A Virtual Christmas Concert!

Hear now, for your seasonal enjoyment, some selected moments recorded over our 2010 Christmas concert season, our present to you with our best wishes for you and yours on this Holiday and on into 2011! 

Thank you for all your kind support at our concert shows and parades (keep those cards and letters coming in! And please do 'Like' our Facebook page too!!) and should someone give you the gift of music making this year, remember, our rehearsals start up again in January; for over 85 years, there's been no better way to express our scenic city civic pride and community spirit than through our very own Owen Sound City Band!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

drive safe!

Gesu Bambino by Owen Sound City Band

Behold A Virgin Bearing Him by Owen Sound City Band

Christmas Fantasia by Owen Sound City Band

I'll Be Home For Christmas by Owen Sound City Band

Sleigh Ride by Owen Sound City Band

on the web : http://www.owensoundcityband.org

on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Owen-Sound-City-Band/28240633776

Heritage Place Concert Cancelled

Regrettably we've had to cancel tonight's Christmas concert at the Heritage Place Mall; such is the sometimes reality of  Old Man Winter in our Georgian Triangle neighbourhood, the schools are closed, the transit is stopped, driveways are walled by ice and the highways are in a word, treacherous, all of which is a good excuse to curl up at home around a warm fire with a hot beverage and a good book, and just wait it out.

Heritage Place Dec 13 7:30pm

Heritage Place Dec 13.pdf

What.  They think a little bit of snow is going to stop the City Band? If the roads allow, we'll be there, or as many as who can, and here's a little hint of the music you can expect.

560CFOS.ca Broadcast 1:10pm Dec 5th

CFOS Broadcast Dec 5 2010.pdf

The Owen Sound City Band will be in on the 71st Annual CFOS Children's Fund Broadcast taking the Roxy stage from 1:10pm to 1:30pm playing one or more of these Christmas concert charts (if you pledge in advance enough, you can request your favourite!)

This will be a live broadcast and the public is invited to drop by the Roxy to watch the show live in that grand old vaudeville theatre atmosphere; fans in the Georgian Bay area can tune in to 560 on the AM dial and anyone anywhere can catch us on the live stream www.560cfos.ca

 

Christmas Fund Broadcast

 

Donate now by phone - 519-376-2250

The 71ST ANNUAL Christmas Fund Broadcast is December 5th, 2010 at the Roxy Theatre in Owen Sound.

The Christmas Fund Broadcast has supported numerous charities around our listening area for decades thanks to the generous donations of people like you.

This year, the first $8000 raised by the broadcast will be used to purchase 4 sleep chairs for the pediatric department at the Grey Bruce Regional Health Centre.  These chairs are designed to make it easier for parents to stay with very sick children.

The remaining funds raised will be dispersed evenly amongst the charities listed on our event page.

If you would like to donate to this worthy cause in advance, please contact the Christmas Fund Broadcast at 519-376-2250.

 

via 560cfos.ca

Set List for Kelso Villa (Dec 6)

Here comes Christmas! We have a great lineup of old favourites, traditional carols and concert show pieces for the Owen Sound City Band Christmas performance at the Kelso Villa atrium next Monday (1475 2nd Ave W, Owen Sound, ON)

This is a free concert and the show gets underway at 7:30pm for more information, contact Kelso Villa at (519) 371-0440

Kelso Villa Dec 6 2010.pdf

 

Live @ The Festival of Northern Lights

I'm not precisely sure how Dan managed to play the tenor sax and take these live shots of the City Band opening the show at last Friday's opening ceremonies for the Owen Sound Festival of Northern Lights, but here's what his roving eye captured at the Queen's Park Bandstand!

and by the way, if you have photos or video film of the city band from parades or the concerts in the park, of today or years gone by, please do send them along to info at owensoundcityband.org and we'll post them up on the site!

The Secret of Great Men: Deliberate Practice

While not specifically about music, Brett & Kate McKay have posted an excellent guide apropos to musical practice or any other endeavour you wish to better:

What creates great men? ... The typical answer that most people give is that greatness is born. Nature blesses a few great men with some sort of innate gift that allows them to excel at what they do ... you???re either born with talent and destined for greatness or born without talent and destined for a life of mediocrity.

