John Lennon and CMAS and CRAS and Maricopa and on and on and on, all in April

The month of April was a pretty busy one for CMAS.  Even beyond our normal "busy."

Last Friday (4/19/13) we had the John Lennon Education Tour Bus (www.LennonBus.org) come to CMAS.  It was an amazing day to say the least.  The bus is a kind of mobile recording and film studio.  All in line with Lennon's basic philosophy on the importance of Arts education.

With CMAS in the mix is was certainly a different kind of tour date for the guys who run the bus, as we do what they do every day - just not in a mobile facility.  But in a lot of ways that is what made it so good for the CMAS students.

This was a fantastic opportunity for the students to draw direct ties to career options they can pursue in the future.  The students were blown away by the bus and the people on it and their expertise, but much of the day was spent talking to those experts about the industry.  About getting jobs like theirs. About how they can control their musical destinies and futures if they choose to do so.  It was really a wonderful experience.

So how did we get the Lennon bus to CMAS?  Well that was due to the recommendation of some of my friends at CRAS (The Conservatory Of Recording Arts And Sciences - http://www.audiorecordingschool.com) particularly Robert Brock.  The bus was going to CRAS that week anyway and he told their tour manager that as long as they were in town they must stop by CMAS.  So cool of Brock, and frankly very flattering, that he would consider CMAS an essential Phoenix destination for them.

And earlier in the week, CMAS as at CRAS anyway, for our now yearly "pilgrimage."  I've talked about this in other posts, but in brief, CRAS is very much the logical next step for many of my CMAS students.  The connects they make are just awesome.  I love taking CMSAS students there if only as it gives them some real perspective on the entire CMAS program and why I created it, and just what it can lead to.  It's always very gratifying.

The previous Friday (4/12) we did a huge show at the Maricopa Fairgrounds.  It was another awesome night for CMAS as we pushed the skills of not just our perfumers but also our producers, as we did some more testing of new gear and new processes to make our shows even more exciting but also more logistically simple - all in an effort to be able to do even more shows in the future.  Things are looking very good indeed in that regard.  More soon...

The week prior, Friday (4/5) we did another show in our Black Cat  series. I love that place.  It's not a big production for us, but it allows CMAS to stretch out a good bit without all the pressure of some of our more extravagant production shows.  It's become a very important regular gig for us.

"Works in Progress vol. 3" also came out in the first weeks of April.  And we did a bunch of things on Arcadia's campus too.  Oh, and the original Musical from last weekend, and the subsequent gig this past Wednesday at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts.

Ok...wow!  That's a lot.  And we're not done.  What's really cool is that we are at a point now with CMAS were we can do so much, and they students do it all so well, that it feels like we are not really restricted.  Makes me almost wanna start revealing what I have planned for the not distant future for the program.  Almost.  Ha!

I will say this though:  In may we will play Black Cat on 5/10 and then a huge show at Arcadia (Song Writer Night) on 5/17.  We will also release "Works in Progress vol 4" in late May, along with hopefully (I hope I am not jinxing things) some additional CDs of both CMAS Live and Studio work.  Oh, and a slew of lunchtime shows on the main CMAS stage as we head into the end of the school year.

And yet, for all that, it's nothing compared to what's coming.  Really.  But I've already said too much.

More soon.  I promise.  You won't believe it....

Moving Music Education Forward One Small Step At A Time

Over the recent years I have to admit that I have gotten used to the notion of the Contemporary Music And Sound (CMAS) program (www.ArcadiaCMAS.com), I am fortunate to have created and get to facilitate, push the boundaries of Music Education.  I know that statement can come across as a bit arrogant, and I apologize for that, but it is not at all how I mean it, and more importantly, it is true.

This past weekend we partnered once again with our friends in the Technical Theater program at Arcadia and produced a complete, full scale musical called "The Arcadia Project." (see the plot synopsis below) And when I say "produced" I mean they students wrote it.  The script, the music, all of it.  Designed and built the sets, executed the technical production, made the program, etc.  EVERYTHING.  It was stunning.  I need to get some pictures up.  In any case...


