oboeinsight

The Britten-Pears Foundation are having a field-year (if such a term can be said to exist) celebrating Benjamin Britten’s 100th. One of their best initiaves is a Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra App and it’s available from iTunes for free.

The interactive App is designed to introduce a new generation of children to the workings of the symphony orchestra, and the music of Britten on the side, through the use of the latest technology. Artist Sara Fanelli has provided illustrations to accompany a specially-recorded performance of the work by Sir Mark Elder and the Royal Northern College of Music Symphony Orchestra. In addition, the App has musical games, composition exercises (including a tricky ‘write your own fugue’), listening quizzes and background information about Britten’s life and work. There’s even an interactive score to give you an insight into the different orchestral instruments and their players.

RTWT

I’ve not checked it out yet, but if you want it go to iTunes.

How To Get Into A Professional Orchestra

Or not.

THE FIVE STAGES

• The first is the ‘intense’ period when punk or metal dominates adolescence as teens explore their own identity.
• After that listeners gravitate towards ‘contemporary’ electronic and R&B music which reflects the autonomy of early adulthood.
• That phase of ‘romantic, emotionally positive and danceable’ music gives way to a ‘Mellow’ period as listeners search for love and start families.
• Following that is the ‘sophisticated’ age of jazz and classical pieces.
• And finally as we mature and lose the need for peer approval we become more inclined to ‘unpretentious’ music such as country and folk.

RTWT

(I really do like other kinds of music, though … I’m not entirely stuck on classical. Really!)