A community concert series with heart and purpose

In 2022, as we were all coming out of the COVID crisis and craving a return to performing and music-making, the trio I’m fortunate to be in, the Alma Ensemble, sat down and after much discussion breathed life into a dream I’ve had since I was a little girl. “Alma del Core,” our community concert series, is now in its third season and has found its way into the heart of performers and audience alike, garnering the attention and support of the Roanoke Arts Commission and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. In case anyone else has had a similar idea brewing, I’ll note here what this series is all about, some basics about how it works, and some ideas we’ve had for future seasons. I’ll also follow-up with some posts in the weeks to come to address more specifics about funding,  feedback we’ve received from the community and our participants, and some hints we give our participants about what they might consider sharing with the audience before they play.

And as always, I welcome any thoughts or questions in the comments for this post. My hope is that we can all learn from and inspire one another with the goal of ensuring that sharing music with one another and with our community will continue to have an important place in our world. 

First, here is the description of the series on our website:

“Alma Del Core is a chamber music concert series that unites musicians from across our region - students, amateurs, and professionals - who wish to share music they love, both old and new. Our aim is to provide new opportunities for musicians to perform collaboratively and to present the music of historically underrepresented composers. 

This series was founded in keeping with Alma Ensemble's mission to create community through great music. We look forward to spending time exploring all of these new works and greeting new performers as they join us in this collaboration.”

Something that is not stated in this description is that another goal of ours is to create a safe space for all musicians to perform in without feeling like they’re being judged but rather that they have cheerleaders in us, the members of the Alma Ensemble, and in the other participants. We make it clear that we ourselves aren’t perfect so we don’t ever aim for or deliver “perfect” performances. We instead aim to deliver a gift to ourselves through music and to get more and more comfortable performing in public. What’s happened over the years is that the performers also find cheerleaders in our audiences. We have so many that make a point of attending as many concerts as they can because they have grown to love them. That is exactly our point in doing what we do. Our audiences wouldn’t return time and time again if they didn’t see the performances as something nourishing and valuable. Seeing and feeling that enthusiasm in turn feeds each musician that performs. 

Here are some other points that seem worth mentioning:

• We don’t expect anyone to perform by memory. That is up to each performer.
• We ask performers to consider saying just a few words about the music they are performing prior to playing, encouraging them to keep it simple, make it personal, and to not necessarily delve into nerdy, academic points unless that’s something that appeals to them. We feel the audience enjoys an extra glimpse into the music and the performer and also can help the performer feel less alone on stage. It’s a good way to calm nerves (once they can get over any qualms about public speaking) and feel like a part of the community as a whole.
• Whenever we can we pick pieces that combine professionals with students and/or amateurs so that we are performing side by side. When I was young I frequently had opportunities to perform with professionals. It was in those moments I learned much more than I ever learned in lessons. To ride the performance wave with a professional can be a powerful, exhilarating, and dare I say addictive endeavor. And inspiration flows in multiple directions. For a professional, playing with a young musician or with an enthusiastic amateur can be a great reminder of why we do what we do. 
• We keep our performances to one hour in length, with no intermission. Intermissions can pop the magical bubble that is created the moment a performance begins so we try to avoid that.
• We do not stipulate which style of music to perform. We welcome any genre. To us it is all music. 
• We encourage performances of compositions composed by the performers themselves. 
• Our dress rehearsals and sound checks are treated as open rehearsals. We use this time to do our cheerleading bit, sprinkled, if we think it would be helpful and well-received, with constructive feedback. 
• All of our performers are paid. We believe strongly in the importance of doing that so that we are acknowledging that what we do has value. At this point we pay $75 to any student 18 and above, amateur, and professional. For students under the age of 18 we give them a gift card.
• We stress to participants that a value of performing more is to have more than one experience to perform any given piece. We, as a trio and as soloists, use these concerts as a first-go for pieces that are new to us and it gives us the opportunity to explain to younger musicians and amateurs that even professionals can feel uncomfortable time performing something for the first time; that is takes multiple performances to feel like we really know what we’re doing and to hammer out the tricky spots that need more work. It reminds us all that each performance is a step in the journey we have with any given piece. No performance should feel like our only chance to get it right.

