I've been slacking lately. I don't even know what I am supposed to be writing about in this blog, so for now I will just say some things that have been on my mind. (appropriate things)
I'm writing a series of cheesy holiday and pop standard arrangements for saxophone quartet. I am involved with a professional music/service fraternity. My idea is that myself and a few other people will go around campus playing music for people. All around, everyone thinks it is a good idea, now I just have to make it happen.
Some people in the school of music here at EMU are way too wrapped up with the "professional" side of what we do, as if we are somehow superior to the audience because we dress up and play well known literature. I do believe that the way a person performs music is deeply connected to their personality, more than anything else. I also believe that a person cannot become a successful musician without at least the beginnings of a personal philosophy of art. (an excellent class, btw, I took it during my first semester at emu.....4 years ago). There must be a purpose to what you are doing when you play music, just as a person must have some purpose in their life. What my robotic colleagues do not seem to grasp is that that purpose does not always have to be the same. They think that going around campus playing cheesy christmas music and rickrolling people is beneath them. I say that music, as with any art, has a multitude of different purposes. We need not *always* reveal the deepest fathoms of our souls, just as we don't always have to play music that makes people happy.
Music, among other things, is a communication of thought and emotion(not always from the performer; sometimes the composer, or a combination of the composer and performer participate), so, who is to say that my version of "Jingle Bells", and "Never Gonna Give You Up" is less important than Brahms' 4th Symphony? It makes people happy, it annoys people, it entertains, and stimulates thought. It is music.
