As you may know of you read this site closely enough, I am an Assistant Director over at the Asheville Music School, (main location) which has been at 250 Charlotte Street since the schools founding (around 14 years ago now!). Well this is our last week at the old location and the school is moving to 101 S. Lexington (a block behind the Orange Peel along Hilliard Avenue.) That location will feature a parking lot and what is shaping up to be a nice new look for the school.

Officially lessons start at the new location Monday August 9th. We should be keeping the main phone number. More information can be found at the usual places: Asheville Music School primary site, Asheville Music School Facebook page, Asheville Music School Twitter feed, or our Asheville Music School Wordpress blog!

The West location of the Asheville Music School (1408-E Patton Avenue) will remain unaffected by the move.

I’ve been slow getting this posted due to other things going on, but was contacted about this instrument for sale about a month ago. They’re asking $3300 (originally $7000) and sounds like a good deal on a baby grand. (If only I had a place to put it…..) It’s been professionally cleaned and toned – is listed as exquisite condition and sounds like it’s definitely worth a look!

Here’s the link for more detail.

A couple other notes – installment payments are okay, but they will hold onto the instrument until it is fully paid. Credit Card payments are also possible, but there will be an extra fee to cover the credit card processing fees.

I have been somewhat behind in updates over here lately for a number of reasons. But I wanted to mention that the Asheville Music School has now opened a West location on Patton Avenue (behind Music City). The grand opening is Tuesday March 23rd at 11AM with a ribbon cutting, but the doors are already open now. There is a classroom space of about 16X25 feet and 6 studios for private lessons. The phone number is 828-252-1888. Anne Coombs (founder of the Asheville Music School) is running the new location and I’ve got to say, the new location is looking very nice!

More information can be found over on the new blog for the Asheville Music School over at wordpress.com which will be used to complement the information at the main website for the Asheville Music School.

I received the following release on one of the mailing lists that I’m on that I thought I would share here…. The event is this Saturday the 20th. Sorry I’m so late posting, but I thought it might be in time for some of you. I was also informed “Lunch in the past has been provided by the college. Budgets do not permit us to offer such this year. The normal buffet meal will be available in the dining room upstairs for $7.50, or participants can bring their own picnic lunches and eat on the patio. Drinks will be provided at no charge by Charlie Gray/Wofford Continuing Education.”

March 9, 2010

‘Singin’ Billy’ Walker Shape-Note Singing set for March 20
Event at Wofford College free, open to public

SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Shape-note singers from around the Southeast will gather again at Wofford College on Saturday, March 20, for the annual tribute to Spartanburg native William “Singin’ Billy” Walker (1809-1875), the man who helped bring musical literacy to remote country churches around the South.

The traditional a cappella Appalachian folk hymn singing style dates back to colonial times and was featured in the film “Cold Mountain,” starring Nicole Kidman and Jude Law. The Spartanburg event, held each year in the Burwell Building on Wofford’s campus, is free and open to the public. Jonathon Smith, of Knoxville, Tenn., will begin the day with a singing school lesson from 9 to 9:45 a.m. The group singing begins at 10 a.m. lasts until mid-afternoon, with a break for lunch.

Admission is free, and no experience is necessary to participate.

Attendees will sing from two early shape-note hymnals, “The Sacred Harp” (1844) by Benjamin Franklin White and Elisha J. King, and “Christian Harmony” (1867) by Spartanburg native William Walker (1809-1875). This singing honors the memory of Walker, who put the words and music of the familiar “Amazing Grace” together in print for the first time. He also introduced “Wondrous Love,” “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need,” and other tunes still familiar today.

Known as “Singin’ Billy,” Walker, was a Baptist singing school teacher. His “Southern Harmony,” published in the widely used four-shape or fa-so-la notation, reportedly sold more than 500,000 copies before the Civil War. After the Civil War, Walker published his “Christian Harmony” in seven-shape notation using the do-re-mi system. “Southern Harmony” continues in use in a famous Big Singing Day in Benton, Ky., which has been held for more than 100 years. “Christian Harmony” is used in singings in several states, including Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and western North Carolina. It was regularly used in singings around Spartanburg up to the 1920s.

Walker was a prominent citizen in Spartanburg, leading singing at First Baptist Church, operating a book store on Morgan Square, and spearheading improvements in education. He was among those who attended the laying of the cornerstone of Wofford College on July 4, 1851.

For information on the event, contact Dr. Harry Eskew at (478) 750-9968 or Dr.Doyle Boggs, executive director of communications at Wofford, at 597-4182 or at boggsdw@wofford.edu.