There???s one small problem with this view of greatness: there isn???t much science to back it up.

In fact, studies show that greatness and excellence aren???t ???a consequence of possessing innate gifts [and talents]???. Rather greatness is the result of years and years of enormous amounts of hard, painful work. Ted Williams spent hours hitting baseballs, and Carnegie spent his entire adolescence learning how to network and developing his prodigious memory, skills that would turn him into a mind-boggling wealthy captain of industry. ... young prodigies excel not because of some kind of mystical innate talent but on the merits of pure hustle.

In short, great men aren???t born; great men are made, and they???re made through the process of deliberate practice.

What Is Deliberate Practice?

In the book Talent is Overrated, Fortune Magazine editor, Geoff Colvin proposes five elements that allow a man to practice deliberately and thus achieve greatness.

1. Deliberate practice is an activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher???s help.  When top performers practice, they break down their skill into sharply defined elements. After breaking down a skill into parts, a top performer will work intently on the element they need to improve most. During the entire practice, they focus solely on that one aspect.

2. The practice activity can be regularly repeated. The world???s top performers spend years of their lives practicing. Ted Williams, the greatest hitter in baseball history, would practice hitting balls until his hands bled. Basketball legend Pistol Pete Maravich would go into the gym on Saturday mornings and practice shooting from a specific spot on the court until the gym closed at night. To be the best, you have to put in the time. In fact, if you want to become an expert in your field, you???ll need to put in at least 10,000 hours or 10 years of practice first.

3. The practice activity provides feedback on a continual basis. Constant feedback is crucial for improvement. You have to see the results of your efforts to evaluate if the way you???re doing things is working or if you need to change things up to improve. Moreover, without feedback during practice you???re more likely to lose the motivation to keep at it. During your practice sessions, constantly stop and look for feedback. With some activities, getting feedback is easy. For example, if you???re practicing your jump shot for basketball, if the ball goes through the net every shot, you know you???re on the right track. If you brick it every shot, that???s feedback that you need to change things up.

4. Deliberate practice is highly demanding mentally, whether it???s purely physical or mental. This factor separates deliberate practice from mindless practice. When you???re practicing deliberately, you???re focusing and concentrating so much on your performance that you???re mentally exhausted after your practice session. Deliberate practice is so demanding mentally that studies show that ???four or five hours a day is the upper limit of deliberate practice, and this is frequently accomplished in sessions lasting no longer than an hour to ninety minutes.??? If you feel absolutely bushed after just an hour, chances are you practiced deliberately.

5. Deliberate practice isn???t much fun. Most people don???t enjoy doing activities that they???re not good at. It???s no fun to fail over and over again and receive criticism on how you can improve. No one likes to be humbled like that. We???d rather do stuff at which we excel because succeeding is enjoyable, and it strokes our egos. Yet deliberate practice is specifically designed to focus on things you suck at and requires you to practice those skills over and over again until you???re mentally exhausted. What a buzz kill.

Don???t get the wrong idea. These studies don???t say that just because you spend a lot of time deliberately practicing a skill, you???ll become a master at everything you do. If you???re 4???5???, no amount of practice will allow you to slam dunk like Michael Jordan. What these studies do suggest is that we???re not as limited by our natural talents as we often think we are.

AoM Man-Up Challenge

This week I challenge you to pick an area of your life that needs improvement and apply the principles of deliberate practice to it.

read the full article over on The Art of Manliness

"The purpose of practice is not to better your opponents. The purpose of practice is to do better than you did yesterday." (Training officer to his men in Godzilla: Final War)

Reminder: the Owen Sound City Band next practice at OSCVI is tomorrow at 7:30, and our last practice of the 2010 year will be November 29th.

Scenes from the Santa Parade

You very often see photographs taken of the Santa Parade, but how often do you see the scene from the Santa Parade!  Our resident photographer Linda Joch was onboard the City Band float today and sends us these scenes of the parade from within.  Even a cat was watching from the apartment above Home-ology!

When You Don???t Feel Like Practicing

You wet the reed, you assemble your instrument, but the inspiration just isn???t there. The fun, the energy, the focus???missing.

