Orchestra pit

I sat in shock and great disappointment as I realized that someone else's name was first on the list. The Atlanta Youth Symphony Orchestra was an important experience for my career as a musician. It is a renowned group of young musicians that work closely with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. I have been a part of the horn section in this prestigious group since my freshman year. After all of my original section mates graduated, I was the one who everyone thought would be able to take…

Since I was very little, music has been a passion of mine. I began playing the piano when I was about 4 years old, and to this day I just love to play. I believe music is a thing that comes naturally to me. So, naturally, I signed up for band in sixth grade. From the beginning, I knew I would continue band into high school – I have always thought highly of marching band, and besides, playing clarinet is fun. It wasn’t until my first halftime show, however, that I felt a legitimate fear of…

"Ombra mai fu" is the opening aria from the 1738 opera Serse by George Frideric Handel. It has often been arranged for other voice types and instruments, including solo organ, solo piano, violin and piano, and string ensembles, often under the title "Largo from Xerxes", although the original tempo is marked larghetto. For most of the piece the vocalist is in piano (soft) and only forte (loud) one time close to the end of the piece. Even though many composers write on the music sheet how the…

The two performances of Tari Wiranata, live and recorded, are very similar. The difference is whether you are sitting in front of a live production, or if you are watching a recital through a computer screen. The performances both include very unique uniforms, scenery, dancers, and music timbre. But what you miss out on when watching a recording, is hearing the live gamelan sounds flood around you and all the energy in the concert hall. Over all, I prefer the live version. The melodies in both…

When comparing the experience of playing a brass instrument to the experience of playing a reed instrument, it is revealed that while there may appear to be several differences, there are also a lot of similarities. A brass instrument, such as a trumpet, tuba, or trombone, is an instrument that is made of brass and whose sound is changed by the length of tubing the air travels through. A reed instrument, like a clarinet or saxophone, is an instrument that uses vibrations from a reed to produce…

The most challenging duty for a columnist, blogger, or anyone who writes about popular music is appealing to a demographic of musos and die-hard admirers. It’s one thing to venture off into the skeptical world of music aficionados alone, granted that you’ve taken a class or two on how to speak their technical language, but it's another thing to venture off without being able to communicate why an artist’s musical choices are, in fact, artistic. Take, for example, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A…

On April 10th, 2018, I attended a concert performed by three talented performers: John Carlo Pierce (Tenor), Michelle Stanley (Flute), Jeff LaQuatra (Guitar). The performances were at The Griffin Foundation Gallery in the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art. The performances were part of the Music in the Museum Concert Series, which is a performance based on the art that surrounds it. The art installment in the museum is called Pompeii Archive: Recent Photographs by William Wylie. Pompeii was once a…

in Singapore. It was a cello concerto performed by Wang Jian and accompanied by Singapore Symphony Orchestra on March 29, 2013. The reason why I choose this concert is because the cellist gave me a very impressive memorize so that I could still recall almost everything from the concert by his playing. Another reason is that there is barely to see some Chinese cellist to play with great orchestra, but Wang Jian has done it extremely well. Wang Jian played the cello concerto in A minor composed…

The Trombone solo last for the better part of 17 measures accompanied by a continual reconstruction of triples weighted over doted rhythms. Scholars describe the work as having qualities evocative of death and renewal. Section B is in relation to a sense of renewal. Its timbre and balance is different from its adjacent section. More specifically, the trombone with its brass qualities is comparable to the bugle calls of war. The imagery delineated through this intuitive use of the trombone…

would “strongly recommend having a degree for music because it gives you a greater knowledge and understanding of your trade…” (Frick 1). The most common methods of entry for this career are by joining a band or by auditioning for a place in an orchestra or by giving a sample of your work to a recording…