Music Lessons Boost Emotional, Intellectual Development

Music Lessons Boost Emotional, Intellectual Development

"A Far Cry" Chamber Orchestra and David Krakauer, clarinet

"Dreams & Prayers"

Sunday, October 20, 2013
Mechanics Hall - 3:00 PM Performance, Pre-concert Lecture 2:00 PM by Stephen Ledbetter

Tickets: Adult $42, Student $15, Youth $5 - Buy Tickets

“A Far Cry sounds poignant, precise, and subtle…the high caliber of musicianship was so constant, and that is something listeners have grown accustomed to at this ensemble’s performances" - The Boston Globe

about the Artists

A Far Cry stands at the forefront of an exciting new generation in classical music. According to the New York Times, the self-conducted orchestra “brims with personality or, better, personalities, many and varied.” A Far Cry was founded in 2007 by a tightly-knit collective of 17 young professional musicians – the Criers – and since the beginning has fostered those personalities, developing an innovative structure of rotating leadership both on stage and behind the scenes. By expanding the boundaries of orchestral repertoire and experimenting with the ways music is prepared, performed, and experienced, A Far Cry has been embraced throughout the world with more than two hundred performances, three albums, a powerful presence on the internet, and a European debut tour planned for 2012. The Criers are proud to call Boston home, and maintain strong roots in the city rehearsing at their storefront music center in Jamaica Plain and fulfilling the role of Chamber Orchestra in Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Collaborating with local students through an educational partnership with the New England Conservatory, A Far Cry aims to pass on the spirit of collaboratively-empowered music to the next generation.

Known simply as “Krakauer” to his fervent following, David Krakauer is nothing less than an American original who has embarked on a tremendous journey transforming the music of his Eastern European Jewish heritage into something uniquely contemporary. That journey has lead Krakauer to an astounding diversity of projects and collaborations ranging from solo appearances with orchestras to major festival concerts with his own improvisation based bands.

He has shared the stage with a wide array of artists such as the Klezmatics, Fred Wesley, Itzhak Perlman, Socalled, Eiko and Koma, Leonard Slatkin and Iva Bitova while being sought after by such composers as Danny Elfman, Osvaldo Golijov, David Del Tredici, John Zorn, George Tsontakis, Mohammed Fairouz and Wlad Marhulets to interpret their works. In addition, he has performed with renowned string quartets including the Kronos, Tokyo and the Emerson and as soloist with orchestras such as the Orchestre de Lyon, the Orquestra Sinfonica de Madrid, the Phoenix Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Dresdener Philharmonie and the Detroit Symphony, among many others.

Having been showered with accolades for his groundbreaking work in classical, klezmer and jazz, Krakauer now finds himself at an artistic crossroads and is ready to make a daring leap into a new phase in his career. His next project, The Big Picture, may be his most adventurous to date. With an all-star crew of fellow musical renegades, Krakauer is re-imagining familiar themes by such renowned film music composers as John Williams, Marvin Hamlisch, Randy Newman, Wojciech Kilar and Vangelis, as well as interpreting melodic gems by the likes of Sidney Bechet, Sergei Prokofiev, Mel Brooks, Ralph Burns, John Kander & Fred Ebb and Jerry Bock that have appeared in popular films. Having already contributed to films by directors Ang Lee and Sally Potter, Krakauer now takes on the challenge of bringing a modernist vision to tunes that resonate on a deeply emotional level with generations of moviegoers.

Once again the Sunny Side Swing Band will be playing at Tenka Asian Bistro in westborough on Rt9.  Sept 28th from 9pm-11PM

On Rt 9 in Westborough MA.   Below is a little bit about SSSB.   Please go check them out.

Sunnyside Swing Band is: Bob Mooney, guitar; JoAnn Martone-Pipes, percussion; Brian Shaw, bass: and Randy Scaletta, guitar and vocals.  Bob, JoAnn and Randy started the group in 2010 and Brian joined them in 2011.  Veteran musicians who have played various styles of music, the group shares a love of jazz, especially swing classics from the Great American Songbook of the 30’s and 40’s.   Blending in some Latin instrumentals, a few jazz classics from the modern era and the occasional pop hit, the SSB repertoire has expanded from the swing foundation but not strayed from “good tunes that are easily conveyed through an acoustic light-jazz format”.

