Delfeayo Marsalis and the Composer from England

So we had a special guest at our school this week.

I can't remember his name.

Oh well.

Anyways, the guest at our school is a composer from England. We went to a lecture by him one day during school. He had previously had conducted our school choir and conducted a piece our orchestra played that was his own composition. I guess you could say he was a fairly notable composer. I don't know. I can't even remember his name.

When at the lecture, he talked about his childhood. He was adopted at a young age. As a child, he was super musical and started composing at the age of eight. However, later he decided to pursue chemistry and other sciences at a university in England. Something, I don't know what, brought him back to music. He wrote for everything, and sometimes his compositions only took him ten minutes. For some reason, this guy was amazingly talented at composing. When he found out the reason why, it was shocking.

Since he was adopted, he hadn't gotten to know his biological parents too well. He decided that he wanted to find his biological mother, and set out to find her. Eventually, he did, and it turns out she was a professional pianist. When she was pregnant with him, she had played him the piano every night. The first time they met, he told her he knew the song she had been playing him. 

In the middle of his lecture, he asked a few people who think they're good at improv to stand up. WELL, YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT DIDLY DARN HAPPENED. Ashley, Alizah, and Ryan all told me to stand up, so I sort of kind of got up until Ryan pushed me. Thanks. Luca, James, Jake, one other girl and I were standing. You'll never gosh darn guess what happened next. He made us SING improv for one minute. It was absolutely terrifying. I mean, improv is fairly easy on my instrument, but singing? It is quite difficult to sing something that even you don't know what it is until it's sung. 

Luca was the first one to sing. Indifferently, he got up and smashed it. He sang in a scat style, and surprisingly, did not use use anything that sounded like a song. After Luca, James was supposed to go but he got scared, so it was my turn. It went way better than expected. I counted myself off, granted that I probably didn't keep the tempo, and just sang. I also sang scat style like Luca, and tried to create a melody from there. It was maybe just a little tiny bit fun. 

But only a little.

After I went, Jake went. He also casually killed it. Jake sang a lot a rhythms that made an actual melody, which was really cool. James did a jazzy take on what seemed like a television show theme song. The girl sang triads in a really cool pattern in a classical tone. I think she could actually sing.  

Most of the time, the composer spoke mostly about how his compositions came to him purely by nature. He said he hadn't needed much training, just playing experience. I really want to be able to compose like he can, but it is going to take practice and skills in other clefs and instruments. To be able to tell a story with music is a great power- and with great power comes great responsibility. 

Later, there was a concert. It was some of the Marsalis family. Delfeayo Marsalis and his father Ellis Marsalis Jr. performed with Smitty Smith (his name is perfect) and John Clayton. Delfeayo has been one of my favorite artists to listen to because he plays with such good tone. When I watched him perform, he has the best chops and technical abilities out of every other trombone player I've seen. I was able to sit next to Jake and Nick for the concert, and they both laughed at me when the group played my favorite song ever. Ellis played a lot of piano on a tune called Emily, which of course he rocked. (Ahem, ASDFGHJKL;ZXCVBNM,.) Pure excitement. The Last Southern Gentleman was a blast to see, the music and the energy was so exciting!

Delfeayo Marsalis, my idol
Image courtesy of Nuvo

I learned a lot this week about the future and music. I learned a lot about my enjoyment with music, and how I wouldn't mind spending an eternity playing trombone. Music is a form of art that shares thoughts and opinions through a universal language that everyone enjoys.