MTC Studio

Resource For Musicians: Wikitabs

Katherine — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:48:20 +0000

Everyone has heard of Wikipedia. But did you know that they now have an online encyclopedia of guitar tabs, chords, bass tabs and even drum tabs? To be exact, they currently have 230,862 songs by 26, 421 bands!

I often need to look up lyrics and chords online but have to search through the many different versions that the internet holds, and usually end up making corrections to the chords anyways. WikiTabs is a community based site where members can edit versions posted to ensure the most correct chords.

WikiTabs also seems to hold a lot of hard to find tabs. Chords for Beatles songs, for instance, are often hard to find due to sites not being able to post them for copyright reasons. Here is the Beatles page on WikiTabs:

http://wikitabs.org/wiki/Beatles

Amazing.

Go ahead, type in your favourite artist! Do you like country? Indie? Heavy Metal? No problem, wikitabs has it all!

Check it all out at wikitabs.org. Happy strumming!

Perfect Pitch and Autism

Katherine — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:44:43 +0000

Here at MTC Studio, we are lucky to have a lot of very musically talented kids come through our doors. A lot of these kids are somewhere on the very broad Autism Spectrum. Quite often, we recommend adapted music lessons rather than music therapy for these kids, as their musical abilities are or have the potential to be quite sophisticated. Adapted lessons also reach a lot of the goals we want to work on with them: self-esteem, independence, listening skills and following an external stimulus (the beat). Plus, it doesn’t hurt that learning music increases language and mathematical skills!

I started noticing that a lot of my adapted music students who have Autism have absolute pitch (also known as perfect pitch) or something very close to it. Absolute pitch is defined as the ability to accurately identify a given note in the absence of any other notes. This means I can play one note on the piano (or any instrument for that matter) and the student, without knowing the key or hearing anything else, can tell me which note I am playing. I started to wonder if this was because perfect pitch is actually more prevalent in Autism – or were we just seeing musical kids because we are a music studio? Had parents found us because they noticed their child’s musical abilities or we were seeing a microcosm of a larger trend in people with Autism?

Research shows that both people who are blind and people whose first language is a tone-based language (like Mandarin) DO have a higher prevalence of perfect pitch – actually much higher than the general population. I went on a search for research to back up my suspicions of this being true for people with Autism. It seems to be universally accepted that people with Autism do have perfect pitch a lot of the time, especially musical savants and people with higher-functioning Autism. A lot of the research, however, is qualitative (based on one individual) or focuses only on higher-functioning savant-like participants. One good (but slightly dated) article I found that compared a group of people with Autism to a neuro-typical control group was:

Bonnel, A. et al. (2003) Enhanced Pitch Sensitivity in Individuals with Autism: A Signal Detection Analysis. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15-2, 226-235

They found that people with Autism DID score better than the neuro-typical group in identifying and categorizing pitches, suggesting that people with Autism not only have enhanced visual processing, but most likely also have enhanced auditory processing.

This could be one explanation why music therapists are having success using a technique called Melodic Intonation Therapy with pre-verbal children with Autism. MIT is usually reserved for working with stroke-recovery patients, using pitch repetition to not only recover speech, but also teach the correct intonation.

So, with our perfect or almost perfect pitch students, we are seeing a great propensity to quickly memorize songs and pick out melodies on the keyboard. Even with one of my lower functioning clients, his memory for pitch surprized me. One day I sang a new hello song to him, and had him sing along. Two weeks later, without hearing it again, he picked out the melody on the piano!

One challenge of working with kids with such good ears is that they want to rely on this talent because it is easier for them to play a song by ear than read the sheet music in front of them! A lot of these same kids have trouble reading in school, and so a big goal is to get them to read sheet music as it increases visual tracking skills.

Even with some challenges, having such a good ear is an amazing talent and I’m so glad these kids get to show off all of their hard work at the year end recital. Even with talent, music takes practice and dedication.

Have you had an experience with a person with Autism who had great pitch, or have you seen a great article about perfect pitch and Autism? Leave a comment below!

Vancouver Adapted Theatre program up and running

Don — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 03:57:06 +0000

We met for the first time last Thursday, and this one looks like a slam dunk. Vancouver Parks Board Access Services has contracted MTC Studio to do an adapted musical. Singing, dancing and a paper thin plot. What could be better? The only question is will Richard Gere show up for the premiere? Stay tuned as we write, rehearse and get ready for a spring show. Still a few spots to get in over the next few weeks.