Some ideas for the future of our series:

• So far we’ve held our concerts in the same space but I think it would be great for us to take a version of what we do out into the community as well. Giving participants who wish to do so more opportunities to perform the same piece in close succession. And of course it would also expand our reach. 
• I’d also love to invite professionals from outside our community to join us. Perhaps a soloist that comes into town to perform with the symphony or other organization. Tricky scheduling-wise and would require more funding, but I think it would be even more inspiring and empowering for all of our participants. 
• I would love to see others take on something similar to this idea. We truly believe that the future of live performing is in the hands of not only the professionals, but of anyone who is willing to put themselves out there to perform. 

Do you do something similar in your area? Do you have any additional thoughts or ideas? Do you have any interest in trying something similar? 

Let me know in the comments! 

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The thrill and terror of being Opera Roanoke's rehearsal pianist

I'm sitting here in my home, doing the only thing I can do at the moment - eating a piece of cake accompanied by a glass of white wine at 4pm in the afternoon. 

I think it's called for. 

Every so often I'm called upon by our local opera company, Opera Roanoke, to serve as their rehearsal pianist. I think this is one of those invisible music roles that most people, even many pianists, don't realize even exist. Perhaps that's because it's a role that can literally just last a couple of hours. Or perhaps it's because there simply aren't a lot of us out there willing to do this kind of work. 

In my opinion it's an example of extreme musicking and it's one that I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with. The work is daunting much of the time, requiring a lot of time to prepare, the experience involves combination of humility and bravery, and often the job doesn't include a performance in front of an audience. On the flip side, I get to work with a brilliant conductor, Steven White, and amazing soloists (who are sitting only feet away from me I might add!) I also inevitably end up having my mind changed about more challenging monumental works (shout-out here to Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle and this most recent venture, Britten's War Requiem.) I love being proven wrong about music. It helps me understand that just like with some people, art sometimes needs to be probed, lived with, and given numerous chances, to win me over. 

So what does being a rehearsal pianist for productions like this entail? 

I'm usually given the score, which is a reduction of the orchestra part, reduced down (sort of) to a piano part, a few months in advance so that I can prepare. The reduction is much easier than reading a full orchestra score with all of its many lines of music, one for each instrument; I don't know how many pianists could actually play for a rehearsal off the orchestral score. Much of the reduction is somewhat playable but there are always pages that are quite frankly nightmares. There can be extra lines of music in addition to the left hand and right hand lines, the texture can be really dense, lines can cross and be on top of one another...it's enough to sometimes make my eyes cross or my stomach churn at first (or second, third, etc...) glance. There are often parts in which there's no possible way a pianist could play everything. I would say that much of the time this is the case. Which leads to one of the greatest challenges - deciding what to play and what to leave out. 

Making this decision means knowing exactly what's going on in the orchestra - knowing which line represents which instrument, knowing whether or not that instrument is heard in that particular spot, and deciding if it's a line that should be played in order to help the soloists pick up their entrance notes or to know when to come in. I do a lot of listening to recordings while following along in the piano reduction. I then make a lot of decisions regarding what I think I should/can play or not play and mark up the score to reduce the temptation to try and do any more than that at rehearsal time.

As a rehearsal pianist I am also very careful to understand the meter and to guess as well as I can how the conductor is going to conduct it. When I'm practicing I make it a point to count out loud while playing to ensure that I know exactly what's going on rhythmically. Of course there's no way to accurately predict exactly how the conductor is going to conduct any given spot, but if I understand what's going on and have pictured what the possibilities are it gives me a much better chance to save some time since rehearsal time is very limited. Doing a lot of this rhythmic prep and visualization also makes it more likely that I'll keep one part of my vision glued to the conductor during the rehearsal. Often times, when sections are really challenging note-wise, I ditch worrying about the pitches I'm playing in order to convey rhythm, pulse, and mood. 

