On a whim, I looked up “November 18” in music history and discovered a coincidence of composer birthdays. 11/18/1680 is the birthday of Jean-Baptiste Loeillet. 11/18/1860 is the birthday of Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Maybe I'm easily amazed, but that was enough to get me going. Loeillet The Loeillet soubriquet has been a bit confusing for [...]
Piano Myths: Part III (See Part I and Part II) There are many young women, who, when they sit down to the piano to sing, twist themselves into so many contortions, and writhe their bodies and faces about into such actions and grimaces, as would almost incline one to believe that they are suffering great [...]
(Piano Myths Part I here) Myths of Piano Touch and Tone Could you hear a difference in a single piano tone depending on the way its key is depressed? Are accomplished musicians able to discern sounds produced by a virtuoso’s hand versus those made by an object? Is there any physical approach to a [...]
Old Myths Die Hard It’s human nature to look skeptically at information that contradicts something we believe. Once we become anchored to untruths, reality is an annoying intrusion. Psychology has terms for the ways we receive new knowledge. Confirmation bias: seeking only information that conforms to the belief, dismissing new information; Assimilation: reshaping new [...]
I've posted a new "Idea to Try" inspired by Leonard Bernstein's Turkey Trot from Divertimento for Orchestra. Along the way, I got sidetracked researching the history of the ragtime dance (circa 1912) from news sources of the time. Take a look and discover: Three incidents of women getting in trouble for indulging in the dance [...]
Emile Jaques-Dalcroze I was invited to write this article for Le Rythme, an annual international journal of FIER. This year's theme was L'interprétation corporelle - the idea of reflecting music in movement. Once a guiding force in modern dance, 'music visualization' might have lost its purpose 75 years ago or might remain vital today, depending on [...]
23 Historic Modern Dance Musicians One of the sessions I presented at this week's International Conference of Dalcroze Studies (ICDS3) was on Piano Music for Modern Dance. I began researching these musicians because I wanted to know what music early modern dancers heard in their daily studies. After all, modern dance and modern music once [...]
What do Memorial Day, Ravel, augmented chords, and whole tone scales have in common? Find out in a new "Idea to Try" for piano improvisation, here.
A new "Ideas to Try" post ... about a lullaby, a few old music books, and some memories.
https://www.esm.rochester.edu/blog/2017/04/the-physical-reality-of-being-human-monica-dale-discusses-music-and-dalcroze-eurhythmics-2/