But not the motivation. Not, at least, if it???s in the right place. If you???re driven largely by instant gratification, then you might as well hang up your saxophone for the evening and go eat your yogurt. But if your goal is to improve as a musician, then you practice. Whether you feel like it or not is irrelevant. The woodshed still has wood that needs chopping.

Part of becoming a good musician is a matter of character. Will you discipline yourself???because self-discipline is a choice???to push yourself through those inevitable lackluster sessions? If you do, trust me, it???ll pay off over time, not just in your musicianship but also in the kind of person you become. Good musicianship may be an art, but it???s an art that is matured, in tandem with the soul, by discipline.

via stormhorn.com

Some solid practice advice from saxophonist and storm chaser Bob Hartig. It's true, just about everyone at some time feels there's no gain to be had, but practice is also about conditioning the body and the mind-body connections, and those gains happen just through the doing. Besides, sometimes all you really needed to cheer you into an inspired mood is a little bit of making your own music!

November 18th Executive Meeting

OSCB Agenda Nov 18.pdf

Here's our agenda for the November executive meeting; all members are invited to attend.

Date: November 18, 2010

Time: 7:15pm

Location: 735 2nd Street ???A??? East

The Last Post

In honour of Remembrance Day here in Canada, we offer here our recording of The Last Post and the Rouse as performed last Sunday by our own Wayne Smith, the pieces separated in the recording by one minute of silence and the prayer

10_-_Last_Post_-_Rouse.mp3

Remembrance Service Nov 7 Central Westside United

The City Band will present a Remembrance program this Sunday, November 7th, at the Central Westside United Church in Owen Sound The service begins at 10am; the City Band will also accompany the service hymns, all are welcome.

Nov 7 2010.pdf

City Band 2000

[wpvideo xV6JUS4g]

 

a video blast from the past via Nancy Mashinter:

Was just browsing the computer, and found this.  It was put on PC year 2000. a lot of old members. (different band all together!)

"...since this started, it's dead cool to play a violin..."

El Sistema is inspiring young people well beyond Venezuela.?? This article reports on classical music and training being brought to some of the poorest neighborhoods in Britain.

One of the programs participants in West Everton???s Faith primary school says of Vivaldi:

???It???s beautiful music,??? she says. ???Like, at home I listen to Beyonc?? or Alicia Keys, but this is better??? well, it???s not better ??? it???s just better in a different way.???

Wow.

Another outstanding quote, from the same young person:

Only for a short time did ???my mates think it was different or weird to do this. Now, they think it???s cool; since this started, it???s dead cool to play a violin in West Everton.???

How are such sentiments achieved??? Well, it strikes me that the inclusion of everyone in the program goes a long way to help.?? Of course, when everyone is involved social stigma is removed.?? But it???s more than that.?? When everyone is involved, the experience of music making transcends the music itself and becomes more directly about the people and community involved.?? And once that has been achieved, the limits on musical expression are thrown off.?? Practice is no longer just work, and performances more self-expressive.?? It is a powerful thing when music making is about more than the music

via killingclassicalmusic.com

That's it, isn't it: "It???s not better ??? it???s just better in a different way.???

Welcoming the Chi Cheemaun

Ryan Wiseman sends us this video live from the dockside last Monday on the arrival of the Chi Cheemaun - that's our Lord Mayor Ruth Lovell Stanners waltzing to the Moonlight Serenade.

And the nominees are ...

Amparito Roca by Owen Sound City Band

The Owen Sound City band has just been nominated for an Owen Sound Cultural Award!

The awards jury is meeting to review all nominations and select the winners on October 7, and we will announce the nominees publicly on October 8. Winners will be announced at the ceremony on October 14th. In addition to the Cultural Awards presentations, the ceremony on October 14th will be a rockin' good time featuring many of Owen Sound's finest creative talent. Visit our website www.owensound.ca/culturalawards or Facebook page for more details.

Not to blow our own horns or anything, but this calls for a march!

The Amparito Roca was recorded on a perfect summer's evening, July 27, 2009 live at your cityband bandstand in Harrison Park

Noteflight: Online Notation Software

In need of a simple notation software that works? For free?

