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8 years ago

Volume 4 Issue 6 - March 1999

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John McGuigan' is

John McGuigan' is curmltly · Yim Chi ijo arid Mei-Chun ·Cheung Sl!.Y that as a way of the administrative secretary · improving m~mory, music teaching may have advantages of the Canadian Band over other techniques such a mnemonics. Psychologist Association (Ontario Francis Rauscher, who works on the cognitive effects of Chapter). His main function musical training at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, is the editing of the quarterly said the research fits into a growing body of work suggesting magazine Fanfare" and to maintain records and offices that music training cements some neural pathways in the for the association. He also owns and operates brain, preparing it for other tasks too. "It has such huge "COMPRINT" a publishing house for new Canadian music. implications for education," she said.' But she added that He can be contacted by fax or phone at 905-826-5542 researchers should try supplying the music training Following is and article reprinted from the Alberta Band Association magazine. It confirms opinions expressed more and more frequently by teachers, researchers and musicians all over the world. This is the kind of info that our education establishment needs to investigate more deeply in their search for improvement to the education system they are trying to change. It is part of the answer for more effective education in our schools. Far from downgrading and eliminating music programs, we should be increasing and enlarging the music component of our curriculums. MUSIC BOOSTS MEMORY NEW EVIDENCE CONFIRMS Children who have music lessons before age 12 have a better memory for words when they become adults, research in Hong Kong shows. It's the latest evidence that studying music has benefits that go far beyond staves and semiquavers. A higher IQ, a better grasp of mathematics, science and languages, better reasoning power and even a bigger brain have all been reported by scientists. The latest research carried out at the Chinese University of Hong Kong by Agnes Chan and colleagues, compared 30 female students who had had music lessons with 30 who hadn't. The only significant difference between the two groups was that one had been taught music using western instruments and the other had not. Short-term memory for words and pictures was tested by asking them to remember a l-ist of 16 words read to them and 10 simple shapes shown to them. The team reports in Nature that the womel) · with music training remembered significantly more words. After three repetitions of the list, they typically remembered · 14 of the 16 words compared with 12 of 16 for those without musical training. There was no difference in visual memory. The result is plausible because brain-imaging techniques have shown that the left temporal lobe is larger in musicians than in non-musicians. That area of the brain is also responsible for verbal memory, while visual memory is controlled by the right temporal lobe. Chan and colleagues themselves to be sure it is the same for ~II, and should test groups with equal IQs and socioeconomic backgrounds. On Sunday, Gottfried Schlaug of Beth Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, told the American Society for Neuroscience in Los Angeles that brain-scans of 90 people showed the cerebellum was five per cent larger in musicians. the cerebellum is a part of the brain involved in movement and balance and is used by musicians to interpret rhythm, two neuroscientists from the University of Texas told the meeting. They had scanned the brains of eight conductors as they listened to a Bach chorale and found that blood flow to the cerebellum increased when the rhythm of the piece being played to them was altered so that it differed from the score, though none of the musicians moved a muscle while the music was played. Earlier research has shown that toddlers taught simple tunes like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star perform on average 34 per cent better on IQ tests. The CBA Band-Aid 99 weekend with Elliot Del Borgo and Warren Barker was a resounding success. The Sunday rehearsal was particularly enjoyed by all including the conductors. A 75 piece band enjoyed a morning work-out with the visiting conductor/composers. Mr. Del Borgo was having so much fun he joined the band on bass drum for the last part of the rehearsal. Band Events for March March 06 8:00pm Hannaford Street Silver Band with the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir and John Rutter, St Paul's Anglican Church 416 598-0422 March 07 3:00 pmMarkham Concert Band Salute to Richard Rogers, Markham Theatre. 905-305-7469 March 07 7:30pm Reunion Jazz Band, 62 Orchard Park Dr. West Hill416-282-8566 March 27 7:30 pmlntrada Brass Sentimental Journey Glenn Gould Studio 416-205-5555 March 28 3:00pm Northdale Concert Band & Scarborough Concert Band Meeting Place, 1265 Military Trail 416-485-0923

