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Feb28

Write of Spring

David Friend Hall - Berklee College of Music, 921 Boylston Street, Boston, MA

As part of the Jazz Composition Faculty, I'll be conducting a piece of my own, as well as performing on a couple of my colleagues pieces.  Come on out, it's going to be an evening with a lot of great music for 6-horn band.

Oct17

Harmony Dept. Big Band Concert

David Friend Hall - Berklee College of Music, 921 Boylston Street, Boston, MA

Winnie is conducting one of her compositions as well as performing vibes in the concert.

ShapeShifter Lab Orchestra

Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA

Professor Winnie Dahlgren has teamed up with bass player Matthew Garrison for this event. The concert will be a presentation of their collaboration, with Mr. Garrison’s music arranged for big band. An evening with jazz, funk, world music, loops, polyrhythms and high energy. 

   

$8 in advance, $12 at door (Free with Berklee ID up til the day before)

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May 4th, 2015 - Candle lights in the windows 

During WWII Denmark had to keep their windows dark at night as the Nazis didn’t want the British planes to use the lights as navigation.

May 4th, 1945 was the day Denmark was freed and as a symbol all the people tore down their dark curtains and put lit candles in their windows as a symbol of peace and freedom.

This became a tradition that is still being celebrated to this day. Today Denmark is celebrating 70 years of freedom. 

 

Teaching music - From a Dane teaching in the US 

In my last blog I was writing about teaching music to children. As I’m slowly getting ready to teach another semester at Berklee College of Music, entering my 13th year teaching at the college, I’ll here share some of my thoughts on teaching in general.

When I started out teaching music, it was on drum set, and mostly to kids around 10-12 years old. It was a mix of solo to small group lessons. At the time I was studying at the conservatory, getting a bachelor in Music Education. From the beginning I found…

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Why Music Education is important for children. 

When I started teaching drum set at several music schools back home in Denmark, I was mostly working with children between the ages of 11-14 years, and mostly boys!

From the beginning I always demanded that they’d have at least a small amount of homework. I would challenge them to learn new rhythms that sometimes would require a couple of weeks before they would understand how to correctly perform the examples. But what I always experienced was the joy, once they understood the material and the eagerness…

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Procrastination... 

Looking at my blog here, I see that it has been a while since my last entry. So many things I’m thinking I could write about, my friends would say I definitely have opinions about various topics, so it’s not for lack of ideas. But then with all the thoughts comes, the process of selecting, which causes the delay, and then you remembered that there’s that stack of projects you promised to give back to your students tomorrow. Oh, and better practice this tune you’ll be playing at the concert on Saturday…

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The Danish word "hygge" 

In my first blog, I started out writing about being Danish. One of the essential things about being from Denmark, is the thing we do all the time – “hygge”. It always takes a while to explain what that is, since there’s not a single word in English to describe this. But I came across an article that explains it pretty well.

The only thing I’d add is that, unlike what they say in the article – you can do this by yourself as well as together with your family and friends!

So how do you “hygge”?!

What theRead more

A xylophone, a marimba, a vibraphone? 

What’s the difference between a Xylophone, a Marimba and a Vibraphone (aka. Vibes)?!

 

Xylophone – Let’s first talk about the word! Xylophone is from Greek, where xylon = wood and phone = sound. Which is what is being produced – a sound by playing on wooden keys. The xylophone might be the most popular of these three instruments, and usually the one I refer to first, when people ask me about the instrument I play! However it’s not used as often as the marimba or the vibraphone.

The theory is that it…

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Back in the 1500's! 

In an earlier blog I wrote this summer has been all about cleaning out in my many emails, and in general getting my cyber life organized! Going through some of the material, I stumbled upon this fun little bundle of history facts, and why it is we’re saying and doing some of the things we do today. If you’re like me, someone who loves knowing where all those quirky traditions and sayings are coming from, - then you’ll enjoy this!

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water …Read more

I Have A Dream... 

 

I was recently in Washington DC, and am standing in the foot steps of MLK - where he gave his famous speech...

De-cluttering and re-organizing!! 

This summer, besides keeping the music going, I have been to de-cluttering my emails. Why? For way too long I have been filing emails into various folders, thinking I soon would go through them all. These emails are all about the music business and how in one-way or another to better promote my music. So what have I been doing?!

Besides deleting a bunch of emails (this time actually reading the content), I have been getting organized. How? Well, if you’re reading this – this is one of my many projects –…

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I am Danish! 

I am Danish!

I’m from Denmark, a little country in Northern Europe, part of Scandinavian (Denmark, Sweden, Norway). The capital of Denmark is Copenhagen (we say “København”) – so no, we’re not the capital of Sweden!

We also speak Danish (not Dutch – that’s in Holland!), and we really like us some Danish pastry. Now, I live in Boston in the U.S. of A., where you can buy “Danish”. When I first came to Boston to study music, I once bought that thing called a “Danish”, because I missed home and felt…

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