• 1521 ~ Josquin Desprez, French/Franco-Flemish composer, died. Generally acknowledged as the greatest composer of the High Renaissance.
More information about Desprez
• 1886 ~ Eric Coates, British composer and violist
More information about Coates
• 1889 ~ Charles G. Conn of Elkhart, IN patented the metal clarinet. More than 100 years later the name, Conn, still represents one of the most popular musical instrument names, especially for clarinets.
• 1909 ~ Lester Willis “Prez” Young, American jazz tenor and saxophonist
• 1927 ~ Jimmy ‘Cajun’ Newman, Singer
• 1937 ~ Tommy (Adrian) Sands, Singer
• 1939 ~ Singer Allan Jones recorded I’m Falling in Love with Someone on Victor Records.
• 1942 ~ Daryl Dragon, Grammy Award-winning musician, songwriter, duo in The Captain and Tennille
• 1944 ~ Barry Conyngham, Australian composer
• 1944 ~ Tim Bogert, Bass with these groups: Showmen, Cactus, Vanilla Fudge
• 1949 ~ Jeff Cook, Singer, guitar with Alabama
• 1953 ~ Alex Lifeson, Guitarist with Rush
• 1970 ~ The Troubadour in Los Angeles, CA was the venue of singer Elton John’s first concert appearance in America and a record company executive for UNI records (a division of MCA) signed Elton to a recording contract.
• 1984 ~ The Menetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village opened. It was the first new off-Broadway theatre to be built in 50 years in New York City. The ribbon cutting was done by “America’s First Lady of the Stage”, Helen Hayes.
• 1990 ~ Stevie Ray Vaughan, killed in helicopter crash
Life very often throws some curious coincidences my way. Just as I was preparing a presentation for architecture students at the Goa College of Architecture on ‘Architecture and Music’ and looking at the relationship of the Fibonacci sequence to music, what should appear in my newsfeed but the announcement of the famed piano firm Steinway and Sons unveiling its 600,000th piano, incorporating the iconic Fibonacci spiral in its design.
The veneer of the “Fibonacci” piano features the eponymous spiral made from six individual logs of Macassar Ebony, “creating a fluid design that represents the geometric harmony found in nature.”
In the words of designer Frank Pollaro, who spent over 6000 work-hours over four years in its creation: “Designing Steinway & Sons’ 600,000th piano was an honour and a challenge. To me, knowing that this piano would become part of history meant that it had to be more than just a beautiful design, but also needed to visually convey a deeper message…as I considered the number 600,000, the Fibonacci spiral came to mind. The way in which it continues to grow but stay true to its form is very much like Steinway and Sons over these many years. Combining the universal languages of music and mathematics suddenly made perfect sense.”
Mind you, 600,000 is not a number in the Fibonacci sequence; I checked. 600,000 is between the 29th and 30th numbers in the Fibonacci series, which are 514,229 and 832,040 respectively. But Pollaro was nevertheless highlighting an interesting relationship between music and mathematics.
Named after the Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci (c. 1170- c. 1250) who brought the Indian-Arabic numeral system to Europe, the Fibonacci series appear in nature and in music, and finds application in architecture and in instrument design, much before the Fibonacci Steinway.
The basic ideas of the Fibonacci progression are contained in the writings of Indian scholar Pingala (300-200 BC) in his treatise on Sanskrit prosody.
The Fibonacci numbers have the following integer sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987 and onward. Each added number is the sum of two previous numbers before it.
In nature, the Fibonacci sequence underpins phyllotaxis (arrangement of leaves on a stem), branching in trees, fruit sprouts of a pineapple among many other examples, and even the shape of the human external ear, and the cochlear apparatus of the inner ear.
It can be applied to the western musical scale as well, with the caveat that the starting note one makes the measurement from (or the ‘root’ note) is designated as 1 and not 0. By this token, there are 13 notes in a scale through its octave. There are 8 notes in a diatonic scale (hence the top note is called an ‘oct’ave). The 5th and 3rd notes create the basic foundation of musical chords. All these are Fibonacci numbers.
