Thursday, March 27, 2014

Actuate - an entirely new concept in teaching music

From talks with my cousin Diana who inspired the Vincent Trio Scores, another amazing idea came to me, also yesterday I saw an interview with the author of Zentrepreneur.

Self Actualization is the goal of Buddhism, and any spiritual path. Know thyself, and to thyself be true. Diana and I grump about how we can't be the creative people we see ourselves as. But I know a trick: putting the physical performing into books, sort of like freeze-drying the fun, bouncy, vibrant and alive performing energy, into stagnant pieces of paper - but they turn into pages of wild party fun! Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I don't think so. I think it's a masterful working of what has been handed to me, a composer who hasn't ever been acknowledged and paid any good money for it, so I find a solution better than notoriety after all.

The ability to compose in my own styles, in my own terms, teaching music and culture in my own ways.

Actuate, Creative Music Studies

A whole new idea of performing and composing. Here are a few sections:

Active Fugue Show. One person comes up with the first line, the Theme or Statement. Instead of the answer being immediate, there is a 1 bar rest for the other voice/person to design his answer. Then voice 1 plays his part and voice 2 plays his answer. Again a 1 bar rest for voice 1 to think of a countersubject or whatever he will play. Next the parts are played and voice 1 also plays his new part. Then another 1 bar break and voice 2 thinks of their part.

This goes on and meanwhile a person has been scoring the whole thing all along. When they finish, the score is shown to all, and played without the breaks between parts. (Much of this idea came from talking to John a classmate in Advanced Harmony. He wanted to know if our understanding of Harmony could help our improvisations. I think John, with that idea of yours and my creativity, it is now done - thanks!)

Chopin Turned into Mambo - first 2 players, later all at once.

This is sort of already done with Calypso Etude #1 which has a 2 person version and then an all-at-once version. The E flat Major Nocture will be the perfect first lesson, and the bass-chord-chord pattern that is in most of Chopin's waltzes will be morphed into either a Rumba 3-3-2 rhythm or more extended Bossanova 2-3-3-3-3-3 which is easily enough written out by someone like me, and the melody morphed into 4/4 is actually much more fun and easy than people think!

I've also created a few pieces I now call "Gargoyle Songs" sort of inspired by Casa Loma's Gargoyles.. These can have one part played by one person, Agnison? And a solo by another, Kinneson? These are 2 master pianists at the RCM. How well the soloist follow the melody-follows-note-difference rule will be fun to measure.

"Lilly Song" expanded to Major-Minor-Dominant solo work. I'll write some more variations, then people should be able to make up their own, even if it's just chords repeated or jumping octaves. This is the kind of "Self Actualization" that Actuate is all about, even if the person can only do basic simple variations, it is improvising! And performing, and composing, all at once!

This style of teaching can be another book in our Charmony series if ARTTSI Instute supports it (fingers crossed).

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