Noteflight was founded with the vision of making it simple for everyone to create and share musical ideas online. We started by building a place where individuals could create, view, hear and print musical scores. We established a community where our users could invite others to view, collaborate and comment. We discovered that music educators and instructors were excited about what we were doing, so we developed Noteflight Learning Edition. We are constantly finding new opportunities in partnering with others. And as we continue learning about new ways that people are using Noteflight, we are constantly introducing new features.

Sign up now at noteflight.com

You can spend hundreds on a full composer's arsenal of software, or even just $99 on simple small-ensemble notation tools like Finale Notebook, there are even free opensource tools like Rosegarden that can go some way to creating print-ready scores, but sometimes all you need is a quick way to illustrate a music point or transcribe a part or share an idea, and for that we now have Noteflight. I first heard of Noteflight by way of the TwitSym Project an online collaboration between anyone who cares to join in on writing a symphony using these Internet workflow tools.

Playing With Your Scales

Robert Maddocks wants to change the way you do your scale practice:

All too often I hear students practicing their scales ... Up and down, up and down. In the music we hear, scales are rarely used that way. It's the equivalent of learning to paint using the same color combinations over and over. Aside from trying to getting familiar with the scale and trying finger exercises, scales shouldn't be practiced this way. Once you learn a scale and and committed it to memory, you should be practicing it in other ways.

Patterns

One thing that happens a lot in music is patterns. Music is filled with musical patterns repeated at different intervals and different rhythms. Once you learn the fingering for a scale, it's time to try a couple of patterns and play those through the entire scale. There are innumerable combinations but I'll give you a couple of starters.

click through to Robert Maddocks's intenseproductions.blogspot.com for some easy exercises to get your scales working for you!

A tip I like to use is to take the scale to the 9th degree, one past the octave; this gives you an odd number of notes so you can keep a bouncy cut-time or swing rhythm up and down, and then come down skipping every second note: Do-Re Me-Fa So-La Ti-Do Re-Ti So-Me Do and then go back up the arpeggio and down the scale: (C-D E-F G-A B-C D'-B G-E C-E G-B D'-C B-A G-F E-D C), then repeat the same scale again, but starting on the second degree of the scape, so again in C, you play D-E F-G A-B C-D E-C A-F D... (a Dorian mode) and then again on the third scale degree (E-F G-A B-C etc) and on up to the 7th scale degree (B-C D-E F-G A-B C-A F-D B) and repeat the pattern in each key, each time staying with the same scale but starting on a different degree ('mode')

You may notice that this method will introduce you to the pop-music Dominant 7th (the fifth mode, a major with a flatted 7th) and the Dorian (2nd) and Harmonic (Aeolian) minor scales (sixth degree/mode) and presents those scales in the correct context of their key! Do these scales in with the Robert Maddocks rhythm mixups above (or play them to the beat of any drummer's beat you can really imagine clearly in your mind!) and you'll never look at scale practice the same way again!

Executive Agenda Oct 7

OSCB Agenda Oct 7-finalb.doc

 

Attached: OSCB Agenda Oct 7-finalb.doc

Our October executive meeting for the city band will be held at 7:30 on October 7th at 735 2nd Street 'A' East -- All band members are welcome to attend; please contact any member of the executive for details and see the calendar for the map to our meeting location.

Rockin' @ the Summit Place

Stars And Stripes Forever by Owen Sound City Band

We had them dancing in the aisles last night; this band was hot! We had timpanis and congas, Ted on the tuba and Dave on the piccolo, amazing as always, a full-throttle wave of full-on horns and reeds, the City Band ripped it up out at the Summit Place atrium and to prove it, here's the standard of all standards, by John Philip Sousa, gone out as our heart-felt dedication that night to our own 60-years-of-service bandsman Clifford Iles who came out with his son to hear us play.

Cliff joined the band at the age of 9; that was a few years ago, in fact, it was Cliff's dad, Will Iles, who led the first Owen Sound City Band back in 1925, and we're still here, still all-ages, still all-volunteer, and still rockin' the house.

Culture Days in & around Owen Sound (Sept 24-26)

 

Culture Days is a collaborative pan-Canadian volunteer movement to raise the awareness, accessibility, participation and engagement of all Canadians in the arts and cultural life of their communities.

One weekend. Thousands of free cultural things for you to do, make, paint, sculpt, act, sing, dance, write, and learn. Discover the world of artists, historians, architects, curators and designers in your community. Inspire the creator in you!

