April 26th, The Percussive Recital of Jamie Luetkemeyer & Linsday Braden

The late 60s / early 70s were the heyday of the rock & roll drum solo. Virtuosos like John Bonham (Led Zeppelin), Keith Moon (The Who), and Ginger Baker (Cream) were allowed to display their talented unaccompanied, outside the setting of a song. This is in contrast to jazz drum solos which are primarily found within the confines of a song and are usually accompanied by bass and maybe a piano or guitar. By the late 80s (the time I started attending rock concerts) the drum solo had become a joke. Every joker with a can of Aqua Net and a pair of spandex pants was allowed to have a drum solo. While a select few (Alex Van Halen of Van Halen or Neil Peart of Rush) may have had the chops, the majority of drummers just hit as many different drums as quickly as possible and called it a solo. No one needs to hear a solo from the drummer of a Skid Row or a Warrant or a Poison. This portion of the show evolved into a sort of intermission where the audience would use the bathroom and get another beer and the remainder of the band would go backstage to do some more drugs. Why have I gone on this wild tangent? Because this history colored my perception of the first percussion recital I ever attended. I did not care for the timpani pieces. If I hadn’t seen the performers reading music I would’ve sworn they were making it up on the spot. Most the most part I didn’t care for any of the non-tonal stuff. One exception was “Flamingo”, the tambourine duet which I thought was fun. However when I heard it backstage the following night, it wasn’t as exciting not being able to witness the choreography. I enjoyed the “Toccata in D Minor”. It was familiar, I think normally played on organ? By far my favorite pieces were George Hamilton Green’s “Xylophone Rags”.

April 19th, My Senior Recital

* this one doesn't count

I don’t think that I’m qualified to give an objective critique of my recital so I’ll quote some other people:

“I like how you made In The Hall Of The Mountain King a suite” – Dr. Henderson
Response: What’s a suite?
“Is Loudon Wainwright related to Rufus Wainwright?” – Bernie K.
Response: Yes, it’s his dad.
“What was that thing you used to do that stuff” – multiple people
Response: a Boss Loop Station RC-20 Phrase Recorder
http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/RC-20/
“My favorite was that guitar effect thing” - multiple people
“My favorite was that drum thing” – multiple people
“My favorite was Pills” – Bernie K.
“My favorite was the xylophone song” – one of my parents’ friends
“That was incredible” – Drew Johnson, my guitar teacher who is a better guitarist, better singer, better songwriter, and all around better guy than me
“This was the best time of the time” (or something like that) – Dr. Kwoun
“You rocked. Can I have your autograph?” – Adam Jenkins
“I knew that last song Imagine” – Cara, my 10 year old piano student
“I’ve never heard that song Imagine” - Adley Kent
“You didn’t play the D” - Dr. Henderson
“Great… now I have to follow that” - Lindsay Braden

What I can say is that my parents were very helpful. They took total control of the reception and invited a bunch of their friends because I have so few relatives available to fill the seats. My friends made great guest musicians. Bill(drums) and Jeff(bass) are professionals (not professional musicians – Bill’s a contractor and Jeff’s a school teacher) but they have both played in numerous local bands and are both very skilled their instruments. I’ve known Patrick(guitar/bass/vocals) for 20 years and we’ve jammed together so much that we have a musical chemistry. Patrick was also very helpful with the lighting. He used to work as the lighting director at The Palm Springs Foleys – an odd place that puts on musicals where all the performers are over 65 years old. I was extremely nervous and made numerous mistakes, but all in all I think it went very well.

April 12, Courtney Fender’s Senior Recital

Now this was fun. The vibe was laid-back and intimate. The removal of all that walking off and on stage was a nice change. The talking between songs was very cool; it was like an episode of VH1 Storytellers. It was good to see someone skilled at multiple instruments – guitar, banjo, piano, and vocals. Courtney is so damn cute that she can screw up and still look adorable. I wish I could do that. My favorite was “Landslide”. When she sang “I’m getting older too” I got chills. I didn’t care for the Spanish-style guitar, just because it’s not my thing, but I was impressed at her ability because I’ve never learned how to play that style. The Contemporary Christian music was also not my favorite, although I’m guessing that I would prefer her versions over the original recordings. The blues song was excellent. “Amazing Grace” on the banjo was a pleasantly unique stylistic adaptation. Chopin is Chopin. The use of visual media during “Circle Game” was a very creative idea. I think the DVD malfunction was a perfect accident – playing “Circle Game” over and over again for what seemed like ten minutes – how metaphorical. Whatever that last song was, it was hilarious. Courtney has so much expression in her voice and gestures. She would be an amazing actress. This recital was an A+. I’m beginning to wonder if Adley is required to play at everyone’s recital?

