Hi all! Today, just a quick note about the Lamar Stringfield String Camp and NS Design Instruments.
For the past two weeks, Meredith College in Raleigh, NC has been hosting the Lamar Stringfield String Camp, a day camp for students to focus on string playing, technique, and ensemble playing. Students may attend for 1 or 2 weeks and the camp is open to students ranging in age from early elementary students through high school age students. I have been pleased to be on the faculty of this fine camp for the past 3 years and had a great experience again this summer
As part of the final concert on Friday, Orchestra Conductor, Kirk Moss (President of the American String Teachers Association) programmed a really cool funk tune called Mercy, Mercy, Mercy (By Josef Zawinul, arranged by Bert Ligon, and published by Latham Music) that includes several open sections for improvisation. Kirk invited me to play on the tune and opened it up for student solos as well. As part of that performance, my son, Matt (in the photo on the right), and violinist Jacob Henderson (in the photo on the left) jumped in on the fun and performed improvised solos on their NS Design Wav violins. The performances was really well-received and the Wavs were perfect for the guys. The instruments sounded great and the kids had a ball getting their solos together and dialing in the instruments.
Thanks to NS Design for making such great instruments and making performances like this possible for so many!
Hi all! the following is a video that was created by the NCSSM Distance Education Department. It centers around a performance of the NCSSM Orchestra and Ligon Middle School Orchestra in Wake County, NC. This was a really cool performance and a marvelous technological and artistic experience for the students of both schools. I think that my music technology friends around the country will be pleased with this one. I hope that you enjoy the video!
NCSSM Music Instructor Scott Laird explains a collaboration with Ligon Middle School Music Instructor Ruth Johnsen. Interactive Videoconferencing was used to conduct ‘Underground Caverns for Double String Orchestra’ by composer Martha Bishop, a piece specifically written with the built-in latency of videoconferencing in mind. Student musicians from both schools got to experience a unique musical collaboration using IVC technology.
If you are interested in more information on this performance, the following is a link to an interview with Ruth Johnsen from Ligon Middle School that is posted on the WakeCounty Schools website.
Here at NS Design, we are really pleased to welcome Theresa Jenkins-Russ as a pioneer in our NS Design Artist/Educator program. Theresa is a string and orchestra teacher in the Spartanburg, SC School District, Artistic Director of the Carolina Cool Jazz Orchestra, and President-Elect of the South Carolina Chapter of the American String Teachers Association. Theresa is a fixture on the national string education scene, presenting sessions at numerous national conferences and is known for her work in the “Alternative Styles” world of string ed and for her work in promoting minority composers and musicians. At the recent ASTA national conference in Santa Clara, she presented a session on programming multicultural orchestral literature and conducted the alt styles new music reading session. Her group, The Carolina Cool Jazz Orchestra, is a professional performing group in Spartanburg that brings together musicians of a variety of ages and experience levels to perform primarily great jazz literature. They frequently feature guest soloists and are committed to promoting string instruments as an integral component of the jazz scene. Recent soloists have included Matt Turner, Martin Norgaard, Joe Dread, and me.
Theresa is now performing on the NS Design Wav violin and absolutely loves it. We had the pleasure of spending a good deal of time with her at the NS Design Booth at ASTA and look forward to a long and productive relationship. Congratulations, Theresa, on all of your good work!!
Hi all.
Today, I am the Midwest Clinic in Chicago. It is one of the largest annual gatherings of music educators and music companies. If you are a music educator and have never been to this event, it is really worth the effort to get here at some point.
The string education sessions began this morning with a nice breakfast gathering that was sponsored by the Kjos Publishing Company. It was a really nice event and I had the opportunity to reconnect with many friends from around the country. I was particularly pleased to reconnect with Marvin Rabin, one of the true pioneers in the string ed field. He paved the way for so many of us that are making our careers in public school string education and at age 93, is really getting around well. I had the chance to thank him for the impact he has had on my career. For those of you that are familiar with some of my web-teaching, he planted the seeds for many of the concepts that I teach using finger patterns. (major scales and upper positions) You can see these concepts put to use soon on the D’Addario site: www.thelessonroom.com. I believe that they will be posted very soon.
I also had the opportunity to see Mark O’Connor present a session on his new O’Connor Violin Method. It is available exclusively through Shar Music. I think that he has hit on something really effective here and applaud his efforts to be innovative in the traditional world of string education. There were several performances by students that have studied with Mark in various capacities over the years and they were all fantastic. I am going to check this method out very closely and try it out with my own sons.
