I’m up with the sun and the birds to get the day’s best worms. Out the door by 8:15 am., I’m heading for Shaw’s Restaurant and breakfast with Ma and Pa Kohn, who wore themselves out the day before while doing the Friday evening Lanfest ArtWalk around the Downtown. As I was being seated for breakfast, Maestro Sheldon emerged from the elevator to join me at my table for his breakfast cereal. The kitchen and waitressing staff have served both of us for so many years that they know that Gary’s favorite is Cherrios, Arnett is a big fan of creamed chip beef on white toast.
Ma and Pa were stiff, but on time for their breakfast, promising Maestro to help get me to rehearsal on time that morning. I was at rehearsal punctually, we rehearsed our selections and I intentionally kept the cadenza short. But my unannounced plans were to serve up my surprise solo, quickly wading into the Lancaster Fight Song and if I got the crowd’s reaction in the first few seconds, ...
My performance that day honored the twentieth anniversary of the Lanfest Orchestra, the fortieth anniversary of my professional music debut in 1967 and the ninetieth birthday of Ray Starrett, my first band director and friend for forty-seven of my fifty-seven years. Unfortunately, when I drove home to Plain City after rehearsal, the surprise party had been canceled when he was hospitalized with blood complications.
Mr. Starrett and Dr. Joe Whitlatch, who instead of spending his eighty-seventh with friends and family at Lanfest, underwent gall bladder surgery at Mt. Carmel East Hospital, were in my prayers. Jeanette Scholl and I entered the gates, as the opening cannon sounded at 5:30 pm. and the OU-L lawns were the perfect color, thanks to the recent rains, skies were blue and without a hint of storms. We were in for a perfect night.
I had two tables of guests; Millie and Byron Kohn, the Whitlatch Family drove from the hospital to Lanfest, Sherry and Bob Bowers left the fruit farm in nearby Laurelville for the anniversary concert, Fred (Dad) Holdridge led the German Village party of Kevin Miles, Jim Arter, Mary Kay and John Carter, Stephanie (sister) and Fred Harris rolled in from East Columbus/Reynoldsburg. After a thirty minute search for lost tickets, Kevin and Kristen Kern, of Marysville, found them between the car seats and arrived right before the downbeat of the concert.
Promptly at 8:15 pm., Maestro Sheldon’s hit began the National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, and followed it with the Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla, a selection performed at the premier of the Lanfest Orchestra in 1988. I was then welcomed on stage to play the Haydn.
I played farely well; I only noticed two tiny tonal blips, when I ever-so-slight overblew higher notes, which is easy to do when your pounding heart is pressuring your embochure to perfection. The hundreds of times I rehearsed payed off and when I arrived at the part of the cadenza that I had lifted from Wynton, it flowed out perfectly and led me to the moment to toy with the local audience.
I looked at the score and rushed into Stand Up and Cheer, the fight song of the Lancaster High School Golden Gales. Within the first four notes I heard the laughter and cheer rise suddenly and wrecklessly I sped through the first section, on towards the finish. The cheering grew and when I reached the last three measures, I slowed the tempo and marched the last four notes into a trill and gave Maestro Sheldon the downbeat to bring the Orchestra to the finale.
I milked the audience, they milked me and I was done with the Haydn. Two songs later, six of us trumpeters walked onstage to play Leroy Anderson’s Bugler’s Holiday, which the Columbus Dispatch reviewer said was "the highlight of the show."
The Lanfest stage was full of bright musical moments; cello solist Sara Sant’Ambrogio was featured in a duet with her father and cello teacher, John. The Chicago Brass Quintet was featured on the Austurian Fandago, performance artist Robert Post presented his unique humor in a lampoon of televison chefs.
Pianist Jon Kamura (Jackie) Parker’s gentle performance of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto # 2 was my highlight of the evening. When he and the Orchestra finished, Jackie and Maestro Sheldon leaped into each other’s arms to symbolize the joy and love we all were immersed in on this homecoming day.
Livingston Taylor’s ten song set was part of the second half of the show and the fireworks finale brought the Lancaster Chorale on to sing America the Beautiful. After Strike Up the Band, I was miked and paraded from the rear of the audience to The Saints and was greeted by another wonderful audience response.
The Stars and Stripes Forever March by John Phillip Sousa ended the Twentieth Anniversary Concert and Diane Schick was in her piccolo glory, rising to the solo of America’s Official March. She plays with such a spirit.
When the fireworks ended and Maestro Sheldon returned to the stage with me in tow, I milked more from the audience and the parade to the parking lot began for thousands of Lanfest fans. We were just beginning our festival.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
I pulled into Lancaster at 4:30 pm., parked a couple blocks away and walked to the Elks Lodge where the Chicago Brass Quintet was finishing their last four selections. Even though we have known each other for ten years or more, this was my first time to see them and I just barely made it.