Randy:

“I was in Hawaii and the country band I had played with for 30 years had recently disbanded.  While I was there, I bought an ukulele to learn and pluck while I sat on the beach and vacationed.  I also bought a book of jazz classics and had a great time strumming the uke and singing.  After revisiting all these great songs from my days as a clarinetist…Gershwin numbers, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington tunes, etc…. I wondered why I’m not playing these on the guitar.  The music is so deep and has so much potential, both emotionally and theoretically.  Every time you play a tune the challenge is there to ride the inspiration and use your imagination towards greater musical expression.  I came home from Hawaii, bought an archtop guitar and haven’t stopped digging into the rich catalog of music from the period before rock and roll took over the world.  I’m happy to have partners in SSB that share my enthusiasm.”      

SSB has been performing in a variety of venues, such as restaurants, bookstores, and private concerts and functions.  

Interesting article about choosing the right instrument for your son or daughter. Good read. Enjoy.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/09/living/parents-kids-body-type-music-instrument/

WHY MUSIC EDUCATIONROCKS!

Do you have a budding pianist? A drummer wannabe? A future flutist? Playing a musical instrument is very beneficial to children. So, why should yours learn to play?

They say that music is the universal language. Regardless of where you are from or what your background, a good melody is something that everyone can enjoy and understand. There must be something behind that, right?
For children, music provides many, many benefits. Experts agree, there are lots of good things about letting your child learn to play an instrument. Here are 10 reasons why your child should put down the remote and pick up a musical instrument.

1. IT WILL BOOST THEIR BRAIN POWER

Want to give your child a mental advantage? Music can do that. "More and more studies show a correlation between higher academic achievement with children who are exposed to music," says children's music specialist Meredith LeVande of MonkeyMonkeyMusic.com. "Music simply stimulates parts of the brain that are related to reading, math, and emotional development."

2. IT WILL IMPROVE THEIR MEMORY

Where did that shoe go? That's a question asked far too many times in far too many households with kids. Help your kids remember more (and learn more!) with music. "Further research has shown that participation in music at an early age can help improve a child's learning ability and memory by stimulating different patterns of brain development," says Maestro Eduardo Marturet, a conductor, composer and musical director for the Miami Symphony Orchestra.

3. IT HELPS THEM SOCIALLY

Picking up an instrument can also help your child break out of their social shell too, experts say. "Socially, children who become involved in a musical group or ensemble learn important life skills, such as how to relate to others, how to work as a team and appreciate the rewards that come from working together, and the development of leadership skills and discipline," says Marturet, who also oversees the MISO Young Artist program in South Florida, which allows young musicians to hone their musical skills as part of a professional orchestra.

4. IT'S A CONFIDENCE BUILDER

Are there any areas of life that aren't enhanced by having good confidence? Probably not. And if you want your child to develop their confidence, learning to play a musical instrument can help.
"They find that they can develop a skill by themselves, that they can get better and better," says Elizabeth Dotson-Westphalen, a music teacher and performer.

5. IT TEACHES PATIENCE

We live in a world of instant gratification, but real life demands having patience. When you are playing in a band or orchestra (and most musicians do), you have to be willing to wait your turn to play otherwise the sound is a mess. That inadvertently teaches patience. "You need to work together in a group to make music," says Dotson-Westphalen.

6. IT CAN HELP THEM CONNECT

Who doesn't sometimes feel a little disconnected from their lives? Music can be a much-needed connection for kids (and adults too!). "It can satisfy the need to unwind from the worries of life, but unlike the other things people often use for this purpose, such as excessive eating, drinking, or TV or aimless web browsing, it makes people more alive and connected with one another," says Michael Jolkovski, a psychologist who specializes in musicians.

7. IT'S CONSTANT LEARNING

In some pursuits, you can never truly learn everything there is to know. Music is like that. "It is inexhaustible -- there is always more to learn," says Jolkovski.

