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By admin, May 15, 2013 11:20 am

A couple of really fun performances around town over the past couple of weeks:

Claudio Rochat-Felix and Michael Marcus at 418 Public House:  Drums, Bass, and Saxophone.  Really cool chance to stretch on things and mess with forms in interesting ways.

Claudio, Tim Kennedy, Ian Sheridan, and Thomas Marriott at Vito’s:  First time playing with Tom and a great time playing tunes and interacting as a quintet.

Eric Hullander, Owen Ross, and Tyler Graves at the Seamonster:  Another standards gig, for the most part, but run through the Seamonster lens.

Bill Bradburd, Geoff Harper, and Tim Kennedy at the Columbia City Gallery:  Sort of a Dexter and Hayes reunion; it had been too long since I’d played with Bill!

Jacob Zimmerman jam session:  This was just Jacob and me playing saxophone and talking; I left his house really motivated to continue getting deeper into playing music!

I was really happy to be a little busier in town with different people; Although I always feel connected to the music community in Seattle, this added something different to the connection, in a great way.

I also participated in a student recital as a teacher for the first time!  Although I still want my focus to be performance, I really enjoy teaching kids, and I was happy and proud that some of my students were able to perform in front of friends and family.  Hopefully the first of more to come.

Last but not least, this past weekend I played in the Lucky Mystery Now Orchestra, which was essentially a conglomeration of several funk groups including the Polyrhythmics, and performed original music written and arranged by Lucky Brown.  Many of the other Polyrhythmics members have known Lucky for years and years, but I’ve known him just for the last year or so, and I admire his dedication and energy that he puts toward his music.  To see him in front of the LMNO so happy to hear us play what he wrote was inspiring to me, and something I hope to remember as I continue to write and perform.

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By admin, March 17, 2013 11:53 am

Posting from my phone for the first time, while riding in the van with the Polyrhythmics in Idaho! I plan on putting up an album with some of the more beautiful views when I get back home.

This is the longest amount of time that I have been on the road, traveling and playing music, and this is after traveling with Hardcoretet the previous weekend, so the last month or so has been an interesting combination of lots of time with my bandmates and lots of time meeting new people that came out to the shows, which has been encouraging and enlightening.

I am still learning about engaging and connecting with listeners at shows. In both live stage performance and face-to-face contact, I feel like there are opportunities to really bring an audience further into the experience without compromising my own personal musical expression, and I feel as though I don’t always do that, which is something I can work on.

Loving this time traveling and playing, but also excited to return home to Seattle with some major motivation and direction!

Art

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By admin, December 20, 2012 4:50 pm

It may be a bit early for this, but I don’t care.

So…I had planned a New Year’s-themed post, with resolutions and everything, and then realized I would basically be typing the same thing I typed last year.

Sigh…

I was not exactly stellar in following through on my resolutions.  When I look back on 2012, though, I don’t regret all that much of what I did, even if some of it was contrary to those resolutions.  For the most part, I moved forward, took care of business as best I could, and took some chances too.  I will say this:  I wish I had more pictures.  For all the jerking around Facebook can sometimes do with us, and although it can have some pretty negative effects on my social interaction, I was happy to have a timeline to look back on this year.

There have been a fair amount of changes; nothing huge, just a lot of social and personal things.  I made new friends, adjusted to changes with old ones, played and heard a lot of inspiring music, taught and learned from fun students, and kept a roof over my head.  I don’t want to ask for much more than that.

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By admin, December 3, 2012 11:32 am

Hi all!

Happy holiday season to everyone; so far the Winter has me settling in to a new living space in the Magnolia area of Seattle and getting my playing and teaching schedule together, hopefully in some kind of sustainable manner.

Bands have been progressing forward in really notable ways: tours, new venues, and plans to record; and I’m very happy to be teaching excited students, which hopefully become greater in number in the next year. If you know of anyone, of any age, interested in lessons, please do not hesitate to have them shoot me an email!

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By admin, August 15, 2012 11:58 am

The hot weather took its time, but it is finally here, and my schedule has been pretty effective as far as getting me out there to enjoy it!

Festival performances with the Polyrhythmics and Theoretics have been really fun, especially because I hadn’t really gone to many music festivals before, either as an audience member or a performer.  The last few months really hooked me (combining car-camping with live music in the outdoors?  How can you go wrong?) and I hope to make it a tradition to go to at least 1 or 2 each Summer, regardless of whether I’m playing.

It’s not over yet though; I’m excited to hit the road in the next couple of months with both Polyrhythmics and Hardcoretet.  Also, Hardcoretet will be enjoying some new musical partnerships soon.  Time to start composing!

