City Band 2000

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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.

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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.