8. IT'S A GREAT FORM OF EXPRESSION

People pay a lot of lip-service to expressing yourself. But how can kids really do that? One great way is through the arts -- like music. "It gives pleasure and expresses nuances of emotional life for which there are no words," says Jolkovski.

9. IT TEACHES DISCIPLINE

There's this old joke that begins "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The answer? "Practice, practice, practice." To improve in music, you have to not only do well in classes, but devote time to practicing outside of the lessons too. That requires discipline. "Exposing kids to musical instruments is the key. They are naturally curious and excited about them -- and the discipline that parents AND kids learn by sticking with it is a lesson in itself," says Mira Stulberg-Halpert of 3D Learner Inc., who works with children who have ADHD.

10. IT FOSTERS CREATIVITY

Above all, playing music -- particularly as kids get to more advanced levels in it -- is a creative pursuit. Creatively is good for the mind, body and soul.

by Sarah W. Caron

"Pull-outs have become almost a nightmare for many elementary school principals, who view the practice as a kind of pernicious anemia that attacks whole-class instruction time. Once pull-outs take hold in a school, there appears to be no end to them, and no way to rid the instructional program of their debilitating impact."- From "Pull-outs: How much do they erode whole-class teaching?" by F. English, appearing in Principal, May 1984, p. 32. BACKGROUND Many school instrumental music programs remove students from aregular classroom for individual or small-group instrumentalinstruction. Often, this practice causes tension among teachers and administrators. Many of those opposed to pull-out lessons are concerned that students will fall behind in their academic performance by missing classroom instruction time. In the study described below, the test scores of students who leave theirclassroom for thirty-minute string instrument lessons twice each week are compared to the scores of students who remain in the classroom. STUDY METHOD The authors studied the 1995 results of the Ohio Proficiency Test (OPT) given to fourth-grade students in Hamilton, Ohio. To make the comparison between string and non-string students as fair as possible, the researchers looked at students' scores on a previous standardized test, the Cognitive Abilities Test, or COGAT. Each of the 148 fourth-grade string students was matched to a non-stringstudent who achieved the same verbal score on the COGAT. This made a total of 296 students whose scores on the Ohio Proficiency Test were analyzed, and the academic abilities of the non-string students selected for the study matched the academic abilities of the string students as closely as possible. RESULTS Listed below are the mean (average) Ohio Proficiency Test scores for the students in this study: WRITING String Students: 5.05 Non-String Students: 4.85 READING String Students: 229.5 Non-String Students: 223.2 MATHEMATICS String Students: 214.8 Non-String Students: 211.8 CITIZENSHIP String Students: 231.3 Non-String Students: 224.8  Listed below are the percentages of students in this study achieving test scores at or above standard performance. The standard for the 1995 Ohio Proficiency Test is 4.0 in reading and 200 in all other areas. WRITING String students: 85% Non-string students: 85% READING String students: 89% Non-string students: 87% MATHEMATICS String students: 76% Non-string students: 65% CITIZENSHIP String students: 93% Non-string students: 87% AT STANDARD ON ALL SECTIONS OF THE TEST String students: 68% Non-string students: 58% CONCLUSIONS From the results of this study we can conclude that the string students did not suffer negative academic effects when compared to students of similar academic capability who remained in the classroom. We can also conclude that the overall Ohio Proficiency Test performance of the students who participated in string pull-out lessons was better than the performance of the students of similar ability who did not participate in the string program. The results of this study seem to indicate that students who study instruments in a small-group or individual setting actually improve their academic abilities, however this study was not designed to document improvement, and further study is needed before drawing this conclusion. The author of the Ohio report offers this analysis of what takes place during pull-out string instruction: "When string students are excused from their classrooms for string class, they are not leaving instruction. They are moving to another classroom in a different area of the building. The concepts taught in string [lessons] go far beyond pitch and rhythm. For example, a student must understand fractions and their relationships to each other in order to manipulate rhythm. The student who has trouble understanding the abstract concept that a half is twice one quarter may comprehend the concrete example of his or her bow moving twice as far on half notes as quarter notes. The musician reads abstract concepts from the page and then translates them into concrete phenomena that involve time and space."