March 29, Andrea Clark & Stephanie Bobcik's Senior Recital

Damn, look at this program! Multi-colored printing! Photos! Bios! My program will be an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of white paper. It was a welcome change to see something other than a vocal major’s recital. Stephanie and Andrea were like yin and yang on stage, with the former smiling and giggling and the later serious and stoic. I enjoyed Bobciks’s original song “Millstadt, Illinois”. She has a good voice and shouldn’t be so timid about projecting it. I also liked her “Music Therapy Medley” because it seemed like a practical use of her skills related to music therapy with her desired population. Andrea is very skilled at the flute, although I’m not too fond of its sound which struggles to find a happy medium between wimpy and piercing. As such, I enjoyed the flute/piano duets with Adley much more than the flute solos and trio.

February 23, Yonder Mountain String Band

I never know what to buy my family for Christmas because they all have more money than I do and can afford to buy whatever they want for themselves. So, I’ve begun a trend of buying them tickets to events that they would not regularly think of attending. So this Christmas I bought my mom, dad, and uncle tickets to the Pageant to see the Yonder Mountain String Band. My uncle decided he didn’t want to “go into the city on a weekend” even though it was only University City, so I went in his place. I’d played a YMSB CD for my dad before and he dug it. It’s pretty traditional sounding bluegrass music played by young dudes. The band is made up a 4 players, mandolin, banjo, guitar, and upright bass. They all sing, sometimes in gorgeous multileveled harmonies. All of the instruments were acoustic, but plugged in or miked to fill the room. The sound in the Pageant is too reverby for my taste and it was hard to discern the lyrics of unfamiliar songs. I hate cover bands, but I love when real bands play covers in their own style. YMSB did the theme from the TV show Jackass, which is “Corona” by The Minutemen. They are all excellent musicians – as I think you have to be to play bluegrass, which is essentially country music but four times as fast. On studio recordings their songs are fairly succinct, but in a live setting they verge on the jam band border with extended solos for every group member. This may explain the majority of the crowd being dirty hippies. Since The Grateful Dead are dead, Phish is on hiatus, and Dave Matthews wasn’t in town, they all congregated at this concert. As soon as the first song started, the group in front of us lit up a huge joint. My parents complained about the cigarette smoke. I had to explain to them that people don’t generally pass lit cigarettes back and forth to each other. In the next two hours they must have smoked another five joints. Then the guy with the joints fell asleep. There was no opening band so YMSB played from 8:00 to midnight, taking just a 15 minute break. We left around 11:00 because my dad had the urge to go home and eat some Cool Ranch Doritos.

February 10, Music at Maryville

Because we’re learning about the string section in Arranging & Orchestration, I focused on watching the violin and cello, trying to be observant of bowing patterns, double stops, and the use of open strings. Mendelssohn’s piano trio in C was enjoyable. When the violin and cello played rhythmically identical parts they, indeed, seemed to be using the same bowing patterns. The difference in timbre between up-stroke and down-stroke was much more pronounced on the violin than on the cello. While I never saw any open strings played on the violin in this piece I saw the cellist play his lowest open string – a C. David Halen played very passionately and by the end of the piece I noticed some of the bow hairs had broken loose.

The second section of the concert was more hit or miss. It featured songs of a Latin flavor, but I had no idea whether Miran was singing in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, or other. The cello solo showed great proficiency, but was extremely dissonant and rhythmically confusing. I observed many double stops during this piece, most (if not all), utilizing open strings. My favorite selection was Ritual Fire Dance from (El Amor Brujo) by Manuel de Falla which delivered on the promise of its title.

February 9, Erika Althoff's Senior Recital

I’ve come to realize that I’m not usually impressed by the first half of a vocal major’s senior recital. This is not due to the performer, but due to the fact that seems to be where vocal majors are required to sing a bunch of songs by dead, white Europeans. The exception to this rule was the Mozart duet, which was very entertaining due to the movements and facial expressions of Erika and Erica. It was completely over-the-top and hilarious. I hope it was intended to be.

I was pleasantly surprised at the inclusion of several very modern pieces in the second half of the concert. Even though I was not familiar with “Come To Jesus”, “Only The World”, or “For Good” I found them pleasing due to their contemporary style. I thought the instrumentation of “May It Be” was a little awkward. Courtney was bowing long sustained notes on the bass while Gretchen was strumming a nylon string guitar on chord changes. The sharp attack and quick decay of the guitar along with the slow attack and long sustain of the bass made the rhythm a little confused. I think this could have been remedied either by more frequent strumming (like constant quarter notes instead of whole notes) or by the addition of a percussionist. The piece with Jaime on djembe had some balance problems. Even though Jaime seemed to be playing softly, she still tended to overpower Erika at points. This made me contemplate the amount of microphones and amplifiers I will probably need at my own recital.

Erika’s parents make good bagels.