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By admin, July 13, 2012 8:57 pm

I ran across an interview with Nature Conservancy scientist Joe Kiesecker where he talked a bit about keeping in touch with his childhood friends from Brooklyn, some of which “are in prison, and a few are no longer with us.” When asked why they’ve stayed friends even in those cases where their lives went in such different directions, he said:

“They’re real people. I spent most of my career in academia. Those people think what they’re doing is the most important thing in the world; they think that because they’re only talking to other academics. My childhood friends were my connection back to that real world.”

This answer made me stop because I think about my life in a similar way fairly frequently. I think it’s important to value the opinions of my friends that aren’t musicians as much as those that are musicians for reasons similar to Kiesecker’s; they keep me aware of how my musical life appears and sounds to people.

I also love that they share music and bands with me that I never would have listened to, and (hopefully) when I share my music with them it’s something they wouldn’t have heard otherwise.

Bottom line, the more varied experiences my friends have around me, the better off I will be, and I’m thankful to have so many different personalities in my life.

- Art

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By admin, May 28, 2012 2:07 pm

Taking a moment to send a general thanks out to the amazing community of musicians and music-lovers I’ve met recently. Whether it’s a small town or a big one, huge stage or tiny room, the support that I’ve gotten from those who are listening is essential to me; I could not perform music otherwise. In addition, I’m humbled and thankful to have been given amazing opportunities to play with incredible musicians, all of whom are also beautiful human beings. Every day my goal should be to live up to the standards and examples set by these two groups.

Okay enough schmooze, carry on.

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By admin, March 10, 2012 2:57 pm

So here I am, almost 3 months into working exclusively as a musician and teacher.

It feels as though my workdays have become compressed; lessons can’t start until kids get out of school, and gigs and rehearsals are almost always at night, plus most gigs are squeezed onto the Fridays and Saturdays of the week.  In this way, I kind of have an early night schedule now, which is kind of funny.  The trick, as I’ve told several of my friends, is turning that downtime during the day into something productive, which I’m still learning to do.  So far I think I’ve been doing okay.

I also feel like I’ve learned a bit about the business and non-musical side of playing saxophone over the last 3 months.  I’m really lucky to be playing in 3 bands with a member that has taken it upon themselves to handle those aspects, and in all 3 cases I’m really impressed with what they do.  Right now I’m just trying to watch them and pick up what I can.

Something I’ve been thinking about more and more is how important it is to believe in the value of your music.  It may seem obvious, but I have to condition myself to see the music I play as something of real value and importance, and a service worth paying for.

Of course, that mindset can be taken to an extreme, and of course I want to share my music with as many friends and family as possible (without milking them for money all the time), but I think I do need to get more into that mindset of music performance as a job, a job I enjoy and am lucky to have, but a job nonetheless.  And, by the same token, I always should work toward doing that job in a professional way and at as high a level as I can.

See you out and about soon!

-Art

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By admin, January 3, 2012 4:51 pm

My New Year’s Resolutions. They’re fairly general, and although I make them and quickly break them every year, this time around feels different; I think they will stick, at least for a little longer than normal!

1. Take it easy – sleep more, drink less.

2. Practice – every day, if possible.

3. Get out more – see more music (especially that one), go to the museum, aquarium, movies, etc.

4. Lay off the computer – except for email, calendar, and website. Lay off the social networking and make the effort to reach out to people more rather than just peek at their profile and see what they’re doing.

5.  Bring my horn to sessions – I’ve gone back and forth on jam sessions/sit-ins for a long time, and now I’ve switched again.  Yes, they always have the potential to spiral out of control, and the music suffers in those cases, but they can also help solidify connections with other musicians, and (sometimes) be really fun!

Even if I don’t end up strictly adhering to these, I think January is always a good time to reevaluate things and take a look at some self-improvement; it’s better than fooling yourself into thinking that everything is going how you want it to and you don’t have to change anything about yourself.

Wish me luck!

- Art

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By admin, October 31, 2011 9:07 am

I remember the first time Birch Pereira told me about this scene. I had never seen Flight of the Conchords before, and this was the scene he described to me to convince me to watch the show; not because it was hilarious (it is), but because it really illustrates all the problems you have to deal with as a musician. It seems funny to me now to look at Flight of the Conchords as a deep and profound take on the plight of the modern-day musician, but this scene still sticks with me.

I’m getting closer to trying to play and teach music full time. Mid-January is when I’m aiming to make the jump, and I know it will be here more quickly than I expect. That’s probably why I’m taking on as much as I am now; I’m trying to get some momentum so that I can hit the ground running when the time comes. Will I still have to find other non-musical work to get by? Possibly, but as long as I have to time to write and play, I believe I’ll be happy, and hopefully I can make the necessary financial and lifestyle adjustments when the time comes.

It’s still months away, but I think about it all the time…