Marching Mocs

If you’ve read my previous articles, you already know about the advantage of music education for children and how your child will benefit from voice lessons or playing musical instruments. Today we will cover that invisible motivational power that forces some parents to enroll their children in music education.

I suggest that, before you do this, you define exactly what you want from your children. If you’re happy with the idea, they will likely go along well with it, too. Your moods and thoughts imperceptibly creep into the consciousness of your child every hour and minute of the day. Our little family members consider us, their parents, to be the authority in everything. And some of us manage to maintain that authority through the teen years and even until the end of their lives.

When I was writing “Voices of our Children”, I re-read several old records I had kept from previous years. Many of them detailed conversations I had with parents who brought their children to music school for the first time.

The first meeting among parent, child and teacher is very significant. Everyone gets to know each other and things usually go very well in these introductory stages. But according to available statistics, only 1 percent (!) of parents is convinced at the very beginning that their child will become at least a very good musician. The other 99 percent bring their children with this thought: “Let’s do this and then see what comes of it.”

At one of the large conferences for music teachers organized by the Ministry of Culture of Russia in the Far East, I heard a phrase from one of the speakers that particularly drew my attention. He said: “It is a pity that those who are not as dedicated to music education do not hold conferences like these. Imagine how many mistakes could have been avoided during lessons?”

Whatever a person does for a living, in order for him to make a difference, he must have a passion and true zest for what he does. The child is not an exception. Parents know perfectly well that if their child is interested in something, he persistently asks for it. And no one will deny that a child’s true interest in music is a must during lessons and practice homework. So, it’s integral that parents are highly cognizant of their children’s thoughts.

You may be thinking, “Is it really necessary for my child to study with constant interest; that is, with pleasure, all the time?” That’s a good question, because sometimes it is necessary to forget your “wants” and tune in to your child’s natural attraction to (or away from) music.

And certainly, every one of us must struggle and strain and make ourselves do something – even those things that we are passionate about. But this only occurs occasionally. If you force yourself to play music time and time again, you will slip into depression and possibly lose interest in everything, in addition to the dread of practicing homework, etc.

It is impossible to compare the mentality of an adult with that of a child and use yourself as an example, saying something like, “I too do not want to go for work; however, I do.” In comparison to children, our life experience is much larger and our attitude to specific events is far more stable. In other words, we must work in order to make a living; to stay alive! Children do not have to play music to stay alive. So, these are two very different life experiences, and it amazes me that parents sometimes just don’t see it that way.

So if you think it’s time to force your child to prepare for music lessons, by all means do it, but do not make a habit out of it – and if your child is happy with every second lesson, it would be great to make sure that he constantly studies with interest. How can you do this? Hopefully, by finding a very good teacher who, in due time will suggest different ways of working with your child on a distinctly individual basis. It is only through cooperation with the teacher you can constantly promote and support your child’s interest in music. If the options the teacher offers do not work, then make the necessary conclusions and modifications.

Where do parents get the information on how other children are doing at music lessons or prepare for them at home? Is it possible to read about it in books? Can you get the information in libraries?

Certainly, those are good resources, but you don’t have to go that far, necessarily. Parents can hear about this from their child’s teacher. A good teacher of music will openly and happily tell you about other students’ experiences. But the main “news source” for parents is deceptively simple: other parents! The parental exchange of information is invaluable in that they can share stories that happened to their child, and vice versa. This makes it easier for Mom and Dad to compare the achievements of their own children to others. This is where they learn about difficulties in music education, such as when children immediately or gradually lose the interest and desire to study.

Unfortunately for parents, however, this exchange of information and/or the recognition that their child might be losing interest occurs too late, and no one can clearly explain to them the real reasons the child’s interest vanished. And without finding a “quick fix” or a solution to this problem, again, your chances of re-enrolling your child are slim, because he isn’t going to be interested in it! Also, by this time, the next group of parents step into the same “puddle,” and as a result, your child will never complete music education. “What can I do, then?” you ask. I suggest that you learn and try to understand what not to do.

Giving High School graduation speeches is like pushing swimmers off a diving board.  If they have benefitted from their education they will be ready for that leap.  They will be prepared for their future life whether as a third level student or as a member of the working fraternity. What you say in those High School graduation speeches should be something they will remember whether they become Olympic swimmers or just splash around in the local pool of life.

High School graduation speeches have to include a welcome to guests and a reminder to the graduates to thanks parents and tutors. They should be personal to the school in question and reflect on its ethos and interests. The speaker should know and refer to achievements such as baseball wins or the fact that the school has won a nationwide drama festival.  It should also allow for the fact that not all students have majority interests and that despite attending a musical school they might be more interested in science. Such speeches should be inclusive.

