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Notating the Beat
Not all students are auditory learners. This is a fact that I have to re-learn every time I work with students. Since I am comfortable working in the realm of sound, I naturally assume other people...
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Graphing a Melody
Here’s a graph of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We used a 13 note (one octave) chromatic xylophone to play the song. Then I asked the students if we could use an x-y plot to remember how to play the...
View ArticleTibetan Singing Bowls
I recently acquired a Tibetan Singing Bowl (well I think it might actually be Nepalese). These bowls, composed of an alloy of six metals, have been used for thousands of years in meditative practices...
View ArticleDigital Music Producers: Don’t Use Those Factory Presets!
As a musician I sometimes find myself a little torn between the free and easy world of live performance and the comparatively stultifying atmosphere of the modern computer-based digital recording...
View ArticleMy Robot
Cory and Jabez participated in the Baltimore City Summer Jump program (I was an arts enrichment instructor at the same site). I got to hang out with them during their lunch period, when they chose to...
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Arts Enrichment and Integration @ Baltimore’s Summer Jump Program
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to work as an arts-enrichment instructor and arts-integration facilitator at the Summer Jump program in Baltimore. Here’s some of what we did! Tubes! My...
View ArticleOnyx Ashanti
Onyx Ashanti is a musician inventor that is doing something really cool with breath and so I had to post his recent TedX talk. After watching his video, I cannot define for you the term “sonic fractal...
View ArticleLa Cour D’Eole
I love this project! La Cour D’Eole is a French ensemble that was nominated for the 2013 YAMA (Young Audiences Music Awards). Young Audiences Music (YAM) is an organization based out of Belgium, not to...
View ArticletUnE-yArDs
Live looping of drums with a hand-held mic and multiple loop pedals? Check. Live looping of voice? Check. Funky bass lines and grooves with fresh horns? Check. Ladies and gentlemen, tUne-yArDs.
View ArticleBreathing Exercises
I’ve been beatboxing for many many years but it wasn’t until I began a study of various Yogic breathing exercises that I realized something spectacular: breathing is a huge aspect of the human voice. I...
View ArticleIf A Tree Falls in the Woods and Is Processed Into a 2X4, Does It Make A...
New York based percussion group Mantra performs “Timber,” a composition for six 2X4′s. The lumber is played with hard mallets along most of the wood’s length to produce a variety of overtones and the...
View ArticleMinilogue
Sebastian Mullaert and Markus Henriksson are the Swedish electronic duo Minilogue. They have a very nice approach to making music, involving “stages” of preparation leading up to semi-improvisatory...
View ArticleShine Creative : Hunting Ground : MaxMakesMusic
Drury Bynum is a beast. He shoots and edits video for Shine Creative, based in Baltimore, MD. We’ve worked on projects before, and Dru has always been a supporter of my musical productions. But, I have...
View ArticleBeat Dropping Babies
As a teaching artist with the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts, I have worked with teachers of students in preK and Kindergarten to provide arts-based teaching strategies in a...
View ArticleAffinity Therapy and the Autism Spectrum
My work as a teaching artist has put me in some amazing and inspiring situations. I’ve had the opportunity to meet brilliant, motivated and committed people of all ages. One of my favorite students...
View ArticleBeatbox Chronicles Volume 1
I was extremely psyched to be the first guest on Wendel Patrick’s series entitled Beatbox Chronicles!
View ArticleKindergarten Beat Construction
Kindergarteners’ comprehension of steady beat and sequence are important building blocks for reading. Here I’m working with a class of Kindergarten students at Creative City Charter in Baltimore, MD....
View ArticleB.E.A.T. – Bringing Education and Art Together: Beatboxing with the Blind
At Lavelle School for the Blind in NYC, B.E.A.T. is working with students to create real, meaningful music in a way that works for the students. Everyone, teachers and students, are benefitting. More...
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