Tomorrow, I will be giving a session with Doris Gazda, Matt Turner, Sean O’Laughlin, and Larry Clark. This session is sponsored by Carl Fischer Music and, as always, D’Addario Strings and NS Design are supporting me in this session. This session is called “Teaching the Nitty Gritty: Who Has Time for Anything More?” and will cover a variety of topics related to technique, literature and enrichment to traditional skills in the string classroom. I think that this will be a lively panel discussion and look forward to sharing this platform with my friends. I will certainly have the opportunity in the session to discuss the way that I incorporate electric string technology and NS Design Instruments into my classroom teaching and guest conducting appearances. I am always proud to be a representative of NS Design to the great music education community.
Meanwhile, I have just enjoyed a lunch in my room while jotting down this post. Time to head back over to the conference to get more new ideas! More later…
Hi all! This is the introduction from my presentation at the NCMEA Fall In-service Conference in mid-November. I will be giving this session again at the ASTA National Conference in Santa Clara, CA in Feb. I hope to see you there!
I performed last weekend with the Carolina Cool Jazz Orchestra in Spartanburg, SC and this was one of my solo tunes. In this song, I create a loop with my guitar and a Lexicon Jamman and then solo with my NS CR Series violin. I hope you enjoy this. I wrote this song for my 8 year old son, Joseph.
On March 18-22, The American String Teachers Association (ASTA) held their annual National Conference in Atlanta. I was pleased to attend the conference and present several educational sessions to both teachers and students that were involved with the conference and the National Orchestra Festival. I am happy to report that NS Design had a strong presence at the event and folks from all over the country are now aware of the Wav Violin and the buzz around the product is very strong!
First, The Electric Violin Shop (www.electricviolinshop.com) had a booth that was prominently positioned right at the entrance to the exhibit hall for the conference. Every attendee had to walk right by their booth to enter the exhibits. They had the Wav, in all three colors, displayed front and center and everyone from students to teachers could try the instruments on fantastic amps and with cool effects processing. Additionally, all that checked out the instrument in the booth could register for a raffle at the end of the show where one person would receive a free wav. I know that generated a great deal of interest as well.
One of my sessions was entitled “Effective Effects.” In this session, I really give a mini science lesson and discuss exactly what various common effects do and how the parameters work. I broke down the function of EQ, reverb, time based effects (chorus, flanger, and delay), filter effects (phase shifting, wah wah), distortion, and pitch shifters. The session was really well attended and I received super-positive feedback from many that attended. Throughout the session, I demonstrated all of the effects with my Wav violin. The instrument sounded fantastic and many remarked about it afterwards. Folks were amazed at the fantastic look as well as the economical price. All feedback was extremely positive. You can see more information on the effects processing seminar at www.electricstringed.com.
All in all, it was a fantastic conference and the Wav received some fantastic publicity. The instrument certainly speaks for itself. I couldn’t be happier with the results and the response from the conference.
This weekend, I will be performing at the Durham (NC) Performing Arts Center as part of a pit orchestra for a school district-wide show choir gala called “Evening of Entertainment.” The pit for this show traditionally uses professional musicians from all around NC. This year, a few high school students will be joining the pit, including a violinist from my school (NC School of Science and Math) This is a huge venue and the sound guys were planning to simply mic up the acoustic violins. I suggest that they let us use NS violins for the performance. I put a Wav violin into my student’s hands yesterday and we have a rehearsal today. I’ll be playing my CR for the show. The show is tomorrow night. I am certain that the NS violins will prvide a more consistent tone and volume and be able to compete with the huge brass section, rhythm section, etc.
The student violinist couldn’t believe how comfortable the Wav was to play. She was initially concerned with the learning curve of getting used to the instrument. Once she played a bit, she was sold. I will update this after the rehearsal today and again after the performance. I can’t wait to showcase the instruments!
Post rehearsal update: Rehearsal today was great. The brass section thought the electrics sounded great. Blend was fantastic and everyone agreed that the NS instruments would be a better choice than the acoustics miked up. My student loved the Wav violina and played great today. She really liked the dots on the fingerboard and used them for some precarious sections when she had to start out of nowhere on a high G. The visual reference was a great help. All in all, the NS instruments were a big hit and will definitely be used tomorrow for the show!
Post performance update: The performance went great! We heard reallypositive reviews from so many folks. I think my favorite was from a string player friend of mine that came to the pit during intermission to congratulate us on the violin solo on the tune “Mona Lisa.” We were chatting and she looked over at the NS violin and asked when we were going to play it. I told her that I had been playing it the entire first half of the show. She couldn’t believe that we were playing electrics. She had no idea. What a testimony to the tone quality of the violin! After the show, the arrangeer for most of the music stopped me, to once again, tell me how much he liked the sound of the NS violins. After the show, my student told me that she “just has to have one of those!” Bottom line, this was a huge success.
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