High School graduation speeches are obviously about the transition from young student to young adult.  A good speaker will refer nostalgically to the fresh faced youngsters who arrived so many years ago and who are now leaving the High School for whatever it is they choose to do. Such speeches should certainly include a reference to the night on the town that the students will probably enjoy.  Any such light hearted comment will endear itself to students who like to laugh. The speeches will certainly make a reference to the pride both parents and teachers feel for the graduates who have done so well.

Above all the High School graduation speeches should refer to the future. They should speak of individual talents and the opportunities that are available to the students.  They should urge students to follow their dreams and to achieve their potential.  Above all they should speak of friendships made at High School and how important it is to keep such friendships green. The speeches should end with a good luck wish for the future.

Yamaha founder, Torakusu Yamaha, began producing reed organs in 1887. Since that time, Yamaha has developed and manufactured high quality Yamaha musical instruments to high worldwide acclaim.

Nippon Gakki Co., Ltd. (currently Yamaha Corporation) was established in 1897. Yamaha has accumulated a wealth of expertise in the production of Yamaha musical instruments for more than 100 years. The company relentlessly follows its mission which is: contributing to a richer life for all, via innovative, quality products and technology which is a de facto standard.

Pianos were first produced by Yamaha in the year 1900, the company has created a full line of quality pianos that have won the trust and support of dealers and customers around the world. In 1991, Yamaha’s piano production passed the five million mark.

In 1986 Yamaha developed the Disklavier piano, a combination of acoustic piano and electronic technology. In 1993, the epoch-making Silent Series Piano debuted, acoustic pianos capable of playing in complete silence. Yamaha is making efforts to create new demand in the piano market.

Yamaha developed an educational Music System back in 1954. In 1966, the Yamaha Music Foundation was established, generating a wide range of global activities designed to disseminate music. Over 800,000 students are currently enrolled in Yamaha Music Schools in Japan and in over 40 countries worldwide; over four million have graduated.

Yamaha’s Junior Original Concert (JOC) program sets the stage for those educated at Yamaha Music School to perform their original compositions.

Since the development of the electronic organ, Electone, Yamaha musical instruments has produced products with its state-of-the art electronic technology, seeking tonal color and musical expression that appeal to the human mind. The myriad advances in this technology are reflected in electronic piano, portable keyboards, synthesizers, computer music equipment and professional audio (PA) equipment.

Yamaha Wind Instruments have been created in partnership with some of the world’s greatest artists, and can be found in almost every major symphony orchestra. In addition, a large number of top jazz and studio musicians have chosen Yamaha musical instruments. Besides woodwinds and brass, Yamaha’s percussion — including keyboard percussion, timpani and a full range of drums — and guitars, have had a major impact on raising the standards of such instruments, and thus have earned an enviable reputation among leading professional musicians.

An exceptional sound quality is evident from all the audio products produced by Yamaha Successful advances in LSIs, acoustics and materials continue to win critical acclaim for Yamaha Audio components.

Portable keyboards “Portatone” was launched in 1981.Yamaha’s Protatone can be played and enjoyed by anyone. This is the instrument that brings music to all.

Clavinova was launched in 1983. Current Clavinova models, CLP series digital piano is another popular Yamaha innovation that offers effortless playing with the timbre and touch of a full-scale piano, The upgraded CVP series provides a variety of additional features and is enhanced by an array of Yahama musical instrument sounds so the player can experience the sensation of performing with an orchestra or band.

While gifting your loving child personalized kids CDs you might hardly think that music, the most entertaining subject for kids, can be ever boring for him. But, it has been noticed that many children withdraw themselves from music following various significant reasons. Though parents make use of various types of kids personalized music, which play a significant role for children’s education, they fail to understand what kind of songs and rhymes are interesting for the kids. Once they can understand the factors that trigger boredom in children while listening to music, they can create a better platform for the kids.

Traditional Pattern of Listening to Music

Have you ever thought of creating the best environment for your child? What else have you done for your child in spite of gifting Kids personalized CDs to improve the interest of your kids for music? What your plans are of keep the interest of the child growing with his growing age? If you are sending your kid to music schools, are you sure about the lesson plans and the teaching methods that they are following? Have you discussed with your child regarding the genre of music that he likes or the kind of songs he wants to listen to? Have you ever thought of the reasons for which music gets boring for your kids?

If you analyze the answers to the question you can understand what distracts your kid from music. It’s crucial that children should enjoy music. Introduction of kids personalized music is a great way to keep the young learners from losing interest in learning and playing music.

