All posts by David Lusterman

MCMS Faculty Members to Appear in San Anselmo’s Live on the Avenue Series

Fans of free live local entertainment can indulge themselves all summer long, thanks to the town of San Anselmo and its Live on the Avenue series. Every Friday and Saturday starting at 5:30 PM, downtown closes to traffic and sways to the sounds rock, pop, country, swing, soul, and more coming from two stages, one in front of Town Hall and the other in the Creek Park amphitheater.

MCMS faculty members Tara Flandreau and David Lusterman will be part of the action in Creek Park on August 18th as members of The Liddypudlians, San Anselmo’s original “Salute to the Beatles” tribute band.

Launched in 2001 by local music guru Peter Penhallow, with the assistance of former Town Council Member Kay Coleman and MCMS founder David Lusterman, the annual Salute to the Beatles initially benefited SAVE, the San Anselmo Volunteer Effort, and later the San Anselmo Arts Commission, which continues to present the event.

The Liddypudlians turned Creek Park into a living Beatles album every summer through 2013. Ten years later, the band is back together and ready to rock the park once more with its full rock band, string quartet, brass and woodwinds, specialist percussion, and a rousing chorus. If The Beatles recorded it, this team can recreate it down to the smallest detail.

The evening opens with a set by Marin’s mighty 60s cover band, Revolver, who also form the core of The Liddypudlians, plus a special award presentation by the San Anselmo Arts Commission honoring Peter Penhallow’s countless contributions to local music performance and education.

Mark your calendar for San Anselmo’s Creek Park, August 18 starting at 5:30 pm. Arrive early. The place will be packed!

Everything Starts with an Intention

There are many ways to practice music at home.

You can repeat your piece/song/drill/scale/etude until you’re fatigued, bored, or both.

You can run through all your current music until you’ve played everything from beginning to end.

You can play the parts that are easy and then just slow down for the hard bits, without stopping to figure out what makes those bits so hard.

None of those strategies is going to make you a better musician or make you enjoy music more. That’s because practice isn’t about repetition. It’s about teaching yourself when your teacher isn’t around.

We shouldn’t really call it practicing at all. Self-teaching is a much more accurate description. And while it’s true that different people learn in different ways, there are a few things common to all learning and to learning music in particular.

Being curious: How is this music constructed? Are there patterns, shapes, and signals that I should see and understand before I start to play my instrument?

Having a plan: What am I specifically trying to accomplish? Am I concentrating on the rhythm, the notes, the form, the fingering, the expression, or something else? The fewer things I focus on at any moment, the more I can accomplish.

Watching yourself: Once I’ve seen the patterns and decided where to focus, am I able to observe myself as I play?

Assessing your work: Without judging myself or taking things personally, can I assess my attempt objectively? If so, can I accurately describe what happened and learn from both my successes and my flops? And can I then modify my plan accordingly and try again?

You can apply each of these four steps to anything and everything you do when practicing. Start slowly. This method takes a lot of mental energy and attentiveness. At first, you may only be able to practice for five or ten minutes this way. But keep at it. If you like, take notes or keep a practice journal to remind yourself of what happened. You may find yourself learning more deeply and more enjoyably than ever before.

Four Questions for Sean Nelson, Drum Instructor, Marin Community Music School

What’s gotten you excited about music recently and how has that impacted your teaching?  

Two things. 

One is going back to the fundamentals of snare drumming and working on the techniques I first studied as a freshman at Berklee [College of Music] in Boston back in 1990 with books like Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Snare Drum Studies by classical percussionist Mitchell Peters, The All American Drummer and Modern Rudimental Swing Solos by Charles Wilcoxon, and Accents and Rebounds by G. L. Stone. Stone describes the four primary ways you strike a drum with a stick. They are the Full, Down, Tap, and Up Strokes. Working on these techniques and exercises can seem tedious and sometimes feel awkward but it trains you to play more efficiently over time. When you minimize extra motion you create a smooth relaxed flow while playing.

The other exciting thing is a giant book of jazz transcriptions that I found online by Vinnie Ruggiero called simply Vinnie’s Book.

It’s basically a book on bebop drumming transcribed from actual recordings. The author was close with some of the biggest legends of jazz drumming. The language they created and the way that they developed the instrument was picked up on and copied by many of the rock drummers of the 60’s, who then influenced everyone after them.

