Improving our Stage Presence

Many of us have been told by audience members that the orchestra needs to smile more and look more like we are enjoying ourselves. I know its hard to do when you are concentrating on the music, but showing a little personality will help draw in the audience. I talked about this subject to a friend who is a classically trained performer and has played with profesional orchestras. She offered the following suggestion:
- Move with the music.
- Make eye contact with others in the orchestra. It will help loosen you up.
- Think of a story to go with the music. It will help with your facial expressions.
- Smile!!! At a minimum, smile at the audience between tunes, and if you can, work it into your playing.
My own suggestion is to look at Lon, (which you should be doing anyway). He makes some great facial expressions and you can trade smiles.

I started a thread on this subject on the Mandolin Cafe. The topic is Improving Stage Presence and it is in the Theory, Technique .... category. Check it out for other suggestions. And keep on Smiling!!

Any interest in a MySpace band page for MMO?

Just checking to see if there's any interest in having a MySpace band page for the MMO. I've done a personal MySpace page, and they're not too hard to do. There is a Celtic Jam band that I'm friends with that has some of their tunes on a MySpace band page, so not everyone with a band page is a professional musician.

It's not necessary to have a multi-track professional recording -- there are groups out there with live recordings, and I know that MMO has a few of these around. There are some restrictions on the file format which is published (I know that MP3 is one format which works), but I have a tool which can do any needed conversion. One to six songs can be published on one of these pages, and everything is free.

If there's interest, we'd need to identify and locate tunes for the page.

Let me know what you think.

Jean M.

Saturday Practice Session & Jam

A good time was had Saturday by those who made the trek into the warehouse district in Mpls.

We tore into the tricky bits of a number of the pieces in our repertoire, sorting out position shifts, fingering, rhythm and the elusive tied note lurking about in Goldfinger.

We reminded ourselves of the mp3 files on the MMO site, and played around with Amazing Slowdowner - getting that full orchestra sound.  I had forgotten how helpful that software is!  And reasonable priced too for Mac & PC!  

After that, we broke for treats, then talked a little about the history of the orchestra and - of course - about our absent friends - all nice things I assure you!

We jammed for a while afterwards - discovering that some of our members are better than average amateur guitarists!  Could have used a few more singers and the words to the songs!

This was just the spark I needed to get out of my practicing rut (or lack of practice)!

We'll see about doing it again in May or June.

Dotty

Good Sam rescheduled

This is just a reminder that our Good Samaritan program has been rescheduled for April 21. We'll be at the Baha'i center for a regular rehearsal on April 14.

Knorr for sale

I got this from Andrew Hendryx (no relation). Anybody interested?


"My name is Andrew Hendryx and I am a professional mandolin player located in NYC. I am selling my Klaus Knorr "La Ariosa" mandolin and was wondering if any of the members of your ensemble would be interested in this amazing instrument. I purchased the mandolin while studying with Gertrud Troster in college. My mandolin was built with the same specs as her "LaAriosa" and the sound and playability is amazing. Its is hard to part with this mandolin, but I was hoping to putt it in the hands of a member of a mandolin ensemble."


He sent me two photos. If you want to see them, or if you want the contact information for Mr. Hendryx, let me know.

Andy Statman at the Cedar

The Andy Statman trio will be playing at the Cedar on 04/03/08. This cat can play! Come with an open mind you will be blown away!

http://www.thecedar.org/andy_statman_trio

Thank you, Lyngblomsten players

I want to say thank you to everyone who braved the snowstorm to play at Lyngblomsten. I underestimated the snowfall when I decided that the show would go on. Our ensemble was smaller than usual (partly for non-weather reasons), but we still had a good performance. I heard lots of favorable comments from the residents.