JJehind the Scenes • with Marilyn Anthony, proofreader BY DAWN LYONS PHOTO BY DEN CIUL Free-lance music proofreader Marilyn Anthony shows me the list of corrections -- so far -- to Leonard Bernstein score she is working on. Let's see- wrong bar number, wrong note, key change at beginning of section .C should have new key signature... Marilyn's project right now is proof­ , reading the new edition of Leonard Bernstein's compositions. publishers, but occasionally for orchestra libraries if they are doing a new work. Marilyn chuckles: The first music' I ever proofread was Me: What do you proofread to? when I was music librarian for the Israel Philharmonic. Marilyn: It depends on what I've Leonard Bernstein was got. The stuff I'm getting now guest-conducting, and we from Charlie Hannon, who is were doing a suite from his editing Leonard Bernstein's show Fancy Free. ,Lem1y's works for Amberson (that's the business manager handed Leonard Bernstein publishing me the score and said, ' We compaiiy) --Candide, On The have reason to believe it is · Town, Wateifront - I can check full of mistakes. Could you back to earlier printed scores. proofread it?' It was pretty Although you have to take them bad - bar numbers wrong, with a grain ofsalt, too... The no cues, transpositions - composer's original score is best, wrong. It was done in a rush if you can get it AND if you can for the Broadway deadlines, read it! I once got a score from and the mistakes got left in Lalo Schifrin. It was in pencil, - and we had to rush, too. horrible, HORRIBLE handwrit- Word went out, 'Nobody can ing - and you look at the note see Lenny except Marilyn.' and you say doot-doo dah-doo- So I'd go in to see him. doot, yeah, that's OK, lummn, 'This part says this thing and that makes sense as a chord, the score says that thing, well how does it sound? and you which is right?' Lem1y'd take it to the piano and try it. say, "I can't remember", so I'd ask him, 'Well, which would you like today?' So after 20 years in Israel I 'come back and what's the first thing I'm proofreading? A new printing of Fancy Free! · Me: What do you proofread and who are your clients? Marilyn: Complete scores, usually - timt's ti1e orchestral score, the one ti1e conductor would use, which includes all the instnunents, plus the individual parts. I usually work for music Me: How do you go about a proof-reading assignment? Marilyn: The first thing I check is the parts schedule - do I have all the parts listed in the score? ·Next is the score. I check all the bar numbers, notes, clefs, key changes, accents, dynamics. When that's OK, I do the parts. On the one hand, proof-reading parts is cut and dried; they have to match the score. But the notes being right is only the start. I look at page turns -- are they possible? Violins can handle difficult turns, because two of them usually share one music stand, so half your violins will be playing through a page tum. Violas.and double basses ' don'tusually share, so page turns have to come when they can take the time -- or you lose their line. Sometimes the page is too crowded to keep your place on. You can't put 13 staves with ledger lines on a page, it can't work! Me: For, say, Candide, would you ever go to the Broadway cast Marilyn opens her hands in recordings? appeal: Marilyn grins: Nope, that's Charlie's problem! Ifl have a question, I'll call up the composer or the editor and ask him,. 'What did you mean? Did you mean to write the viola pari in the bass clef? Did you mean to cut this instrument off in the middle of the phrase?' Unless it's a really OBVIOUS mistake, I don't correct, I don't... (she reflects) well, yeah, I have. BUT, I'd base it on a repeat. And CUES! You have to think about where people are sitting. Say the cue for the tuba is from the second flute. But the second trombone is playing in his ear. How's he gmma hear the flute? SO, cue him from the trombone! Marilyn continues : NO musician is gomta count 63 bars rest. So you tell them trumpets at 31 for two bars- you don't even need the notes for this, just give 'em something to cmmect to - and at s'g you give them the 5 bars of viola that they echo and mesh into. If a conductor gives a wrong cue, the orchestra has to be able to fmd its feet fast. Cues are more than just the few notes before your part starts. Cues are your landmarks, your reassurance. I nod, thinking of· Marilyn s excellent if unorthodox directions to her house. "Tum left at the modem synagogue, three stop signs, right one block, we're on the northwest corner, park in the driveway BEIDND the house, not the one at the side." Me: Sounds like you like your work ... Marilyn: I LOVE my work! I hear and see a LOT of music. Something I'm doing no.v is that I'm Itzak Perlman's personal librarian. He wants a database of his repertoire sorted by style, ensemble, and so forth. He sent me boxes of his music - some of it's really old stuff, loose pages, • no covers, you don't know what you've got. I sort through it matching the printing, the key, sometimes the pages have edition numbers which makes it.easier. Whenl've got a stack that is all one thing I start humming through it - first movement, no; second movement, no; third · movement, aha! Mozart V in A! Me: Any occupational hazards? . . r. t• -t Marilyn replies prompt/)': Jwo.,. One, you have this MUSIC numing through your head. Right now I have a headful of Fancy Free- boy, an1 I looking forward to Candide! The other is your eyes. I can't work more than an hour and a half without a thirtyminute break. The most I can. do is 4 hours, 3 hours is a full day. And I go through a lot of these. Marilyn takes the top box off a stack on her desk to show me. The label reads ' 1 0PTREX1 Eye Masks." ToRONTo's ONLY COMPREHENSIVE CLASSiC!IL & CNTEMPORARY CONCERT LISTING SOURCE

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