Special Post: 10,000 views and Growing! Special Surprise for all!

Hey everyone, Sulli here and I'm here to gratefully announce we've hit 10,000 views! I am here to announce that we are hosting a new contest, along with a few changes. We hit view #10,000 sometime Saturday morning so whomever it was that rolled us over, thank you! And also thank you for all the support everyone has given to bringing this page as far as it has! We couldn't have gotten as far without viewers like you.



I have talked this over with the other authors of the blog and we have decided that the blog needs a new name and a new logo to accommodate. However, we don't have any ideas for a new name so we are asking everyone to submit a name and a logo idea. The best 3 ideas of each will go down into final vote between everyone out there. Lester, Dallas and I will have the final say on it. The person/people who are selected will get a shout out, and will write a song in your name.

Also, for those who have been following me on Twitter know I am celebrating the 150th follow I'm extending the video to two: The acoustic fiddle tunes on my cello and then the Star Spangled Banner on the electric cello. However, I will have to hold off on posting them for a couple of days due to the extent of recording them while babysitting. However, I WILL have them up asap! Between those and working on the Composer's Vlog episodes, I've been a little stressed out.
Before I go, I have one last announcement. Before school starts for me, I want to post one more special episode as a test for future series (As you may have noticed, I have been testing a lot out lately). I have been talking to some upcoming dubstep artist who are working on a charity fundraiser and have decided to review all the albums and say which I think had the best album. I will have the first episode of 3 up next Friday. As always, don't forget to subscribe if you haven't, leave a comment or email if you have a question/concern/suggestion and have a good day!

University of Tennessee Cello Workshop: Day 1 (post #50!)

How's it going guys? Sulli here with the 50th post of the blog! I never thought that it would wind up the way it has, but I'm here with an update on what you guys missed and my opinion of what all has been taught during the series. If you like this and would like for me to do more episodes such as attending and "reporting" for things like this, then follow the blog on either Facebook, Twitter, or let me know! I would love to do more things like this if you guys would like me to! As a general idea, I'm not posting everything I wrote down. I think it would be a better idea to give you guys what I can type and make as clear as possible without a demonstration  Also, I do not think you guys would like to read all 4 or 5 pages of my notes.

Anyways, day one has been great. I arrived rather late (got lost on my way up here multiple times), however I did manage to catch a few really great tricks and learned a few things that I never had thought of doing. I walked in on a master class which was being mentored by Sera Smolen was talking to the student about a more natural way to start music, especially those that feel like it thrown you into it for the beginning. Mrs. Smolen recommended the student to do two things: Imagine the sound that you want to hear and do the "Circle, Set, Pull!". In this case, the student was playing the first movement of the Saint Sean's Cello Concerto #1 (for those of you who have no idea what I'm referring to, give this a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx6UDgi9TEA). Mrs. Smolen said for the student to start by imagining the note that would start the piece off with as one way to prep and even out starting inconsistencies. The other is a trick that I have seen a few times before but never looked into the reasoning, which I am a little mad that I hadn't. Mrs. Smolen said to use the "Circle, Set, Pull!". Basically, it means to Circle the bow from wherever is comfortable for you to the frog, Set the bow so that you get a good grip with the string, and Pull the bow so that the momentum does not settle and you have to move from start. The way I thought about it was in the case of looking at a drag strip (or any kind of car racing you can clearly think of); If the car simply floors the gas while it's stopped then it usually starts by spinning out and takes time to get a good motion forward. However, if a car starts out going close to the speed that the driver wishes to achieve and then floors it, then it will not spin the tires.

The second student I saw was playing the prelude to Bach's Cello Suite 3 (Again, in case you need a listen to what I'm referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0dWyGsroNI). The main point I got out of this was in order to play chords on cello or to play anything involving shifting across all strings, the bow speed and pressure must vary and not remain static. So, the speed at which one should play the C and G strings should be slower and heavier than the speed and pressure used on the D and A strings. To most people, I believe this is a major *facepalm* moment on my behalf, but being taught in the public school system tends to have a lot of disadvantages, and small technique stuff like this is one of those things that I was never taught. Once I sat there and thought about it I had one of those major "A HA" moments; it is a very good point to make sure bowed string students should know. So in the case of all of the chords in the Bach, one would play a slower and slightly heavier bow for the lower chords and then speed and lighten the bow up once it gets to the higher strings. This is one of those things that must be practiced in the practice room, and has to be overdone and then some in order to actually master if you haven't already done so.

The next event that I took notes in was the Group Scale workshop. The majority of the notes I took were on bowing studies, however there were a few major things that caught my attention. The first thing was the statement that students can get more work done out of reworking a simple song versus learning a concerto. That was another one of those "A HA" moments that really grabbed my attention and said, "I need to start teaching this sort of stuff to my students back home!" Bow control is one of the big things that either make or break an orchestral musician (and to a certain extent an orchestra). It not only largely controls the quality of tone that comes out of our instruments (If you don't believe me, go try this one out with a camera at your local music shop), but is a major attribution to stylistic development in a piece. So for a stringed musician to continually grow, said musician should be able to have complete control of their bow. I'm going to go into an episode of the practice series to continue debating this point and to dig into deeper details of ways to help strengthen your control of the bow. 

