Musicians' Perspective: Week 3, Day 5

We started today by performing and doing a Q&A for Jay's Music Appreciation class. We got into some pretty "big" topics when one of the students asked if we imagine and picture what we are trying to communicate when we play. She explained that we she dances (she was a dance student) she has a clear image of what she is dancing about. We agreed and used this as a way to point out similarities between all art forms, and encouraged the students to collaborate with their peers in other disciplines in such a diverse artistic environment like PHSA.

We taught our masterclass today on performance anxiety and performance techniques. We heard a couple more performers before teaching another 3 hours of private lessons. One of Midori's lessons included one with a singer, and the lesson went really well. She introduced the concept of "support" to the singer, a technique used by wind players and singers where the abdominal muscles are engaged to support the air stream. After a discussion on support, the singer produced a completely different, full and beautiful sound. The student explained that she was imagining singing in a big concert hall and trying to sing so clearly that the people in the very back row could hear. Midori was thrilled and praised the student for such a drastic improvement.

That evening, the dancers went to meet with former first lady Imelda R. Marcos, while we (Brian and Midori) stayed behind to sit in on a mock-competition for the pianist, Matthew. He played fantastically, and we only had a few comments. We were confident that he would do well in the competition, and as it turns out, he ended up getting second place!

After Matthew was done performing, Brian taught an extra lesson to Drew, the only clarinet player at PHSA. He had a great time focusing on one of his favorite pieces for clarinet: the Debussy Premiere Rhapsody. By tweaking just a couple of things in Drew's playing, he was able to get Drew to play with much more projection and control. Drew and Matthew were just two of the extraordinarily talented students we heard during our time there, and we are excited to see where their talent takes them in the next several years! During Drew's lesson, Midori was able to spend some quality time with the other students, getting to know them outside of the classroom.

Musicians' Perspective: Week 3, Day 4

We started out today with a meeting at the University of the Philippines Los Baños to discuss the day-long workshop and concert collectively titled, "Pasalubong," which comes from the root word "salubong" which means "to welcome" or "to meet." Unfortunately, the music director was unavailable for the meeting, but it was still great to see the campus and to start planning the workshop.

We taught a goal-setting masterclass, which we thought was important for the first day, since both we both agree that setting goals and knowing what you are aiming for is usually step one in becoming better at…well pretty much anything! We discussed having long-term as well as short-term, weekly, and daily goals, and to make sure they are WRITTEN DOWN. We were able to hear one of the students, Matthew, who was preparing to compete in the Thailand Mozart International Piano Competition the following week. At that point we split up, and both taught several half-hour lessons that the students signed up for. We both had really good first days of teaching. We both agreed that the most challenging part of these two weeks was trying to teach lessons to those who played different instruments than us, since most of the students at PHSA are voice, violin, piano, or guitar players. However, this was also the part of the trip that taught us the most about our OWN musicianship.

That evening, we were able to go back to Los Baños and meet with Angel, the music director at UPLB. We discussed what we wanted to collaborate on, and learned about the UPLB "Rondalla," an ensemble of Philippine folk instruments called bandurrias, along with violins, guitars, and double basses. In the end, we hoped to learn some traditional Filipino music, and also share with them some kind of American music. At the time we thought a jazz piece might be interesting, but what we ended up doing was a lot cooler.

After our meeting, Brian had to do a furious search for internet in order to make an online phone call to the US for a job interview! He finally found a place thanks to the help of our friend Reg. Once that was out of the way, we all went to Chow King, which is basically like a Burger King that serves Chinese food. They had REALLY good Halo Halo, which literally translates to "Mix Mix," understandably so, as Halo Halo is a mixture of shaved ice, evaporated milk, and some combination of fruits, jellies, beans, and is often served with ice cream. VERY delicious and VERY refreshing. Almost every Asian country has its own version of Halo Halo. In fact, we had recently had a Malasian version in New York, but we liked the Filipino version better. We had a really great time hanging out with Angel, Reg, and the other professors from UPLB.