I dashed back to the Zane Bandstand to prepare to be entertainment on WBNS-10TV’s 5:15 m. weather segment with Chris Bradley. Gary chatted and I played When the Saints Go Marching In. Millie and Byron Kohn, my McArthur, Ohio adopted parents, were having their happy hour at the Shaw Hotel’s Bar and I stopped in for a bowl of soup, before a 6:30 pm. rehearsal for the Lanfest Orchestra’s Twentieth Annversary Concert, the following evening.
I should have planned for a 6 pm. rehearsal; I was a half hour late. Maestro Sheldon was understanding of my error and we backed the show up to my part. I played the Allegro Movement of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in Eb, which includes a solo cadenza that I patterned after a Wynton Marsalis recording.
My twist on the cadenza was to work the solo into the Lancaster High School Fight song, that Mike Smith had sent me days earlier on an e:mailed mp3 file. I played it in rehearsal and it fell like a lead balloon. Maestro pulled me aside and nicely said, “ I understand how it could be humorous, but maybe see how you can shorten it.” I said that I would and proceeded to get on with the rehearsal like a professional among professionals. I didn’t forget that I was a guest soloist.
Bugler’s Holiday got its rehearsal with six trumpeters; Ross Beaucraft, Richard Burkart, David Hunsicker, Mathew Lee, Loren Topliz and Arnett Howard. After rehearsing the third trumpet part for less than a week, I was pleasantly confident when Maestro tweaked for mistakes, he didn’t include me.
We rehearsed the fireworks Americana finale, which featured the Lancaster Chorale. I marched from the back of the audience playing The Saints and it took four choruses to get on stage; I needed to walk faster as showtime. Rehearsal finally finished at 8:30 pm. and instead of following the orchestra gang to a favorite watering hole, I went to the home of my host, Jeanette Scholl, like I had good sense. It has taken me decades to finally make some clear progress in the good sense department.
Jeanette is a retired Lancaster middle school teacher, sports fan and her biggest pride is her students/kids who have gone on to sporting pursuits in colleges. We met in the 1980s, long before I had good sense; some how we have remained friends and this is the second consecutive year that she has hosted me during Lanfest.
I dashed back to the Zane Bandstand to prepare to be entertainment on WBNS-10TV’s 5:15 m. weather segment with Chris Bradley. Gary chatted and I played When the Saints Go Marching In. Millie and Byron Kohn, my McArthur, Ohio adopted parents, were having their happy hour at the Shaw Hotel’s Bar and I stopped in for a bowl of soup, before a 6:30 pm. rehearsal for the Lanfest Orchestra’s Twentieth Annversary Concert, the following evening.
I should have planned for a 6 pm. rehearsal; I was a half hour late. Maestro Sheldon was understanding of my error and we backed the show up to my part. I played the Allegro Movement of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in Eb, which includes a solo cadenza that I patterned after a Wynton Marsalis recording.
My twist on the cadenza was to work the solo into the Lancaster High School Fight song, that Mike Smith had sent me days earlier on an e:mailed mp3 file. I played it in rehearsal and it fell like a lead balloon. Maestro pulled me aside and nicely said, “ I understand how it could be humorous, but maybe see how you can shorten it.” I said that I would and proceeded to get on with the rehearsal like a professional among professionals. I didn’t forget that I was a guest soloist.
Bugler’s Holiday got its rehearsal with six trumpeters; Ross Beaucraft, Richard Burkart, David Hunsicker, Mathew Lee, Loren Topliz and Arnett Howard. After rehearsing the third trumpet part for less than a week, I was pleasantly confident when Maestro tweaked for mistakes, he didn’t include me.
We rehearsed the fireworks Americana finale, which featured the Lancaster Chorale. I marched from the back of the audience playing The Saints and it took four choruses to get on stage; I needed to walk faster as showtime. Rehearsal finally finished at 8:30 pm. and instead of following the orchestra gang to a favorite watering hole, I went to the home of my host, Jeanette Scholl, like I had good sense. It has taken me decades to finally make some clear progress in the good sense department.
Jeanette is a retired Lancaster middle school teacher, sports fan and her biggest pride is her students/kids who have gone on to sporting pursuits in colleges. We met in the 1980s, long before I had good sense; some how we have remained friends and this is the second consecutive year that she has hosted me during Lanfest.
2007 Lancaster Festival Diary
Note: I’ve played the Lancaster Festival (Lanfest) since July, 1989 and I’ve been a Festival Board member since 2003. My opinions make be slightly effected by the love forces that I have been surrounded by for eighteen wonderful years.