The very notes in the scale are based on natural harmonics created by ratios of frequencies. Ratios found in the first seven numbers of the Fibonacci series (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8) are related to key frequencies of musical notes. Thus if we take an arbitrary frequency of 440 Hz, the root note has a ratio of 1/1, but the octave above it has a frequency of 880 Hz (2/1 of 440); a fifth above has a frequency of 660 Hz (3/2 of 440), and so on for other notes in the scale.
In last Sunday’s article, I had mentioned the ‘golden proportion’ or phi, which underpins the proportions of the Parthenon temple in the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. This ‘golden ratio’ (also called the ‘golden section’, ‘golden mean’ or the ‘divine proportion’) of 1:1618 or 0.618 has influenced composition in painting and photography, prompting the notion of dividing a canvas into thirds vertically and horizontally, and to position a subject of interest ‘about one-third’ of the way across instead of in the centre.
This ‘golden ratio’ can be obtained by dividing a Fibonacci number (in the higher reaches, not the first few) by its immediate predecessor. The quotient approximates phi (φ). Thus 987/610= 1.61803, and its inverse is 0.618.
The climax or high point of many songs and other compositions is often found at the ‘phi’ (φ) point (61.8 per cent) of the work. We have seen this to be true in the first movement of
S. Bach’s G minor sonata for solo violin.
In many compositions in sonata form, the addition of a coda causes the recapitulation (the return of the original idea that started the work) to begin at the 61.8 per cent point.
The legendary violin maker Antonio Stradivari seemed to be aware of the ‘golden section’ and used it in the placement of the f-holes on his violins. The proportions of the violin conform to the ratios of ‘phi’ (φ). The spiral of a violin scroll also obeys the Fibonacci progression.
Isn’t it amazing, how the visual and aural world, indeed nature itself can all be unified by the same mathematical sequence?[NT]
• 1813 ~ Daniel Gottlob Turk, composer, died at the age of 63
• 1873 ~ Lee DeForest, Inventor of the triode vacuum tube, possibly the most significant invention that made radio possible.
• 1894 ~ Arthur Loesser, American pianist and writer
• 1915 ~ Humphrey Searle, British composer and writer
• 1919 ~ Ronny Graham (Ronald Montcrief Stringer), Singer, actor
• 1928 ~ Peter Appleyard, British jazz vibraphonist and drummer
• 1939 ~ The radio program Arch Oboler’s Plays presented the NBC Symphony, for the first time, as the musical backdrop for the drama, This Lonely Heart.
• 1942 ~ Vic Dana, Singer
• 1949 ~ Bob Cowsill, Singer with The Cowsills
• 1957 ~ John O’Neill, Musician, guitar with That Petrol Emotion
• 1960 ~ Branford Marsalis, Musician, saxophone, bandleader with The Tonight Show, toured with Sting
More information about the Marsalis family
• 1967 ~ Brian Epstein passed away
• 1970 ~ Jimi Hendrix opened his recording studio in New York City. Because of its state-of-the-art 36-track recording capability, it attracted many top rock groups.
• 2000 ~ George Edmund Sandell, a noted violin and viola player, teacher and inventor died at the age of 88.
Sandell studied in New York under the viola virtuoso William Primrose and on scholarship at the Royal Swedish Conservatory in Stockholm.
Sandell moved to Los Angeles in 1938, where he played with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Pasadena and Santa Monica Symphonies.
Along with classical music, he performed pop, swing and Latin music, and played with the string sections of big band luminaries Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey and Xavier Cugat.
Sandell also played on some of Frank Sinatra’s recordings and worked for most of the big Hollywood studios on orchestral soundtracks, including the soundtrack for the movie Citizen Kane.
In 1947, he invented the Gee-Bee, a kitchen sponge with a plastic handle for washing dishes. He sold the company to DuPont in 1953.
