she was 16 and she joined the Israeli Philharmonics and director Zubin Mehta on stage while she performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. Not long after, she performed the Clarinet Quintet with the Guarneri String Quartet in Carnegie Hall, New York. She loves playing and listening to Mozart. Sharon Kam is one of the most influential clarinet players because she has…

opportunities in my life. As part of an elite organization of student musicians on campus, I have found outlets for friendships, performances, and leadership. My contributions to Plano Percussion have given me a significant opportunity to inspire others to musical growth through the facilitation of ensembles, instruction of middle school drumline, and leadership of the Clark and Plano Senior High schools as drum captain. This opportunity has impacted my viewpoints of unity and accountability…

They say there is a special sound that originates for the Rio Grande region of Texas and Mexico called la frontera, “the borderland”. It is referred to as Tejano music. Veda Boyd Jones, author of Selena, describes “the music borrowed the accordion sound from Central European immigrants, mixed the band sound with a driving beat. Tejano music often reflects many different cultures- just like the people who live in the Rio Grande. It is a mixture if polka, Mexican, Latin, popular, country, rap and…

Authenticity in music is a very important subject. Authenticity is something well sought after, for it gives the author credit for staying true to tradition and culture. However, with the constant change of culture, keeping authenticity in music becomes more and more challenging. Music composers struggle between keeping up with the times and not deviating too much from what is expected of them. In this paper, I wish to focus on what makes mariachi music in Santa Barbara authentic traditional…

I thoroughly enjoyed observing Dr. Silveira conduct and lead the IC Concert Band in rehearsal today. Dr. Silveira led a very efficient rehearsal that resulted in a lot of playing by the ensemble, and significant improvement. At the beginning of the rehearsal, I noticed that flutes, clarinets and saxophones were there. I discovered later that this was because they were given sectional time while Dr. Silveira worked with the rest of the ensemble for a portion of the rehearsal. This allowed him to…