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FEATURE | From Music Lover to Music Learner

By Robin Roger on June 9, 2017

This summer, rise to the challenge of performing music instead of just listening

(Photo via Royal Conservatory School)
(Photo via Royal Conservatory School)

While there is a rich array of summer music festivals for Torontonians to enjoy this year,  including The Toronto Summer Music Festival,  The Festival of the Sound, The Stratford Summer Music Festival, (with a serving of Shakespeare on the side) and Music Niagara,  the time has come for more people to devote part of their summer to actually performing music instead of just listening to it.  For too many adults, singing or playing an instrument ended in High School, and the insidious progression from “use it” to “lose it” has been at work since then.  Fortunately, it’s never too late to retrieve some musical skill and to hone it.

If you once played an instrument and learned to read music, your ability will begin to return once you start to exercise it.  And if you never played an instrument, you’ve still got vocal chords that can get a work out at a wealth of programs for adults offered around town and within a day of travel.

I can just imagine what you’re thinking about getting up in public and putting your musical skills on display: “why should people listen to me perform when they can hear world-class musicians at the click of a link, or go to a fabulous concert?”  Or “why would I join a program with adult amateurs who are way more experienced/ trained/talented than I am?” or “I’ll never be a great musician, so why strive to be a mediocre one?”  There are many answers, but the main point is that these are the wrong questions.  What you need to ask yourself is “how can learning music help me, and how do I start benefitting from that?”  In other words, just as you don’t have to be a pro athlete to benefit from playing sports, you don’t have to be a member of the musician’s union to get a lot out of learning to perform music.

The professional musicians who run these programs for amateurs understand this very well.  Jonathan Crow, embarking on his first year as Director of the Toronto Summer Music Festival Community Academy, at which professional musicians work intensively for a week with amateur pianists, chamber music players and vocalists, thinks there’s a benefit on both sides for the participants:  “ Great music can inspire wonder and passion that can be lost in the pursuit of a perfect, professional performance.  The Community Academy is a chance to return to the roots of music-making:  enjoyment of the process and learning together.”  Ross Lynde, one of two tenors in the A Capella Group Cadence, teaches at the Royal Conservatory’s summer A Capella Boot Camp for Adults.  He enjoys watching adults  “rediscover their love for singing and working in a choral setting.”  And Jessica Lloyd, who teaches vocal technique, Fado, and Opera Chorus, at the Lake Field Music Camp, where she has returned for seven years finds it very satisfying to see  ‘the surprise on people’s faces when they accomplish something they didn’t think they could, and the confidence and self-satisfaction that results is amazing.”

In fact, professional musicians wistfully yearn to retrieve some of the unpressured pleasure of being an amateur.  As Brian Chang recently wrote on this blog, the choral group Acquired Taste is a group of professional class instrumentalists who’ve gotten together to enjoy themselves as amateur singers.

For me, summer music programs are a chance to put the blizzard of daily tasks and distractions on hold so I can really focus on learning.  Just as it’s acknowledged that the best way to learn a new language is to immerse yourself completely in it by isolating yourself from your native tongue, an intensive immersion in music with other committed musicians is vastly superior to the regular incremental learning that normal life affords.  Whether you’re a young adult or a zoomer or beyond, there’s less time left to learn than there used to be so accelerating your progress is ideal.

Whether you want a staycation or an out of town getaway, there are great music learning options.  Locally, there are several programs being offered along the Bloor Street Cultural Corridor, such as the Royal Conservatory’s Cadence A Capella Bootcamp for Adults.  This program actually takes place in the evening, so you can still work on your tan.  Here’s what one participant had to say about it:  “Bootcamp was such a wonderful place to explore singing, and to try new things.  All the members of Cadence are so warm and supportive that you are willing to try almost anything!  The people who go love to sing, and want to share the experience with you.”

The Miles Nadal JCC Summer Institute for Creative Adults (SICA) Singers has some really hot-shot performers on the faculty, including Micah Barnes, Adi Braun and Heather Bambrick, and offers a seriously intensive experience including master classes, semi-private lessons, vocal coaching, vocal improv and choir.

In addition, there is now a SICA Opera Division, which will include a weeklong intensive vocal camp, with a focus on opera and vocal technique.  The instructor, Maestro Alvaro Lozano Gutierrez, who is returning from Spain after last year’s wildly successful Opera for All-Community Choir, puts the “intense” in “intensive” by combining high-spirits with high standards.  Even if you can’t reach the high notes or stay in harmony, it’s worth a week of lip-synching just to enjoy his infectious enthusiasm.

I’m returning for the third year of The Toronto Summer Music Festival Community Academy, which fills a niche for advanced amateurs who really want to give their skills a workout.  For the chamber musicians and chamber choir, this means polishing an ambitious work for performance by the end of the week.  For the piano masterclass, it means preparing a piece to perform on the stage of Walter Hall during the weeklong master class.  Its location at the Edward Johnson Building at the University of Toronto means daily strolls down Philosopher’s Walk, plus lunch outside of Hart House at the end of the morning session.  There’s already a healthy enrollment, half of which is veterans who want more, and half newcomers, which makes for an interesting mix.

The Community Academy takes place during the last week of the Toronto Summer Music Festival, so combining the lectures, open rehearsals, master classes and concerts open to the public with the musical instruction is serious immersion.  For those of you who would rather stay on the audience side of the line, there’s a companion music appreciation course to enhance the Festival experience at the Royal Conservatory given by the affable and knowledgeable broadcaster and music educator Rick Phillips.

If leaving the city appeals, there are some programs reachable in less than a day of driving.  These retreats, in beautiful rural locations, are all-music-all-the-time experiences, because the programming starts in the morning and runs until bedtime.

The Lake Field Music Campwhich is for adults of all levels of ability, is running its 40th year this summer.  Two-thirds of the 120 attendants return from previous years, and the faculty frequently return, which makes for a warm community feeling.  It’s less than a two-hour drive from Toronto.  The range of classes offered is remarkably extensive, from Jamming Basics for classical players to handbells to percussion ensemble.

Torontonians who make the six to seven-hour drive to the CAMMAC Summer Music Camp in the Laurentians are so enthusiastic about the location, the daily wake-up by strolling musicians, the calibre of the faculty and the esprit de corps that they don’t seem to mind the distance.  John Gillies and Anne-Marie Prendiville are Early Music and Jazz enthusiasts who have gone several times and are looking forward to returning this year.  The program is organised so that people can choose their own skill level and decide whether they want to perform or not.  Anne-Marie’s attitude towards the musical challenge shows the spirit you need to tackle adult music learning:  “I put myself in the intermediate recorder group last summer and discovered that I was way over my head.  But I dealt with it,” she said matter-of-factly.  “I just used that old approach of playing the first beat of every bar. It stretched me musically.  ”  Another pianist I spoke to loved her lessons and the practice time, but was equally enthusiastic about the all-day, all-night opportunities to join in other events, including singing by the lake at sunset.

The only drawback I can see to summer music learning vacations is that musical instruction is an indoor activity. But given that we have to watch our sun exposure, this is probably a good thing.  These programs keep you out of the noonday sun, and are over in time for you to enjoy the waning light of the long summer days.

#LUDWIGVAN

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Robin Roger

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