Musicians' Perspective: Week 3, Day 3

Today was Laguna Day! Laguna day is June 19th, the birthday of one of the Philippines' national heroes, Jose Rizal, who was born in Calamba, Laguna. To celebrate this holiday, PHSA bused all of the students to visit historically significant locations around the province. The dancers had some work to do, and also just wanted to relax a bit before we start teaching tomorrow, but we (Midori and Brian) are here for just this reason, not just to teach, but to experience Philippine culture and see as much of the country as we possibly can in the short time we are here. We also wanted to spend some time with the students we would be seeing for the next two weeks. We ended up in a van full of dancers, and we had a lot of fun. They provided the soundtrack for the trip, as an impromptu juke-box of the current pop music in the Philippines. We also taught them our favorite road trip game of finding printed words starting with each letter of the alphabet, in order. X and Z are hard, but we persevered and made it all the way through! Even Sir Robert, one of the ballet instructors, joined in. Robert also became a good friend of ours during our stay.

We started in Pila, one of the oldest settlements in the Philippines. Nothing was open yet, but we got to see some great architecture, including the Church of Pila. From there we traveled to Santa Cruz, the capital of Laguna, where there is a large memorial to Jose Rizal. Next was the San Pedro de Alcantara Parish in Pakil. It was outside of this parish that we were given small (1"x1") pieces of cloth. The person who was giving them out said that they were for good luck, and something along the lines that each year they would put a different dress on the shrine to the Virgin Mary, and cut up the old one to give out for good health and happiness. One of the things we noticed at this point during the drive was that large amounts of grain were spread out on the shoulders for the roads and in parking lots. We asked what this grain was, and were told that it was rice set out to dry.

Church of Pila

Pila Municipal Center

Rizal Monument, dedicated by the People of the Province of Laguna

"We die only once and if we do not die well, we lose a good opportunity which will never come up again... If one has to die, at least one must die in his own country, by his country, and for his country." - Joze Rizal, 1890

Outside of the San Pedro de Alcantara Parish

Front of the Parish (sorry the photos are so poorly stitched!)

Inside the parish

Gorgeous tree outside of the parish in Pakil. Not something you would see in America.

Beautiful courtyard inside the parish.

This was an area where you could write a prayer down and place it in a box. Midori and Brian added their own.

We were not sure what these were used for, but they are beautiful. If anyone wants to enlighten us, please comment!

We stopped to have lunch at a really nice Japanese garden near Lake Caliraya. The students were engaged in some kind of competitive race that we couldn't quite figure out, but it looked like a lot of fun. This got us even more excited about working with these students. The next stop was Nagcarlan, which has a fascinating underground cemetery. We thought it was interesting that some of the tombs were simply cement carved with the name of the entombed, whereas others were carved stone with gold leaf or paint and nice block lettering. Regardless, only the rich, or famous, or leaders and priests of the town were buried in the underground portion (there is an above ground portion as well). Apparently the cemetery was used from when it was created in 1845 until it was declared a national historic cemetery in 1981, and subsequently restored. During the revolution against the Spanish, some of the revolutionaries used the underground portion as a secret meeting place.

Climb the hill at the garden, and this view is your reward!

Outdoor Tombs in Nagcarlan

One of the nicer underground tombs

One of the less nice underground tombs

Midori really wanted her picture taken with this giant jackfruit! Unfortunately, we didn't get to try jackfruit the whole time we were there.

We finished our trip by visiting Liliw, home of the beautiful Church of Liliw, but also known for its sizable shoe industry. We both bought flip-flops (or in Midori's case, 6 pairs, costing her around $3).

Inside the church.

What a view!

All-in-all, we drove approximately 155 km (96 miles), and spent the whole day there. One of the best parts was the beautiful drive. We returned happy, if not a little carsick, and ready to do some teaching tomorrow!

Musicians' Perspective: Week 3, Day 2

We started the day filling out evaluations of our FIRST two weeks. These evaluations will be used to improve the project for future trips, to give us something to show to grantmakers (both past and future), and also to help write these blog posts! We met with Jay Gomez, the music coordinator, someone who we would become good friends with in the following weeks.

After lunch, we got to finally meet the music students! Since this week was basically the first week of the school year, they were all attending their first theory classes, but the theory teacher was kind enough to let us sit in to hear the freshmen perform. We already began formulating what we wanted to teach about and emphasize in our lessons and masterclasses. The students all seemed shy at first, but once we were out of the classroom waiting for the bus, they opened up and began asking us questions about ourselves, and about music in general. It was a lot of fun.

