  |
Brian Groner has been music director of the Fox Valley Symphony since 1995. From time to time he will share his thoughts with you right here in his blog.
| « Previous |
|
Page 1 of 5 |
|
Next » |
More of the basics
Aug. 10, 2010
Here are a few more answers to questions which I am often asked.
The basics....
Why are there so many string players?
The short answer to that question is that there need to be many string players to balance out the stronger sounds of the brass.
The longer answer is that the strings are reflected acoustic instruments. Their sound ends up reaching the listener after having been bounced off a wall or the floor. This creates acoustic disadvantage in as much as the sounds produced by the direct instruments reach the listener’s ears first and then tend to overpower the sound of the indirect instrument. That is one reason why the strongest direct acoustic instruments are also placed at the back of the orchestra, to help minimize this effect.
On a historical note, the years before and after the French Revolution saw a great increase in the size of the typical concert hall. To fill these halls with sound, the composers of the era added more of the powerful instruments to the orchestra. This required a much larger string sections to balance out the addition of several more Horns and a full trombone section.
Is an orchestra the same as a band?
While a band uses the woodwind family, the brass family, and the percussion family the orchestra uses the string family of instruments as well.
There are a number of orchestral pieces which have been transcribed (rewritten) for band and there are some composers who have written two versions of the same piece, one for orchestra and the same piece for band.
Do tickets cover the cost of a concert?
Typically ticket income covers around 30-35 percent of the cost of running an orchestra. Some orchestras which have the privilege of playing the same concert more than once are able to recoup a higher percentage of their expenses through ticket revenue. The rest of the orchestra’s expenses are covered by corporate and individual contributions, proceeds from endowment funds and grants. I think that many audience members would be surprised to know how high the cost is to simply purchase and/or rent the music which is performed on an orchestral season.
More answers soon.......
BtG |
 |
Ideas
July 27, 2010
A few weeks back, Teresa and I stopped to get a bite to eat after our trip to the gym. She had worked out with her trainer (a kind hearted professional body builder) and was in need of some food immediately. We had happened upon a small and interesting looking Middle Eastern restaurant. The food was absolutely incredible and the service was leisurely but attentive enough. Only a few tables were filled this day and each of them seemed to hold persons of varying ethnicities and several languages. What made this an exceptional lunch was not just the good food but the conversation at the table next to us. There were 5 people there and the topics of their charmingly esoteric conversation (I tried unsuccessfully to stop eavesdropping) included the roots of Islam, its peace promoting doctrines and also the life of John Calvin before he penned his 5 points of Calvinism. There was a broad spectrum of ideas shared and one could easily observe the obvious mutual respect they had for each other as ideas were bandied about. I was happy to be the silent spectator at their table. Their conversation was an example of our cherished freedom, for we live in a country which allows, and in fact promotes, a fearless exchange of ideas. This is a great country, you know. |
|
Vroom, vroom!
July 27, 2010
For those of you who know me well, you have observed that I have a fondness for cars. Today I said good bye to my Audi A4 3.0 quattro. After three and one half years with me it started to spend much too much time in the shop, and I knew that there were several large and pricey repairs looming perilously on the horizon. And so, the last few days I have spent a bit of time looking for its replacement. I went to a western suburb of the city to take a look at a rather sensible, yet fun, car. Its 4 wheel drive system (like the Audi’s) would help keep me safe during the winter months and so it fulfills the safe part of the equation. It is technically a wagon and so it will haul mulch or bags of concrete with ease, which means it is practical. What I did not know when I saw it online was that it had been “slightly enhanced”. While it is still technically street legal I can tell you that the sound coming from under the hood when I drove it home was quite inspiring. That is the fun part. I will be safe in the new car and happy too. WooHoo! |
|
Wine Find
May 7, 2010
Ok, so I spend a little too much time thinking about, savoring and now making wine. Yesterday Teresa and I opened a bottle of a Mendocino County (CA) pinot noir that we had not had before. Those of you that know me well know that I have a fondness not only for pinot noir in general but Mendocino Co. pinot noirs in particular. With the notable exception of the 1999 Stone’s Throw pinot noir which started me down this slippery slope of pinot noir obsession (note that this is well before the movie Sideways came out in 2004) Mendocino County’s Toulouse Vineyards and in particular the genuinely artistic treatment of pinot noir by Toby Hill at Phillips Hill have been my favorites. These particular pinot noirs tend to be a bit pricey for frequent consumption and so it was with a sense of exploration that we opened the bottle of Castle Rock pinot noir. The grapes are Mendocino County grapes but the winery is in Sonoma.