• 2001 ~ Alix Williamson, the classical music publicist who suggested to Baroness Maria von Trapp that she write a book about her family’s experiences, died at the age of 85.
Williamson’s suggestion resulted in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music.”
She represented artists such as André Watts and Frederica von Stade and helped the New York Grand Opera get a citation in the Guinness Book of World Records for its performances of a complete cycle of Verdi’s operas in Central Park. Williamson also ghostwrote books.
• 2018 ~ Neil Simon died at the age of 91. He was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly adaptations of his plays. He received more combined Oscar and Tony nominations than any other writer.
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 feedback
• 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. 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 the 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 the 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 free for as long as you study here.
• 1879 ~ New York’s Madison Square Garden displayed a real floating ship in a gigantic water tank as Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, H.M.S. Pinafore, was performed.
• 1902 ~ Stefan Wolpe, German-born American composer
• 1913 ~ Bob Crosby, Bandleader with The Bob Cats, brother of Bing Crosby
• 1918 ~ Leonard Bernstein, American conductor, composer and pianist
Read quotes by and about Bernstein
Links to more information about Bernstein Grammy winner
• 1939 ~ Dorothy embarked on a journey down the yellow brick road with a lion, a tin man and a scarecrow in the classic film “The Wizard of Oz.”
• 1941 ~ Skinnay Ennis and his orchestra recorded the tune Don’t Let Julia Fool Ya.
• 1942 ~ Walter Williams, Singer with The O’Jays
• 1955 ~ Elvis Costello (Declan McManus), Musician, songwriter
• 1961 ~ Billy Ray Cyrus, Singer
• 1964 ~ The Beatles received a gold record for their hit single A Hard Day’s Night. It was the third gold record for the Fab Four. They would collect 18 more through 1970.
• 1971 ~ Ted Lewis passed away. He was an American entertainer, bandleader, singer, and musician.
• 1982 ~ The group, Fleetwood Mac, received a gold record for the album Mirage.
• 2001 ~ Aaliyah died at the age of 22. She was a R&B singer and budding actress who made her film debut in “Romeo Must Die” and was killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas.
• 2001 ~ Jazz musician John Nelson, the father of pop star Prince, died at the age of 85. Nelson was the model for a character in the 1984 Prince movie “Purple Rain.” He also co-wrote songs on several of his son’s hit albums.
In the 1950s, Nelson was a pianist in the jazz group Prince Rogers Trio featuring singer Mattie Shaw. Shaw and Nelson married, and they named their son Prince Roger Nelson.
Nelson left the household when Prince was about 10 and his sister Tyka was 8. The father and son reconciled after Prince began his climb to fame.
Nelson co-wrote Computer Blue on the Purple Rain album, The Ladder on Around the World in a Day; Christopher Tracy’s Parade and Under the Cherry Moon on Parade and Scandalous on the Batman soundtrack.
• 2008 ~ Josef Tal, Israel composer (Israeli art music), died at the age of 97
Some students will be getting this new book the first lesson this fall. With The Back To School Book Of Note Reading Boosters, you and your students have a jam-packed resource that can be used at home for extra practice or during lessons for off-the-bench activities.
Inside your students will discover back-to-school-themed mazes, color-it mystery pictures, word searches, pattern play, dot-to-dot journeys, tic tac toe, and board games; all designed to reinforce note reading in C position.
In addition, the book includes a build-your-own note printing solo, a mix and match sight reading solo, and a make-a-motive composing solo.
This year, show students just how fun note reading can be with The Back To School Book Of Note Reading Boosters.
