John Philip Sousa, All-America Composer
When I taught elementary general music, one of the objectives for Grade 1 was to be able to recognize march music. So, of course, we practiced conducting in cut time, and marched to the music of John Philip Sousa. He was quite a character, and my students enjoyed hearing about his life.
Sousa was born on November 6, 1854, in Washington D.C., near the Marine barracks where his father played trombone in the U.S. Marine Band. He was the third of ten children in the family. He grew up surrounded by military band music, and when he was six years old began music lessons, studying voice, violin, piano, flute, cornet, baritone, trombone, and alto horn.
John Philip loved adventure, and when he was 13, tried to run away and join the circus as a musician. His father intercepted him, and instead enlisted him in the Marine Band as an apprentice so he could keep an eye on him. (Can you believe he was allowed to do that? I doubt that would be allowed today. He must have had connections. John Philip’s rank during this time was “boy.”) He remained in the Marine Band until he was 21 (except for a hiatus of 6 months). In addition to his band training, he studied music theory and composition. During his enlistment, he wrote his first piece, Moonlight on the Potomac Waltzes.
After his discharge from the Marines in 1875, Sousa began performing on violin, touring, and eventually conducting theater orchestras, including Gilbert & Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore on Broadway.
On December 30, 1879, Sousa married Jane Bellis. While on tour in St. Louis, Sousa received a telegram from the Marine Corps offering him the conductorship of the Marine Band; so the couple moved back to Washington D.C. in 1880. For the next 12 years, Sousa conducted the band known as The President’s Own, serving under Presidents Hayes, Garfield, Cleveland, Arthur, and Harrison. He raised performance expectations for the Band, threw away most of their music, transcribed orchestral pieces for them, and composed new marches.
Sousa resigned from the Marine Band in 1892 to organize his own civilian concert band. He continued to conduct, compose, and tour for the rest of his life, right up until his death on March 6, 1932.
John Philip Sousa wrote 136 military marches and is rightfully celebrated as the March King.
6 Strategies for Skill Building
To be skillful is to do something well. No one is born with skills; they are acquired through practice. The good news is that you can become more skillful at anything. The bad news is it’s going to take work. There are no shortcuts. But there are strategies:
- Focus on one skill at a time. Add another only after you’ve made progress on the first and know that you can maintain your pace.
- Lofty goals are good, but realize they will take time, as in years, even decades. Set realistic intermediate goals, and raise the bar as you go. You may want to be the best xylophone player in the world, but maybe start out by learning how to play smooth scales.
- If you can, take a class or private lessons. Go to workshops and conferences. If that’s not possible, you might be able to find some good lessons on YouTube for whatever skill you’re trying to learn.
- Find other people who can already do what you want to do, and cultivate them as friends. (Caveat: famous people probably will not want to be your friend, so do not stalk them.) Hang out where people who do what you want to do hang out. If you want to be an author, google writers groups in your zip code. If you want to be a comedian, look for open mike nights. Go and watch a few times, and see if you can talk to some of the participants. Ask them for advice, like how they come up with their material or handle stage fright.
- Practice is paramount. Every day is optimal. Even if you think you don’t have time except on weekends, try to get in some practice every day, even if it’s only a few minutes. Maybe there is one tricky passage in your dance routine. Do some stretches and try just that pattern ten times after dinner. Do that Monday through Friday, and when Saturday comes and you can really devote some time to it, it will be that much easier.
- Practice smart. If you want to draw people but the hands always look wonky, then just draw hands for a week or two. I once embroidered an angel, and her hair was supposed to be made of French knots. At the time, French knots were my least favorite stitch, and I always messed them up. But by the time I finished the angel’s hair, I’d made several hundred of them, and I could do them blindfolded.
It’s never too late to try something new and develop new skills. Don’t sell yourself short—practice.
Everything’s Better Under a Tree
Everything’s Better Under a Tree leafy arms raised to the sky waving in the wind like fans at a sporting event providing shade, cleaning the air, anchoring the landscaping sheltering birds and squirrels and insects sometimes flowering, possibly offering fruit or nuts perhaps even entertaining the children with climbable limbs or maybe a rope swing or even a treehouse: prime real estate for the younger set, only occasionally visited by the elders who would rather sit below in lawn chairs or a hammock, preferably with a glass of iced tea or beer or maybe a cigarette everything’s better under a tree a gift created by nature that we can use to good advantage or destroy with our greed and indifference
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Sergei and the Wolf
Sergei Prokofiev was born in 1891 in the Ukraine region of the Russian Empire. Although he is often considered a Russian composer, he was, technically, Ukrainian.
Many people get their first taste of Prokofiev from a piece of music he was commissioned to write for children, to introduce them to the instruments of the orchestra—Peter and the Wolf. The father of two boys, Prokofiev threw himself into the assignment. It tells the story of a boy who witnesses a wolf eating a duck, but then protects the wolf from hunters. Each character in the story is represented by a motif played by a different instrument. In 2007 Suzie Templeton won the Oscar for Best Short Animated Film for her slightly disturbing stop-action version of Peter and the Wolf, featuring Prokofiev’s score. (If you’re in a hurry, the music starts at 5:45.)
Other than Peter and the Wolf, I had no exposure to Prokofiev until my Music Appreciation class, senior year in high school, when we listened to the suite from his movie score for Lt. Kije. He went on to compose music for seven more movies.
Here, Paul Rissmann tells the story of Lt. Kije along with snippets of the music:
My freshman year in college, Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony (No. 1) was among two dozen pieces of music we were expected to listen to in preparation for an annual “drop the needle” exam. He composed seven symphonies in all. Here is his first:
In 1914 Prokofiev met ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev, who became one of his most influential advisers and commissioned ballet music from him. He completed a total of nine ballets.
Here’s Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet:
Prokofiev also composed 14 operas (though some remained unfinished). You may have heard the March from his Love for Three Oranges. Here it is played by Hillary Hahn and Lahav Shani:
Prokofiev was also a gifted pianist and traveled the world giving performances. He composed six piano concertos, 10 piano sonatas, and various other piano pieces. Before his death in 1953, he also composed incidental music, numerous orchestral suites and other works for orchestra, concertos for violin and for cello, vocal and choral music, chamber music, additional pieces for piano, and several marches for band. He is considered one of the leading composers of the twentieth century.
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Doing Life Together 