“We believe that the key to understanding and appreciating art and heritage is through direct contact with everyone who creates, invents, communicates, develops, teaches and disseminates all forms of artistic expression that underpins a society’s culture.”

CultureDays events: Within 75 km of: Owen Sound, ON

• Music at the Market

  Saturday, September 25, 2010 (8:00 AM - 12:00 PM)
  Owen Sound, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (0.7 km away)

• Art Installation at the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority

  Sunday, September 26, 2010 (2:00 PM - 4:00 PM)
  Owen Sound, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (3.4 km away)

• Frederick S. Haines Commemorative Exhibition

  Friday, September 24, 2010 to Sunday, September 26, 2010 (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)
  Meaford , Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (23 km away)

• David Milne Schoolhouse

  Saturday, September 25, 2010 (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)
  Paisley, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (33.7 km away)

• Valentine-Stark Mill

  Saturday, September 25, 2010 (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)
  Paisley, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (37.3 km away)

• Cargill House

  Saturday, September 25, 2010 (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)
  Cargill, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (45.3 km away)

• Dunkeld Hotel and Tavern

  Saturday, September 25, 2010 (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)
  Walkerton, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (48.4 km away)

• Walkerton Clean Water Centre

  Saturday, September 25, 2010 (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)
  Walkerton, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (49.3 km away)

• Viewfield Inn / Shaw House

  Saturday, September 25, 2010 (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)
  Walkerton, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (49.7 km away)

• Greenock Swamp

  Saturday, September 25, 2010 (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)
  Walkerton, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (49.8 km away)

• Victoria Jubilee Hall

  Saturday, September 25, 2010 (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)
  Walkerton, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (50.1 km away)

• Walkerton Public Library

  Saturday, September 25, 2010 (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)
  Walkerton, Ontario
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (50.3 km away)

Culture Days is a collaborative movement that relies on your participation. Everyone has a role they can play, as a citizen, as a business person, as a cultural professional, on behalf of an organization, or in any other way you can imagine. You can be among the first to join this exciting new cross-country network by first subscribing to Culture Days e-bulletins, and inviting your friends, family and colleagues to join the movement.

see more national listings at culturedays.ca

 

Reminder: Summit Place @ Mon Sep 27 7:15pm

more details ?? City Band at Summit Place When Mon Sep 27 7:15pm ??? 8:45pm Where 850 4th Street East, Owen Sound (map)

City Band Executive Posts for 2010

OWEN SOUND (2010-09-21) Owen Sound City Band presents a new executive for 2010/11 season

• President: Clinton Stredwick (Alto Sax)
• Vice-Pres: Dave Skelton (Flute)
• Treasurer: Wayne Smith (Trumpet)
• Secretary: Julia Richards (Flute & Semi-conductor)
• Directors: Dan Blenkensop (Tenor Sax) and Jake Bates (Clarinet)
• Past-President: John Dickson (Clarinet)
• Conductor: Robert Tite (super-conductor)

The all-volunteer City Band would like to express our infinite gratitude to past-president John Dickson, stepping down after an astounding 14 years as our City Band President!  Our thanks as well to Robert Tite for continuing on as our (super)Conductor and mentor, and our thanks also to seasoned band member Dave Skelton for accepting a post as Vice President, bringing his extensive experience to ensuring the integrity of our unbroken tradition of 86 years as the one and only official concert band to the City of Owen Sound.

And our thanks as well to our incoming executive who now pilot our City Band into the new frontiers, their year-long mission: to explore strange new venues; to seek out new players and new orchestrations; to boldly go where no band has gone before...

Star Trek by Owen Sound City Band

The COMPLETE City Band Music Library

The mammoth task is now done and the results are in: we have a spreadsheet containing our complete City Band scores library index, some 700+ folios now cross-referenced by composer, title and chronologically by publishing dates going as far back as 1883!

You can browse our complete list online at http://bit.ly/d2BZVB or visit http://home.owensoundcityband.org/downloads to fetch the complete excel spreadsheet (along with some other interesting stuff for free download).

so let's see ... what shall we play?

GreyRoots Bandstand Grand Opening

Video