Another goal of mine in this type of work is knowing the piece so well that I can try to mimic as many aspects of the orchestra as I can so that in the rehearsal the conductor and soloists can feel like they're getting a glimpse of what they're going to get with the orchestra. This goes back to listening to recordings over and over again and playing around with different articulation, pedaling, approaches to touch on the keyboard, and dynamics. My goal is to not just sound like I'm playing a Reader's Digest version on the piano.

After all the preparation I do, and here I should add that no matter what I do I never feel fully prepared, it's time for a rehearsal with just me and the conductor. Maestro White and I have worked together enough that we both have said we like to have this initial meeting, which is usually a week or so before the soloists' rehearsal. For me it helps me to find out if there are any lines I should be playing rather than leaving out and to be aware of tempos that might be faster than I had anticipated so that I know what final prep I need to do. It's also a really incredible opportunity for me to glean from him what he feels about the piece. I learn so much from seeing what he finds challenging himself and sensing his enthusiasm and love for the music is always infectious. It's often in these one-on-ones that I find myself inescapably falling in love with the music myself. Last but not least, these rehearsals usually have me falling flat on my face at some point. There's nothing quite like doing that in front of a brilliant conductor to help get over nerve and perfection issues. If I can see that he's fine with some of my more colorful note snafus and imperfections, sometimes even laughing about them together, it makes me a little less nervous for what comes next.

After final touch-ups on my own we come to the rehearsal with the conductor and soloists. After all that work leading up to this moment, it is often shocking how short these rehearsals can be. Today's rehearsal lasted just about 2 hours. With the most difficult sections, which I've often spent hours and hours of work on, we may only go over it once. Today for instance the most demanding (I think it's pretty insane, really) sections took about 5 minutes of rehearsal time. All of that work...for 5 terrifying/exhilarating minutes!! Sometimes I also get frustrated at not getting second chances to get something tricky right. I frequently find myself wanting another go but it's not about me and my ego or desire to show that I can play a particular passage. We often just move on and that's that. It's good practice for one's psyche. 

Another aspect I find amusing about these rehearsals is how much focus it takes to get through it with grace. I'm always somewhat torn because here I am in the midst of such amazing musicians, with singers whose voices are phenomenal, yet I'm so focused on the task at hand I'm not really able to take it all in. 

To be honest, I often walk out of these rehearsals wondering if it's really worth it for me. It's a lot of time, a lot of stress, a lot of pressure...and in the end I never get to perform the work as I've prepared it for these rehearsals. 

But my goodness, I have to say I do love it too. It makes my heart race, it dumps me into the middle of remarkable music, and it surrounds me with inspiring talent. I also really enjoy watching the soloists and conductor cheer each other on in rehearsal. So often they end up really moving one another with what they can do technically and artistically. To see them react to one another's art and to hear them talk of how much they love the music heightens my love for this type of collaboration and motivates me to keep doing this type of work. And in the end, when I've survived it all, it makes me realize how unbelievable the whole process really is and what we, as pianists, are capable of pulling off.

It's also a really good excuse for a piece of cake and glass of wine.

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Approaching practicing and performing from a healthier place

Learning music is not like learning facts yet I think so often that's how it's approached. In the practice room, you either get it right or you don't get it right. In my experience, that's not a helpful way to evaluate one's practicing. When I learn a piece of music, when I practice, I'm constantly seeking to improve several things. At the top of my list are:

• Confidence

• Comfort

• Character

• Conviction

Confidence: I want to keep working at feeling more and more confident about the notes, the rhythms, dynamics, stylistic elements, etc... This one is important to work on from the beginning on working on a piece of music.

