Monthly Archives: September 2017

September 11 ~ This Day in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

We will always remember 911

OCMS 1786 ~ Friedrich Kuhlau, German-born Danish composer and pianist
More information about Kuhlau

• 1847 ~ This night an audience at the Eagle Saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania enjoyed Foster’s rendition of his minstrel song, Oh! Susanna. Stephen got a bottle of whiskey for his performance.

• 1850 ~ Jenny Lind sang at the Castle Garden Theatre in New York City. It was her first performance in America. Lind’s voice was so sweet that she was nicknamed ‘The Swedish Nightingale’.

• 1911 ~ Alice Tully, American mezzo-soprano and music patron

OCMS 1956 ~ Arvo Pärt (1935) Estonian composer
More information about Pärt

• 1942 ~ Lola Falana, Singer, actress

• 1944 ~ Mickey Hart, Drummer, songwriter with Grateful Dead

• 1944 ~ Phil May, Singer with The Pretty Things; Fallen Angels

• 1945 ~ Ernest Tubb recorded It Just Doesn’t Matter Now and Love Turns to Hate on the Decca label. Tubb became the second recording artist to have made a commercial record in Nashville, TN.

• 1946 ~ Dennis Tufano, Guitarist, singer with The Buckinghams

• 1952 ~ Tommy Shaw, Guitarist with Styx

• 1959 ~ On this day in 1959 a statue to honor songwriter George M. Cohan was unveiled in New York City’s Duffy Square. Ten thousand people watched and sang his “Give My Regards to Broadway.” Today crowds gather near the statue daily to buy half-priced theater tickets.

• 1962 ~ Ringo Starr joined John, Paul and George for his first recording session as a Beatle, replacing bounced drummer Pete Best. Love Me Do was the result and it took 17 takes to complete … to everyone’s satisfaction.

• 1967 ~ Harry Connick, Jr., Grammy Award-winning singer

• 1969 ~ Leon Payne passed away

• 1984 ~ Bruce Springsteen broke the attendance record at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Boss entertained 16,800 fans for the first of six sold-out shows. Springsteen broke his own record; one he set during a visit to Philly in 1981.

• 2001 ~ Larry Kegan, a singer-songwriter who performed in concert with Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne and others, died of cardiac arrest. He was 59. Kegan sang at Gov. Jesse Ventura’s inaugural celebration in 1999, at American Indian functions and at Stillwater prison. A paraplegic since a diving accident when he was 15, and a quadriplegic after a car accident a decade later, Kegan was nonetheless very active. Kegan ran a resort for disabled veterans in Mexico and managed orange groves in Florida before returning to Minnesota in the mid-1970s. He met Dylan when they were teenagers at a summer camp. Decades later, in 1978, Dylan dedicated his album Street Legal to Kegan.

iPad: Parent’s Guide to Piano Maestro

Posted by MaryO on

Piano Mania

It will be fun watching your child improve their piano skills all while having fun using Piano Maestro in lessons each week!

As your child’s teacher (or YOUR teacher!), I’m looking forward to seeing the progress they will make when they start using it at home each day. This guide will help you understand how this app will benefit your child and how to get it set up on your own iPad.

Overview
What is Piano Maestro?

Piano Maestro is the ultimate piano practice tool that will have students quickly playing their favorite classical, pop, rock, TV and video game songs and themes. It is available in the App Store and works on the iPad.

What skills does it improve?
• Note reading
• Sight reading
• Rhythm
• Inner pulse
• Confidence

What makes it so fun?
• Upbeat background tracks
• Stunning graphics
• Instant rewards and feed back
• Satisfaction of playing REAL music

It works with an acoustic piano?

Yes! Your child practices on your real acoustic or digital piano. Piano Maestro listens from the iPad’s built in microphone. No wires needed.

I’m already paying for lessons and books. What value does this add?

Sometimes I wish I could be there with your child to encourage them to keep practicing daily. I’m sure it’s not always easy, as unforeseen challenges will arise.

Since our time each week is just too short, this app will give me eyes on the ground and it will keep them practicing longer and improving more quickly.

How will it be used in lessons?

I will spend a few minutes of each lesson helping your child master a couple of new songs all while having fun! I will also teach them how to use the practice options at home.

At the end of the lesson, we will choose Home Challenge assignments within the app that will show up in your account at home. I’ll get updates when progress is made.

Getting Started
Wow, this sounds awesome. Now, how do I get started?