Tuesday, July 17th, after my afternoon kids concert at Easton Town Center’s Splash Fountain, I cleaned up and headed for Lancaster and the Ohio University Lancaster Campus for a welcome picnic for the participants of the 2007 Lanfest, including performers, volunteers, professional service suppliers, executive staff , friends of the Lanfest and board members.
The rain clouds and I parked at the same instant and in no time Maestro Gary Sheldon and his bride, Janet, were rushing their new twins, Jacob and Ruby under cover in a nearby campus hallway. Despite the drizzle, my attraction was to the picnic buffet, which was under cover and needing to be guarded by me and a few other brave souls. I personally protected a large, well-done frank by dressing it onion, relish, a gourmet mustard and no bun, but the pasta salad was less safe. I allowed it to be attacked by a dinner fork and it was surrendered.
When the drizzle disappeared and peace returned to our little lawn party, Lanfest executive director Lou Ross welcome old and new friends to the opening of the event and board president Nils Gustuvson introduced volunteers honored by inclusion in the Lanfest Walk of Fame. Lou distributed the new staff garb, copies of the 2007 Lanfest program booklet, then we all returned to kissing, hugging, taking pictures and visiting the beverage bar.
In addition to Gary Sheldon, Eleanor Hood, Barbara Hunzicker, Dr. Jonathan Nusbaum, Steve Rosenberg, Ann Chess and Carol Abbott, longtime brain trusts of Lanfest, Diane Schick, piccolo and flutist and violinist Darryl Murray are among the most enduring friends of Lanfest. Diane, an A plus party animal, exudes so much joy for life that she is a love magnet. Darryl is a fiddler of many styles and he loves to jam, as does Dr. Steve Cox, an active board member who has “tramboned” with me on my tribute concerts for three years.
Lanfest director Lou Ross and I share the secret world of New Orleans music together, since he was a student at Tulane and learned his craft as an arts presenter during those Big Easy years. We both “know what it means to miss New Orleans.”
The Chicago Brass Quintet joined the picnic and we renewed our friendship with hugs and conversations about their travel. Ross Beaucraft and James Mattern have been blowing beautiful and challenging brass notes at world audiences forty-five years or more. Recent travel has taken then from Chicago to South America, Brazil and after Lanfest they were heading back to Columbia.
I shared hugs with David Meade, Live Tech president and owner and his wife. I had sent them some love two weeks before, in honor of their daughter, photographer Rebecca Meade, who died in an Athens skateboard accident in November, 2005.
The lawn party eventual ended, only to continue at the Fairview Lounge where Lanfest board member Bob Wolfinger bought the first round and told the legend of the Fairview, a tavern that has lived on since the American Alcohol Prohibition Era in the 1920s. I had a good beer or two and met Dmitri Pogorelov, violin and Ian Maksin, cello, two hugely talented players, born in Russia. Ian was also a licensed airplane pilot and flying enthusiast, as am I. We made plans to go to Dayton and visit the birthplace of aviation.
I left the Fairview Tavern in a dark rainstorm, hoping for green grasses and clear skies for the rest of the 2007 Lanfest.
Tuesday, July 17th, after my afternoon kids concert at Easton Town Center’s Splash Fountain, I cleaned up and headed for Lancaster and the Ohio University Lancaster Campus for a welcome picnic for the participants of the 2007 Lanfest, including performers, volunteers, professional service suppliers, executive staff , friends of the Lanfest and board members.
The rain clouds and I parked at the same instant and in no time Maestro Gary Sheldon and his bride, Janet, were rushing their new twins, Jacob and Ruby under cover in a nearby campus hallway. Despite the drizzle, my attraction was to the picnic buffet, which was under cover and needing to be guarded by me and a few other brave souls. I personally protected a large, well-done frank by dressing it onion, relish, a gourmet mustard and no bun, but the pasta salad was less safe. I allowed it to be attacked by a dinner fork and it was surrendered.
When the drizzle disappeared and peace returned to our little lawn party, Lanfest executive director Lou Ross welcome old and new friends to the opening of the event and board president Nils Gustuvson introduced volunteers honored by inclusion in the Lanfest Walk of Fame. Lou distributed the new staff garb, copies of the 2007 Lanfest program booklet, then we all returned to kissing, hugging, taking pictures and visiting the beverage bar.
In addition to Gary Sheldon, Eleanor Hood, Barbara Hunzicker, Dr. Jonathan Nusbaum, Steve Rosenberg, Ann Chess and Carol Abbott, longtime brain trusts of Lanfest, Diane Schick, piccolo and flutist and violinist Darryl Murray are among the most enduring friends of Lanfest. Diane, an A plus party animal, exudes so much joy for life that she is a love magnet. Darryl is a fiddler of many styles and he loves to jam, as does Dr. Steve Cox, an active board member who has “tramboned” with me on my tribute concerts for three years.