Comfort: Comfort is also really important. I'm constantly evaluating how it feels to play the music. Am I doing anything physically that's creating accents I don't want? Am I doing things that are making it harder to play what I'm supposed to be playing? Is there a different fingering, bowing, place to take a breath, that would make the passage more comfortable physically and/or make it more easy to play musically? Character: How clear a character or mood do I have in mind for any given part of the music? How descriptive can my adjectives be for what I want to get across? Do I know what instrument I'd like any given spot to sound like? Conviction: This one tends to be more of a focus closer towards performance time and it's a great thing to focus on when doing mental practice. I like to ask myself, "Can I close my eyes away from the instrument and hear exactly how I want the music to go?" If I can successfully do this, I know I'm on the right track! With all of these points, it's important to note that there's never really any end point for any of them. I can always, ALWAYS get better at them all. My goal when I practice and quite frankly when I perform, is to keep improving each of these. If I've improved one or more aspects in a session, I walk away content. If I've improved one or more aspects in a performance, I also walk away content.

To conclude, rarely, if ever, do I not improve some aspect of one of these areas when I practice or perform. Which means I am pretty proud of the work I do. Which means I quite like practicing and performing. It makes me feel good about myself & what I'm capable of. The audience can sense this and I think it makes it much easier for them to relax and enjoy the performance as a result which then feeds my enjoyment of the whole experience.

One positive thing leads to another. I highly recommend it!

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Sightreading Reality Check - there's more than meets the eye

I think about the skill of sightreading music a lot. My pontificating on the topic goes hand in hand with my fascination about the brain and about what we are capable of doing as humans, more specifically as musicians, and even more specifically as pianists. Sightreading is a complex, multi-layered task that involves more than our eyes and hands; just to name a few layers, it involves our ears, imagination, problem solving skills, a kinesthetic sense of the keyboard's topography in relation to our own body, and recall of all that we've experienced at the piano previously. The complexity can often overwhelm me when I'm discussing the topic or coaching someone privately, especially since there seems to be two prevalent views of this skill's acquisition:

• You're either born with the skill or you're not so you shouldn't expect to get better
• You can get better by just doing it 

In my opinion, neither of these are correct. I do think some people are perhaps born with skills that help one be more naturally better readers and I also know from personal experience that having constant exposure, especially early on in one's musical journey, can make skill acquisition happen more naturally and easily. But I also believe that it's possible for anyone to improve their sightreading no matter where they are in their journey but it's not through "just doing it" on a regular basis. Yes we need to practice it consistently but we need to do it with strategies in mind to address the many different skills that go into musically processing and reproducing the clouds of black scratches on the page that manage to represent music and all that it can entail. 

I've blogged about much of this before so feel free to check out my other posts on the topic. In today's post I want to share two recent videos that further explain my thoughts on the topic and recommendations for how others can work on sightreading themselves. The first video is on the shorter side. For a more extensive discussion, see the second one.

This first video clip is from the end of the 100th episode of my Sightreading Maverick show, which I livestream most Sundays at 1pm ET on my YouTube channel. 

This second video is an interview I did with David Holter who teaches piano in North Carolina. In the past year he started up a Facebook group specifically for pianists who are interested in improving their sightreading skills called the Piano Sight Reading Community. It's a wonderfully supportive group that now has over 1700 members - I highly recommend joining whether you're a teacher, student, or amateur. We tease out a lot of different issues over the course of 45 minutes. 

If after watching either or both of these you still have any questions or want to share your own experiences or thoughts, please do feel free to comment here. 

Playing around with PlayScore 2 - an app for every musician

As a professional piano collaborator and accompanist I am very protective of my job. It makes sense then that I would be wary of apps and videos that offer accompaniments for instrumentalists and singers to use in order to learn and practice their music. When I was approached recently by the folks at PlayScore 2 about their app, my initial reaction was to politely respond that I don't do reviews on my blog and to leave it at that. But before I responded, I took a few moments to watch one of the videos they had sent along in their email. It had caught my eye because it was titled, "PlayScore 2 for Choir Directors and Singers - Make a Playable Rehearsal Score."