I love the history of the instrument almost as much as I love playing it. I’ve been using these phrases and techniques together to teach students of all levels of ability the language of drum set while working on coordination and playing efficiently.

Where and when can members of the MCMS community hear you in action?

I play a lot of gigs in all kinds of settings. I’m a freelance drummer. I play in a couple of local Bay Area groups that are doing original songs and actively making records. One is Go By Ocean and can be found on Spotify or other streaming services. The other is the Alex Jordan Band who is doing a North West Tour in the fall. I met Alex at Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael where I was one of the house drummers for 9 years. There were a lot of talented people around that scene and a lot of great music to play. It really was a gig factory, as guitarist Scott Law used to say. I was sad to see it close but through those connections I still play a good amount of Grateful Dead and other cover band music. I’m also drumming on an album by Canadian songwriter Gord Downie (Tragically Hip) and music producer Bob Rock. It’s called Lustre Parfait and was released in April 2023. I play on the title track and three other songs on the album.

How can students practice more effectively and enjoyably?

Practicing is what we should teach, primarily. That is what I think in-person lessons are mostly about. You’re not going to learn how to practice from a YouTube channel. They might tell you what, but almost never how to practice. Showing students how to manage their practice time in a creative and thorough way is so important. Far more than just what part to play for the song. A student needs a plan! I am always coaching my students to make sure they cover three parts of a good practice routine:

WARM UP.

WORK OUT. 

PLAY! 

Ideally in that order. You choose something from each category each time you sit down to practice, taking a little break between each category. This keeps things from getting boring or overly frustrating. My students warm up first (5-10 minutes) with sticking patterns and rudiments (think scales for drums) as well as other technique-based fundamentals. 

Once they are warmed up (both physically and mentally) they’re ready to start working on what they can’t yet do well. After 20 minutes or so of real focus on challenging work they are encouraged to take another short break. Then they PLAY. Always find time to be playful with what you have previously practiced

I very much encourage students to improvise and be creative and to try and make the thing they are working on their own. Once they have done that, it’s much harder to forget. I could go on and on about practicing. When someone says practicing is boring they aren’t doing it right. 

What have you learned lately from one of your students?

I have an adult student who is a beginner drummer and an avid swimmer. When I was demonstrating the wave-like motion of the arm and wrist while playing a pattern on the ride cymbal he told me how his swimming coach discussed a similar motion with the arm starting at the side  of the body and reaching outward and extending fully over head before releasing and pulling back to the side. It’s called the serape effect, where the rotation of a large body is transferred to a smaller body, causing acceleration. He noticed that it was a macro move very similar to what I was doing (micro) with my forearm, wrist and fulcrum, where I hold the stick between the thumb and finger. It’s all about the efficiency of the motion of the body and waves are powerful both big and small.

Thanks, Sean, great to speak with you!

David A. Lusterman, Founder

David Lusterman

David A. Lusterman is the president of Stringletter, which he founded in 1986, the media company that publishes Acoustic Guitar, Classical Guitar,  Strings, and Ukulele magazines.  He founded the Marin Community Music School in 2009.   David earned his B.A. in Comparative Literature at Columbia University and held staff positions at The New York Review of Books, democracy, The Nation, and [more].  He teaches beginning cello, guitar and piano.

Thank You, Students, for a Great Spring 2023 Recital!

Our students’ enthusiasm, hard work, and showmanship were on abundant display at the June 11 Spring Student Recital at San Anselmo’s First Presbyterian Church.

We heard solo, duo, and trio performances by 24 students ranging in age from 8 to 80, with repertoire as old as Antonio Vivaldi and as new as Taylor Swift.

Tara Flandreau’s studio was represented by seven students, including Faruk Toy’s debut on violin with a duo arrangement of Schumann’s Soldier’s March; Mia Delmis’ rousing rendition of Oskar Rieding’s Concertina in Hungarian Style, Kai Delmis’ performance of his own piano solo, Paradise, and excellent violin performances by Geoffrey March, Houston Evans, Julian McCaw, and Lois Lane.