Musicians' Perspective: Week 3, Day 1 (June 17, 2012)

After a relatively smooth flight that half of us slept through, we landed in Manilla…again. We spent another two hours (mostly sleeping) in the car on our way to Mount Makiling, where the Philippine High School for the Arts is housed, and where we would be spending the remainder of our project. Mount Makiling is just outside of Los Baños. Some people have asked me "Doesn't 'baño' mean 'bathroom' in Spanish?" but the literal translation is "the bathing places," alluding to the thermal springs at the foot of Mount Makiling. Unfortunately, we were not able to visit these hot springs during our time there, but hopefully we can the next time we visit. Los Baños is in the province of Laguna, just as Catarman is in the province of Northern Samar, but more on Laguna in a future post...

Our first thought upon arriving at Mount Makiling was: Beautiful. The school is built on a mountain, there is no other way to describe it. We had a tasty fried fish lunch prepared for us by the school's staff and got settled in our rooms. Midori wanted to sleep more (she was still getting over her cold bug), so Brian went exploring with the dancers. The view is amazing here, with a view of rice paddy fields, the crater-shaped Alligator Lake, and the large Laguna de Bay just to the north. Their performance space is the Tanghalang Maria Makiling (Tanghalang is the Tagalog word for "Theater"), a unique pyramid-shaped amphitheater. We found the dance studio and came up with a really cool "gesture" dance, for fun. Unfortunately, though, by the time we were ready to walk home, it was dark and raining. Oh well, with the heat we were used to, the rain felt nice!

AMAZING News for the Music Students at PHSA!

From Midori and Brian:

We are extremely happy to announce that the D'Addario Music Foundation has graciously donated thirty metronome/tuner combo units to the Philippine High School for the Arts! The D'Addario Music Foundation is dedicated to supporting music education all over the world. They are a not-for-profit branch of D'Addario and Company Inc., makers of the "Planet Waves" metronomes and tuners that have been donated.

We are working on some more in-depth posts about our experience at PHSA, but this news became priority number one. We think about our experience at PHSA every day, and talk about it often. We had an amazing time there, and we both feel that the students there helped us grow as people and musicians just as much (if not more!) than we helped teach them. Every student there is very special, and we believe they are all good enough to get into some of the top music schools in the US. There was one other factor, though, that we realized might prevent their development to this level. On our first day working with the students in a master class setting, we asked for a show of hands of who owned a metronome and/or tuner. One student raised his hand, and explained that it wasn’t necessary that they each owned one, because he was willing to share his one metronome with the rest of the students at the school. Shocked at this, we explained that each student should have their own metronome and tuner, and that they would only cost around 800 Philippine pesos ($20). The students were heartbroken, and eventually admitted that this would present a financial hardship for most of them. Needless to say, we struggled at times during our residency to help the students improve their intonation, rhythm, and inner-pulse. Many of the students had hit a plateau where they had become frustrated at an inability to improve. We were positive they could overcome this if they simply had regular access to these tools. We want to reiterate, though, that we were tremendously impressed at how far they had gotten without these tools!

We explained to the students that EVERY music student in the world needs to have a metronome. We both use a metronome every day to improve our rhythm, tempo/pulse, and especially as a practice tool for working up difficult passages from slow to fast. It is useful for tracking progress while practicing: finding your "goal" tempo, your "start" tempo, and knowing which tempos you've gotten to in-between on each day. In addition, almost every musician can benefit from the use of a tuner (well, maybe not pianists:-)). Again, we use these every day while we are practicing to make sure that the notes on our instruments are in tune, and that we will play in tune when collaborating with other musicians.



We contacted around a dozen music stores and metronome manufacturers. Our goal was to provide one metronome and tuner for the school to check out to every single student at PHSA so that they have access to their own metronome at any time while practicing, without ever needing to borrow from another student. While we received some initial negative responses ("We are sorry but we are not able to make a donation at this time..."), within a couple of days, we heard back from Suzanne D’Addario Brouder with the D'Addario Music Foundation with the following e-mail:

"I am absolutely sure that spending time with these students and encouraging their development was both an educational and rewarding experience.  It always amazes me what others achieve with so little when we live in a country of such excess.  I would love to be able to donate some tuners and metronomes to these deserving students."