Upon opening the bottle it very clear that this was real. The grapes were right, the wine was done well. There was a slight “barnyard” odor in the nose at first, which disappeared upon some good aeration. It wasn’t anything bad, it was sort of like drinking some wine in the country and then the wind shifts and ends up blowing some faint organic odors toward you from a quite distant flock of happy sheep. And the best part is, it went away. This wine is slightly lighter in body and a bit lower in alcohol than my favorite pinot noirs but upon searching the web we discovered that the normal selling price in this area is somewhere between $10 and $12. That is worth a little experimentation yes? Woo Hoo!! |
|
DIRTY word
May 5, 2010
When reading the title of this blog perhaps you thought that I was going to explore the use of profanity and write about the words that get bleeped on television. George Carlin did that years ago: it's already been done. Read on and you will find out what I mean by dirty word.
I am a subscriber to Merriam Webster’s word of the day. Each day I open my email to find today’s fresh new word. Often they are not that unusual and aren’t fresh at all. It might be a word that I have used since childhood or it might be a word that is interesting but I can’t possibly remember it 'till noon. Today’s word is nosocomial. It is unusual enough that the spell checker program thinks it is not a word. It means: acquired or occurring in a hospital. That is something far too common.
When I read the new word it brought back not so pleasant memories of the hospital bed in which my father died, after acquiring a nosocomial infection. And then the same bed a few years later which my mother occupied after surgery, acquiring the same nosocomial infection which brought her perilously close to death. Fortunately she recovered after being moved to the Cleveland Clinic and has been doing well for quite some time.
In the overall scheme of things perhaps those words which get bleeped out on television won’t hurt us as much a really dangerous word like nosocomial.
On that note, I think that I will call my mother and wish her well. |
|
Guess who's coming for dinner......
Apr. 2, 2010
Someone left a message on the website asking a very interesting question. She wrote “If you could invite one composer to dinner, who would it be and why?” Having had dinner with some of my favorite living composers I started thinking about which of my favorite no longer living composers I would most enjoy sitting down with for a meal and conversation? I know that it would not be Bach, as his conversation was usually about money. It would not be Mozart. He communicated much more effectively with music than with his words. Did you know that there have been recent articles written that postulate that Mozart had Tourette's syndrome? It would not be Rossini as he overate much of the time and I would have to do all of the talking as he ate. It would not be Chopin as I would spend the meal watching and analyzing his obsessive compulsive behaviors.
It would be so very interesting to be able to talk to someone like Amy Marcy Cheney Beach, a brilliant pianist and composer who, during the time of her marriage, was “allowed” to perform once a year. That was just the way things were for married women of her day. Or, Nannerl Mozart, who was as gifted as her brother but of course was not allowed to keep performing when she reached what was considered a marriageable age. To hear how they saw these inequities, to allow them to voice their resentments and hear how they adapted to what they had to do would be a real eye opener. |
|
Basics
Mar. 16, 2010
As it is in every profession and avocation, there is a lot to know about the business of an orchestral performance. There seems to be some basic questions which people new to the orchestra world have that tend to keep. Sometimes it keeps them from feeling comfortable with simply listening to the music and enjoying the amazing energy that flows over you in a live performance. I will try to answer a few of them. These are questions which I have been asked many times. Reminder: there are no stupid questions. The only stupid questions are those which people fail to ask.
Is a violin the same as a fiddle?
In essence, yes. Fiddles and violins are the same string instrument. The way they are played, and often the music they play, is different. Many times violinists fondly refer to their instruments as fiddles.
When do I clap?
The easy answer to that question is: clap at the end of a full piece and avoid clapping between the movements of a multi-movement work. The slightly longer answer is that when some of the pieces which an orchestra plays were originally written, the audience often clapped between each movement. In fact some pieces were rewritten to ensure more enthusiastic applause between movements. In today’s world audiences expect to hear the whole piece before showing their appreciation to the performers with their applause. And that leads us to…
What is a movement?
Works of larger duration e.g. symphonies and concerti, are typically divided up into large sections, each of which highlights a different character or tempo.
What is a concerto?
A concerto is a piece written for a solo performer (sometimes performers) who is accompanied by the orchestra.
I will answer a few more of this sort of question the next time I post on this blog. If you have a question for me, feel free to write. Just go to the "Contact Us" page and ask away. |
|
Mixed Blessing
Feb. 18, 2010
Our newest addition to the family (the 6 month old tortoise shell cat named Ella Norrigbee) is a charming, wonderful little creature. She is incredibly cuddly and shows amazing persistence as she continues to try and get some sort of positive reaction from our older cat Maggie.
There is one thing that she has started to do that I find a bit unusual. In the middle of the night she quietly walks up onto my pillow and lies down above me, snuggling against my large expanse of bald head. It is a kind of warmth that I have not felt since I was 21, the last year in which I had an adequate supply of hair. She then treats my head as if it were another cat to groom and she thoroughly cleans it. For the time being it is a sweet and wonderful expression of affection and I hope that I do not grow to resent its intrusion into a good night’s sleep. I will try to look at this situation as something endearing, as I do find the purrs which accompany her actions to be a good background noise as I fall back asleep. |
|
|
|
