Classical Concerts for Less than a Latte
In a tight economy, orchestras around the US are finding creative ways to reach new audiences and the New World Symphony, a training orchestra in South Beach, Miami, is no exception. For $2.50, pocket change that would barely cover the price of the wash and dry cycle at a local laundromat, the symphony offered mini concerts in November and April.
Each concert ran 20 to 30 minutes and listeners heard a reduced version of the orchestra in the form of a clarinet quintet that played Mozart, Handel, Brahms, and Bartok in the symphony’s Lincoln Theater home. Dress was casual, so patrons in flip-flops and shorts could attend a concert without the fear of being turned away or forced to wear a rental jacket.
One way the Miami-based symphony enticed beachcombers into the facility was by sending a carnival barker dressed as Sherlock Holmes to attract passersby at a popular location. Instead of shelling out dollars for henna tattoos, trendy shoes, and margaritas, they scrounged up a few bucks for a concert.
April’s concert brought in more than 900 listeners. "We intend to lower the threshold for everyone who passes our theater,” says Howard Herring, president of the New World Symphony orchestral academy.
Brains that Play Together Stay Together
Musicians who play in unison with others have similar brain activity, according to a new study from researchers of the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the University of Salzburg. The study showed that the brain waves of guitarists playing a jazz song together were synchronized.
Eight pairs of guitarists were hooked up to an electroencephalography machine, which measures electrical activity in the brain. The results showed that the more the guitarists played, the more synchronized their brain waves became. Several regions in the brain reflected this synchronicity. The areas where it was the strongest were the frontal and central regions. Other areas affected were the temporal and parietal regions.
BMC Neuroscience, who published this study, suggests that coordinated activities that people do together, like playing music, are preceded and accompanied by brain wave synchronization. The authors say there are many types of activities where two brains coordinate—for example, walking with someone at a set pace, playing sports, dancing, or playing music as a group or duet. To see a video clip of the experiment, visit: www.makingmusicmag.com/vibes/brains.
Second that Emotion
If your mate has the uncanny ability to detect even the slightest mood change in your speech, chances are, he or she
is a musician. According to researchers from Northwestern University, musicians are better attuned to detecting emotion in sound.
The study provides the first biological evidence that musical training improves a person’s ability to recognize emotion
in sound or speech. The more years of musical experience the musicians had and the earlier they began their training,
the better their nervous system’s ability to process emotion in sound.
Researchers observed the subjects’ brainstem responses to pitch, timing, and timbre of a scientifically tested sound.
Participants, aged 19 to 35, listened to a 250-millisecond fragment of a distressed baby’s cry. Electrodes measured their responses on whether musicians or nonmusicians could zero in on the complex emotional part of the sound as opposed to the more basic element of the sound. The music-minded members of the study fared well, possessing “finely tuned” auditory systems.
According to another study of music recognition conducted by Richard Ashley, associate professor at Northwestern, musicians might even be able to sense emotion in sounds after hearing them for a mere 50 milliseconds.
Study author Dana Strait believes musical training may help people with Asperger’s syndrome and autism better identify emotion in others.
Special Delivery
With all the relief efforts and aid that was needed in communities affected by Hurricane
Katrina, Central New Yorker, Norm Andrzejewski, a former New Orleans resident, couldn’t sit on the sidelines.
Founding Operation Southern Comfort, Andrzejewski has traveled down to the Gulf Coast 19 times, helping to rebuild homes in Mississippi and Louisiana. One of his most important deliveries was a collection of 13 pianos bought from a Syracuse music store that was closing.
Hauling the large shipment down to high schools and churches in county-sized St. Bernard Parish, where only one piano in the school district survived the flooding, was a worthwhile endeavor.
Floodwaters cut off access to life’s necessities for residents for quite some time after the hurricane, and with several big chain stores gone, the arrival of the pianos seemed like a luxury.
"I was on the delivery for the last six pianos and I was able to meet the principals, music teachers, and kids,” says
Andrzejewski. “I had the honor to hear the teachers play and the kids sing and it was just beautiful.”
The Music Boy
When PS 37 in Jamaica, Queens, was strapped for cash and could no longer afford to pay the band teacher, an unlikely candidate stood up and took the baton. An 11-yearold pianist and saxophone player, sixth-grader Paul Sheriff
started conducting the school band more than a year ago, which now plays tunes from popular artists Bob Marley, Ben E. King, and Bow Wow.
"Music makes this school more alive,” says Sheriff, leader of the Cynthia Jenkins School Band. “The school is better
with music in it.”
Budget constraints in the 600-student school forced administrators to abandon their music program. Last December,
Sheriff was acting out while students were lining up in the auditorium. To keep him busy, parent coordinator Joan
Estick—remembering that Sheriff played the piano—told him to play the “Pledge of Allegiance.”
It soon became a morning routine. Within a few weeks, Paul looked into starting a band with his friends. About a dozen children meet at lunch and after school to practice with a band made up of piano, drums, sax, trumpet, and other instruments. The band has played at a district-wide concert at nearby PS 147 and the school’s multicultural festival. Next, the band plans to perform at graduation and career day.
Sheriff ’s primary exposure to music is in church, where he plays Sunday services and occasionally at weddings. His mother, Molly Sheriff, says music has been a comforting activity for Paul since his father died of cancer three years ago. A single mom of five, Molly saved her money for a piano to fill their home with music.
"Music is a wonderful thing,” she says. “It soothes the soul and comforts the heart.”
Orchestras Lend a Helping Hand
American orchestras, inspired by the film The Soloist starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx, mobilized to feed
the hungry. The movie tells the true story of a friendship struck between a Los Angeles Times columnist (played by
Downey) and a homeless, schizophrenic Juilliard-trained cellist (Foxx).
At least 163 orchestras participated in food drives before the movie’s recent release. Participating orchestras included
New York Philharmonic, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The food was distributed to local assistance organizations associated with the group Feeding America, which provides food to more than 25 million Americans a year.
"The story of The Soloist reminds us that classical music has the power to sustain spirits and change lives, even under the most difficult circumstances,” says Jesse Rosen, president and CEO of the League of American Orchestras, a national service organization that organized many of the food drives.
Downey Jr. is also a singer, songwriter, and pianist, who has released an album, The Futurist. Before his acting career, Foxx played the piano professionally, and studied classical piano and music theory on scholarship at San Diego’s US International University.
