Michigan Archives - Grosse Pointe Music Academy

Fabulous Fifties performed by Michigan Philharmonic February 15th at Village Theater

January 19, 2014

Fabulous Fifties

Saturday, February 15th, 2014, 7:30 pm

The Village Theater at Cherry Hill, Canton

Geff Phillips and Kylee Phillips, guest vocalists

From Saddle shoes to poodle skirts, soda fountains and the jukebox, come celebrate the 1950’s American style with music from crooners Nat King Cole, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra along with hits from those iconic movies, Broadway shows, black and white TV, and, of course, from the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley.

BACK TO THE FIFTIES (arr. Robert Wendel)

[Mister Sandmad, The Great Pretender, Que Sera-Sera, Sh-Boom Sh-Boom & Tequila]

Richard Rodgers THE KING AND I SELECTION (1952)

[I Whistle a Happy Tune, Hello Young Lovers, I Have Dreames, March of the Siamese Children, Getting to Know You, Shall We Dance?, We Kiss in a Shadow]

Nacio Herb Brown SINGING IN THE RAIN (1952)

Harold Arlen THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY

Richard Rodgers MY FUNNY VALENTINE from “Pal Joey” (1957)

Bart Howard FLY ME TO THE MOON

SALUTE TO OL’ BLUE EYES

[I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Strangers in the Night, That’s Life & The Lady is a Tramp]

A TRIBUTE TO THE KING (The Music of Elvis Presley)

[Also Sprach Zaranthustra, Hound Dog, Love Me Tender, C’mon Everybody, Jailhouse Rock, Can’t Help Falling in Love, All Shook Up]

Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber, and Mike Stoller STAND BY ME

Jules Styne DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND

Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK

Irving Gordon UNFORGETTABLE (as performed by Nat King Cole)

WHEN TV WAS YOUNG (arr. Robert Wendel)

[50’s TV shows: Dragnet, Alfred Hitchcock; Honeymooners, Lone Ranger, I love Lucy & NBC theme]

shared by Grosse Pointe Music Academy

Music Lessons for all ages in Canton Township

Imani Winds Live at the Music Hall

Learn Bass Guitar

November 14, 2012

If you want to learn bass guitar, it may be wise to familiarize yourself with some of the humor that surrounds bass players and the playing of bass in general. Much of this humor is derived from the relative simplicity of the bass lines played by rock musicians. I believe that all instruments have technical aspects that are difficult to master including bass guitar. Many people who do learn bass guitar after trying guitar or piano will admit that it is easier in the primary stages of learning. Here are some funny bass guitar player jokes I found while surfing the web:

Bass Guitar Player Jokes

[Read more…]

Band in a Box

January 31, 2012

Yesterday I talked for a bit about the mid-nineties device call the PMA-5 by Roland. The program on that little gadget is similar to what someone working with “Band in a Box” might experience today. Band in a Box is essentially a musical engine that generates music based on what you specify for the style, instruments, and chord changes. It’s a great way to find out what your chord changes will sound like in multiple styles and it’s easy to sub in instruments for experimentation. It only takes a few minutes of messing around with it to get hooked. Let’s say you want to practice playing lead guitar over a certain guitar style, with Band in a Box it is very simple and quick to create an accompaniment.

Band-in-a-Box is the one of the most popular software programs for musicians, composers, and educators. It’s basically an intelligent automatic accompaniment program for your computer. You can hear and play along to many song ideas in a very short period of time with Band-in-a-Box as your “on demand” backup band. Just type in the chords for any song using standard chord symbols (like C, Fm7, or C13b9), choose the style you’d like, and Band-in-a-Box does the rest, automatically generating a complete professional-quality arrangement of piano, bass, drums, guitar, and strings or horns in a wide variety of popular styles. You can print out your finished creation with lyrics, chords, repeats and endings, DC markings and codas, or save it as a graphics file for web publication or e-mail to a friend. And when you’re ready to let others hear your composition, you can burn it directly to an audio CD. New features for the 2011 edition include big improvements to the sounds of RealTracks, with better sound over a much wider range of tempos. The RealTracks are now 70% smaller in size – and you can reclaim lots of existing hard drive space by shrinking your existing RealTracks without losing quality. We’ve also added a new Mixer window, allowing you to quickly set volumes,panning, reverb, tone and patches. The Mixer floats on top of the current window, so you can place it wherever it’s convenient to make quick and easy adjustments to your Band-in-a-Box track settings. This is just the beginning of the over 50 features added!

Buy your copy of Band in a Box today. Click Here to shop.

Posted by Grosse Pointe Music Academy Staff

Meet our Music Together Teachers!

