I’ve put together a medley of three bits from Detroit in a simple promo video. This contains the Overture to Act I, where Eddie Powell introduces the neighbourhood, the aria ‘Tear Down The House’ which ends of Act II and the finale to Act III ‘Evergreen’.

Evergreen is a mix of live tracks from rehearsals summer 2012 with a number of studio overdubs. You’ll note the vocal track has slightly different lyrics from the libretto.

There are a lot of sections with loooong notes. Hiiiiigh notes. Unfriendly to those who have to breathe to make noise. Whenever I get this stuff rehearsed it’s either with pros who tell me to what I can do with my chop destroying stupid parts (unless I open my checkbook—in which case they’ve never heard anything quite like it.) Or, I can get unsuspecting children.

God Bless The Future Of Our Children. Who Are Our Future.

The great thing about young people is that, despite what you may have heard, they will […]

British composer Sir John Tavener passed away yesterday. He will be greatly missed. The majority of Sir John’s music is of the choral Christian variety. You have probably heard his music many times; as background to lots and lots of new-agey TV shows and perhaps in some incense-laden massage or yoga studio. His Funeral Canticle is used in the opening of Terrence Malick’s ‘Tree Of Life’ and his music was played at Princess Diana’s funeral. As a tribute to his talent and skill I want to say a few words about the general state of Christian music to hopefully demonstrate why he was so special to so many of us.

Let’s start by admitting that the vast majority of Christian music (and religious music in general) has been, is and will continue to be absolute crap. At it’s best it can be as profound an expression of faith as any prayer, but let’s be honest: that case is the rare exception. No matter how good […]

For some reason, it’s always tough to talk about ‘the craft’. I try to get my students to study acting and comedy and they look at me like I’m nuts. But actors, and even more so comedians, are very self-aware. And they talk about what they do in a very detailed way that musicians rarely do outside of with certain ‘mentors’. Actors and comedians are just as insecure as musicians but they seem to make it work for them. Being a musician requires a lot of ego, but usually it doesn’t translate into words all that well. So if you try to talk about how it all works with non-musicians they tend say very little or sound defensive.

When I play a show there’s always the requisite ‘free form solo’. It’s just what one does in the ‘Prog’ business. I don’t want to be cynical about it, but that’s largely the deal. I suppose I enjoy it, but truthfully if it wasn’t an expected part […]

I’ve seen this (very nice) looking advert a number of times recently. Great bit of advertising that’s about 30 years too late. It now reminds me of other quaint vo-tech school brochures like for offset printing or plastering; beautiful skills, but not really part of the modern world. I say that not to be a curmudgeon but simply because ‘music education’ has stopped being anything like a going concern.

Remember that, through the 70’s ‘Music’ used to be one of the ‘Eds’ at any decent American school. You know: Phys-Ed. Special-Ed. Arts-Ed. Music-Ed. No such thing anymore.

This poster (and a number of others I’ve seen) do a great job telling people the -intrinsic- benefits of music. How much good you’re doing for kids by teaching. Showing parents the value of Music Teachers. Basically, they’ve turned Music into vegetables. It’s good for kids so have give servings a day! Teach music and make a difference!

But Plato (yeah, really, a Platonic reference) made the -real- value of Music Ed plain 2,500 years […]