Lanfest director Lou Ross and I share the secret world of New Orleans music together, since he was a student at Tulane and learned his craft as an arts presenter during those Big Easy years. We both “know what it means to miss New Orleans.”
The Chicago Brass Quintet joined the picnic and we renewed our friendship with hugs and conversations about their travel. Ross Beaucraft and James Mattern have been blowing beautiful and challenging brass notes at world audiences forty-five years or more. Recent travel has taken then from Chicago to South America, Brazil and after Lanfest they were heading back to Columbia.
I shared hugs with David Meade, Live Tech president and owner and his wife. I had sent them some love two weeks before, in honor of their daughter, photographer Rebecca Meade, who died in an Athens skateboard accident in November, 2005.
The lawn party eventual ended, only to continue at the Fairview Lounge where Lanfest board member Bob Wolfinger bought the first round and told the legend of the Fairview, a tavern that has lived on since the American Alcohol Prohibition Era in the 1920s. I had a good beer or two and met Dmitri Pogorelov, violin and Ian Maksin, cello, two hugely talented players, born in Russia. Ian was also a licensed airplane pilot and flying enthusiast, as am I. We made plans to go to Dayton and visit the birthplace of aviation.
I left the Fairview Tavern in a dark rainstorm, hoping for green grasses and clear skies for the rest of the 2007 Lanfest.
Monday, July 2, 2007
2007 Lancaster Festival Preview
Greetings and welcome to the 2007 Lancaster Festival, July 19-28, 2007. The 2007 Lancaster Festival marks the eighteenth year that I have been associated with the ambitious people of Fairfield County. After an audition with Maestro Gary Sheldon, Eleanor Hood and Barbara Hunzicker at a club appearance in March, 1989, Arnett Howard's Creole Funk Band was presented at that summer's festival on the Zane Bandstand. I have been performing at each Lancaster Festival in some kind of role ever since.
This year's Lancaster Festival begins Thursday, July 19th, 8 pm., with Splendor in the Brass, unfortunately, it's always the concert that I have to miss because of another concert commitment at Hilliard's Homestead Park. The Chicago Brass Quintet are wonderful players and nice people that I have known since 1996 when they helped me with excerpts from the Hummell and Hadyn Trumpet Concertos. This year six trumpeters get to play Bugler's Holiday, as well as the first movement of the Hadyn.
On Friday, July 20th, the Lancaster Festival starts the day at noon with the Ark Band, long time friends from the island of St. Lucia, who are seasoned reggae and calypso players. The Chicago Brass have an encore of their performance at the Elk's Lodge at 3:30 pm. that I just might be able to make. My friend Ursula Lanning (Lanning Gallery) coordinates this evening's 6 pm. ArtWalk and the theme is fiber art, featuring quilts and other material based works.
I have yet to meet pianist Jon Kimura Parker, but his face appears in promotions that I have seen for decades with Lancaster Festival and the Columbus Symphony. He is one of the special guests invited for the twentieth anniversary of the Lancaster Festival Orchestra and he has a late Friday evening concert at the First United Methodist Church.
Eleanor Hood's first Saturday specialty is called Festival Fair Day, held at the Fairfield County Fairgrounds, and the day packs children and family oriented activities into six busy hours. Included in that six hours are horses, mules, country musicians, Celtic consorters, racing pigeons, a petting zoo, home-cooked foods and my favorite entertainer and mime, Mark Abbati.
But the big to-do happens Saturday evenings when the good people of Lancaster (called by the envious, nickel millionaires), put on their summer evening clothes and drive out to the Ohio University-Lancaster Wendal Concert Stage, a massive tent covering that highlights a natural amphitheater. For twentieth consecutive summers, Maestro Sheldon has been directing an orchestra of sixty-five of the world's distinguished symphonic players to perform and premier high brow musics.
The dinner tables, for those of the means, are heaped with flowers, expensive cloths and settings, creatively eccentric centerpieces. Selected volunteers act as judges to ascertain which are prize winning tables in a number of categories and only after the prizes are awarded, do the meals and musical festivities begin.
The guest artists invited to join the 2007 Lancaster Festival Orchestra to perform their Twentieth Anniversary Concert are the before mentioned Chicago Brass Quintet and Jon Kimura Parker, as well as the Lancaster Chorale, Robert Post, Livingston Taylor (James' baby brother), Sara Sant' Ambrogio and...Arnett Howard. What an honor for me and the concert occurs on the fortieth anniversary of my beginnings as a professional musician in 1967. I think my mom and dad would be very proud.
