Can You Trust Your Ears?
It’s been a busy couple of months at Greysen. We’re in talks with interstate schools to run some conducting courses over a weekend up north, we ran a foundation course, we’ve awarded the Greysen Award at the Australian National Eisteddfod, we have taught some professional development to the staff at the Goulburn Con and we continue to provide course options for ANU BMus students. It has also just been announced that Geoff has been appointed Music Director of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds Arena Spectacular, coming to a city near you in 2015! But for now, on...
Read MoreThe Value of Recording
Geoff has been away over the past few weeks (and for the next couple of months!) as a project officer with the Sydney Theatre Company’s play The Long Way Home. It’s getting rave reviews and selling out very quickly, so get your tickets early! In any case, he’s handed the reins over to Sarah for this blog post… — Hi everyone, and happy Autumn! “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn” – Charlie Parker In this March edition of the Greysen blog I wanted to talk about the value of doing recordings, as in the past few weeks...
Read MoreJames Morrison, the Plasterer
At Greysen we’ve just finished our 2014 residential summer school for Conducting and Musician Management. We were fortunate enough to host 5 musicians/music teachers from far and wide, and gain a broader insight into the state of musicians and teachers in their existing roles in mentoring institutions. So I’m going to climb up on my soap box for a couple of minutes to expound on how it is up to YOU to create the right environment for your students. I’ll start with the mantra “excellence does not require perfection”. Settle for excellence. Strive for it. Every...
Read MoreThe Psychology of Success
Good morning and happy new year! As we all embark on 2014, reflecting on our successes of 2013 and making new resolutions, I wanted to talk about the psychology of success. In the world of community, development and/or educational music, it can be surprising how the basic psychology of your organisation can affect long term results. Have you ever noticed that some organisations (particularly schools) can grow a basic type of psychology? … ever noticed that the students in a particular school achieve similar results in both specific school subjects, and also on a larger long-term scale?...
Read MoreCreating a Five Year Plan
Well, it’s December and I’m sure you’re all hastily preparing versions of Jingle Bells and Holiday Sampler before the end of term concert! It’s the time of year where we evaluate what we’ve achieved and look to the future. Did your program grow this year? Did it at least retain its numbers? How many new charts did you purchase? Did you use them all, and were they all good choices for your ensemble? Maybe you attracted some higher level musicians to your ensemble – how do you plan to keep them coming? But there are some bigger questions too. Is your...
Read MorePurpose in Repertoire Selection
Last month, Greysen Music was honoured to be a presenter at the 2013 ASME conference where we were asked to provide power presentations on the subject of repertoire. Repertoire is one of those ongoing challenges. In many ways it’s a consumable item. Even though we can build and hoard a library of quality music, we need to keep acquiring new charts to keep our musicians challenged and entertained, and to provide relevant and contemporary music for our audiences. I conduct a concert band with almost 88 years of history. During that time it has seen a large variety of music for all of its...
Read More
Recent Comments