Lack of Exposure to Diversified Genre of Music

Often, parents and at times, teachers in schools follow the traditional songs and singing pattern with the same old music for years together. They do not feel the necessity of introducing different genre of music which is more attention grabbing for the toddlers. The parents do not try to understand that not all kids have similar taste and, their child might not be interested in that particular stream of music. But they try to impose it on the kids. It makes the children withdraw themselves from listening to songs even if they are kids personalized music and customized in the most impressive way.

The best way to keep the children from getting bored of music education is to introduce them to different genres of music. Parents can get help from kids personalized CDs and introduce their children to different types of customized songs and rhymes so that the kids come to know about various types of music. It is in fact a great way for children to get rid of the monotonous songs that gradually becomes boring for the kids.

Lack of Positive Environment at Home

Most parents relax after sending their children to music classes and expect their children to become genius. This attitude has changed the musical taste of the children who lack necessary inspiration at home. Sometimes parents don’t have interest and time to know what kind of music their children listen to. Often, the busy schedules of the working parents have demotivated many children to generate interest in music. But, the truth is, it is the environment at home that triggers interest in the children.

You can create a healthy surrounding of music at home for your children by gifting your loving child with personalized kids CDs. They are not only inspiring for the kids but also educational and entertaining.

It is very natural that the children will get bored of any learning process, even if it is music. This can happen if they proper learning process has not been considered by teachers, coaches, etc. The teachers and parents should pay attention to every single aspect of music learning to make it an interesting part of their lives and not a forceful implementation of any learning process. With personalized kids music there are chances of developing kids taste for learning and playing music.

On the internet there are many supposed “solutions” to creating professional tracks. Some of them actually have good content, and can play a role in your projects. But even the best of them seem to assume a lot. You have to “get” why things sound the way they do, and why there are do’s and don’ts that you should follow. The assumption seems to be that, since this is so much fun, and the technology does so much for you, there aren’t any real rules, and you don’t need to know much. Everything will just come out great. Some of these solutions depend on an arsenal of equipment that you probably don’t own, or you are held captive by their proprietary solution (i.e. their own product). Soon, everything starts to sound alike, and this is not really desirable if you want to be good at this.

So, after finding that the choices seem to be: 1. Go to music school, spend a lot of money, study hard, take in all you can, and then maybe you’ll know what you’re doing. or 2. Buy the right toys and the music will take care of itself. It’s all about learning the technology. Well, I’m here to tell you that, if you even remotely believe #2, you need to adjust your perspective some. However, going to music school is something that most people can not afford, neither time wise nor financially. So what’s the truth, and where can you find it?

The truth is that you need to learn enough about actual music to know when the technology is doing something that’s good, and when it’s not. Your own judgment and understanding of the “rules” of music have to play a role. Yes there are shortcuts, and I plan on writing many articles to help. However, to get good at music production means to know why something IS “musical”. What does that word mean? Some notes go well together. Others do not. Can you tell the difference? If your idea of a musical track is: “a beat” and other than the drums and vocals, the music seems less important, guess what? That’s not how the big guys think. Every note and every sound is carefully planned out. Don’t get me wrong. I know I might be making this seem like a ton of work, but the bottom line still is: Music is the best thing you can do on so many levels, that the work part becomes truly a pleasure. If you have the passion to do this, it will come. You just need to understand the truth about it first.

As I write more articles, our mission together is to get you to master a balance between efficient, technological solutions, and what, for the sake of brevity, we’ll call “music theory”. We need to do away with the idea that music is detached from its creator; that it somehow exists on its own. This is a mistake consumers make all too frequently. Once the production is completed, of course, a piece of music does exist on its own, but as a “consumable”, or something to be enjoyed. When you are producing original music, it is the process of production that is enjoyed by the producer, and he or she should be thoroughly involved in all aspects, even when software is making your life easier. In other words, know enough about the music side, so that you avoid simply following the orders of the software developers. If you take what they give you and use it without a lot of musical judgment and input from you, you aren’t being an artist. You’re being a technician, or worse, a robot. We know that’s not going to happen, though, because you’ve already figured that out, and among others things, you’re reading this!
When you decided to take up music production, you entered a world that is all of the following: huge fun, a creative outlet, a potential way to make money, a potential way to make new friends (or if you prefer, a way to spend more time alone), one of the best hobbies you can imagine, one of humankind’s great achievements, and a great way to spend some of your spare time. The truth is, though, that there is another side to it. That side is the honing of your various skills that go into music production.