This year's Lancaster Festival begins Thursday, July 19th, 8 pm., with Splendor in the Brass, unfortunately, it's always the concert that I have to miss because of another concert commitment at Hilliard's Homestead Park. The Chicago Brass Quintet are wonderful players and nice people that I have known since 1996 when they helped me with excerpts from the Hummell and Hadyn Trumpet Concertos. This year six trumpeters get to play Bugler's Holiday, as well as the first movement of the Hadyn.
On Friday, July 20th, the Lancaster Festival starts the day at noon with the Ark Band, long time friends from the island of St. Lucia, who are seasoned reggae and calypso players. The Chicago Brass have an encore of their performance at the Elk's Lodge at 3:30 pm. that I just might be able to make. My friend Ursula Lanning (Lanning Gallery) coordinates this evening's 6 pm. ArtWalk and the theme is fiber art, featuring quilts and other material based works.
I have yet to meet pianist Jon Kimura Parker, but his face appears in promotions that I have seen for decades with Lancaster Festival and the Columbus Symphony. He is one of the special guests invited for the twentieth anniversary of the Lancaster Festival Orchestra and he has a late Friday evening concert at the First United Methodist Church.
Eleanor Hood's first Saturday specialty is called Festival Fair Day, held at the Fairfield County Fairgrounds, and the day packs children and family oriented activities into six busy hours. Included in that six hours are horses, mules, country musicians, Celtic consorters, racing pigeons, a petting zoo, home-cooked foods and my favorite entertainer and mime, Mark Abbati.
But the big to-do happens Saturday evenings when the good people of Lancaster (called by the envious, nickel millionaires), put on their summer evening clothes and drive out to the Ohio University-Lancaster Wendal Concert Stage, a massive tent covering that highlights a natural amphitheater. For twentieth consecutive summers, Maestro Sheldon has been directing an orchestra of sixty-five of the world's distinguished symphonic players to perform and premier high brow musics.
The dinner tables, for those of the means, are heaped with flowers, expensive cloths and settings, creatively eccentric centerpieces. Selected volunteers act as judges to ascertain which are prize winning tables in a number of categories and only after the prizes are awarded, do the meals and musical festivities begin.
The guest artists invited to join the 2007 Lancaster Festival Orchestra to perform their Twentieth Anniversary Concert are the before mentioned Chicago Brass Quintet and Jon Kimura Parker, as well as the Lancaster Chorale, Robert Post, Livingston Taylor (James' baby brother), Sara Sant' Ambrogio and...Arnett Howard. What an honor for me and the concert occurs on the fortieth anniversary of my beginnings as a professional musician in 1967. I think my mom and dad would be very proud.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Lancaster Teens C.D. Project
“Rock and Roll Summer Camp”
The Lancaster Teens CD Project
July 24-29, 2006
Presenter: Arnett Howard
I always wanted to have a “rock and roll summer camp.” For years I have envisioned a camp to mentor teenaged musicians, share my vast experience at being a working musician for nearly forty years.
I got the chance to fulfill my desires in the summer of 2006, thanks to Gary Sheldon, maestro and artistic director of the Lancaster Festival, who is an educator at heart. As I was thinking out loud at a winter Lancaster Festival Artistic Committee meeting, he quickly liked the idea as a week long extension of Majors for Minors.
Twenty teenagers participated in the first Lancaster Festival Teen Song Writing CD Project. Using group theme ideas and rhyming dictionaries, we composed on Monday and Tuesday, recorded on Wednesday and Thursday and produced the discs, labels and inserts on Friday.
To write and record ten songs in eight hours is unheard in the “industry”, where artists spend months, if not years, fine tuning their releases. I hope this workshop gives kids a taste of the work involved with developing their craft of songwriters and recording artists.
Day One: Monday, July 24, 2006, 10am. First Presbyterian Church, Lancaster, Ohio
We introduced ourselves, I sang a couple of songs that I had written with kids in previous years. I distributed blank paper, rhyming dictionaries, writing instruments and said, “Well what do you wanna’ write a song about?”
After quizzing everyone and getting a unanimous head shake, “I don’t know,” one of the young men read aloud the tee shirt he was wearing. Music Is The Art became our first theme.
Music is the art of what?; the art of thinking. We opened our rhyming dictionaries and spent the next hour creating (OK, the presenter demonstrated the process by doing 90 percent of the first song).
A1. Music is the art of thinking. An overflow of emotions linking.
It helps to keep the soul from spinning out of control,
When you see sharks circling round.
A2. Music is the art of dance. A spirit tool that will enhance
The freedom to prance in any circumstance,
When your feet hardly touch the ground.
B. Music can assert, remind the world of hurt.
When injustices oppress a people.
Music can move hearts, bring couples to new starts.
Words that sing of joy and pain
Can do much more than entertain.