Students of guitar and ukulele teacher Joe Marquez showed fine form, with Joe accompanying Elle Meyers on a soulful Night Changes by One Direction, then joining ukulele-playing sisters Sophie and Gabby Langille on Taylor Swift’s Love Story, and lead guitarist Rainer Grabenkort for the ever-popular Sweet Home Alabama.

The piano studios of Tommy O’Mahonny, John Mackay, and David Lusterman were ably represented by Kevin Bartell, Asha Meta-Khan, Azaan Rehman, Lucie and Juliette Levasseur, Emmie Cohen, and Sophia and Dimo Staykov.

The afternoon also included solo cello performances by Leo Mann, Karin Kumataka, and Greenleigh Dodge.

Our enthusiastic and supportive audience of families, friends, and fellow students made all our performers feel welcome.

For those who were unable to attend, here’s a lovely video highlight.

Summer Cello Choir

Join your fellow cellists to read and rehearse music for cello ensemble in a relaxed, collegial environment. We’ll play chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach, original compositions by Julius Klengel, arrangements of works by Robert Schumann, and other enjoyable music in six 90-minute sessions.

No performing, just geeking out on the pleasure of hearing cellos, cellos, and nothing but cellos.

Meeting dates for 2023, all from 7:00 to 8:30 PM:

June 5
June 19
July 10
July 24
August 7
August 14

Fee: $90, payable in advance.

To enroll, please submit this form. No prepayment required.

Questions? Email the class leader.

Music Fundamentals for Guitarists

Taught by David Lusterman

Wednesdays, 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Do you already know some chords and songs on the guitar, but feel like you’re speaking bits and pieces of a foreign language?

Do you marvel at guitarists who can easily change the key of a song to fit their vocal range or improvise a solo on the spot?

They’re not doing magic tricks. They’re just speaking a musical language they’ve taken time to learn from the ground up.

In this series of hour-long weekly classes, I’ll teach you the basics of that language — notes, intervals, scales, chords, and keys — as they apply to the guitar.

With our instruments in hand, we’ll use fretboard diagrams and simple exercises to learn the fundamentals of music. We won’t be reading music notation or tab. Instead, we’ll train our ears to show our hands what to do.

No matter how long you’ve been playing the guitar or how old you are, I can help you understand the vocabulary and grammar of music-making and hear the patterns common to pop, rock, folk, and classical music.

I can’t work wonders, so you’ll need to pay attention and apply what I show you to your guitar playing. But don’t worry, I’ll give you the tools you need with simple exercises and drills you can do at home.

You’ll start to understand how music actually works — the alphabet, the vocabulary, the phrases, sentences, and paragraphs — so you can play more confidently and tell your own musical stories.

Topics
The Major Scale and Two-Note Chords
Notes and Intervals
Scales and Modes
Three-Note Chords
Keys and Four-Note Chords
Key Changes and Improvisation

Logistics
Wednesdays, 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Location: Marin Community Music School, 55 San Anselmo Avenue, San Anselmo, CA 94960

Fee: $25 per class for new students, $15 for students already enrolled in lessons.


Lois Lane

Lois Lane is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a longstanding psychotherapy practice in San Anselmo where she sees individuals and couples. She was also supervisor of Children’s Services for Marin County Community Mental Health. Her other longstanding avocation has been playing music. She was fortunate enough to study violin from a young age at Third Street Music Settlement School in Manhattan. In a public high school in New Jersey she participated in a regular orchestra, a string orchestra and played in a string quartet. This early enrichment led to a life long love of playing the violin, taking lessons and making music with others.   She is very grateful to participate in the Chamber Music Program at MCMS. Her goal as a Board Member is to strengthen the music programs at MCMS so other children can have the opportunity to discover the joys of making music.

In her spare time she is an avid gardener, with a large organic vegetable garden.

Adrienne Roth

Long-time San Anselmo resident Adrienne Roth has had two careers, one in education and another in real estate, as well as a life-long passion for music. As an educator, she aided in the development of the California legislation that enabled the California Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program and subsequently administered the GATE program for the San Anselmo schools. She moved into real estate sales with Merrill Lynch, and has been a broker with Frank Howard Allen, now Coldwell Banker, since 1985.

Adrienne earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at Brandeis University, majoring in psychology and minoring in music, and her Master of Education degree at Harvard University. She plays the piano.