Winter Quarter November 29, 2004 - February 27, 2005

Winter Quarter Means Composition Contest Time!

Students! Time to polish your music writing skills! Music Arts’ special wintertime activity is the Composition Contest, and all students are eligible.

Every year, our instructors encourage their students to unleash their creativity by writing their own music. Naturally, the instructors are trying to be sneaky as well, figuring that it’s a good way to help you learn about note values and develop your musical ‘ear,’ or if you’re more advanced, about composition techniques.

All that’s needed is a pencil and a sheet of staff paper (ask your instructor for one if you don’t have your own manuscript pad). You can write a simple tune for just your instrument, or a duet. And for students interested in composing for ensembles, there’s a special prize - the possibility of hearing your piece played by the Oak Ridge Community Orchestra at one of their rehearsals, if not at a real concert.

It’s OK to ask your instructor (or anyone else) for help if you need it, as long as it’s your own work that’s turned in.

Compositions are due at the beginning of February, and will be judged by a panel of Music Arts Instructors. Get busy and enjoy yourself! Share with the world what you hear in your head.

We behave like guests

Please remember that Music Arts is essentially a guest at the Alliance Church, and you’re our guests. This means that we don’t disturb church things, including, for example, their bulletin board or items in the kitchen. Using their phone should also be avoided, except in cases of emergency for outgoing local calls, and never for calls in to your instructor. Since many of us seem to be depending more and more on cell phones, this shouldn’t be a huge problem.

Parents’ Guest Column:
On the Naggin’ Wagon

by Gay Marie Logsdon

Old habits die hard. For months I’ve practiced the intonations of June Cleaver, Beaver’s cheery mother. Yet I sometimes find myself lapsing into, “Hey, Janie, get down here. It’s time to praaac-tice.”*

Most kids will tell you the worst part of music lessons is practicing. Ditto for parents who try to get their kids to run through scales and replay troublesome lines. (Yes, Joanna, practice means to play it more than once). The kids can always find something more engaging—reading and rereading Harry Potter books, for instance.

Still, I’m trying to give up nagging. After dinner, I ask my girls what they have left to do for tomorrow. Together we make the list — perhaps another math problem, bath, and oh, practice. Then I offer a choice, “Who’s first in the bath?” “Not me, I’ll practice.” If anyone claims she doesn’t need to practice, I remind her that the teacher said to do it five times a week. Then I ask, “So which two days do you want off?” Predictably it’s Friday and Saturday.

Even those two days aren’t entirely exempt. I sneak in extra practices by asking my girls to show visitors their instruments. The visitor invariably asks to hear some-thing, and my girls happily oblige. Gradually, my girls have found they like to play music at home. They have also found they like to perform special pieces with friends.

This past summer, when I let my girls trade in their rented instruments for a trumpet and a flute of their very own, I made them promise to practice more faithfully, even when school was out. They dutifully agreed. But then, there in the music store, they spied a far better incentive to practice — books of Harry Potter music. And they said they would buy them with their own money. Now that’s music a parent yearns to hear!

*The names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent - gml

Meet - Amanda Thomas, our new fiddle instructor . . .

Fiddling is back at Music Arts! After a careful search for over a year, the music school has signed on Amanda Thomas to teach fiddle. Amanda was a big hit with the school’s Board of Directors and Advisory Board when she auditioned for the teaching position.

As a student at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, where she minored in Music, Thomas participated in the Bluegrass Music Program for the entire four years and was the student director of bluegrass band classes for three semesters.

She’s played in Bluegrass Festivals throughout the country, as well as a tour to Italy, Sicily and the Azores. She was a frequent performer at Dollywood, where she also played fiddle in the production “Fire on the Mountain.”

A woman of many talents, she’s also played fiddle, mandolin, guitar and sang in “Hillbilly Hoedown,” a Pigeon Forge show which included a broad range of music, including bluegrass, country, swing, gospel and classic rock n’ roll. Additionally, she’s toured with country songwriter Mary Sue Englund, and performed at Dixie Stampede. If you think music should be fun, take up fiddling! Guaranteed to put a smile on your face!

... and Virginia Vowell, our new voice instructor!

A native Oak Ridger has come back home. Virginia Nelson Vowell has come full circle with Music Arts, from being a student, then a Student Teaching Intern with the music school’s summer program while in high school, and is now a full-fledged faculty member.

Virginia’s specialty is Musical Theatre. She explains that her degree, a Bachelor of Music from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, is essentially a degree in vocal performance with a theater emphasis.

In addition to private teaching and as a Music Arts Intern, part of Virginia’s teaching experience comes from a year she spent in Charleston, South Carolina, as a professional actress with the Charleston Stage Company. In addition to appearing in numerous stage performances, she taught after-school theater classes for school-age students.

In addition to writing and directing three one-act plays, based on fantasy Shakespeare themes (for example, what kind of romantic advice would the three witches from “MacBeth” give to the heroine in “Taming of the Shrew?), she also gave workshops about the history of musical theater, for middle school and high school students. Our other vocal instructors, Lisa Griggs and Cheryl Scappaticci, are as delighted as we are to have Virginia with us!

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Give us a call at 482-5614 to find out more about lessons. And earn free lessons when you refer new students to any of our Music Arts instructors (see page 8 of your Student Guide, or check the Student Guide info online under ‘Activities’ at www.MusicArtsSchool.org).