Seeking campus partners for the below: CMLL, History, Rec-Sports, etc
Hi folks: I'm Chris Smith, Professor & Chair of Musicology and Founding Director of the TTU Vernacular Music Center. We provide research, teaching, and advocacy on the world's vernacular music & dance traditions, and this summer are hosting a 2-day participatory workshop, featuring guest folk music and dance teachers, and open to players and dancers of all ages and backgrounds.
The music is "BalFolk"--a new-folk revival of music and dancing which is participatory, accessible, inclusive, and fun! Based in French traditional styles, BalFolk is accompanied by bagpipes, fiddles, hurdy-gurdies, accordions, and a host of great dance types.
We would welcome collaborators and partners! The event is July 29-31, and your participation could range anywhere from forwarding this techannounce, to sharing with your department or mailing lists, to coming along and joining in yourself! We are very open to sharing this music & dance across campus both during and preceding our BalFolk2016 in July--so please be in touch!
christopher.smith@ttu.edu
VMC Summer Music and Dance Workshops: BalFolk 2016!
A weekend of participatory Euro-French-English folk music and dance, July 29-31 2016
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
https://www.facebook.com/VMCSummerWorkshops/
The VMC Summer Music and Dance Workshop are participatory music & dance events for adults & students. Daytime classes of friendly, accessible instruction for learners age 17-up are balanced with vibrant, colorful, and engaging evening programs of participatory music and dance, suitable for all ages. Accessible to participants from a wide range of prior experience, including: experienced and novice dancers, from any style; college students including but not limited to dance and music majors; avocational singers, players, and dancers, adult learners; high school students, and many more.
2016 edition: “BalFolk – Euro-French-English folk dance for all!”
“BalFolk 2016”
More information will added in continual updates; check back frequently.
Cost (lessons, classes, course materials, concert, dance) per student: t/b/a
French folk and hurdy-gurdy master Richard "RT" Taylor
Friday-Sunday July 29-31 2016
Additional instructors (instruments, song, dance) t/b/a
Location: TTU School of Music
Accommodations: on your own, but blocks of rooms have been reserved at both nearby B&B’s and a pleasant family hotel 2 minutes’ walk from the SOM
Transportation & parking: daytime parking will be available onsite.
Uber: https://www.uber.com/cities/lubbock/
AirBnB: https://www.airbnb.com/s/Lubbock--TX?s_tag=SzwL_QzM
About the dance genres… [more to come]
Instructor (all instrumentalists):
R.T. (Richard) Taylor is passionate about playing and teaching folks to play the Hurdy Gurdy. For over 30 years R.T. has been playing, teaching and performing all over the world including Japan, North America, most of Western and Eastern Europe and has recorded and performed with the U.S band, French Creek and the French band UFO. His specialty is the folk dance music from France, Italy, Hungary and Galicia. His students range in age from 3 to 90 years old.
R.T. has studied with top players all over Europe and passes on that knowledge in an entertaining and logical way that helps you improve your artistic and technical skills, and reach your playing potential more quickly. Basic and more advanced techniques are taught using traditional common repertoire tunes and exercises that make practice more fun and effective.
Instructors (dance):
Gyslaine Kirstetter began dancing as a child when her mother started to organize folk dance and music workshops at home in metropolitan Paris. Later, she developed her experience while traveling through France to participate in workshops and dance festivals. She was the principal folk dance instructor for the Maison de la Jeunesse et des Sports in Paris 20e in 2009-2010. In 2012 she came to Oklahoma to follow her husband. Her repertoire includes dances from Central France (bourrées 2 or 3 temps), Brittany (an dro, hanterdro, laride...), Southwestern France (7 sauts, fandango...) and couple dances (valse, schottische, mazurka...). She loves folk dances and finds them very festive, associating fun and elegance, and likes sharing them with others.
Lise Pingault is a member of the oldest folk dance music band in France (Les Gas du Berry, Nohant). She came in Oklahoma in summer 2015 to work at the University of Oklahoma. She grew up with the sound of vielle a roue and start playing the instrument at 10. During all the summer since she is a child, she participated to the dance show organized by the band with dancing bourrees, valse, scottisch, mazurka …. She also participated to the dance workshop organized by the international folk festival in Saint Chartier (France).
Suitable for most skill-levels, students age 17+
Facebook “Event”: https://www.facebook.com/events/1566338400363137/
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS
DANCE WORKSHOP: tutors selected depending upon repertoire. VMC ensemble members are experienced teachers and leaders and the specific dances are carefully selected for accessibility to a wide range of aptitude and prior experience. All workshop attendees encouraged to participate. Experienced folk-dancers will find lots of new steps and tunes to acquire and enjoy. Includes pieces to be danced at the evening concerts.