January 9, 2012

We at the Grosse Pointe Music Academy would like to give you a glimpse into the background of our wonderful Music Together teachers. Our teachers all complete an in-depth Music Together training and come to us with a rich background of music experiences, including college music degrees. Come and meet these wonderful teachers in person at our free demo classes next week!

Hazimah Sovoda graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a Bachelor Degree in Vocal Music Education. While enrolled in the Music Program there, she sang in the Women’s Choir and in the University Choir. She also plays clarinet and recorder. She taught K-6 music at Warrendale Charter Academy in Detroit, and realized that her real passion was working with the younger age groups. She then found her dream job at Grosse Pointe Music Academy, where she first taught the “First Steps in Music” method, and then “Music Play”. Now, she is a registered Music Together teacher at GPMA, and is actively teaching the Music Together curriculum to very young children along with their caregivers. She is also currently working on obtaining a ZA (Early Childhood) endorsement so that she can learn even more about children 0-8 years of age, and hopes to teach preschool some day. However, her main focus will always be the Music Together program, and she plans to always teach these classes at the Grosse Pointe Music Academy.

Emily Schienke was a music therapy major and has a BMT from Eastern Michigan University where her major instrument was voice. She performed with EMU’s university choir in Carnegie Hall in NY City. She also plays guitar and some percussion instruments and played flute in grade school and high school marching band.

She has worked as a music therapist for the past 8 years working with children and young adults with varying disabilities including autism, Downs Syndrome, Williams Syndrome, and other types of cognitive, speech, and motor delays. She has also taught piano lessons to typically developing children as well as children with special needs.

Emily is presently doing part time music therapy work, and is a mother to 3 wonderful little girls, and is looking forward to teaching Music Together classes. Emily is a registered Music Together teacher. As Emily says in her own words, “I have experienced the enjoyment and powerful bond that music can bring to a family in my own home and in the homes of many of the children I have worked with. These experiences led me to the Music Together curriculum as a way to teach and further be involved in family music making.” Welcome to the Grosse Pointe Music Academy, Emily!

By Sarah Boyd, Music Together of Grosse Pointe Director

DEMO CLASSES AND ENROLLMENT IN GROSSE POINTE

DEMO CLASSES AND ENROLLMENT IN CANTON

Inspiration and Information

January 8, 2012

If you sign up for music lessons hoping to get some good information then you will definitely get that from the teachers at Grosse Pointe Music Academy. Our teachers have University training which will give you the certainty that the information you are getting will be the most accurate and up-to-date information available in the field of music. An aspiring student of music should without a doubt seek good information when looking for a teacher but this should not be the only concern. Information is much more voluminous in books and internet articles than it is in any teacher. For the price of one month of lessons you can get more information in books than any of the greatest teachers in the world can provide you with. I believe that a good teacher needs to be well informed with all of the facts of whatever it is they teach but if they don’t provide you anything more then it’s not worth your time or money. Great teachers realize that they are no match for the information that can be provided on the internet and books. Teachers who have passion and enthusiasm for music will be the only ones that have a chance at keeping students captivated during their lessons. Inspiration cannot be measured or quantified in any way so it is often an overlooked quality. I’m not sure if there is an exact method for providing inspiration but without it lessons will become dry and uninteresting. Anyone who has a joy and love for music knows that their life would be vastly different without it. The confidence and discipline that comes comes with it often takes form in all aspects of a persons life. Motivation comes from inspiration. Inspiration can only come from within oneself but it helps when you have teachers who know the joys of music and are willing to share it. Music is not life or death but there are so many people who gave up on it and wished they hadn’t. Our teachers will provide you with the keys necessary to make improvements without overloading you with information. If more is always better to you then go buy a whole bunch of books and start reading them. At Grosse Pointe Music Academy we want to give you the tools necessary to ensure you enjoy playing music for the rest of your life.

by Musicguru

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

“Information is not knowledge.”

-Albert Einstein

“Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgment, the manner in which information is collected and used”

-Dr. Carl Sagan

Grosse Pointe Music Academy

17012 Mack Ave.

Grosse Pointe Park, MI

48230

5880 N. Canton Center Rd.

Canton, MI

48187

Offering Guitar Lessons, Piano Lessons, Bass Lessons, Drum Lessons, Music Together Classes, Guitar Ensemble, Rock Band Classes, and other lessons for all ages.

Grosse Pointe: 313-458-7723
Canton: 734-667-4983
Clinton Township: 586-846-2984
Brighton: 810-775-3476

Fabulous Fifties performed by Michigan Philharmonic February 15th at Village Theater

Fabulous Fifties

Learn Bass Guitar

Bass Guitar Player Jokes

Band in a Box

Meet our Music Together Teachers!

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Fabulous Fifties

Bass Guitar Player Jokes

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