{"id":45890,"date":"2017-06-09T08:58:04","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T12:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=45890"},"modified":"2017-06-10T08:31:21","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T12:31:21","slug":"feature-from-music-lover-to-music-learner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2017\/06\/09\/feature-from-music-lover-to-music-learner\/","title":{"rendered":"FEATURE | From Music Lover to Music Learner"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer, rise to the challenge of performing music instead of just listening<\/h3>\n
\"(Photo
(Photo via Royal Conservatory School)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

W<\/span>hile there is a rich array of summer music festivals for Torontonians to enjoy this year,\u00a0 including The Toronto Summer Music Festival,\u00a0 The Festival of the Sound, The Stratford Summer Music Festival, (with a serving of Shakespeare on the side) and Music Niagara, \u00a0the time has come for more people to devote part of their summer to actually performing <\/em>music instead of just listening to it.\u00a0 For too many adults, singing or playing an instrument ended in High School, and the insidious progression from \u201cuse it\u201d to \u201close it\u201d has been at work since then.\u00a0 Fortunately, it\u2019s never too late to retrieve some musical skill and to hone it.<\/p>\n

If you once played an instrument and learned to read music, your ability will begin to return once you start to exercise it.\u00a0 And if you never played an instrument, you\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

I can just imagine what you\u2019re thinking about getting up in public and putting your musical skills on display: \u201cwhy should people listen to me<\/em> perform when they can hear world-class musicians at the click of a link, or go to a fabulous concert?\u201d\u00a0 Or \u201cwhy would I join a program with adult amateurs who are way more experienced\/ trained\/talented than I am?\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ll never be a great musician, so why strive to be a mediocre one?\u201d\u00a0 There are many answers, but the main point is that these are the wrong questions.\u00a0 What you need to ask yourself is \u201chow can learning music help me, and how do I start benefitting from that?\u201d\u00a0 In other words, just as you don’t have to be a pro athlete to benefit from playing sports, you don\u2019t have to be a member of the musician\u2019s union to get a lot out of learning to perform music.<\/p>\n

The professional musicians who run these programs for amateurs understand this very well.\u00a0 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\u2019s a benefit on both sides for the participants:\u00a0 \u201c Great music can inspire wonder and passion that can be lost in the pursuit of a perfect, professional performance.\u00a0 The Community Academy is a chance to return to the roots of music-making:\u00a0 enjoyment of the process and learning together.\u201d\u00a0 Ross Lynde, one of two tenors in the A Capella Group Cadence, teaches at the Royal Conservatory\u2019s summer A Capella Boot Camp for Adults.\u00a0 He enjoys watching adults\u00a0 \u201crediscover their love for singing and working in a choral setting.\u201d\u00a0 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\u00a0 \u2018the surprise on people\u2019s faces when they accomplish something they didn\u2019t think they could, and the confidence and self-satisfaction that results is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, professional musicians wistfully yearn to retrieve some of the unpressured pleasure of being an amateur.\u00a0 As Brian Chang recently wrote on this blog, the choral group Acquired Taste is a group of professional class instrumentalists who\u2019ve gotten together to enjoy themselves as amateur singers.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Just as it\u2019s 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.\u00a0 Whether you\u2019re a young adult or a zoomer or beyond, there\u2019s less time left to learn than there used to be so accelerating your progress is ideal.<\/p>\n

Whether you want a staycation or an out of town getaway, there are great music learning options.\u00a0 Locally, there are several programs being offered along the Bloor Street Cultural Corridor, such as the Royal Conservatory\u2019s Cadence A Capella Bootcamp for Adults<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 This program actually takes place in the evening, so you can still work on your tan.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what one participant had to say about it:\u00a0 \u201cBootcamp was such a wonderful place to explore singing, and to try new things. \u00a0All the members of Cadence are so warm and supportive that you are willing to try almost anything! \u00a0The people who go love to sing, and want to share the experience with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Miles Nadal JCC Summer Institute for Creative Adults<\/strong><\/a> (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.<\/p>\n

In addition, there is now a SICA Opera Division<\/strong><\/a>, which will include a weeklong intensive vocal camp, with a focus on opera and vocal technique.\u00a0 The instructor, Maestro Alvaro Lozano Gutierrez, who is returning from Spain after last year\u2019s wildly successful Opera for All-Community Choir, puts the \u201cintense\u201d in \u201cintensive\u201d by combining high-spirits with high standards.\u00a0 Even if you can\u2019t reach the high notes or stay in harmony, it\u2019s worth a week of lip-synching just to enjoy his infectious enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m returning for the third year of The Toronto Summer Music Festival Community Academy<\/strong><\/a>, which fills a niche for advanced amateurs who really want to give their skills a workout.\u00a0 For the chamber musicians and chamber choir, this means polishing an ambitious work for performance by the end of the week.\u00a0 For the piano masterclass, it means preparing a piece to perform on the stage of Walter Hall during the weeklong master class.\u00a0 Its location at the Edward Johnson Building at the University of Toronto means daily strolls down Philosopher\u2019s Walk, plus lunch outside of Hart House at the end of the morning session.\u00a0 There\u2019s already a healthy enrollment, half of which is veterans who want more, and half newcomers, which makes for an interesting mix.<\/p>\n

The Community Academy<\/strong><\/a> 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.\u00a0 For those of you who would rather stay on the audience side of the line, there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

If leaving the city appeals, there are some programs reachable in less than a day of driving.\u00a0 These retreats, in beautiful rural locations, are all-music-all-the-time experiences, because the programming starts in the morning and runs until bedtime.<\/p>\n

The Lake Field Music Camp<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0<\/strong>which is for adults of all levels of ability, is running its 40th<\/sup> year this summer.\u00a0 Two-thirds of the 120 attendants return from previous years, and the faculty frequently return, which makes for a warm community feeling.\u00a0 It\u2019s less than a two-hour drive from Toronto.\u00a0 The range of classes offered is remarkably extensive, from Jamming Basics for classical players to handbells to percussion ensemble.<\/p>\n

Torontonians who make the six to seven-hour drive to the CAMMAC Summer Music Camp<\/strong><\/a> 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\u2019t seem to mind the distance.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The program is organised so that people can choose their own skill level and decide whether they want to perform or not.\u00a0 Anne-Marie\u2019s attitude towards the musical challenge shows the spirit you need to tackle adult music learning:\u00a0 \u201cI put myself in the intermediate recorder group last summer and discovered that I was way over my head.\u00a0 But I dealt with it,\u201d she said matter-of-factly.\u00a0 \u201cI just used that old approach of playing the first beat of every bar. It stretched me musically.\u00a0 \u201d\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

The only drawback I can see to summer music learning vacations is that\u00a0musical instruction is an indoor activity. But given that we have to watch our sun exposure, this is probably a good thing.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n

Want more updates on classical music news and reviews before anyone else finds out? Follow us on\u00a0<\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/u><\/a>\u00a0or <\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/u><\/a> for all the latest.<\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This summer, rise to the challenge of performing music instead of just listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":45905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6439,14,22,36,3693,63],"tags":[9607,9606,9603,9605,9602,9604],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/06\/music-teacher-education-742.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-bWa","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45890"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45926,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45890\/revisions\/45926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45890"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=45890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}