A3. Music is the art of expression,
A spirit tool to cure one’s depression.
Composers moved in song, reflections right or wrong.
Music is the art of life.
Our first song is completed. To finish the morning I asked the students if any of them had original songs that they wanted to share and two students stepped forward to present. Jillian Taylor was accompanied by her brother Buddy and she sang Won’t Let You Go. Next, Jesse Warner leafed through a full notebook of his song ideas and introduce a pencil sketch called Opinions. He stayed after class and played the song again so I could get an idea of how I could make his song sound better.
Day Two: After passing out blank paper, dictionaries and pens, I played a new melody that I had awoken with the previous week entitled Did You Ever? The creative exercise that I gave the kids wasn’t too demanding; Give me four lines-Did you ever_____________________.
After twenty minutes, I collected their pages. I read a few pages aloud and commented on the more imaginative lines, I intended to take the work home and, in my solitude, put the best lines to work. The results;
A1. Did you ever throw a snowball on a hot summers day?
Did you ever ride to Pluto in a rocket?
Did you ever send you mother a rosy bouquet?
Did you ever stick your finger in a socket?
Did you ever find a rainbow with a big pot of gold?
Did you ever see an elephant dance?
Did the people ever laugh at you for doing what you’re told?
Did you ever see a tiger’s strange glance?
B1. Did ever find a feather in really rainy weather?
Ever run two thousand miles in one day?
Ever go down a mountain on a pair of ice skates?
Ever make friends with someone who’s gay?
A2. Did you ever find you staring in the face of a demon?
Ever do something shamefully bad?
Did you ever want a friend who never runs and never hides?
Did you ever? Did you ever?
B2. Did you ever comb your hair with a big garden rake?
Did you ever try to make up new words?
Did you ever, ever wish that you could touch the sky?
Do you think that idea sounds absurd?
A3. Did you ever run from having too much fun?
Ever wear your leather in hot weather?
Did you ever write a song without any rhymes?
Did you ever? Did you ever? Did you ever? Did you ever?
For the next creative exercise, I called on a track that I had prepared for my charter school music class called I Am Only One, But I Am Not The Only One! This time I wanted eight lines from each student. Yeah, right!
Of the twenty teens that participated I would guess that seven or eight gave that old college try, ten tried to write but couldn’t make much come out and just doodled. Three kids never lifted a finger to follow directions and were no more than observers, eventually vanishing during a break period.
I took the results back to my solitude to assemble the makings of lyric and pray that something miraculously magical would emerge.
Since Days One and Two were devoted to creativity, Day Three was the first of my two recording days. I got to class hours early to assemble the keyboard, amp, monitor speakers, digital recorder, mikes and a PowerBook computer. As the first folks arrived, I was sequencing Music Is The Art in the keyboard.
I distributed the lyric, we rehearsed to the track several times and then the recording began. After we tripled the voices (recorded three times), I was faced with the task of recording the backup band, which included no less that six or eight guitars, bass, keyboards and drums.
After rehearsing and trying to synchronize young musicians and a keyboard track, I placed two mikes amid the chaos of rhythms and strings and pressed record. I knew the futility of the effort, however all of the kids brought their instruments so I faked it and no one was any wiser.
I continued recording for three hours after class was officially over. It took thirty minutes to record Won’t Let You Go with Jillian and Buddy and to have her overdub some harmony vocals.
John Honaker had an original solo guitar song that he called Jezebel and it was recorded in fifteen minutes. But the next trio, Hidgz, was a big challenge. They were a metal trio; guitar, bass and drums, with a lead vocal song called Appletree.
Drums are impossible to record, so we chose a digital drumbeat from the keyboard’s database, assigned the right tempo and the drummer simply operated the start/stop button as the guitarists played and did a dummy vocal. We redid a second vocal and Hingz was finished. Whew!
Jesse Warner was the lone keyboardist and a songwriting geek. His original, Opinions, was well organized and the recording went smooth. Again, we decided on a drum pattern, recorded keyboard bass and rhythm guitar in one pass. Next we added organ, lead guitar, lead vocals and I sang harmony. By three o’clock, I was heading home to rest from an intense day.
Day Four: Students began arriving with their instruments a full half hour before class time, excited that something special was in store. I was putting the finishing touches on the track, Did You Ever? The lyric was distributed and singers were assembled around the mikes (few of the men wanted to join the group singing process, more comfortable in the guitar world). We knocked off the first tune’s vocals, added band accompaniment and proceeded to complete, I am Only One....!
And then the magic that we all wished for, began to happen. John and Buddy rehearse in the kitchen and emerge to record one of John’s impromptu guitar songs, Slide, in one take. Clarinetist Andrew Compton stepped before the microphone and created an improv of his warm instrument.
