Minnesota

My initial reason for visiting Minnesota was to take part in the wedding concert of Jon Michael Iverson and Pinar Basgoze. I first met Jon in 2007 at the MTNA in Toronto and he has become a good friend since and a great proselytizer for both Connections and American Popular Piano. See www.jonmichaeliverson.com and look for the Christopher Norton Project for a start!

Once it was established that I was visiting Minneapolis, I was invited to give a talk to the Minneapolis Music Teachers’ Forum – MMTF (www.mmmtforum.org) as well as do a number of activities at the MacPhail Centre for Music (www.macphail.org) and finally to do 2 presentations at the annual Minnesota Music Teachers’ Association conference (www.mnmusicteachers.com)

I flew in from London and after a short night’s sleep was (sort of) ready to start the presentations. First up was the MMTF – this was billed as a Meet the Composer event and I gave a talk about the variety of things I’ve done over the years as a composer, including my educational music series, but also referencing media music, ringtones, choral music etc. It was a small but enthusiastic group and there were quite a few questions and comments at the end. Here are some of the teachers who attended:

The event was very ably organized by Mary Jo Leier, pictured below.

One other person who came to the presentation was Nicola Melville, a New Zealand-born pianist who is now assistant professor of music at Carleton College, Minnesota, and is on the faculty of the Chautauqua Summer Festival. She has played my Rock Preludes a lot in concert and I was meeting her to discuss whether she might be able to make new recordings of the 4 books of Preludes and the 2 Concert Collections. Here’s a picture of Nicola – check her many activities via one of links above.

I then went across to MacPhail Center for Music, which is a community music school in a very impressive purpose-built building, with a fabulous concert hall and all the pianos and technological set-up that you could possibly wish for.

I gave a talk on all my materials to a group of the piano teaching staff – the presentation encompassed Microjazz and other Boosey & Hawkes material, but also Connections and American Popular Piano. Here I am at that session:

I felt there was a sophisticated appreciation from the MacPhail teaching staff of the pedagogical value of both the supplementary material (Microjazz and Connections) and the core material (American Popular Piano) being presented.

The following day was a public concert by 22 students, all playing pieces I’d written. It was preceded by a talk on what gets me started when I’m composing – I listed (and played examples of) 5 categories:

1. starting with a known style – not quite pastiche, but starting with a style which has its own conventions. Examples – Boogie from Microjazz Collection 3 and Positively Swinging from Connections 4.
2. Starting with a melodic idea – Stillness from American Popular Piano 4 and Stratford Air from American Popular Piano 8.
3. Starting with a rhythm – Samba from Microjazz Collection 2
4. Starting with a pattern or ostinato – Rainforest from Connections 3
5. Starting with a chord progression – The moonlit sky from Jazz Preludes Collection

I then played short recordings of pieces by composers or bands that have been a particular influence on me – Beethoven, Nielsen, Prokofiev, The Jazz Crusaders and Steely Dan!

The student concert included some excellent performances covering a wide range of styles and difficulty levels. The stirling work of the 12 Minnesota teachers represented was very much in evidence. The venue was very striking:

This was the first event like this at MacPhail like this – a non-competitive composer-oriented concert - and we hope it could lead to a Piano Festival event or events in the not-too-distant future.

The following day I took a kind of mass master-class, with probably 25 students playing for me. Most of them played classical pieces (Greig, Schumann, Gurlitt etc) and some played some of my pieces. I gradually got a number of piano playing fundamentals into the open, such as the importance of knowing what the fingering is of a passage, the importance of projection and the negative effects of weak fingers when playing scale passages! It was a positive session and many of the students played more than once - I called them back to play again in order to illustrate a particular point.