From the press release: 

“The Arcadia Project” musical’s plot was written by Arcadia’s theater students, and is an epic story of discovery, love, and loss through the eyes of a group of high school students, their teachers, and community, as they come to terms with the fact that their original school, now remodeled, was actually designed to safely house a previously covered up alien invasion force from a distant planet. Part suspense thriller, part comedy, as the story unfolds, we learn that the new school’s design inadvertently freed the outer-space menace, now bent on revenge. As the plot progresses, through moments of deep emotion, humor and intrigue, the students learn that sometimes life is what you make of it, and that every moment counts.

The music for this all original, student production was written entirely by students in Arcadia’s acclaimed CMAS program. Not just a sound track, but a complete live musical experience, this show, with a cast that even boasts a few local Arcadia celebrities, promises to be a great evening’s entertainment for all ages.

Part of the Career and Technical Education department of the Scottsdale Unified School District, the Arcadia High School CMAS and Technical Theater programs have a long and proven history of successfully pushing the boundaries of arts educational opportunities for students, and this musical is certainly no exception. At a time when all the arts are in jeopardy across the entire state of Arizona, the students at Arcadia are hoping to show that the Technical Theater/CMAS/CTE methods they are using to create this amazing event can transform Performing Arts education into something that goes well beyond just performances, but can actually lead to real jobs in the fields they love, all while keeping the programs’ overhead costs below those of the standard Performing Arts approach. It’s a lofty goal, but one they are keen to achieve; so join us at Arcadia on April 18th, 19th, and 20th, and see for yourself just what the arts can be.



I'm going to include the program notes, and other commentary below just to give you an idea of what they did.  And I could certainly go on for quite a while about the entire project, but what matters most to me right now is the notion that we can change education for the better.  Waiting on the politicians to do it is a fools errand, so we gave the kids the ball as it were and just told them to run with it.  This show cost practically nothing to produce in comparison to a standard school musical, but the educational benefits were vastly superior. Vastly.  And the show worked.  It was legitimately a great show.  I should also mention here that as much as I am proud of CMAS, it was my friend, Richard Fairchild (Tech Theater and Drama) who really deserves the credit for coordinating the entire event.  Yes, this was a partnership, but someone has to be in charge overall, and thank goodness it was him and not me.  Also, we did bring in Michele as a bit of a ringer to help with vocal coaching the cast, so that was also a huge advantage we had.  Anyway...

If you missed it the good news is that we are just getting started.  There will be more.  Lots more.


Here's how one school board member described it:

"I had the pleasure last night of seeing The Arcadia Project, and wanted to let you know how much I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was great fun, and the songs were just terrific.  I’m so impressed that everything was written and composed by these incredibly talented students - you could see that that their hearts and souls were in this production."  

- Barbara Perleberg, Governing Board Member, Scottsdale Unified School District



Here are the program notes and commentary:

Program Notes

One behalf of the entire cast, crew, writers, composers, musicians, and everyone involved, thank you for joining us for this performance.  It’s a lot to produce a school musical – any school musical.  This one has proven to be not just a fantastic challenge, but also incredibly rewarding.  We are immeasurable proud of all the students who have taken part in this process.

School musicals are fraught with countless issues.  Which show can we afford the rights to?  Which show do we even have the students to effectively cast for?  Which show can we afford the production costs of?  Which show will be interesting to the students?  To the audience?  Which show will give the most opportunities for real learning? And so very many others that it got us thinking: Why can’t the students write their own musical?

The truth is, they can.  In fact, as we are now on the other side, we can tell you, it’s not just that they can, the fact is they should.  Just on the practical side, so many issues go away instantly. 

This project is really something new.  Not just a new show, but a new approach to the Arts as a whole.   In truth it’s an approach we’ve been fostering in the Technical Theater, CMAS, and the Career and Technical Education (CTE) department in general for quite some time.

So thank you again, to everyone involved in this process that has lead up to this performance.  We are so very proud of every single student; humbled to have been able to play a small part in their success here; and truly glad you could join us for this event.  And now, on with the show!

Why CTE?

Career and Technical Education is designed to help prepare students for careers straight out of high school.  The CTE courses at Arcadia require that students meet not only a rigorous curriculum based on academic and practical competencies, but also that they demonstrate their skills in projects like the one you will see tonight.

Right now there is a push, nationwide for something called “Common Core.” In its simplest terms Common Core is the idea that underneath all the educational opportunities and experiences a student gets, there are a set of fundamental skills and concepts that are essential to their success, no matter what field they ultimately go into.  Right now, those fundamentals are focused nationally on English, Math, and, to a large extent, technology.  From those stem all kinds of things. Science.  The Arts.  And more.