©2013 Children's Music Workshop• info@childrensmusicworkshop.com

Why Music Makes Our Brain Sing

By ROBERT J. ZATORRE and VALORIE N. SALIMPOOR

Published: June 7, 2013

MUSIC is not tangible. You can’t eat it, drink it or mate with it. It doesn’t protect against the rain, wind or cold. It doesn’t vanquish predators or mend broken bones. And yet humans have always prized music — or well beyond prized, loved it.

In the modern age we spend great sums of money to attend concerts, download music files, play instruments and listen to our favorite artists whether we’re in a subway or salon. But even in Paleolithic times, people invested significant time and effort to create music, as the discovery of flutes carved from animal bones would suggest.

So why does this thingless “thing” — at its core, a mere sequence of sounds — hold such potentially enormous intrinsic value?

The quick and easy explanation is that music brings a unique pleasure to humans. Of course, that still leaves the question of why. But for that, neuroscience is starting to provide some answers.

More than a decade ago, our research team used brain imaging to show that music that people described as highly emotional engaged the reward system deep in their brains — activating subcortical nuclei known to be important in reward, motivation and emotion.Subsequently we found that listening to what might be called “peak emotional moments” in music — that moment when you feel a “chill” of pleasure to a musical passage — causes the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, an essential signaling molecule in the brain.

When pleasurable music is heard, dopamine is released in the striatum — an ancient part of the brain found in other vertebrates as well — which is known to respond to naturally rewarding stimuli like food and sex and which is artificially targeted by drugs like cocaine and amphetamine.

But what may be most interesting here is when this neurotransmitter is released: not only when the music rises to a peak emotional moment, but also several seconds before, during what we might call the anticipation phase.

The idea that reward is partly related to anticipation (or the prediction of a desired outcome) has a long history in neuroscience. Making good predictions about the outcome of one’s actions would seem to be essential in the context of survival, after all. And dopamine neurons, both in humans and other animals, play a role in recording which of our predictions turn out to be correct.

To dig deeper into how music engages the brain’s reward system, we designed a study to mimic online music purchasing. Our goal was to determine what goes on in the brain when someone hears a new piece of music and decides he likes it enough to buy it.

We used music-recommendation programs to customize the selections to our listeners’ preferences, which turned out to be indie and electronic music, matching Montreal’s hip music scene. And we found that neural activity within the striatum — the reward-related structure — was directly proportional to the amount of money people were willing to spend.

But more interesting still was the cross talk between this structure and the auditory cortex, which also increased for songs that were ultimately purchased compared with those that were not.

Why the auditory cortex? Some 50 years ago, Wilder Penfield, the famed neurosurgeon and the founder of the Montreal Neurological Institute, reported that when neurosurgical patients received electrical stimulation to the auditory cortex while they were awake, they would sometimes report hearing music. Dr. Penfield’s observations, along with those of many others, suggest that musical information is likely to be represented in these brain regions.

The auditory cortex is also active when we imagine a tune: think of the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony — your cortex is abuzz! This ability allows us not only to experience music even when it’s physically absent, but also to invent new compositions and to reimagine how a piece might sound with a different tempo or instrumentation.

We also know that these areas of the brain encode the abstract relationships between sounds — for instance, the particular sound pattern that makes a major chord major, regardless of the key or instrument. Other studies show distinctive neural responses from similar regions when there is an unexpected break in a repetitive pattern of sounds, or in a chord progression. This is akin to what happens if you hear someone play a wrong note — easily noticeable even in an unfamiliar piece of music.

These cortical circuits allow us to make predictions about coming events on the basis of past events. They are thought to accumulate musical information over our lifetime, creating templates of the statistical regularities that are present in the music of our culture and enabling us to understand the music we hear in relation to our stored mental representations of the music we’ve heard.

So each act of listening to music may be thought of as both recapitulating the past and predicting the future. When we listen to music, these brain networks actively create expectations based on our stored knowledge.

