| Xylomania! |
[Aug. 7th, 2006|10:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  excited | ] |
Today was the first day of the 2006 Bob Becker Ragtime Xylophone Institute. Some stuff about it: there's a total of 16 people, including Bob Becker (founding member of Nexus, one of the best percussionists in the world, and the modern world's expert/best person at George Hamilton Green rags and playing styles) and Harvey Price. Of the remaining fourteen, I'm the only high school student (again) and one of three returning people from last year (which put us a leg up on everyone else). There's 4 UD people, 3 international people (from Japan, Sweden, and Malaysia), several other college students (Central Michigan, Southern Methodist University [in Texas], and Julliard come to mind), and other professionals from around the country. It is really cool, especially play exercises in a huge xylo circle and having Bob walk around and critique people's technique (but not mine! In the dozens of stuff we did today, he never corrected me and told me "Good technique"). We also got our ensemble assignments (there's five people in three ensembles [Bob and Harvey both fill one spot in one of them]; in the concert, one of the five plays a xylo solo and the other four do accompaniments on 2 marimbas [marimba parts 1-4]). I was the person listed first in Ensemble 1 (which means absolutely nothing as the numbers and listing of people are arbitrary; this was just to trick you into thinking I was the best in the group... which isn't true). Of course, the ensemble part of the institute is really exciting: I get to play bass marimba (Marimba 4) on one song and Marimba 1 on two others (on one of these two, the Marimba 1 part is essentially the xylo solo without double stops for the A section--which means I have a great deal of practicing ahead of me).
In short, I am completely psyched for a week of the most challenging mallet stuff I've ever done with one of the (if not the) best xylophonists in the world. Did I mention I'll also get a half-hour lesson with Bob Becker at some point? |
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