But the Arts integration can get tricky, and the world of education is changing.   This is a fact.  So why can’t the Arts change too?  The truth is that at the heart of pretty much everything CMAS and Theater do at Arcadia lies that simple truth.  We approach everything we do with the mindset of “Just how far can we push the limits of Arts education?  How ‘real world’ can we make this? 10 years from now, can this experience directly impact and help a student be gainfully employed in a field they love?”

Essentially, to us, it means that while you must maintain a strong appreciation for the past, the real goal is to create something new.  Something of your own.  In pretty much every educational theory model the idea of “creation” is always – always – the highest level of learning, and we always aim to give our students every opportunity to do just that: create something of their own.  Hence, we now have a student written musical.

The Process

How does a show like this happen?

Arcadia CMAS incorporates real world musicianship with songwriting, live audio production and recording studio skills. As an aspect of that process, each song you will here tonight was solely written by students, and many were released on the first two CDs available free through the CMAS website, www.ArcadiaCMAS.com.

Part of the curriculum for the Arcadia Theater program involves scriptwriting, and so in early January a group of writers sat down with an outline, access to songwriters, and began to tell a story.  At the core of this musical, beyond the spectacle and larger plot, is a story about very real teenagers.

In the process of creating this show the students used a number of current and advanced technologies – a hallmark of CTE - and many of those technologies are present in their application this evening.  From the recording studios in CMAS to the scriptwriting collaborations of the Theater students via online script writing and communication tools, to the set design, and a host of others, this show happened not just because the students wanted to do it, but because they received the training to actually make it happen.   The entire show had to be completely written in under 3 weeks in order to ensure there would be enough time to cast, build the set, execute the technical elements, and rehearse. 

Everything in this show came from the students. Everything. The music, the script, the design of the show tonight - costumes, props, even the fliers on the doors – all of it was created by students working together using professional equipment and industry standard practices, built using online technology and modern media, meeting cross curriculum goals and thinking at the creative level.

The notion that these students have worked hard simply does not even come close to describing what they have all put in to this production.


So now that this show is over, what's next?  Well, for starters we have several more CMAS shows coming up.   Then there is the vol. 4 CD  of our "Works in Progress" series to be released in May.  And there will be more shows like the one we did this weekend.  Even as this one was in production we were mapping out a way to do this as an annual event.  A totally original show every year.  beyond it being cool, the fact is that the clear educational opportunities this provided the students, honestly mandate we do it again.  More soon...

Practice, Perspective, Patience and Musical Intuition

One of the issues I've been facing as I have been developing my new live performance rig is the transition between it being mostly conceptual to being comfortable to actually use.  Never mind the fact that it's taken me more than 4 years of experimenting with what in retrospect is an absurd amount of gear, or the fact that much of the experimenting was slow due more to my lack of programming skills at the time, or the - I would like to think this is the biggest factor - fact that I could not really find anyone doing what I was trying to accomplish so there was no road map to follow.

The sense I had from the start - through all the trials and tests to finally get a working rig - was that  I was radically changing my entire approach to live performance in this process. Now, of course there is the very real possibility that the sense of epic change I felt was mostly self imposed and perhaps this is all no big deal, but for me it has been very real - self-imposed or not - and what that has meant is that I have had to delay and delay and delay doing actual shows.

This has been disappointing on a number of levels, but on the other hand there doesn't seem to be any point in presenting what could be an amazing musical moment to anyone until it's actually ready to be amazing.

As a songwriter I tend to think in the moment of the song.  Everything moves outward from there.  Get the song itself in place and the rest will come.  But translating that song to an audience requires practice.  And that practice can require a lot of patience - something I am generally not always that good at.  Plus my entire performance technique has had to change and - I'd like to think - evolve, as I have developed the new rig.

This has meant that every time I make a change for the betterment of the bigger picture concept I have had to reteach myself how to operate the rig.  Then as I go through that process if something is not doing what I need it to do, I have to stop the entire process and look for a solution before I can move on.  Many times this takes additional weeks of tinkering until I can get everything running right.  Till there is another bump in the road and then it starts over again.  To be fair I should admit that part of me enjoys the tinkering - even if it seem endless.  Anyway...