This Sunday afternoon at the Orange Peel (2:30pm) the kids from the Asheville Music Schools Rock Academy will take the stage under the leadership of Anne Coombs for the First Annual Benefit Concert for Youth at Jazz. Youth at Jazz is a great organization that has helped many young people have an opportunity to take music lessons and participate in music programs even if they don’t have the financial means to do so. Tickets for adults are $15 at the door. Seating is available and it’s THIS Sunday. Anne did a Radio interview this morning for the Morning Report with Jerri Jameson on WWNC and you can find it in their podcast at this link As of right now, it’s the first item in the podcast listing titled “First Annual Benefit Concert”. You can also find info at the Orange Peel’s site on their December calendar scroll a bit to find it….

Just a quick note that I’ve updated the Asheville area Music Stores page (and Music education/lessons page) with the new arrival of Dixieland Music Co., in Woodfin. They opened the 17th of October at the Town and Country Shopping Center on Weaverville Highway (Merrimon). They will be open 10-6 M-F and 10-3 Saturdays. Looks like a variety of new used, and consignment instruments (guitar, mandolin, drums, ukulele, banjos). They’ll also offer guitar repairs and lessons for beginners on guitar, bass and drums.

I don’t know about you, but if you also teach private piano lessons, or really any kind of private music lessons. I suspect there are times you have had to cancel your lessons for the day. You’ve either become sick, had a car accident, or some other event has forced you to cancel your schedule. Well, you might ind your life made easier if you make use of a voice blast or voice broadcast to get the word out. I don’t know about you, but it seems my students have about three numbers each and if you’re not sure which parent is bringing the student each week, then you’ve probably got on the order of 5 phone numbers to call for each student.

For me, sometimes it seemed easier just to go ahead with the lessons then to spend an hour or two on the phone, but you really don’t want to share the bugs if you can help it. That’s why I started using voiceshot (and did a voiceshot review not too long ago.) And here’s another voiceshot review.

Basically what voiceshot and these other services do is allow you to upload a list of phone numbers and record a message, then you can send the message to the numbers on the list any time you choose. If you already have your list uploaded then you could call in to record your voice message and trigger the voice blast that way.

Yes, it does cost, but it can be fairly cheap. Voiceshot charges 12 cents per successful call and you can “charge” your account in advance. All in all it made my life a LOT simpler when it was time to announce the birth of our second son and cancel lessons for the week because I could tell everyone the date of when I expected to be teaching again all at once. What’s even better you can check through their web interface for real time statistics on the progress of your call(s). It seems as though it handles voice pickup and voicemail fairly well along with redials.

So, if you’re looking for a time saving studio management tip – an automated voice message service is one of the best suggestions I can give you.

If you like mountain music it looks as though you need to find your way to Chimney Rock state park on August 15. They will host “Music on the Mountain: Songs from the Southern Highlands” for the afternoon at the Meadows at Chimney Rock as a joint event with the Rutherford County Arts Council. It will run from 3-6PM that day and admission is $14 for adults, and $6 for ages 6-15.

Phil and Gaye Johnson and The Dowden Sisters Band are listed the performers scheduled.

These new digital audio recorders are great. They make it easy to have hundreds of audio clips in short order. The problem is the naming (by default) on the zoom H2 and H4 is STE-000.wav etc…. which can be a little annoying. Organizing my efforts really streamlined what I’m able to do recording wise. Here’s what I’ve done to make my work with these digital recorders easier.

Using a spreadsheet program I’ve made a basic template with 000, 001, etc…. down the left hand column. I’ve put a grid around several other columns. One column is headed with just the word Delete. If I record something and then later think it was junk I just put a check or other mark in that column and I can go through and delete a bunch at once without having to do so through the digital recorders interface. (Also deleting later keeps your file numbering scheme intact.) I also make notes on each track recorded trying to describe the content (song name/key for instance.) For some I have just left the recorder going and going through several takes. If that’s the case I’ll note that the last take is the best (the rest can be deleted.)

The bottom line is using these track sheets to help make your post-recording work move that much quicker. Before I started doing this I had to go back and listen through every single track I recorded and then make a decision (which was tedious). Now I can through out the junk and make notes of the gems as I go on the track sheet. I’d print out a couple pages worth of this to carry with you (and the recorder.) Also, the first step post-recording is transferring the files and giving them appropriate names (describing the content) so you don’t have to continually listen to them to identify them.

For your convenience here is a PDF of my zoom H4 track list template and an XLS versoin of my zoom H4 track list template.

Sometimes I feel like this time of year is THE Best to make progress on the things you are studying. November and December have the distractions of several Holidays and shopping, parties, etc. It seems that everyone is overbooked. Spring and Summer of course have nice weather outside with their own distractions, but January, February, March are great months to settle down and get into a serious routine (with hopes that it can work into the rest of the year as well.) With the weather being cold outside it’s very easy to stay in and practice this time of year, use that to your advantage and start developing a routine for it!