Cassandra Diley and Christina Hsu took their violins upstairs to the church sanctuary and when they came down they performed a Bach minuet in two takes. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an example of the ability that most of the teens gained during the week; to overcome fear and peer pressure, make good use of their time, talent and contribute to a group effort.
During some free time, I encouraged the visual artists to create art for the disc and there were several good examples to choose from for label art.
Day Five: Production Day involved printing the labels, j cards and sleeves, writing liner notes, burning the discs on two Apple computers and an Epson printer. Carol Abbott came in and shot a number of digital pictures that we downloaded into the computer immediately.
Three of us worked overtime to complete the assembly line that produce fifty compact discs, but many of the students came back at 3 pm. and picked up their discs. Many of the parents that had dropped in during the week were encouraging in their appreciation of what their teens were able to experience during the “rock and roll summer camp.”
Overview: We got lucky and the first event of this kind turned out close to perfect on several fronts. No one got frustrated or behaved out of line (except the three who didn’t lift a finger, however they weren’t distracting). Kids got to create new work, perform their own compositions and overall, except for I Am Only One..., the result sound OK.
Thanks to a hard working and trusting group of Lancaster area teens, I was able to realize my dream. It was a long week, but let’s do it again. I don’t think I’d change a thing, other than bringing two printers on production day.
The Lancaster Teens CD Project
July 24-29, 2006
Presenter: Arnett Howard
I always wanted to have a “rock and roll summer camp.” For years I have envisioned a camp to mentor teenaged musicians, share my vast experience at being a working musician for nearly forty years.
I got the chance to fulfill my desires in the summer of 2006, thanks to Gary Sheldon, maestro and artistic director of the Lancaster Festival, who is an educator at heart. As I was thinking out loud at a winter Lancaster Festival Artistic Committee meeting, he quickly liked the idea as a week long extension of Majors for Minors.
Twenty teenagers participated in the first Lancaster Festival Teen Song Writing CD Project. Using group theme ideas and rhyming dictionaries, we composed on Monday and Tuesday, recorded on Wednesday and Thursday and produced the discs, labels and inserts on Friday.
To write and record ten songs in eight hours is unheard in the “industry”, where artists spend months, if not years, fine tuning their releases. I hope this workshop gives kids a taste of the work involved with developing their craft of songwriters and recording artists.
Day One: Monday, July 24, 2006, 10am. First Presbyterian Church, Lancaster, Ohio
We introduced ourselves, I sang a couple of songs that I had written with kids in previous years. I distributed blank paper, rhyming dictionaries, writing instruments and said, “Well what do you wanna’ write a song about?”
After quizzing everyone and getting a unanimous head shake, “I don’t know,” one of the young men read aloud the tee shirt he was wearing. Music Is The Art became our first theme.
Music is the art of what?; the art of thinking. We opened our rhyming dictionaries and spent the next hour creating (OK, the presenter demonstrated the process by doing 90 percent of the first song).
A1. Music is the art of thinking. An overflow of emotions linking.
It helps to keep the soul from spinning out of control,
When you see sharks circling round.
A2. Music is the art of dance. A spirit tool that will enhance
The freedom to prance in any circumstance,
When your feet hardly touch the ground.
B. Music can assert, remind the world of hurt.
When injustices oppress a people.
Music can move hearts, bring couples to new starts.
Words that sing of joy and pain
Can do much more than entertain.
A3. Music is the art of expression,
A spirit tool to cure one’s depression.
Composers moved in song, reflections right or wrong.
Music is the art of life.
Our first song is completed. To finish the morning I asked the students if any of them had original songs that they wanted to share and two students stepped forward to present. Jillian Taylor was accompanied by her brother Buddy and she sang Won’t Let You Go. Next, Jesse Warner leafed through a full notebook of his song ideas and introduce a pencil sketch called Opinions. He stayed after class and played the song again so I could get an idea of how I could make his song sound better.
Day Two: After passing out blank paper, dictionaries and pens, I played a new melody that I had awoken with the previous week entitled Did You Ever? The creative exercise that I gave the kids wasn’t too demanding; Give me four lines-Did you ever_____________________.
After twenty minutes, I collected their pages. I read a few pages aloud and commented on the more imaginative lines, I intended to take the work home and, in my solitude, put the best lines to work. The results;
A1. Did you ever throw a snowball on a hot summers day?
Did you ever ride to Pluto in a rocket?
Did you ever send you mother a rosy bouquet?
Did you ever stick your finger in a socket?
Did you ever find a rainbow with a big pot of gold?
Did you ever see an elephant dance?
Did the people ever laugh at you for doing what you’re told?
Did you ever see a tiger’s strange glance?
