This time around, I discussed active listening and used examples of music from different movies. After practicing on a few famous themes (from Star Wars and Jaws) we then listened to some music to decide what “pictures” we heard. I used the “Moonlight Sonata” and “Flight of the Bumble Bee,” for instance.

I was amazed how sharp these kids were!

Richard Russell lecturing about a movie score

After the school day, I stuck around to help with a rehearsal of “Winner Takes All!”, the new musical I’ve written with my collaborator, Emily Clare Thompson. Here’s a picture of her rehearsing with one of our young leads.

Emily Clare Thomson rehearses a student for “Winner Takes All!”

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Enthusiastic students!

Once again, my frequent collaborator, Emily Thompson, asked me to lecture to her class of youngsters at the school where she teaches: Central School in East Hanover, NJ. I went on February 22, 2013 and arrived spoke to 5 different classes throughout the day.

The lecture is about how inter­dis­ci­pli­nary think­ing can lead to more cre­ativ­ity. I present the exam­ple of mix­ing lit­er­a­ture and music, draw­ing con­nec­tions between hero mythol­ogy and Beethoven’s music.

The Beethoven image on the wall reads: “Beethoven: Why is he interested in being a romantic hero? What is his famous problem?” Sometimes the kids get it right away — he was deaf! But sometimes I hear “He was grumpy because he asked three women to marry him and they all said no.” Hmm, I wonder what movie that is from?

Here is a picture from the day, but unfortunately I was cropped out!

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Beethoven looks on

Once again my frequent collaborator, Emily Thompson, asked me to lecture to her class of fourth-grade school children. This lecture was held at the East Hanover (NJ) Central School. My talk is about how interdisciplinary thinking can lead to more creativity. I present the example of mixing literature and music, drawing connections between hero mythology and Beethoven’s music. Here’s a picture of me introducing Beethoven.

I presented my lecture pretty much non-stop, six times in a row. I have to give credit to teachers everywhere who do this every day, day-in and day-out. I don’t know how they do it!

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But if you consider the hero myth as an overall aesthetic goal–the heroic journey–you begin to hear it all over Beethoven’s music. In fact, it is so dominant that Scott Burnham wrote a book about it called Beethoven Hero (1995).

I’ve just completed a new piano solo called Dantes Variations in which I start with a heroic theme and submit it to many variations. Quite late in my composition process I came across this image from Wikipedia, and I thought I would share it here. Consider all the fantastic ways you can take your music if you think of some of these ideas: “call to adventure,” “threshold (beginning of adventure),” “helper,” “death and rebirth,” transformation,” “atonement,” “gift of the goddess.”

It sounds like a recipe for a great piece of music! And inspiring: what would be meant by the “helper” in a musical composition? Perhaps a secondary theme, but also perhaps simply an insistent pitch, or even a rhythm.

But I also wonder about how things can be changed up. For instance, what if some of these ideas were taken out of sequence? What if “gift of the goddess” comes first and then “death” with no rebirth?

One last consideration: There are so many variations of heroes. The tragic hero, the anti-hero, the super hero: Can any of these be expressed in a distinct musical way?

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