Composers and performers intuitively understand this: they manipulate these prediction mechanisms to give us what we want — or to surprise us, perhaps even with something better.

In the cross talk between our cortical systems, which analyze patterns and yield expectations, and our ancient reward and motivational systems, may lie the answer to the question: does a particular piece of music move us?

When that answer is yes, there is little — in those moments of listening, at least — that we value more.

Robert J. Zatorre is a professor of neuroscience at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University. Valorie N. Salimpoor is a postdoctoral neuroscientist at the Baycrest Health Sciences’ Rotman Research Institute in Toronto.

4th of July store hours

We will be closed July 4th-7th.  We will reopen Monday July 8th with normal business hours.   Have a great weekend everyone!!

If anyone is down the cape My band milk street station will be playing @ bourne scenic park at the rotary.  


http://www.bournescenicpark.com/entertainment_schedule

Just wanted to let you all know of a great group called  the Sunny Side Swing band.   They will be playing at 

Tenka Asian Bistro june 29th from 9pm-11PM On Rt 9 in Westborough MA.   Below is a little bit about them.   Please go check them out.

Sunnyside Swing Band is: Bob Mooney, guitar; JoAnn Martone-Pipes, percussion; Brian Shaw, bass: and Randy Scaletta, guitar and vocals.  Bob, JoAnn and Randy started the group in 2010 and Brian joined them in 2011.  Veteran musicians who have played various styles of music, the group shares a love of jazz, especially swing classics from the Great American Songbook of the 30’s and 40’s.   Blending in some Latin instrumentals, a few jazz classics from the modern era and the occasional pop hit, the SSB repertoire has expanded from the swing foundation but not strayed from “good tunes that are easily conveyed through an acoustic light-jazz format”.

Randy:

“I was in Hawaii and the country band I had played with for 30 years had recently disbanded.  While I was there, I bought an ukulele to learn and pluck while I sat on the beach and vacationed.  I also bought a book of jazz classics and had a great time strumming the uke and singing.  After revisiting all these great songs from my days as a clarinetist…Gershwin numbers, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington tunes, etc…. I wondered why I’m not playing these on the guitar.  The music is so deep and has so much potential, both emotionally and theoretically.  Every time you play a tune the challenge is there to ride the inspiration and use your imagination towards greater musical expression.  I came home from Hawaii, bought an archtop guitar and haven’t stopped digging into the rich catalog of music from the period before rock and roll took over the world.  I’m happy to have partners in SSB that share my enthusiasm.”      

SSB has been performing in a variety of venues, such as restaurants, bookstores, and private concerts and functions.  

SSB Website

Milk Street Station Band

Just wanted to let everyone know of an event coming up June 28th from 6pm-8PM.   It's the annual 4th of July Block party and the Band Milk street Station  will be playing on Baystate Common in Westborough MA.

Milk Street Station was formed right at Robinson music,   It started with just 4 members and built to a 8 piece group.   We play a wide variety of styles with conviction and groove: rock (classic, alternative and modern) blues, Soul, R&B, jazz, and beyond. They have a seasoned lineup with a 3 piece horn section, guitar, keys, bass, drums, and vocalist.

A lot of the musicians are locally based, John Binnici our lead guitar player and Matt Vella trumpet player live right here in Westborough,   Gabrellia Wilson vocalist , Spencer MA, Ed Clough Keyboards, Shrewsbury MA, Chris Ryan Trombone, Worcester MA, Chris Haggerty AKA "Haggs" Tenor Sax, Taunton MA,  Mike Martone, Bass Norton MA.

Listen to the demo on this site and hear what they are all about.  Please check out our website and give a listen to some of our music.

Milk street station

Robinson Music instrument Fun Day

Fun Day , a set on Flickr.

IMG_5716

IMG_5716, a photo by matthewvella on Flickr.

Musical Instrument Fun Day

Just wanted to let everyone know about our excellent event coming up Sunday June 9th from 12pm to 4pm.   An unforgettable day for you and your family.   We will have all kinds of opportunities to try out various Musical instruments.   Please see the link below for more details.

https://www.robinsonmusic.com/t/metrowestmusicalfunday/2