1) Download Piano Maestro on your iPad from the AppStore
2) Create a JoyTunes account with a parent’s email, under which, you can have multiple profiles for each member of the family.
3) Create a profile for each family member (that means you too Mom and Dad!) inside the Parent/Teacher zone (top right hand corner of main screen)
4) Connect to your teacher, me! After creating a profile in the “profiles” tab of the parent/teacher zone, select the student’s profile and click “connect to teacher.” Once I approve connection to your child, they will receive full access to all content for FREE! I will then also begin receiving weekly progress reports.
5) Start Playing – I will now start assigning you homework, meanwhile get started on Journey Mode.

When you connect to the O’Connor Music Studio, Piano Maestro is available for as long as you study here.

September 10 ~ This Day in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

today

• 1714 ~ Niccolò Jommelli, Italian composer

• 1914 ~ Robert Wise, Academy Award-winning director of The Sound of Music [1965], West Side Story [1961]; Two for the Seesaw, The Andromeda Strain, Star Trek: The Motion Picture

• 1927 ~ Yma Sumac (Zoila Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo), Peruvian singer, of Inca descent, with a 4-octave range

• 1935 ~ “I’m Popeye the sailor man…” toot! toot! Popeye was heard for the first time on NBC radio. The show was based on the Elzie Crisler Segar comic strip, which featured Popeye, Olive Oyl, Brutas, Wimpy and Sweepea.
Now, eat your spinach in celebration!

• 1937 ~ Tommy Overstreet, Singer

• 1941 ~ Christopher Hogwood, British harpsichordist, musicologist and conductor

• 1942 ~ Danny Hutton, Singer with Three Dog Night

• 1945 ~ Jose Feliciano, Grammy Award-winning singer, Best New Artist in 1968, guitar, songwriter of the theme for Chico and the Man

• 1950 ~ Joe Perry, Guitarist with Joe Perry Project; Aerosmith

• 1950 ~ Don Powell, Drummer with Slade

• 1950 ~ Eddie Cantor moved from radio to TV, as he hosted the Colgate Comedy Hour on NBC.

• 1955 ~ Pat Mostelotto, Drummer with Mr. Mister

• 1955 ~ Bert Parks began a 25-year career as host of the Miss America Pageant on NBC. The show became a TV tradition as Parks sang to the newly~crowned beauty queen, “There She is … Miss America”. The song was composed by Bernie Wayne and was sung for the first time on this day. Sharon Kay Ritchie was the first Miss America to be honored with the song. When she married singer Don Cherry (Band of Gold), There She Is was part of the wedding ceremony.

• 1956 ~ Johnnie Fingers (Moylett), Keyboards, singer with The Boomtown Rats

• 2000 ~ In a flourish of fur and song, whiskers and many tears, “Cats”, the longest running show in Broadway history, closed after 18 years, 7,485 performances and a box office gross of more than $400 million.
Read the whole news article.

September 9 ~ This Day in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

today

OCMS 1583 ~ Girolamo Frescobaldi, Italian organist and composer
More information about Frescobaldi

• 1846 ~ This was the day when Richard Wagner began work on his opera Lohengrin. It remains an opera hit and “Here Comes the Bride”, based on the “Wedding March” from this opera.

• 1872 ~ Edward Burlingame Hill, American composer

• 1941 ~ Otis Redding, American rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter

• 1942 ~ Inez Foxx, Singer with brother, Charlie

• 1942 ~ Luther Simmons, Singer with Main Ingredient

• 1945 ~ Dee Dee Sharp (Dione LaRue), Singer with Chubby Checker

• 1946 ~ Billy Preston, Musician, songwriter, singer with The Beatles, Syreeta, played with Little Richard’s Band

• 1947 ~ Freddy Weller, Musician, guitar with Paul Revere and The Raiders (1969), solo, songwriter

• 1952 ~ David Stewart, Guitarist, keyboard with Eurythmics

• 1956 ~ On this Sunday night, 54,000,000 viewers (82.6 percent of the U.S. television audience) turned their TV dials to CBS as Ed Sullivan introduced 21-year-old singer Elvis ‘The Pelvis’ Presley. Elvis sang Hound Dog and Love Me Tender. Ed Sullivan, watching out for the moral safety of the viewing public (plus a live audience of screaming Elvis fans in the show’s New York theatre) demanded that the CBS cameras not venture lower than Elvis’ waist! Sullivan felt that Presley’s wild gyrations of his pelvis would lead the nation’s females into a frenzy of untold proportions. One female Elvis fan described him as, “One big hunk of forbidden fruit.” Elvis got the largest fee to that date for appearing on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town: $50,000.

