Editing paper

Mansour Alanazi

30-11-2015

Faculty Recital Series

Concert Review Paper

I watched the “Faculty Recital Series” on Thursday, November 15th in the Doudna Fine Arts center and it was a good experience. It was the first time that I attended a music show and it was definitely a very good one. I am not a big fan of music in general: however, after attending “Faculty Recital Series” I have definitely become a fan of music because I have not experienced anything of that kind in my entire life. I enjoyed and was not even bored during the play, but overall it was good show and there is always a room for improvement and feedback. In my humble opinion, the introduction was the weakest part of the play because it was definitely hard to figure out what was going on at first.

The concert opened with the Rose Variations. This piece began quietly. As the piano instruments plucked in unison, the trumpet instruments entered with a slow melody. The mood became more dramatic as it progressed. The pace became faster and the texture more intense with fugue-like entrances. The different instruments succeeded one another until they ultimately all entered in unison. The trumpets were the most prominent players in the overture, effectively supported by the continuous beating of the piano. The trumpets were reducing its beats, while the piano instruments receded to the background, quickly leading to the climax in the final section of the piece. However, the piano instruments performed by Jonathan Bowman and the trumpet instruments performed by Andrew Cheetham.

The second work of the evening was the marimba which performed by Jamie V. Ryan. The marimba instruments played a sad melody and the trumpet instruments enhanced the mood by their constant horn blowing in the background. However, the audience appeared to like the marimba more than other instruments due to its smooth beats. Other audience were almost fascinating about the piano because it enhanced the rhythms and add a perfect beat in the background. There were almost ten minutes intermission between the each show to give enough time to set their equipment on the stage and also to give a time for the audience to refresh and get ready for the next show.

Cornetist Joe Oliver blew the blues through brass, and helped bring bottom-up swing to New Orleans at the turn of the century. He played a key part in turning that city's band music into what we now call jazz. Like many early Louisiana musicians who came off the plantation, which Oliver almost certainly did, he had little formal musical education, nor did he show great musical promise in his youth. Yet the inchoate blasts of his cornet brought a new sound to the horn: a vocal quality, growls, cries, and groans. Rock guitarists use electronics to achieve his effects - without ever knowing where they got the idea. In New Orleans, the teenage Oliver got his musical start playing in a band for young people in his neighborhood led by Walter Kenchen, about whom little is known. Kenchen likely drilled his young troupers in reading exercises and March scores, following traditions set by rural band teachers of the era. He would have instructed the sections separately: first rhythm, then the brass, then woodwinds, without too much attention to individual players. The idea was to get the band up and running, making music together (Columbia Electronic Cyclopedia, 2015).

As I attended the show, there was not any room for the improvisations that the performers can do, they were very restricted to the music notes. The rhythm section was the main idea of this show by changing their beats and increasing their tempo, the show became more danceable to the audience. Also, there was a very strong emphasis on the weak part of the beat to attract the audience and to close the gap between each measurements. The Pitch was a little bit low due to its musical notes and the dynamics was very soft.

In conclusion, attending this concert made me more aware of the diversity of style and compositional techniques. I do really believe that the show was very awesome and all the audiences loved it, you can see their reactions by clapping or greeting the performers. However, the performers played their instruments in a proper way and add a lovely feedback to the audience by greeting them at the end of the show.

Work Cited

"King Oliver." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition (2015): 1. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Nov. 2015.