Later that day was the wedding concert of Jon Iverson and Pinar Basgoze. Friends and colleagues from Minnesota and further afield played in a concert celebrating their recent nuptials. There was a great variety of music played, from a Bob Dylan song accompanied by bass clarinet and mandolin to a Fantasy on Carmen for 8 players at 2 grand pianos. I played a Latin Prelude and a new piece, a multi-time signature take on Hark the herald from an uocoming Christmas book. The whole concert was live streamed on the internet and various people watched it in other parts of the world.

On the Monday and Tuesday (June 6^th and 7^th) I was an presenter at the MMTA and gave a talk – Unlocking Popular Styles – as well as a product session, on American Popular Piano. The first talk was well received, partly because I had lots of audience participation, creating ad hoc rock bands, Latin percussion bands and samba bands to accompany me and a teacher who was brave enough to help me out on stage from time to time. Teachers are more curious about pop and rock styles than they care to admit and anything that can sharpen their awareness of styles is only going to be helpful.

The product session was very well attended indeed and I felt that the work I have done in Minneapolis (see the archived report on my Scmitt Music presentation) and the work both Jon Iverson and Andrew Hisey (my editor on the Connections series) have done have means that people know who I am and have tried some of the series out and have told other teachers that they work.

There was quite a rush to the music dealer’s stand after the session, by which time I was on my way to the airport and back to London.

Thanks to Jill Kilzer for being willing to add me to the programme at short notice. It was great meeting many fine teachers from Minnesota and I hope to see them all again before too long!

Christopher Norton

June 8^th 2011, London, UK

Ackerman Music, Chichester UK - "Play with the Pros"

Ackerman Music, a UK music dealer with a number of stores in the south of England, bravely decided to run a day called “Play with the Pros”. This involved bringing 5 well-known educational music writers, myself included, to a school in Chichester for a day, with students and teachers offered the chance to have individual tuition or work in group situations.

The other “Pros” were John Kimber, James Rae, Pete Cooper and Mike Cornick, whose names and compositions are well-known to examination candidates and teachers around the world. I was stationed in the school hall:

and my brief was to do improvisation work with a miscellaneous group of instrumentalists. Flutes, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets and trombone were represented, as well as some piano players and both electric and acoustic guitar. I used methodology developed during the writing of American Popular Piano, to good effect I think! We all began by learning a melody – Green Onions initially, then The Girl on the Beach (APP Level 1) and playing each piece as a group, always with backing track. Then, having established the key of the piece, I got the most confident improviser to come up with a catchy one-note (the key note) rhythmic idea (a riff) that all the group could play back. Once everyone felt comfortable playing this riff right through the chord progression, I suggested that the same idea could be played using two notes – typically the first note of the scale and the second. At this point each student was free to choose when to play either note 1 or note 2.

We got as far as using five notes, which happened to be a pentatonic minor or major scale, much to the satisfaction of the electric guitarist, whose hand naturally fell into a pentatonic scale shape.

Then the improvisation started – students were able to invent their own idea, using their own rhythms. But, and it was a big but, they had to be able to play their own idea back again! This is never easy, but it is an important step towards “believing” in your own idea.

We gradually added other techniques – an idea answered by a slight variation of itself, a question and answer idea (two ideas, one different from the other) use of arpeggios, use of repeated notes etc etc. Some of the more confident players stepped up to a microphone and played with the band in a more extended way, using various techniques that we had all tried out.

I also got the chance to show some of the piano players some useful voicings and improvisation tips:

It was a very enjoyable day and I think the students liked playing together as well as having the chance to start improvising in a very step-by-step way. I hope Ackerman Music are encouraged to do it again soon!

Christopher Norton Piano Festival - Toronto, CN

The series of Christopher Norton Piano Festivals in Canada began in 2003 in Fort McMurray, Alberta and have ranged across the country since, most recently in Victoria (Vancouver Island) This year’s Toronto CN Piano Festival was organised by the person who has been the organiser of a number of these events – Liselotte Jongedijk. Liselotte runs the vibrant Musica Music School in Toronto (www.musicamusicschooltoronto.com) but is also a fantastic organiser of large-scale events. This Piano Festival attracted around 100 children, plus quite a few teachers and was a 2-day event, climaxing in a Gala Concert on the second day.