• 1993 ~ Helen O’Connell passed away.  She was an American singer, actress, and hostess, sometimes described as “the quintessential big band singer of the 1940s”.

• 1996 ~ Bill Monroe passed away.  He was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter who created the style of music known as bluegrass. The genre takes its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys, named for Monroe’s home state of Kentucky.

• 2003 ~ Warren Zevon, who wrote and sang the rock hit “Werewolves of London” and was among the wittiest and most original of a broad circle of singer-songwriters to emerge from Los Angeles in the 1970s, died at the age of 56. Zevon moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s, making a living writing jingles for television commercials. He also composed the song “She Quit Me Man” for the movie “Midnight Cowboy.” He was just out of his teens when he went to work for the Everly Brothers, first as a pianist and later as their band leader.

September 8 ~ This Day in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

today

OCMS 1841 ~ Antonin Dvorák, Czech composer
More information about Dvorák

• 1849 ~ Richard Strauss, German composer and conductor, died. Strauss wrote in nearly every genre, but is best known for his tone poems and operas.
More information about Strauss

• 1897 ~ Jimmie (James Charles) Rodgers,‘The Blue Yodeler’, Country Music Hall of Famer, First country singer to be in a film

• 1932 ~ Patsy Cline (Virginia Petterson Hensley), Country Music Hall of Famer, American country-music singer

• 1934 ~ Peter Maxwell Davies, British composer

• 1935 ~ The Hoboken Four, featuring Frank Sinatra as lead singer, appeared on Major Bowes Amateur Hour on WOR radio. The group won the competition held at the Capitol Theatre in New York City.

• 1941 ~ Dante Drowty, Singer with Dante and The Evergreens

• 1941 ~ Harry James and his orchestra recorded Misirlou for Columbia Records.

• 1942 ~ Brian Cole, Bass, singer with The Association

September 7 ~ This Day in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

today

• 1920 ~ Al Caiola, Musician, guitarist

• 1921 ~ Arthur Ferrante, Pianist, duo: Ferrante and Teicher

• 1924 ~ Hugh Aitkin, American composer

• 1929 ~ “Sonny” (Theodore) Rollins, American jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, awarded Guggenheim Fellowship in 1972

• 1936 ~ Buddy Holly (Charles Hardin Holley), American rock-and-roll singer and guitarist with The Crickets

• 1940 ~ Artie Shaw and his orchestra recorded Temptation on the Victor label.

• 1951 ~ Chrissie Hynde, Guitarist, singer, songwriter with The Pretenders

• 1972 ~ Curtis Mayfield earned a gold record for his Superfly album, from the movie of the same name. The LP contained the hits, Freddie’s Dead and Superfly. Both songs were also million sellers.

• 1975 ~ Steve Anderson set a record for picking a guitar. Anderson, 22, picked for 114 hours, 7 minutes, breaking the old record by over four hours.

• 2001 ~ Igor Buketoff, an American conductor who specialized in Russian music and contemporary opera, died at the age of 87. Buketoff was best known for his orchestration of the first act of Rachmaninoff’s unfinished opera, Monna Vanna. Buketoff led the Philadelphia Orchestra in the world premiere in 1984. Buketoff also was recognized for restoring folk texts to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Buketoff earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Juilliard School, and later directed the choral departments there and at Adelphi College and Columbia University. He won the first Alice Ditson Award for outstanding American conductors in 1941. He won it again in 1967. In 1959, Buketoff established the World Music Bank – now called the International Contemporary Music Exchange – to promote modern orchestral music.

• 2001 ~ Stelios Kazantzidis, a legendary Greek folk singer with a career spanning more than half a century, died at the age of 70. His popularity crossed generations and his music reflected the joys, sorrows and battles of Greece, according to MBI, his recording company. Kazantzidis’ popularity was carried beyond Greek borders by immigrants to such countries as the United States, Canada and Australia, which he often visited. He abandoned the night club scene in 1965 and would only have contact with the public through recordings after that. During his prolific career, he released more than 120 albums. In a letter to the singer shortly before his death, Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos said Kazantzidis occupied an “unrivaled” chapter in the history of Greek music.

When Should Your Child Begin Music Lessons?

Posted by MaryO on

child-piano

These days, there is much pressure for parents to begin their children in activities from an early age.  We know that children tend to pick up new skills easily and we want for them to have an opportunity to become experts at these new skills.  We also see curiosity, desire and eagerness to learn in our children and want to capitalize on that.

