Alan Silva

[brownie]

Has anybody heard this Alan Silva box. Visual looks good. What's the music like?

Alan Silva box

[Guest Chaney]

The price of this set has been scaring me away.

Here's a lenghty interview with Silva if you're interested. (This set is mentioned.)

PARIS Transatlantic

[brownie]

Chaney, thanks for the link. A very interesting article from the Paris Transatlantic Magazine. Should read this more often. Their interview with Sunny Murray was also excellent. The two interviews brought back a lot of memories.

The price of the set has scared me too, which is why I asked for recommendations.

Will probably take the plunge before Christmas time.

An Alan Silva box for Christmas sounds OK.

[Tom Storer]

Fascinating interview. I studied clarinet at the IACP for a year in the early 80's. This was during a period when I decided I had to at least give music a try or I'd regret it later. As it turned out I spent a couple of years trying, then gave it up for the good of all mankind.

As a beginner, I felt Silva's pedagogical approach might have been interesting if I had had any native talent to speak of. As it was, I got nowhere. We had no exercise books, but with our teachers developed our own personalized exercises - which were rather random and unplanned. I don't think the teachers had any training as music teachers, at least mine hadn't! There was a class where we all sat in the dark and held hands and hummed OMMM together, trying to achieve unison. The attempt was unsuccessful, but nothing was ever done to correct it. We had a rhythm class, where we would learn rhythmic notation and beat out the rhythms with sticks. Again, the experience was rather chaotic, since not everyone was progressing at the same rate. My impression was that they had all kinds of utopian notions about teaching music but not enough experience; they didn't seem to know what they were doing as teachers, although their sincerity and dedication was undeniable.

After a year, I didn't go back. Instead I signed up at an old-fashioned classical conservatory, with lessons based on centuries of experience. I wasn't interested in classical music but learned the basics of the instrument and solfège much better and faster than at the IACP.

But that's just my experience. Other people's mileage no doubt differed.

Silva was a kinetic, excited, impatient kind of guy, loping about the school with a cigarette in his mouth, his hair in a long pony tail. I heard him play a few times, once in a trio with David Murray and the late Oliver Johnson on drums - I confess I never much liked the Celestrial Communication Orchestra, though. I saw him not too long ago in the audience for some concert, and he was clean-shaven with short hair, looking good. I didn't actually have much personal contact with him at the IACP, but the interview certainly shows an intelligent, curious, dynamic personality.

[Guest Chaney]

Thanks very much for your valuable insights, Tom.

Fascinating stuff.