For you drumline folks, we’re starting a series of informational videos called “8 & You’re In” featuring our very own Gustavo Villegas.  The videos will teach various concepts of effective drumming.  The first episode involves flam accents.

Let us know your thoughts (good or bad), as we want to make this both helpful and informative!

As Bakersfield’s largest music school, we’re always encouraged when our students succeed on the public stage. Take Vivian Do for example. She’s a piano student of our own Kathy Stokes and recently competed in the Search for Talent sponsored by the Bakersfield Exchange Club. In the Junior Division, she placed first out of 27 contestants!

Congratulations are in order to both Vivian and Kathy! If you’re considering music lessons, this is the perfect time to sign up. Give us a call at 327.5397 or find more information, including a downloadable sign-up sheet, here.

Here’s a rather interesting video by Dan St. Marseille on how to get the most out of your clarinet and saxophone reeds. He has some good tips!

Here’s Gustavo Villegas demonstrating the new Remo TSS practice pad. Listen to how the sound changes from the beginning to the end of the video!

Are music lessons as important for kids as we are led to believe in schools nowadays?

In many districts–including some in Kern County–music education is relegated as an afterthought, something to be considered only when it threatens to be eliminated from a school budget.  This should not be the case, as music lessons are vitally important for students–and for more reasons than you might think!  Here are some points to consider:

• One study revealed that young children who received a year of musical training showed brain changes and superior memory compared with children who did not receive the instruction. “It is very interesting that the children taking music lessons improved more over the year on general memory skills that are correlated with nonmusical abilities — such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics and IQ — than did the children not taking lessons,” said Laurel J. Trainor, researcher of the study at McMaster University in Canada (Fujioka, Ross, Kakigi, Pantev and Trainor. Brain, a Journal of Neurology. Oxford University Press, September 2006).

• A study of rural and urban inner-city schools found that arts programs helped schools in economically disadvantaged communities develop students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills; create more opportunities for intellectual and emotional exploration; increase student self-esteem, self-expression, interest in school and engagement with others; promote school-wide communication and collaboration and increase parental involvement and teacher creativity (Stevenson and Deasy. Third Space: When Learning Matters. Arts Education Partnership, 2005).

• In a 2006 Harris Poll, 96% of high school principals surveyed agree that participating in music education encourages and motivates students to stay in school.  The same poll also found that 89% of these principals felt that a having a high quality music program contributed to higher graduation rates.

• Dr. Patricia Shehan Campbell wrote in The Journal for Research in Music Education (2007) that “[t]eens who participate in music education programs see music as their ‘social glue,’ as a bridge for building acceptance and tolerance for people of different ages and cultural circumstances, and associate playing music with music literacy, self-discipline, listening skills, motor ability, eye-hand coordination and heightened intellectual capabilities.”

• In addition to the multitasking requirements playing a musical composition represents, a person must be able to focus consistently for extended periods of time.  This takes an enormous amount of training and willpower, but the positive effects cannot be overexaggerated.

If there’s a time to be outspoken about the importance of music education for students of all ages, that time is now.  One way to do this is to simply let the powers that be in your child’s school district know of your desire to keep music a functioning part of the school curriculum.  Making your message a positive one will make it more likely to be heard in a favorable manner.  Consider the effects of this in the Fruitvale School District, one of many districts that looked at cutting music from all school sites last year.  The staffing was pared down, but the program was spared.  As a result of dedication and excitement from the new music director, each site is averaging nearly 50 students in band activities, a significant improvement over recent years.

The second way to make your voice known is through enrolling your children in music lessons.  Bakersfield is blessed to have a plethora of music instructors in every conceivable discipline.  Make sure you shop around and ask for advice from other parents and colleagues on good instructors for the instrument your child plays.  At California Keyboards Music Center, we have over twenty instructors that teach piano, violin, guitar, trumpet, flute, clarinet, saxophone, and many other instruments.  If you’re interested, you can click here to find out more.

Music has been part of each of our individual life soundtracks.  It’s time to make sure the next generation is able to enjoy theirs.

For years Rico reeds have had the reputation as beginner reeds and reeds that most players wouldn’t want to play on.  I bet you didn’t know that Rico also makes the following reeds:

• Mitchell Lurie
• Grand Concert
• La Voz
• Hemke
• Plasticover

Other reeds that bare Rico’s name are Reserve, Jazz Select, and Royal.

All of these, with the exception of the Reserve line, are all made by the same machines with the same skilled laborers.  Rico Reserves are the exception because they use different diamond cutting machines.

Rico also makes reeds for other companies, but you would never guess that they were Ricos.

In the past few years, Rico has made over 12 million dollars worth of improvements to their factory in Sun Valley, California.  Approximately 90% of the reeds used are reeds they have developed in their own fields in both France and South America.  Only 20% of the cane harvested is actually made into a reed.  Because of special automation, the consistency of every reed–regardless of model–has over a 90% consistency rate while other manufacturers have about a 50% consistency rate at best.  This is due to laser testing that is performed on the cane before it even becomes a reed.  This makes Rico’s products the most consistent on the market.  With the development of their new product, Reserve Classic, Rico now has a longer lasting reed than ever before.

