We went to Universal Studios, Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, Hollywood Blvd and the Historic Gaslamp District in downtown San Diego. The first three days we stayed in Anaheim and the last two we stayed in San Diego.
The highlight of the trip for me was the "recording session" we did backstage at Disney. As part of their "Magic Music Days," Disney has set up a recording experience for students to get an idea of what it's like to record music for film. I found it to be fascinating and many of the students said they learned a lot and had a good time, too.
This is not your average "perform-at-Disney-World-and-no-one-except-your-parents-and-sponsors-will-pay-attention" events. (I made a point of watching a beginner band from Tuscon, Arizona -- Gridley MS? -- they played a ton of music and I thought it was super-cool for their director to take them out into public in that fragile first year. It's also good for me to hear bands outside of Texas as it's easy to get desensitized to hearing only our brand of band. But, I digress...) The benefit behind doing a session like the one we did is that the students got to work with an actual session conductor/arranger/composer.
I love hearing composers and arrangers talk about music -- they are much more constructive than they are analytical. Directors who haven't written or arranged much look at music like they were taught to in college: by dissecting the music and assessing all of the parts individually. Composers/arrangers tend to look at the music by seeing how all of the parts fit together. I guess you could say that a person with little writing experience looks at the puzzle pieces individually and the composer/arranger looks at how they form the puzzle.
(While I am far from any sort of arrival as a composer, I have noticed that I am starting to teach more like a writer than as a technician. I'm not sure if my students are any better for it, but I think they understand the form and big-picture better with that focus.)
That particular session was very sight-reading based and I think that is something our students needed to have. I have maintained that a musician finds music more enjoyable when they can just sit down and play. If every time a student gets a new piece of music they have to be taught every note and nuance, I doubt that's as much fun. As my reading skills increase, so does my enjoyment of the experience. After all, better reading makes music seem more effortless. And who likes to have to work at something?!?
Because blogger is free and therefore not terribly powerful, I am not going to post any pictures of my trip here. Instead, I am going to post some links from my Facebook photo albums so you can view them at your own leisure.
Now, with only a few days left of the break, I have to finish my last stock marching band arrangement and continue work on my new Grade 3-ish band work that is to be premiered by the Town & Gown Band in June.
Here are the links (they are reverse chronological order, so if you want to see them in order, start with Album Five):
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