Today there are products available that greatly simplify the music production process. They do this using various approaches, but the main approach is what I like to call “higher order solutions”. This is a fancy mathematical term that you don’t need to know. It’s just quicker for me to say more using fewer words. “Higher order” here simply means that the software has developed to a level where fewer decisions have to be made by the producer, since many of the more mundane, detail-oriented decisions involved in music production are made by the software itself. It’s programmers–working with music experts–have created real shortcuts for you, so much more can be done in a much less time. So yes, as you may already know, most popular music styles do follow predictable patterns in certain areas. Timing, instrument choices, trendy sounds, audio processing, and even performance patterns, are areas where the software can provide ready-made solutions.

The “ready-made solution” might be how to decide what speed the song should be playing at, and how to keep all instruments playing at that speed (proper terms: “tempo”, “bpm” {beats per minute}, and “synchronization”). The “solution” could be a kick and snare drum pattern that is widely used in the style you’re working on. This pattern is used to “trigger” the kick (bass) drum and snare drum sounds through a special music communications system called “midi”. In a techno or house song, one typical drum pattern is nicknamed “four on the floor” because of the constant hits of the big kick drum on all four quarter note beats in a 4/4 time signature. OK….We won’t get into the details of midi and music theory here, but this should give you an idea of what to expect as we get into them.

I’ll cover music theory, midi, and many other topics in upcoming articles, e-books, and in the exclusive member content area on my website, Music Production at Home. Also, though, I plan on making this a more well rounded experience for you than just the mechanics. Mechanics are necessary, but expressing yourself means expressing life’s experiences through your music. What emotions are you trying to convey? What energy level feels right? Should the music be simple or complex? Traditional sounding or ground breaking? Commercial (i.e. “pop”) or more outside-the-mainstream? These are questions you should ask yourself as you listen to more and more music, and see what fits. Listen creatively. Listen critically. Listen closely. Make some decisions about who you are, and who you want to be as a musician.

Choosing your “ready-made solutions” should be guided by this self-examination. The way each one of them is programmed suits certain styles more than others, and picking the right one can be done by actually growing as an artist. The self examination helps you grow as an artist, and makes your purchase choices clearer.
So you see, all of this is related. Your deepest emotions,……and midi,…..are connected. So let’s start connecting the dots….

Step 1? Start listening more carefully!

Looking forward to writing to you again.

Marc

Marc L Soucy composer, producer, studio engineer/programmer http://www.MusicProductionAtHome.com

There are more music careers available to you than you may realize. Here just a few highlighted music careers to consider pursuing or looking into if you have any interest these types of things.

Music Careers in Education

Do you have a love of music and would love to teach it to others? There are quite a few different avenues that you can take with music careers in education. Just some of them are an elementary school music teacher, choir or band director, high school music teacher, a private music school teacher, an independent music instructor, and a college music professor or educator. Some people like working with large classes of people such as a choir director, while other people may like the intimacy of working one on one with others such as a private instructor.

Tour and Road Work Music Careers

Would you love to travel around with your favorite singer on her world tour? If you love to travel and would like to work in a fast-paced environment, then a job in the touring and road work field may be for you. Some careers to consider are a touring manager, a tour publicist, a sound technician, backup singer, a road manager, and a stage crew member. Starting as a stage crew member may be a great way to break into the music business and work your way up. You can easily learn some of the basics of the music industry, and it can give you related experience in music to help you pursue a higher level career in music.

These are just a very small sampling of the many different music careers that are available today. As new technology comes out and music starts evolving, there are going to be even more careers in the music industry.

Like all other entertainment industries, the music business is a dynamic venture propagated by the public and the constant evolution of trends. Any person with a passion for music can enter into the music industry. However, it takes a certain set of skills to truly become successful in it.

Such skills can be cultivated with constant exposure and practice. An aspiring music producer can enroll at a reputable music college to get an overview of the industry he or she wants to get into. Here, one can learn about the different aspects of the performance industry, from the technicalities of musical composition to finding profitable gigs and building a good name in the music business.

More than gaining a classroom knowledge of how the business works however, the best way to get a grasp of the music industry is to immerse oneself in it. Some music schools hook up their students with notable music companies and production houses for internships so they can put everything that they’ve learned into practice. One can go out into the real world and start collecting contacts, projecting an upbeat image that is sure to convince people of one’s passion for making music and contributing to development of new trends.

Because of its fast-paced and aggressive nature, the music business can stop careers before they really ever begin. It takes more than talent and passion to succeed in the music industry. Prior training and experience taken from a good music college course can really help establish oneself faster.

Resource Box:

Musician’s Institute (MI) is a prestigious Music College located in Hollywood, California. The school covers all aspects of contemporary music, from music composition, to performance, and even the nitty-gritty technicalities of audio engineering. Many MI graduates have garnered great success in the music business. Visit http://www.mi.edu/ or call 800-255-7529 to learn more about MI’s distinguished programs and school facilities.