The man who plays the instrument made the instrument

What a lot of fun! How many of the songs do you recognise?
(Spoiler alert: Snubby J reveals the pieces played if you click on the description box.)

He says he made the instrument with Dad's help during the long summer break.

Onya Snubby!

Our talented students

At last we have some of our own music to share! Come on over to TheMitchellCon Youtube site and enjoy some great piano, trumpet, classical guitar and flute choir music from an end of year student concert and our annual Scholarship concert.

More to come!

You will also find links to sites that Youtube sites hosted by our staff and students.

Magic!

Eusebius requests your indulgence, please. Normal service will be resumed soon, but today he is reminscing. Today is our first baby's birthday. Daniel is 36 today and is busy rehearsing for a new duo guitar recording with Anthony Field, to be distributed by MOVE Records. It will include music by Phillip Houghton and Nigel Westlake, two great Australian composers for classical guitar.

But I'm remembering him as a little boy doing the percussion for our $1.99 Music For Pleasure Greatest Hits of The Tijuana Brass record.

He used to love the first track, The Magic Trumpet, which begins with a rhythmic motif for 2 trumpets, and is answered by the bass drum's BOOM, BOOM.

Today I discovered that the song was composed by Bert Kaempfert, who was born on my birthday and died on my Nanna's birthday. I used to love to listen to Bert Kaempfert's A Swingin' Safari when I visited my Uncle, Aunt and cousins. We thought Uncle Ben was a cool dude, with a great-sounding stereo and such a wonderful brassy, bassy record to play us.

If you'd like to make some great sounds on a trumpet, guitar or almost any other instrument (no vuvuzela lessons currently, though), you can enrol now to start your journey in music-making next year at Mitchell Conservatorium, which is located in the West Wing of Bathurst's Courthouse in Russell St. Phone 6331 6622 for more information.

Mitchell Con Youtube site is live

Belinda Macri performed this piano piece on Sunday, 5th December, 2010 at a Mitchell Con end of year student concert.

Do you like the Mixolydian flavour at the beginning?

The piece is called Larrikin and it is by Elissa Milne, one of Australia's best-known and best-loved composers of pieces for students. We hope you enjoy our very first video, and look forward to sharing lots more with you in 2011.
I'm sorry that the video is only taking up a small part of the screen. But I don't think it is distorting our performer by making her look stretched out or elongated.


Our second video features, Will Schoenmaker, playing at the same student concert.

Do you have a video of your performance?

Mitchell Conservatorium now has its own Youtube channel. We would love to feature good quality recordings of excellent performances of Mitchell Conservatorium students on our channel.

And I would love to use your videos on this blog.

The video above features Stephen Aveling-Rowe playing Bach's Toccata in D Minor on the Opera House pipe organ. Stephen learns cello from David Pereira and piano from David McKay. We can't claim credit for his great organ playing, but we can chuckle that his organ teacher is also a David: David Clark from Cooranbong.

Watch a master teacher at work

Mitchell Young Voices at our Open Day, 2008

In this short video, Bobby McFerrin makes teaching an audience to sing a five note scale look so easy. But I think that it looks easy because he does it so effectively, not because anyone can do it.

What do you think?

Singing teachers around the world use this Pentatonic scale to teach beginners to sing because leaving out two notes from the more frequently used major scale make it much easier to sing and to improvise on. And the scale is used in a lot of well-known music. You might find yourself using it on New Year's Eve, if you get in a huddle to belt out Auld Lang Syne.

Thanks to Michelle Griffin for pointing out this great little video. Michelle conducts Mitchell Young Voices, and teaches piano and singing at Mitchell Conservatorium in Bathurst.

How to get an audience

The Aston method

Choose a song that is currently very popular, and create your own great version of it.
Make a great live video of your performance
Result? Over 957,000 views on Youtube.




The Alphabet Photography method
Choose a piece of music that has been popular from the time it was written over 250 years ago.
Hire a terrific set of singers, including soprano Stephanie Tritchew and Chorus Niagara, a professional 80 voice choir.
Find a suitable venue.
Liaise with the management of venue
Set up seven hidden cameras
Perform your song unannounced, as a flashmob at midday when the centre is buzzing
Result: 936,000 views on Youtube in one week!