I had recently had a discussion with a college voice student I accompany about the challenges that she has as the choir director's assistant. To insure that everyone in the choirs has the tools they need to learn their parts, she had been regularly taking the time to record parts and combinations of parts and sending them to the singers. Unfortunately this was a process that was taking a lot of time and energy out of her already busy days as a student. After watching the PlayScore 2 video I was excited to check out the app for myself and to see if it was easy and effective enough to use to truly benefit choir directors and their singers.

For the past month or so I've been exploring this app from many different angles. It's one that in my mind is a bit like the Swiss Army knife of music apps. It can serve many different purposes in many different situations for many different types of musicians. 

Are you a choir director, assistant, or choir member?

As mentioned earlier in the post and in their video above, you can create practice recordings using any combination of parts, including or excluding any accompaniment parts as well. Email the files to choir members and they can play them back on their own devices within the PlayScore 2 app. Only the person creating the tracks in this instance would need a paid subscription. Singers can open and playback with just the free version. 

Is reading music notation or sightreading something you're working on? 

Scan the music you want to read in and then use their playback features, which includes a scrolling red vertical bar (see image to the left) and the ability to change tempo, to help you follow along in the score. For sightreading practice, this is one way to encourage you to keep on going when you make a mistake. 

Would you like to have a way to practice and play with another part?
Playing with an app is not the same as playing with real musicians but PlayScore 2 can help in the practice room when you are by yourself. During the pandemic, as a piano collaborator at a college, I've been spending hours and hours recording accompaniment tracks for singers and often times I choose a tempo that isn't ultimately what's best for the singer. There can be a lot of wasted time spent re-recording to try to get the "perfect" tempo. With PlayScore 2 they won't necessarily be hearing a real piano while they're practicing, but they will be able to choose a tempo that works for practicing or experiment with different tempos for performance. If a particular key doesn't feel quite right, choosing to transpose the piano part can help find out what key does work. I also love that you can loop tricky measures. 

Do you want to be able to easily import music into notation software so that you can make your own arrangements?
I play in a trio that is made up of piano, flute, and clarinet. There isn't a lot of music written for this combo so we often have to make our own arrangements. Up until now this has been a painstaking process since I don't have a fancy setup - I've had to hand enter each note into Musescore. I try to take joy in the process but usually I end up pretty tired and frustrated. This past week, with PlayScore 2, I've been able to scan in 2 different pieces which I've then converted into XML files and imported into Musescore. Voilá! Notes are instantly there with dynamics, articulation marks, dynamics...you name it! It's made the process of arranging so much easier. The app works with other music notation software such Dorico and Sibelius.

Do you have a visual impairment?

Using the same process mentioned in the previous paragraph, PlayScore 2 allows you to create XML files which can then be imported into braille music notation apps. Or you can use the app to learn the score by ear. 

Closing thoughts

After using the app for several weeks and talking with the folks at PlayScore 2, it's clear to me that the technology that's used to make this app work the way it does is pretty remarkable and is constantly being improved upon. 

I've also learned that it is very important when scanning music in to follow their recommendations in order to get the best possible results. You don't need a fancy camera - a good phone is all you really need. They have thorough instructions in the app itself and also on their webpage. They also make it clear that the quality of the original score impacts the end result on the app side of things. At this time the technology can't read hand-written scores or one that use a font that looks handwritten. It also doesn't do well with really old editions. If you get stuck you can also contact them directly. They seem more than happy to help troubleshoot whatever issues you might encounter.

And last but not least, the price. You can pay for the app monthly for $5.99 or you can save quite a bit of money, something I'm partial to, by paying for a year at a time which is $26.99. Either option, but especially the year subscription, seems more than worth it, especially if you can use the app for multiple purposes. Right now the app is available for both Android and Apple devices. They are also working on making a PC accessible version. Stay tuned about that! 

In summary, although I don't regularly agree to write about products on my blog, I wanted to make an exception this time since I found so many great uses for PlayScore 2 and have already recommended it to several musicians. Rather than seeing something like this as a threat to my job, I see it as a tool I can use to enhance what I already do as a coach, collaborator, teacher, and performer. 

Give it a try and let me know what you think! 

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