Music lessons are no exception.  We often get calls asking the question, “When is the best time to enroll my child in piano lessons?”  The answer to that is a tricky one, and varies for each child.  The right age for one may not be the right age for another.  Here are a few questions to ask yourself if you are considering enrolling your child in music lessons:

1.   Does my child have an attention span to sit still for chunks of time and listen to instruction?

Many teachers today are very creative in using off-bench activities during lessons and have a plethora of activities to make lessons fun and engaging.  However, the fact remains that your child will need to sit at the piano for some periods of time during the lesson.  It is important that your child have the attention span to do this.

Read more at  How do we know if children are ready to begin music lessons? « Piano Pedagogy @ The New School for Music Study.

September 6 ~ This Day in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

today

 

• 1781 ~ Vincent Novello, English music publisher, organist and composer

• 1899 ~ Billy Rose (Rosenberg), producer, author, songwriter

• 1923 ~ William Kraft, American percussionist, composer and conductor

• 1928 ~ Evgeny Svetlanov, Russian conductor and composer
More about Svetlanov

• 1937 ~ Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded “Sugar Foot Stomp” on Victor Records. The tune was a Fletcher Henderson arrangement.

• 1944 ~ Roger Waters, Musician: bass, songwriter with Pink Floyd

• 1948 ~ Claydes (Charles) Smith, Guitarist with Kool & The Gang

• 1954 ~ Banner Thomas, Bass with Molly Hatchet

• 1958 ~ Georgia Gibbs sang “The Hula-Hoop Song” on “The Ed Sullivan Show”. It was the first national exposure for the Hula-Hoop craze. Many people recorded the song to capitalize on the fad, including Teresa Brewer and Betty Johnson. Like sometimes happens with fads, these songs didn’t become very popular. The Hula-Hoop craze lasted a bit longer…

• 1961 ~ Paul Waaktaar, Guitarist, singer with a-ha

• 1975 ~ Glen Campbell hit #1 on the “Billboard” pop music chart with “Rhinestone Cowboy”. It had reached the top position on the country chart on August 23rd.

• 1976 ~ Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were reunited by Frank Sinatra – after 20 years of going their separate ways. The former comedy team warmly met each other again during a surprise visit by Martin to Lewis’s annual “Labor Day Telethon” for Muscular Dystrophy.

• 1984 ~ Country-music star Ernest Tubb died this day, at the age of 70. Tubb was from Crisp, Texas and was known as the ‘Texas Troubadour’. He patterned his unique style after Jimmie Rodgers. Tubb recorded “I’m Walking the Floor Over You” and sold more than three million copies of the tune. “Blue Christmas”, “I Love You Because”, “Missing In Action” and “Thanks a Lot” were also classics made famous by Tubb. Other recording artists as diverse as The Andrews Sisters, Loretta Lynn and Red Foley recorded with Tubb. His 1979 album, “The Legend and the Legacy”, was a top-ten hit. Tubb was a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1943 and was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1965.

• 1984 ~ Ginger Rogers was in Buffalo, NY for a homecoming at Shea’s Theatre. The star of so many great motion pictures, Rogers had played the Shea 55 years earlier.

• 1986 ~ Bananarama hit the top spot on the pop music charts with “Venus”. The tune had also been a number one hit for the Dutch group, The Shocking Blue (2/07/70).

• 1997 ~ The Westminster Abbey funeral for Diana, Princess of Wales, was an extraordinary event, marked by numerous poignant moments: The people sobbing and throwing flowers at the funeral cortege winding through the streets of London. Her sons, walking behind her casket with their heads bowed. And Diana’s brother, who during his funeral oration took aim at the media, who he said made the princess “the most hunted person of the modern age.” Elton John sang a rewritten version of “Candle in the Wind” to “England’s rose”. The song was originally a tribute to film legend Marilyn Monroe, whose own tragic life, like Diana’s, ended at the age of just 36.

• 2002 ~ Rafael Druian, a violinist and conductor who served as concertmaster of four American orchestras, died at the age of 80. Druian’s lengthy career spanned many roles – performer, conductor and teacher. He was the concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Born in Vologda, Russia, Druian grew up in Havana, Cuba and began his musical training at an early age. He came to Philadelphia when he was 10 to audition for Leopold Stokowski, who recommended him for a scholarship at the Curtis School of Music. He graduated from Curtis in 1942 and served in the United States Army for four years and played in the army band. During his career, Druian appeared on some groundbreaking recordings of lesser-known violin works. In the 1950s he made recordings of Block, Janácek and Enesco. After working with orchestras around the country, his final concertmaster position was at the Philharmonic from 1971 to 1974. When he finished there he taught at Boston University and the Curtis Institute of Music.