• 1854 ~ Moritz Moszkowski, Polish-born German pianist and composer More information about Moszkowski
• 1900 ~ Ernst Krenek, Austrian-born American composer, conductor and pianist
• 1905 ~ Constant Lambert, British composer, conductor and writer
• 1912 ~ Gene (Eugene Curran) Kelly, Dancer, actor: Singin’ in the Rain, An American in Paris, Anchors Aweigh, The Three Musketeers, Marjorie Morningstar, Inherit the Wind, North and South Book I; director: Singin’ in the Rain, Hello, Dolly!, A Guide for the Married Man, The Cheyenne Social Club
• 1917 ~ Tex (Sol) Williams, American country-western singer
• 1923 ~ Billy Jones and Ernie Hare, The Happiness Boys, were heard on radio for the first time. The two were billed as radio’s first comedians and were also credited with creating and performing the first singing commercial.
• 1936 ~ Rudy Lewis, Singer with Drifters
• 1942 ~ Patricia McBride, Ballerina: New York City Ballet. For many years she was Mikhail Baryshnikov’s only partner
• 1943 ~ LIFE magazine spotlighted a dance craze that was sweeping the U.S.A., the Lindy Hop
• 1947 ~ Keith Moon, Singer, drummer with The Who
• 1947 ~ Margaret Truman, daughter of U.S. President Harry S Truman, presented her first public concert. Margaret sang before 15,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl. The concert did not get great reviews. In fact, the critics didn’t like Margaret’s singing at all. And Margaret’s dad didn’t like the critics, and said so, from the White House.
• 1949 ~ Rick Springfield, Singer
• 1951 ~ Mark Hudson, Singer with The Hudson Brothers
• 1966 ~ The U.S. premiere of the motion picture Help!, starring The Beatles, was held for thousands of moviegoers wanting to see the group’s first, color, motion picture. Their first film, A Hard Day’s Night, had been produced in black and white.
• 1990 ~ David Rose passed away
• 2001 ~ Kathleen Freeman, a veteran character actress whose face if not her name was known to audiences from television sitcoms, the film classic “Singin’ in the Rain” and Broadway’s “The Full Monty,” died of lung cancer at the age of 82. Freeman gave her final performance in “The Full Monty”. She played a sassy piano player in the hit musical and earned a Tony nomination in May 2001.
Big, brash and funny were Freeman’s trademarks in playing recalcitrant maids, demented nuns, mouthy housekeepers, battle-ax mothers, irate landladies and nosy neighbors.
Starting in the Golden Age of television, Freeman appeared in such shows as “Topper,” “The Donna Reed Show,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Hogan’s Heroes,” “The Lucy Show,” “The Golden Girls,” “Murphy Brown” and “Married … With Children.”
“This will sound very corny and I’m sorry,” Freeman said last year in an Associated Press interview, “but I have always had the sense I was put here to do this: I am somebody who is around to help the world laugh. I have always had that sense. Corny but absolutely true.”
In “Singin’ in the Rain,” considered by many to be the best movie musical ever made, she played Jean Hagen’s frustrated voice teacher. Among Freeman’s other films were the sci-fi thriller “The Fly,” “The Rounders” with Henry Fonda, “Far Country” with Jimmy Stewart, and “North to Alaska” starring John Wayne. More recently she appeared in “Dragnet,” “Gremlins II,” “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps” and both “Blues Brothers” comedies.
Freeman was born in Chicago and was propelled into show business at age 2. Her parents had a vaudeville act, Dixon and Freeman, in which their daughter did a little dance.
Freeman attended the University of California at Los Angeles, where she majored in music and was going to be a classical pianist. Then, she said, “A terrible thing happened. I got in a play and got a laugh. I just said a line and, `boom.”‘
Freeman then worked in many small theater groups, including the Circle Players, acting for such eminent directors – and actors – as Charles Laughton, Charlie Chaplin and Robert Morley.
At the same time, the early 1950s, the television explosion took over Los Angeles. From her first regular sitcom role, as the maid in “Topper,” Freeman went on to do just about every sitcom of the last 50 years.
For all her voluminous credits, Freeman’s stage credits were mostly on the road – touring as Miss Hannigan in “Annie” for 18 months, then in “Deathtrap” and later with Lauren Bacall in “Woman of the Year.”