I alternated group improvisation sessions, using American Popular Piano, with masterclasses. The largest improvisation groups consisted of 11 players, each with a keyboard, including 3 superb new keyboards supplied by Roland Canada – thanks guys! Here’s one of the groups in action:

We ranged from a group of 7 and 8 year olds working from the Preparatory books to an individual class with a teenager, Bethany Super (pictured below left) using the Level 7 books.
As can be seen on the video clips on the American Popular Piano website (www.americanpopularpiano.com) I did group exercises involving both beats and rhythms, then got students to play a set rhythm to a backing track on the keynote of the piece, then on 2 notes, then 3, 4 and 5 notes. They then started to invent (and try to remember!) their own melodies, initially in the set rhythm, then in their own rhythms. All of the students did well and could feel real progress during the sessions. Here’s another of the groups at work – an impressive sight!
The masterclasses were delightful and I was very pleased with the good sounds I was hearing, the accurate rhythm playing and the evident enjoyment of piano playing. Here are some great pictures of the students who took part in the masterclasses:

At the Gala Concert, which was attended by parents as well as students and teachers, some of the most secure performers played their pieces, with me jamming along on one of the Roland pianos. What was unique about this Piano Festival was that each improvisation group played as well, including some improvisation from individuals within the group. It was a happy and relaxed concert and a fitting end to 2 fun days.

Finally, a quote from a parent of two of the student participants:

"I really cannot thank you enough for giving ALL the kids this INCREDIBLE opportunity. Not only did they get to play with Mr.Norton, but they also learned such a unique gift —the Art of Improvisation. Our group from Cobourg had a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The kids laughed and played with Mr. Norton—UNBELIEVABLE! They were learning something and they thought they were just having fun - I cannot thank you enough for a wonderful weekend."

- Susie

European Music Fair - Frankfurt, Germany

The big European Music Fair is held every year in Frankfurt and I have attended a number of them in recent years. This time it was rather different for me – I had my own section of the Schott Music stand, including my own table and chairs. I’ve finally made it!

This meant I could talk to people very easily and I saw a constant stream of visitors during the days I was there – from Germany, but also from France, Belgium, Denmark, the UK, the Netherlands and yes, Lichtenstein! Most (but by no means all) of the people I spoke to had heard of Microjazz and were very interested to see (and hear) the repackaged books with CDs attached. There were quite a number of teachers and dealers who were interested in American Popular Piano as well and I created lots of openings for workshops and presentations in Europe for both series. These workshops will often be in music schools, but there will also be promotional work to teacher groups and combined presentations with Roland Europe.

This Frankfurt Music Fair was the launch event for the three Microjazz Collections for piano, beautifully repackaged. Microballads was also presented for the first time and a new German-language book, grandly entitled Der Pop-Klavier-Workshop, which will be available in May, was also being pre-sold. This meant 5 new publications were launched, which is quite something in the present climate.

On the Friday night, I provided some entertainment for a large group of music industry guests, including Hal Leonard executives, other publishers and Schott and Boosey & Hawkes staff. It was the official launch of the “Christopher Norton” Roland HPi-6 and HPi-7 pianos – these splendid beasts have a CN button, which unlocks 340 pieces from my entire body of work, including very recent pieces, with great sounding backing tracks and on-screen music display. I used the HPi-7 to play a mixture of Latin, rock and swing pieces for the delectation of the assembled guests, including some audience participation (a duet with the official photographer for the event, a non-pianist!)

I had interesting discussions at the Fair about a Microjazz APP for i-pad, which would initially involve video footage of performances with teaching notes for every piece. And plans were put in place for a Chinese version of American Popular Piano. And of course the big Australian tour in July was discussed further. Watch all these spaces!