6.2.2011

My experience teaching enriches and enhances my musical pursuits. As a pianist first and mallet player second, I come from two traditions of training, jazz and classical; technique and improvisation.

My experience studying music and Ghanaian Xylophone, "Gyil," in Ghana enhanced my studies by removing me from a familiar instrument, music and culture tradition, tonality, and scale. A Gyil has 14 wooden bars woven together by string, twine, and goat skin; amplified by gourds tuned to each prepared tuned bar. The scale is tuned to the master xylophonist in the village; they can be tuned differently. Some gyils are tuned to a western pentatonic scale. My gyil is tuned to Bernard Woma's scale, I like to call it the Woma pentatonic scale. Here is the original tuning, as notes per bar from treble to bass:

High end

1. C# +40 cents
2. B + 20 cents
3. A -23 cents
4. F# +35-40 cents
5. E +15 cents
6. D
7. C -35 cents
8. A +20-23 cents
9. G -15/20 cents
10. E +50 cents (or F -50 cents)
11. D# -2 cents
12. B +25 cents
13. A -2 cents
14. G -40 cents (Almost G flat)

Low end

In duo collaboration with friend composer Mara Rosenbloom, I explore combining western scales with the Ghanaian gyil scale, and combining improvisation exploration over Ghanaian traditional forms.  (Listen or watch this live under 'Music'). In our first experiment we embrace the form "AABABBAB," on a melody that is from a traditional Bewaa funeral music.

I keep my head engaged with all three instruments separately. Technique for piano is very different from technique for vibraphone, or technique for gyil. Scales for gyil are of course not western, and therefore different from piano and vibraphone. I explore this with Mara Rosenbloom in our double key and gyil project. Gigs and music for each instrument as a working musician has been very different for each instrument as well.  Slowly over time I have been letting myself change instruments on a gigs that were originally intended for just one of them. Others have enjoyed my addition of extra sounds to their record, group, or performance. Students and friends generally enjoy discovering multiple instruments and applying them to a universal musicality.

As a teacher, I have to maintain a collectedness between training an individual in one particular style of music, let alone one instrument;  while I study multiple forms, traditions and instruments. More on this to come...