B1. Did ever find a feather in really rainy weather?
Ever run two thousand miles in one day?
Ever go down a mountain on a pair of ice skates?
Ever make friends with someone who’s gay?
A2. Did you ever find you staring in the face of a demon?
Ever do something shamefully bad?
Did you ever want a friend who never runs and never hides?
Did you ever? Did you ever?
B2. Did you ever comb your hair with a big garden rake?
Did you ever try to make up new words?
Did you ever, ever wish that you could touch the sky?
Do you think that idea sounds absurd?
A3. Did you ever run from having too much fun?
Ever wear your leather in hot weather?
Did you ever write a song without any rhymes?
Did you ever? Did you ever? Did you ever? Did you ever?
For the next creative exercise, I called on a track that I had prepared for my charter school music class called I Am Only One, But I Am Not The Only One! This time I wanted eight lines from each student. Yeah, right!
Of the twenty teens that participated I would guess that seven or eight gave that old college try, ten tried to write but couldn’t make much come out and just doodled. Three kids never lifted a finger to follow directions and were no more than observers, eventually vanishing during a break period.
I took the results back to my solitude to assemble the makings of lyric and pray that something miraculously magical would emerge.
Since Days One and Two were devoted to creativity, Day Three was the first of my two recording days. I got to class hours early to assemble the keyboard, amp, monitor speakers, digital recorder, mikes and a PowerBook computer. As the first folks arrived, I was sequencing Music Is The Art in the keyboard.
I distributed the lyric, we rehearsed to the track several times and then the recording began. After we tripled the voices (recorded three times), I was faced with the task of recording the backup band, which included no less that six or eight guitars, bass, keyboards and drums.
After rehearsing and trying to synchronize young musicians and a keyboard track, I placed two mikes amid the chaos of rhythms and strings and pressed record. I knew the futility of the effort, however all of the kids brought their instruments so I faked it and no one was any wiser.
I continued recording for three hours after class was officially over. It took thirty minutes to record Won’t Let You Go with Jillian and Buddy and to have her overdub some harmony vocals.
John Honaker had an original solo guitar song that he called Jezebel and it was recorded in fifteen minutes. But the next trio, Hidgz, was a big challenge. They were a metal trio; guitar, bass and drums, with a lead vocal song called Appletree.
Drums are impossible to record, so we chose a digital drumbeat from the keyboard’s database, assigned the right tempo and the drummer simply operated the start/stop button as the guitarists played and did a dummy vocal. We redid a second vocal and Hingz was finished. Whew!
Jesse Warner was the lone keyboardist and a songwriting geek. His original, Opinions, was well organized and the recording went smooth. Again, we decided on a drum pattern, recorded keyboard bass and rhythm guitar in one pass. Next we added organ, lead guitar, lead vocals and I sang harmony. By three o’clock, I was heading home to rest from an intense day.
Day Four: Students began arriving with their instruments a full half hour before class time, excited that something special was in store. I was putting the finishing touches on the track, Did You Ever? The lyric was distributed and singers were assembled around the mikes (few of the men wanted to join the group singing process, more comfortable in the guitar world). We knocked off the first tune’s vocals, added band accompaniment and proceeded to complete, I am Only One....!
And then the magic that we all wished for, began to happen. John and Buddy rehearse in the kitchen and emerge to record one of John’s impromptu guitar songs, Slide, in one take. Clarinetist Andrew Compton stepped before the microphone and created an improv of his warm instrument.
Cassandra Diley and Christina Hsu took their violins upstairs to the church sanctuary and when they came down they performed a Bach minuet in two takes. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an example of the ability that most of the teens gained during the week; to overcome fear and peer pressure, make good use of their time, talent and contribute to a group effort.
During some free time, I encouraged the visual artists to create art for the disc and there were several good examples to choose from for label art.
Day Five: Production Day involved printing the labels, j cards and sleeves, writing liner notes, burning the discs on two Apple computers and an Epson printer. Carol Abbott came in and shot a number of digital pictures that we downloaded into the computer immediately.
Three of us worked overtime to complete the assembly line that produce fifty compact discs, but many of the students came back at 3 pm. and picked up their discs. Many of the parents that had dropped in during the week were encouraging in their appreciation of what their teens were able to experience during the “rock and roll summer camp.”
Overview: We got lucky and the first event of this kind turned out close to perfect on several fronts. No one got frustrated or behaved out of line (except the three who didn’t lift a finger, however they weren’t distracting). Kids got to create new work, perform their own compositions and overall, except for I Am Only One..., the result sound OK.
Thanks to a hard working and trusting group of Lancaster area teens, I was able to realize my dream. It was a long week, but let’s do it again. I don’t think I’d change a thing, other than bringing two printers on production day.
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