We are posting this blog post because just today, 30 metronome/tuner units arrived in the mail, free of charge! We are still working out the details, but we are hoping to get the metronomes to PHSA in the next couple of weeks. We will post a follow-up later in the year on how the metronomes are being used at the school.

We also wanted to add that we received a very positive and supportive response from Brian Charles at Charles Double Reed Company. While we no longer need metronome donations, Mr. Charles has offered his support in other ways. We are working out the details of this donation as well, and will update the blog with news as it comes.

From Midori and Brian, we want to give the most heartfelt thanks we can to the D'Addario Music Foundation. It was our number one goal after we left the Philippines to get these tools in the hands of the talented, passionate, and driven students who both need and deserve them. The foundation was so quick in responding, and so generous and cooperative, Project Philippines 2012 owes them a huge debt of gratitude. If any of our supporters would like to learn more about the work of the foundation, please visit http://www.daddariofoundation.org. Maraming salamat!

Midori Samson, Bassoon, The Juilliard School
Brian Gnojek, Clarinet, Freelance Musician in NYC

Individual Expression and Empowerment

by Kendra Samson

My broad goal was to empower individuals and to feel empowered by the end of this trip, and it was a goal we absolutely accomplished. In Samar, I had an opportunity to assist in creative movement classes and teach a Limon class. The creative movement class is inspired from, and would progress from humane values such as exploration, trust and respect. It would play between investigating movements as a group, then with partners and finally into the individual. It was incredible to observe their experiences as they deviated from their comfort zone of being part of a group or having a partner to discovering creativity for themselves. It was a proud moment for me. In the Limon class, I intended to teach the sectioned exercises as part of one long phrase which I would teach in detail. With the technique being quite far from their usual doses of popular forms like hip hop, it took them a while to understand the philosophy of harmonizing breath, of embracing weight and of utilizing less muscular effort in movement, however it was precious to see when they eventually did. I treasured our experiences in Samar – even the random ones of judging for the pageants and talent shows!

In the city of Manila, I taught improvisation and the Taylor technique collaboratively with Chelsea. Since our students at the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) had more training in art and dance, we challenged them more with exploring past the boundaries of technique and in discovering their core identities through the art of dance. They were still very self-conscious during our first classes and would hardly communicate any questions or thoughts. When they started seeing us more as their contemporaries, I found that they opened up more, however they were still generally reserved. Their dancing also became more uninhibited as our classes progressed, and as we also got to know them better, which made us so happy. Our teaching days would often begin with either a game, or a circle warm-up, followed by either a technique class or an improvisation class and the remaining time would be spent in rehearsing for our culminating performance ending with journal-writing.

While teaching at PHSA, we were invited to do a workshop for one day at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños. Our experience at UPLB was one among many experiences that stood out for me since we were able to speak and relate with influential teachers and artists. 

 

Our culminating performances in both Samar and at PHSA were some of my most memorable experiences from this trip. It surprised me how the act of performing really brings out the most in a person in the truest moments of their lives. What other kind of experience can replicate this? I was particularly proud of our last-minute planning to make an improvisatory dance score with our PHSA dance students in collaboration with the music students. As a PHSA student, I never performed to live music or was challenged to improvise to a piece that was made within a day! It was so thrilling to offer them such an experience.

As a former student of both PHSA and CCP years ago, I really wanted to share the broadness and joys of moving and exploring identities that I learned during my experiences in New York. I wanted them to fall in love with dance and I hope that I was able to influence and encourage them because they in turn have made me feel inspired to re-discover my love for dance during this process. Their pure motivations for learning and in pursuing what either interests them or what they love, without complications of income or status – things that I find usually hinder a contemporary artist – are truly inspiring. Teaching such limitless young minds and bodies also taught me the potential and unique individuality of the self in creating something of beauty and good. Outreach programs such as this are truly relative acts of giving and receiving. I love our team and what we were able to make in 4 weeks. There were definitely challenges, but how it all unfolded was something beautiful and profound…Let’s keep on doing this!