Her only other Broadway appearance was for five months in the 1978 production of “13 Rue de l’Amore” starring Louis Jordan.
• 2001 ~ Frank Emilio Flynn, a blind pianist and Latin jazz pioneer who performed with many great American jazz artists, died at the age of 80.
Flynn lost his sight at age 13 but continued to study and perform classical works, transcribed into Braille, with the Symphonic Orchestra of Havana.
Flynn’s great passion was jazz, and in the 1950s he developed his own jazz-influenced ballad style, known in Cuba as “feeling.”
Performing with the Quinteto Cubana de Musica Moderno, or Cuban Quintet of Modern Music, he developed into one of the most important Cuban jazz musicians of his era.
• 1862 ~ Claude Debussy, French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music, though he himself disliked the term when applied to his compositions.
• 1906 ~ The Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, New Jersey began to manufacture the Victrola (record player). The hand-cranked unit, with horn cabinet, sold for $200. Records sold separately.
• 1917 ~ John Lee Hooker, American blues guitarist and singer, born in Clarksdale, Miss. He began his career in Detroit in 1948 with the release of Boogie Chillun, the biggest of his several hit records and a staple of both the blues and rock repertoires. He toured continually, and among “deep blues” artists, enjoyed an unusually successful career, appearing in concerts and on recordings with many of the leading figures in rock. He was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.
• 1928 ~ Karlheinz Stockhausen, German composer
More information about Stockhausen
Read quotes by and about Stockhausen
• 1926 ~ Bob Flanigan, Singer with The Four Freshmen
• 1932 ~ The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began its first experimental TV broadcast in England.
• 1938 ~ Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers appeared, dancing, on the cover of LIFE magazine, published on this day.
• 1938 ~ Count Basie recorded the classic swing tune, Jumpin’ at the Woodside, for Decca Records.
• 1942 ~ Joe Chambers, Musician: guitar, singer with The Chambers Brothers
• 1950 ~ Sam Neely, Singer
• 1960 ~ Debbi Peterson, Drummer, singer with Bangles
• 1961 ~ Roland Orzabal, Singer, guitarist
• 2002 ~ Frederick Selch, an advertising executive and magazine publisher who collected hundreds of antique musical instruments, died at the age of 72.
Selch began collecting almost 50 years ago and owned more than 300 musical instruments by 1977.
In that year, he founded the Federal Music Society, an organization dedicated to performing music from the Colonial-Federal period. The group’s 26 players used instruments in Selch’s collection to perform in more than 70 concerts.
Selch was also the owner, editor and publisher of Ovation, a monthly magazine about classical music, from 1983 to 1989. He produced the Broadway musical “Play Me a Country Song” in 1982, and in the past 10 years was involved in a series of American Music Festivals at Illinois Wesleyan University.
Selch, who received a master’s degree in radio-television production from Syracuse University, worked at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency from 1955 to 1974.
He is to be awarded a posthumous doctorate from the American Studies program at New York University.
• 2002 ~ Richard Lippold, a sculptor whose abstract works are featured at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall and at Harvard University, died. He was 87. Lippold created giant metal abstractions, many of which are suspended by wires so they appear to be hovering or moving through space.
His piece World Tree, a 27-foot structure of straight and circular metal tubes that resembles a radio antenna, stands on the Harvard University campus.
He is also known for Ad Astra, a double spire that rises 115 feet in front of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, and Orpheous and Apollo, a constellation of bronze bars connected by wires in the lobby of Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center.
Lippold studied industrial design, piano and dance at the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. He worked as a freelance industrial designer for several years before teaching art at the University of Michigan.
He later taught at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt., and Hunter College in New York.
• 2018 ~ Ed King, former guitarist for Lynyrd Skynyrd who co-wrote ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ died at the age of 68
Grammy winner
MaryO'Studio 