The main help with this was an exercise that was called the "Add 'Em Up". The general idea is to get from point A to point B (in the case of the class, a 3 octave C Major scale) in one bow. One would start with the tonic note and would achieve this by playing it in a detached style (think of it as a staccato but with a little more body) while starting at the frog. Then you would jump to the tip and play the tonic plus the next note in the same detached style. Following that, one would go back to the frog and play the first 3 notes and etc. until the musician has successfully played whatever the musician was trying to achieve. I will post a demonstration of this if anyone would like a visual explanation.  The other major trick that I think should be explained is called "Finger Permutations". The basics of the exercise is to play the exercise at a slower rhythm (for example 8th notes at 80 BPM), then double the number of notes but half the value. Now, the reason it's called "Finger Permutations" is to start playing the following fingerings on any string. Start with a 1 2 3 4, then go 1 2 4 3, followed by 1 3 2 4, 1 3 4 2, 1 4 2 3, and finally 1 4 3 2. Then one can switch to starting on different fingers and keep changing the pattern. Some will be easy and some will be hard but mastering all of them is the only way to loosen up the muscles in your fingers.

There is one last thing that was covered in today's lesson and that was all about improvisation. I will come back to this topic on my next practice episode, however a lot of the info covered was really great for not only improving ones views on creating music, but it also was covered great ways to bond with people in your band or whatever ensemble you are in. Along with that, I would like to congratulate Mr. Wesley Baldwin, Mr. Carter Enyeart and the UT Orchestra on a great performance of the David Ott Double Cello Concerto! 

I hope you enjoyed this special 50th episode of the Adam Sullivan Music Theory Blog! If you want more, or have something you would like to suggest then find my Facebook Fanpage, Twitter, or message me on here! Thanks for reading and hope to see you back for Day 2!

Special Post: 2,000 US views and an announcement!

Hello and welcome back to all of my regulars, and an especially warm welcome to the people who are being referred to the site thanks to Magic Rosin! I am proud to announce the 2,000 US viewer was seen last night which is a milestone for me! I honestly imagined this site to be a random page that was searched every now and again for a laugh as I talked about something that no one cared to read! But seeing I have hit the 2,000 viewer in the US, and a grand total of 2,400 viewers which there are about 40 or 50 regulars. I would like for all of the new viewers to have a nice start with the blog. As you have probably guessed, my name's Adam and I play the cello and love to compose music... And not just one genre in particular. I think that all music, even if it's not one kind that I listen to often or at all, is valid on some level. It should be shared with the public and cherished as a piece of art. The differences in music should be separated by a permeable wall; Classical, for example, should influence modern music just as much as modern "classical" music should be influenced by modern music such as pop, rock and etc. This doesn't necessarily mean for one to put a beat box to Vivaldi's Four Seasons but if you can make it work then do so. Music is determined by the composer!

Now, you may be looking at that and wondering why it: A) sounds like a vitamin water bottle label, or B) what is the point of that if this is a blog about music theory. The answer to latter question is this blog isn't all about theory. I try to put a mix of things on here to not only open people up to the variety in the world! In order to understand music, you need to know what music is like all over the world and try mixing new elements into your style. For example, I am working on a few arrangements of some classical Christmas tunes for the holidays and one that I'm going to assume a lot of you have heard is The Piano Guys' version of Nearer, My God, To Thee (link). For those who haven't heard the original, then it is a standard SATB (Soprano, Alto, Tener, Bass) hymn for a church choir. However as you hear around half way into a 7/8 feel and sounds almost syncopated at times. That is the general idea behind composing and arranging music: Find (or create) a tune and make it fit in the context of what you want. And in the blog I have a couple of series that I have to help you with this adventure and an important announcement. The first series I started was the actual music theory lessons which have been going on for a while. Coming up after ever 5 to 10 episodes, I do a theory recap post to help catch everyone up on what they missed. Following that, I started the "How to Practice" series in which I give situations where a lot of student musicians get stuck and I present solutions to those problems by either giving the most common way out of it or I create a method (which is what the next episode will be on *hint hint*).

And now, down to the final and the most important part of the post: The big announcement. I am starting 3 new series for the blog: "Interviews with the Professionals", a Fan Music series and The "Global Musical Experiment". The first series is exactly what is says; being a student at Winthrop University I get to talk to the professionals who stop by and ask questions so I have created a series of questions that I ask everyone and share their knowledge with you. The second is also as it sounds as well, if you guys want to write a song, submit it to me and I like it, I will post it on here for everyone to see and get you some views. Finally, the last one is a little more complex than it appears.

As I stated before, I have a somewhat large international fan base ranging from Great Britain, France and Russia to South Korea, Indonesia and Japan. I would like to start an interactive page where everyone can post a little bit about where they are from and post a video describing the song they choose to post and why they chose it. I have already started this "forum" sort of discussion on my Facebook Fan Page with a few people but I need everyone to help pitch some music in! However, the magic begins when I select your post and put it on here to share! So if everyone will join the Facebook Fan Page and post one thing on it then this will be an amazing musical learning adventure for everyone to see life from other parts of the world. And if you're not a fan of Facebook, then I have a Twitter page you can follow as well! Hope you decide to stick around and don't be afraid to look around the page or contact me with questions, changes or ideas you have!