In a way all this "practicing" has been a bit disconcerting, but recently something has happened that took me out of my now "Songwriting" mentality and back to more fundamental musical experiences of my youth.  The rig now makes sense to me intuitively.   Perhaps this is an effect of my doing so much with it that my brain moves faster than it did before through the process, but whatever the reason I find that I "see" the rig differently now.  It feels more like an instrument unto itself rather than just a way to facilitate song performances.

It reminds me a lot of when I was first learning to, for example, play basic grooves on a drum kit.  At some point I did not have to consciously think any longer about the groove.  It just flowed out of me.  At that point I was able to just play.  In the moment.  Intuitively.  Musically.  It was very freeing and it set a kind of benchmark for all my future musical experiences.

Of course there is always more to learn and add to one's toolbox, but the concept of musical intuition as a part of performance (in all parts of the process: writing, recording, performing, producing) has always intrigued me.  The idea "Nothing Forced Endures" (thank you, Richard Beal!) comes to mind.

All that in mind, as you might expect, I cannot at this point say "it's done."  Funny, if not predictably, enough, as the rig has reached this point of ease-of-use, I am still awaiting the release of some new gear from a few companies to complete my current vision of how it will all work.    In fact in the photo you can kinda see a "blank" area that is reserved for this very reason.  Most significantly I am looking forward to the Keith McMillen QuNexus and the Electro Harmonix 8 Step Program.  Both are due this month.  And then let the fun begin!

I did create a very raw video on the concept a few weeks ago, for anyone interested.  It's more of a prototype here, as since filming I have swapped out the SL-20 for an Adrenalinn 3 and reworked the actual placement and wiring to be more cooperative, and numerous other changes, but the idea behind the rig should be clear regardless.

It's an exciting time.  Lots more coming! Gotta go practice now...

Where's My Album?

I hear this all the time from CMAS students (and others):  "Why should I buy a full album from an artist, when I can easily just download only the tracks I want?  Plus, it seems like most albums, even by my favorite artists are made up of a few tracks I like and the rest is all just filler."

It's a complex issue.  On one level, there is the notion that while there is so much out there, a lot of it is junk.  It's easy to get lost in the din.  On another level, there is the notion that it was not always that way and the market has allowed this kind of disposable quality to music (perhaps to all the arts?) that fosters this frequent "not so great but good enough" approach.  Another level to consider is that the entire purpose of an album has been lost, just generally, as an art form.  And there are others.  Many others.  

But my point here is not so much those concepts but something more fundamental: are we doing a disservice to the art of creating music by even allowing the option of a single song download from a wouldbe larger scale project?

The artistic purest in me says, immediately and without a moment's hesitation, YES!  The pragmatist in me, however, is not so sure. 

Here is the dilemma:  if art is a reflection of society, and society is moving in a more, albeit artistically stifling direction, does art that works to offset or even to change that movement actually reflect society accurately?

This is not just semantics. You cannot have it both ways.  Nor can you claim everything is done as a protest.  It's certainly a conceivable possibility but it's not likely to actually happen in reality.  Frankly, it's far too easy to make a bigger name for yourself and more money if you don't protest and if you get along. 

And that does't even address the factors that revolve around the rather, I think, sad fact that the manufacturers of much of todays music production tools have found that if they make things that allow pretty much anyone to just, at the push of a button, sound "real," they can make even more money, regardless of where we wanna call the results art or just exercises in technology as a crutch.  But that is another rant for another time.  Anyway...

Sure you might get very lucky and be at the nexus of a great redefining of music, but most of us will never be there, regardless of our intentions, skills or anything else that might be a factor.  And, sure, you can go your own road all you want in the name of artistic truth, but what if no one is there to hear you?  Even if you are right?  Even if your music is legitimately brilliant; but because you are all alone no one hears it?  Really, what if no one hears?  And yet another rant...

It's a confusing and multi layered problem.  One that does not just have a silver bullet solution.  

As I begin to reexamine my own musical priorities as I prepare to start recording some of the vast multitude of songs I been writing in the past many months  I wonder where I will end up on this issue.  Or if it even matters.

Maybe that's the real point of art.  Not to be a statement of anything other than of itself.  hmmmmmm…