FOR INSTRUMENTALISTS:
Learning by ear, playing with playing with dance-appropriate rhythm, identifying repertoire and models, how (and what) to play together. Suitable for strings (bowed and plucked), winds, keyboards, and percussion (depending on genre and style--please check individual event pages for specifics). Ensemble considerations, style considerations. Includes acquisition of several simple dance tunes to be played with the VMC musicians at the evening concerts.
FOR SINGERS:
Simple, accessible repertoire of songs for listening, sharing, and dancing. Singing solo and with accompaniment, singing together, finding ideas for harmony, choosing keys, sources for repertoire, ideas for working with instrumentalists. Introduction to simple dance songs in several languages, and English-language choruses to be played with the VMC musicians at the evening concerts.
FOR ENSEMBLE DIRECTORS:
Engaging, accessible, informative, and actionable strategies suitable for incorporating diverse world repertoires into ensemble experiences. Information on sources, ear-training and memorization exercises, improvisational practices…plus free scores, including some to be played at the evening concerts.
PREREQUISITES
Instrumentalists should have the ability to play a simple (monophonic) folk tune through at a regular tempo, either by ear or by sight-reading notation. Dancers should possess basic physical fitness sufficient to walk or skip, in 3-5 minute increments, with pauses, for 2 hours.
The taught music and the concert repertoire are both suitable for dancing, but dancing is not required—just welcomed!
SAMPLE SCHEDULE
(NB: singers will also be catered for with dedicated singing sessions, but are encouraged to take part in dance workshops as much as possible)
Friday
1700 arrivals and check-in
1900 evening meet and greet/instructor mini-concert
Saturday
08:00 BREAKFAST: on your own
09:00 whole-group meeting: short demo of dance, dance music, and song, with time for Q&A
09:30 Session I: concurrent Instrumentalist and Dancer workshops
10:45 coffee break
11:00 MORNING dance demo (ALL): demo for the full group of music/dance materials covered in Session I
12:15 mid-day break; lunch on your own (many options in close proximity to campus)
1:30 whole-group meeting: brief summary/review, and preview of afternoon (ALL)
1:45 Session II: concurrent Instrumentalist and Dancer workshops
3:00 coffee break
3:30 AFTERNOON dance workshop (ALL): participatory demo: putting it all together
5:00 pre-dinner break; dinner on your own
6:30 informal music and dance jam sessions, group-organized activities
8:00 DANCE CONCERT (ALL)
10:00? sessions, dance jams, all manner of foolishness
Sunday
1000 Morning group breakfast
1100 Farewell dance
1300 END
ESPECIALLY USEFUL FOR EDUCATORS
The VMC Summer Music & Dance Workshops are very suitable for music educators seeking professional development and learning opportunities. The School of Music at Texas Tech is an accredited institutional member of both the National Association of Schools of Music and the Texas Association of Music Schools. The School of Music also offers the highly innovative Summers-Only Master’s in Music Education program; more information is available from MUED chair Dr Janice Killian (Janice.killian@ttu.edu) The VMC Summer Workshops are also very effective environments for music educators interested in developing vernacular ensembles in their own home institutions.
Sample professional offering: “World music in K-16 education”
Many entering college music majors come from secondary school music programs focusing around band, choral, jazz, or orchestral ensembles, repertoires, and procedures. Yet state and national guidelines emphasize that students should also meaningfully experience diverse musical genres and aesthetics from around the world. In the absence of extensive prior experience in these vernacular idioms, meeting those requirements can be difficult. In this clinic, Dr Christopher Smith and Professor Roger Landes present an engaging, accessible, informative, and actionable set of strategies—musical, pedagogical, and presentational—suitable for high school and college band and orchestra directors who wish to begin incorporating diverse world repertoires into ensemble experiences: finding the meeting place between classical and vernacular, notated and improvisational practices and repertoires. Includes free scores, information on sources, ear-training and memorization exercises, improvisational practices, and more.
Workshop topics emphasized:
Notation versus “by ear”’ learning approaches
Memorization
Ensemble procedures
Rhythmic procedures; playing with “life” and energy for dancing
Communicating with dancers and audiences
Style and interpretation of specific genres
Using print, audio, and video sources effectively
Improvisation
Idiomatic listening and playing
Making the case to your supervisors
