Professional musician and composer Rick Hirsch conducted master classes with Hamburg musicians on Thursday, April 27, teaching them to play off the page.
Hirsch, from State College, conducted sessions with the High School Jazz Band and then just with Rhythm Section, followed by a Q&A with those taking Music Theory, Music Composition and Music Business. That afternoon he held sessions with the Middle School Saxophones, then worked wit the High School Concert Band and concluded the day after school working with the Middle School Jazz Band.
“I’m an independent musician. I’ve been doing it for a long time,” he said.
He plays saxophone as well as composes and arranges music for people all over the country.
“Part of the draw here was that Megan Reimer (band teacher at Hamburg High School) commissioned me to write a brand new piece for the concert band,” said Hirsch, who sent the piece to Reimer the end of January and the concert band students have been working on the song since.
“This is the first time I get to hear it played by real people. I’ve only heard my computer play it back,” he said. “I love coming into schools like this and working with the students.”
During the High School Jazz Band Rhythm Section session, Hirsch worked with the jazz musicians on the famous jazz song “Better Get Hit In Your Soul” by Charles Mingus.
“He’s one of the great jazz musicians,” he said. “This is one of the all time great songs so we were just taking their written sheet music and making music off of the page. Doing a lot of stuff by ear and just trying to go deeper into the music without having to read anything and to experience it in a different way.”
Hirsch talked with the musicians about playing to have a musical conversation with another musician.
“Sometimes it can be boring to just listen to someone play a lot of notes but what when two people are playing a lot of notes it can be like they are conversing with one another,” he said, explaining how there is an interaction and engagement with one another musically. “There’s a back and forth.”
Going off of the page, he said, is not something that they normally do in class or band.
“To have them experience music in a way they don’t typically experience it on a day to day basis in band,” said Hirsch. “Normally the notes are all in front of them and their job is to play exactly what’s on the page. This was the opposite of that.”
He encouraged them not to look at the page at all and told them to listen to one another play.
“Playing it by ear,” he said. “Ultimately music is an oral art, it exists in sound, it doesn’t exist on paper so by removing the sheet music from the equation it really gets down to a more foundational musical experience for them.”
This is how they experienced music at age 9 when they were brand new to music, he said.
“They already had this whole world of music that they’ve experienced and their relationship with music was in sound until the teacher said that note is a b flat and press that valve down and that note will come out. That’s a visual relationship between instrument and music. Whereas we were going back to a sonic relationship which is more foundational.”
Ultimately, Hirsch believes that makes them better musicians.
“I think it makes the experience for them more enjoyable,” he said. “It’s richer.”
Senior trumpet player Thomas Kissinger said working with Hirsch was a really good learning experience.
“I think it brought the jazz band together a little bit because we’re all performers and we all get up here and go through the motions but then when you bring someone like Rick Hirsch in, he kind of unified us. We were copying each other and doing stuff that we never do,” said Kissinger. “That was really fun.”
Sophomore string bass player Harley Ludy said he learned a lot about a rhythm section’s role as well as solo phrasing.
“I would like to thank the school and everybody who helped make this experience happen because it was a good one,” said Ludy.
Band teacher Megan Reimer participated in one of Hirsch’s clinics when she was a high school musician. Reimer studied music education at Penn State and saw him perform a number of times and kept in touch.
“I thought it might be fun for the kids to experience something I did,” she said. “It’s just a great experience for the kids to get an outside perspective and a professional musician’s perspective.”
She liked the idea of playing off the page and hopes to implement that in her own teaching techniques.
“I think it really gives them a great start on improvisation; it’s not something the kids get to experience often,” said Reimer.
Playing off the page, “They’re much more musical… It really gives you an opportunity to be much more creative and do your own thing and express your personality much more.”
Reimer said she is thrilled he was able to make the time to come to Hamburg.
“This is a really lovely community,” said Hirsch. “It’s obviously supportive of the arts, supportive of music, supportive of their kids.”
Hirsch thanks Hamburg for hosting him.