If you haven’t tried a Rico reed in over two years, it’s time you did.  Be it a Royal, Mitchell Lurie, Grand Concert, Reserve, La Voz, or Hemke, you’ll find a reed that will meet your demands.  You’ll find what you’ve been missing all along–your sound–over and over again.

The recent economy and budget crisis in California has forced everybody to reevaluate what is important so we know what to spend our money on.  In making these decisions, I propose that we take a look at the connection between music programs and music stores.  They are incredibly essential in the lives of the young people they affect, as they form a partnership for a better life that affects generations to come.

As far as music education is concerned, let me tell you part of my story. As a minority, I was bused to Westlake High School because the district lines wanted to include low income areas of Thousand Oaks to populate the school. I got made fun of because I wore Payless shoes and didn’t have a Members Only jacket, but I found refuge in band. Musicians wore weird stuff anyway and most of us were pretty nerdy. Therefore, it didn’t matter what I wore; it just mattered how I played. And even if I didn’t play well, the band was a family that accepted anyone. I got to hang around some pretty smart kids and their parents who had a big influence on me.

I learned there was more to life than the direction my parents laid out before me. It was because of band and my ability to play an instrument that got me into the Army Band where I traveled all over the US and parts of the Far East. I later went to college and got a degree in music. Where I am today and the direction my kids are going leads me to feel that I have reached an incredible amount of success in life–that all began with an elementary music program.

This is what these programs are supposed to do–increase the quality of life for those who participate in them.

California has some of the widest demographics imaginable. There is a huge transient population as well as very wealthy households. But at the intersection of life and music, one finds a safe place where income, the color of one’s skin, and one’s preferred speaking language doesn’t matter. It’s a place where lives are changed.

Losing music programs puts a massive stumbling block to success for young people. Why would somebody want to hurt children in this way? As adults and parents of these children, we should be creating opportunities for them, not pulling the rug out from under their feet. Music belongs in the classrooms, because even moreso than reading, writing, and arithmetic, it is the common language for change that actually makes a difference in people’s lives.

The relationship between a music program and music store is painfully obvious. Imagine that your child plays a clarinet exceptionally well.  You then decide that music lessons are the next step for them; however, the local music store only offers guitar lessons. Where do you go? You can’t go somewhere locally because people decided to make their musical purchases online. Eventually, the local music store has to close due to poor sales. As a result, your child–through a series of events that included online purchases–isn’t able to reach their full potential. Sadly, this has been happening more and more.

Now let’s talk reality. Most music stores these days list their instruments at internet prices because that is their main form of competition. Some distributors require that everybody (online included) sells their items at the same price. In some occasions it’s a little more at the local store to make a purchase, the benefits far outweigh the difference in price. What you get is generally better advice, a chance to try out the instrument, music lessons for multiple instruments, additional local tax revenue, and (hopefully) a company that donates time and money to local charities.  Just in case they do not have the item in stock that you are looking for, please be patient. The local music store will generally work with you on this and hopefully you will enjoy the service.

For those who support music, supporting the local music store is supporting your school’s music programs; it is a complete symbiotic relationship.  It makes for a better tomorrow.

Here’s the second installment of our video shoot at NAMM.  You’ll see a sax stand, some drum heads, a flugelhorn, and a rather nice flute.  Enjoy!

It’s time to be creative: This is a picture of part of a tenor saxophone. How do you think it got this way?

Now that we’ve had our blog up for a week, this is probably as good as time as any to answer a question you may (or may not)
have asked yourself:

Why exactly have we joined the two billion strong blogosphere (yes, that’s billion with a ‘b’)?

There are a number of reasons for this addition to the website. First and foremost, we want to be able to provide you information that is not only relevant to you, but is time critical as well. In other words, if there’s an upcoming event, we want to let you know of it ahead of time. If a new instrument comes out or there ever was a recall of some sort, we want to make you aware of it as soon as possible. Not everyone has a Facebook or Twitter account, so this way everyone is kept informed.

Secondly, as the blog is attached to our website (californiakeyboards.com), it’s an easy way to get access to all this information. We will be posting rather frequently and may include additional specials not found anywhere, so it will be worth your while to bookmark the blog or make it part of your RSS feed.

Finally, since we’re part of an online community, we want to take the next step by inviting you to join us. You are invited (actually, encouraged) to register and take part by commenting on the posts you read, the videos you view, and any pictures we share with you (it’s not hard at all–just click the ‘Register’ link at the bottom right of the page and provide an email address and password of your choosing).

If you think something is a hit, we’d like to know. If you see something that not that good, or if our customer service isn’t what you expect, we want to know that too. Really! We’ll respond and try to assist in whatever ways we can. But if we don’t hear from you, we won’t have that opportunity to serve you (and perhaps others wondering about the same thing). We also would love for you to repost things you like to your friends and colleagues on whatever social messaging service(s) you use.

We hope you enjoy this new medium of communication with California Keyboards Music Center. The possibilities are quite exciting!