Laurel Black Music

“Laurel, your sound stops at your butt.” Ground All hilarious Family Guy -esque mental pictures aside, this interchange, ladies and gentlemen, comes from my first lesson with Dr. Karl Paulnack while at The Boston Conservatory .  Imagine my surprise when one of the most profoundly gifted, insightful, and dear teachers I came to know began a series of comments in my first lesson with that ! He continued: “I’m sitting here listening, and you are so ungrounded that it actually feels like your sound stops at your butt.  You’re only using half of your body to play.  You need to get grounded!” The idea of getting grounded was not new, but it was still a rather elusive concept.  First introduced to me in an acting class, I learned there how important it was to “find your feet” in order to breathe openly (aka properly ) and connect with the objectives of my character.  In my musical training before this lesson with Dr. Paulnack there was only bri...

Just like being labeled "judgmental," I don't want to be called "biased." Biased  is only a few steps away from  prejudiced , at least in my connotative mind.  (And that's a word I'd prefer never appear on this blog again.) But, there is certainly an evolutionary advantage to bias, is there not?  Over the last week I've been thinking about this quite a bit.  Where does bias come from? All of us develop a few of them, so why am I so adverse to the term?  And, if we all develop them, they must come more from functions of the brain than the mind, right?  They are separate animals, are they not: my brain reminds my heart to beat so my mind can ponder important things like where bias comes from. Here's what my mind found. Heuristics Our brains, being the efficient machines they are, develop mental shortcuts, or rules, that we use to form judgments and make decisions.  They are based on frequency of certain decisions and outcomes of the past....

judge  - to form an authoritative opinion | to form an estimate or evaluation about something discerning  - revealing insight and understanding Last year I listened to the final round of a snare drum competition.  With instruction to play "up to 20 minutes" of music, the most artistic player performed one piece with such depth that I had to remind myself I was listening to  solo   snare   drum . After the round I went up to my husband, who was a judge, and said, "well, this is going to be easy."  Alas, she didn't win because the other judges had issue that she only used 12 of her 20 minutes, and they essentially out-voted him. She came in 3rd, and this was a surprise to everyone, including the competitors that placed above her. I learned an important lesson that day - I learned that though we hope to experience the perfectly fair, artistic, and discerning competition, that's not usually what happens.  It's due to nothing more than human n...

There's a new podcast/videocast in town, you guys. It's the brainchild of Casey Cangelosi, and consists of him, me, Megan Arns, and Ben Charles. We're going to talk about all things percussion and music.  Don't expect gear talk, though.  We're into discussing different things: our history, what we're doing now, and how it relates to this wonderful thing called being human. From Ben: a reminder of our history and those that have come before us (and by us we mean the internet ) From Megan: glimpses into percussion happenings and Rhythm!Scene, of which she is Editor From me: a discussion point on the broader side of what we do. We spend so much time perfecting tiny sounds and movements, so let's not forget why we're doing it in the first place. From Casey: a host of hilariously epic, knowledgeable, and insightful proportions We're also going to often host a guest on an episode, who will sit in live, contributing to our di...

For anyone who already knows that the intercostals are the muscles between each rib, they might wonder why a blog about playing marimba would begin not with wrists, arms, or shoulders, but with breathing muscles . The reason is simple: we are human.   Humans have to breathe. As musicians, we wish to express nuances of humanity as abstractions of our bodies and minds.  (At least that's how I like to think about it.)  The connective fiber between thoughts and emotions and sound is breath.  Singers know it. Actors know it. Dancers know it.  Shouldn't we know it, too?  Acquaintance with intercostals, the muscles that innately understand how to allow to us breathe, is a beginning step in developing a connection to breath and expressivity while playing. What/Where are they? There are three layers of Intercostals: the external, internal, and innermost.  In the drawing below, the External Intercostal muscles are colored orange, while the Internal Inte...