RMF VIDEOS

Instrument Sampler DVD

With support from the Henry Janssen Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Reading Musical Foundation created this tool to assist Berks County music educators and their students in the instrument selection process. The 17-minute recording features 13 proficient, local, teenage musicians who demonstrate a total of 14 musical instruments and comment on their families, their activities besides music and the significance of music to them. Not only does the Sampler demonstrate the unique character and timbre of each instrument, but it portrays as role models students who are just a few years older than their likely elementary school audiences. We hope this tool will be helpful to the selection process for many years to come.  

Painstakingly and professionally produced by VA Productions under RMF’s direct supervision, the Instrument Sampler was a gift from RMF all Berks County schools and their instrumental music students, present and future. We recognize that selection of a first instrument can be a tedious process for a young musician and the musician’s parents. Furthermore, we can only imagine the anxiety of music educators in attempting a fair demonstration of instruments studied for a few weeks, or at best one semester, in college. 

Consistent use of the Sampler should help rebalance school music ensembles. Research on which RMF drew in producing the Sampler suggests that an instrument’s sound is most determinative of instrument choice. To the extent instruments are fairly demonstrated, the “playing” field is leveled and more challenging instruments, like double reeds and lower brass, receive a fair shake. We expect this will benefit school music ensembles and increase opportunities for instrumental music students to excel, participate in your ensembles and qualify for county, district, regional and all-state festivals. 

There was no charge to Berks County schools for the recording. The recording is fully protected under copyright law, limited for distribution to the schools of Berks County, and not to be used for any purpose except to instrument selection by Berks County school students, without written permission from RMF.

Click here to view samples of our DVD.
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MUSIC & ACCURACY DVD

Featuring musicians from the Reading Symphony Youth Orchestra and with the professional services of BCTV and VA Productions, the Reading Musical Foundation has produced a classroom tool that demonstrates the importance of accuracy in musicianship, a skill learned through music education. Using a simple, yet powerful approach, the exciting ten-minute video exemplifies how an “A” in music requires a perfect performance and how audiences expect no less.  

The video was a gift from RMF to all Berks County schools and their music students, present and future. Understanding that music programs are in jeopardy nationwide, we are hoping that this tool confirms the life skills musicians take outside of the music classroom and into their daily lives. In addition to the classroom, this video can be shared with parents, school administrators and community leaders to further encourage their endorsement of school music programs. 

There was no charge to Berks County schools for the recording. The recording is fully protected under copyright law, limited for distribution to the schools of Berks County, and not to be used for any purpose except to promote music advocacy, without written permission from RMF. 

Click here to view a sample of our DVD.

Accuracy in Music Demonstration Text
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Reading Symphony Youth Orchestra 

On April 8, 2006, C. Thomas Work, Chairman of the Reading Musical Foundation board, with Sidney Rothstein, former conductor of the Reading Symphony Orchestra, performed this Accuracy in Music Demonstration using the Reading Symphony Youth Orchestra. Later that month, BCTV recorded the demonstration for use in Berks County. The foundation encourages other musical groups to duplicate this demonstration.

It’s time to stretch. 

By a show of hands, how many members of our audience, as children, participated in a school chorus, band or orchestra, or took music lessons? If a typical classical music audience in the United States, 74% of you did.  In the most extensive study of its kind why people subscribe to live performances of classical music, the Knight Foundation, earlier this decade, found that 74% of an average audience participated in music programs or lessons as children. 

If we value listening to live music, then the Knight study finding alone is a prescription how to build our audiences: We should involve as many children as we can in music programs. 

But besides sustaining live music performances, does music education offer other benefits to children?  Are the skills of musicians indeed the skills of life?  What are those skills? 

Among them are persistence, discipline, dependability, teamwork and compassion. Conceive for a moment how many hours each musician on this stage spent in solitary practice before qualifying to sit here. Consider how this ensemble would deteriorate if its musicians were allowed unlimited absences from rehearsals. And imagine how this orchestra would sound if every musician played as if a soloist, disregarding every other musician on stage. These observations illustrate our young musicians’ intense discipline, their dependence upon one another, and how the whole of their performance is much more than the sum of their individual parts. 

We will demonstrate just one of those qualities – how musicians learn early in their training to be highly accurate.  The members of the Reading Symphony Youth Orchestra on this stage hail from many schools. Most, if not all, of those schools award an “A” for performance at the 90^th percentile in any academic course. That is, a student who answers 9 out of 10 exam questions correctly gets an “A,” a grade we equate with excellence. 

Ninety percent accuracy doesn’t cut it in music. You be the judge. Here we go. 

For the purposes of this demonstration and for the sake of our ears, we’re going to raise the bar for an “A” from 90% to 95%, leaving a margin for error of 1 out of 20, half the 1 out of 10 allowed for an “A” in most academic courses in school.  

The Reading Symphony Youth Orchestra, under the direction of Peter Brye, will play the beautiful chorale from the Planets’ “Jupiter” movement twice for us. The musicians have already marked their parts so that the first time, they will play 1 out of every 20 notes wrong – still a solid “A” performance, by academic standards.  And all that will be wrong will be the pitch: They will not modify tempo, rhythm or phrasing. 

[Rendition #1 – Play Jupiter chorale with 1 note out of every 20 wrong.]

Would you like to hear a “B”?  How about a “D”?  Shall the orchestra play your favorite piece instead? 

And now let’s hear our young musicians satisfy the much higher standard for excellence among musicians, playing the same chorale perfectly. 

[Rendition #2 – Play Jupiter chorale a second time, this time “perfectly.”]

And besides notes, consider that these musicians depend upon one another at an “A” level, and perform together as a team at the same rigorous standard. 

Participation in music is an academic activity. What other academic course demands the same consistent accuracy as what you just heard?  And if you’re not yet convinced, answer this:  If you had your choice of an eye surgeon, an engineer or a teacher who had participated in music as a child and one who had not, would you take the one who was allowed 1 out of 10 wrong, or the musician? 

My thanks to the RSYO’s Music Director Peter Brye for preparing the orchestra for this demonstration, and to our fine musicians of the Reading Symphony Youth Orchestra – each of whom deserves an “A+.” 

Script prepared by Tom Work 04/06.