New performance video from Vancouver Jazz Festival

Don — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 04:40:08 +0000

This year I had the privilege to perform at the 2011 Vancouver International Jazz Festival with BFunk. It’s a fun band – all instrumental – that covers material as diverse as one can imagine, all within a funk groove. Here’s a taste of what we did on Canada Day at Granville Island.

Why we work so hard on time and rhythm

Don — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 02:00:32 +0000

I stumbled onto this link from a friend. He is a well respected drummer and instructor in Vancouver, and he has it up on his Facebook profile. It confirmed why at MTC we work so diligently with students and clients on developing that rhythmic sense, and a strong sense of time. Hope you find it interesting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1895839/Drummers-are-natural-intellectuals.html#.TlwaM9shzNg.facebook

MORE Upcoming Events!

Katherine — Mon, 23 May 2011 03:51:41 +0000

Saturday, May 28^th: Every year, I know it is almost summer when Camp Alexandra in Crescent Beach holds the annual Alexandra Festival. This year I not only get to go but I also get to perform with the Soul of the World Multicultural Choir! This is also where the choir is lucky enough to rehearse each week. We are on at noon so grab some grub and head to the stage! This is a very family friendly event with lots of entertainment, unique vendors and good food!

Monday, May 30^th: The WrecK Rockers will be performing as part of Surrey Parks and Rec’s Community inclusion day! The festivities will be taking place in front of Surrey City Hall, with our performance at about noon!

Saturday, June 4^th: Katherine and the Musical Theatre class will be giving a short performance of “Peter and the Wolf” at the Music Therapy Association of BC’s Symposium on Children and Youth at UBC, in order to share ideas on how to successfully run a musical theatre class for youth. 9 other Music Therapists will also be sharing intervention ideas. If you are curious about Music Therapy or work with youth this would be a great day to come and see what we are all about and gain some new techniques!

Saturday, June 11^th: The Wreck Rockers will be performing AGAIN at the ALS walk at Bear Creek Park! Back by popular demand we will be rocking the stage once more. This is a great event for a great cause. If you aren’t local there are many community ALS walks – be sure to find one in your neighbourhood!

Saturday June 18^th: MTC Studio holds a recital at the end of each school year so that our music students who have been working hard all year can finally show off! This day always makes me so proud. For the big finale Katherine, Don, Mike and our new intern Gordon will be cooking up a hot tune! It will be held this year at South Burnaby United Church at 2 pm. This day will definitely sum up a great year for the Studio!

Hope to see you at these great events!

CAMT Conference

Don — Mon, 16 May 2011 16:29:43 +0000

A recent trip to Winnipeg to present our book “Movin’ and Groovin’ ” was great. The book was well received by the delegates who attended the session, and it was fabulous to see some old friends. The reality of the Manitoba floods was ever present; I had never seen the Red River up so high, and it is the Assiniboine, not the Red flooding…yet. Hopefully, this will remain so.

The Mississippi is also set to flood, and hopefully the sacrifices on both rivers will help save the many more. Climate change is a reality, and so we must devise a new way, and this shift will the challenge facing us as we march onward.

New Orleans Parade

Don — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 19:15:46 +0000

There is a current view from certain segments of society that music is some kind of frill; that it is not essential to the social lubrication of a society. The video here shows quite a different picture; music moves in unique ways.

I recently had the the good fortune to be in New Orleans at the start of the Revolution Social and Pleasure Club parade. The Social and Pleasure Clubs in New Orleans take turns in parading on an almost weekly basis. They act as communities within a community, and music plays a huge role in making them work. And its hard not to be smiling when you see and hear how much joy and pride in self and community comes out of the musicians and dancers.

If you click on the link below, it will take you to the MTC Studio Youtube page where the video now lives. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/user/musictherapystudio#p/a/u/0/SqKmMsOdhU4

Brain Awareness Week

Katherine — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:35:47 +0000

Did you know that this week is Brain Awareness Week? I have had the privilege of working with a young man with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (ACC) for the past two years. In more severe cases of ACC, the person is born without a Corpus Callosum, and in milder cases it is not fully developed. In essence, the left and right side of the brain are not connected properly. Here is an interesting ad that demonstrates what each side of the brain is responsible for:

(Text from above)

Left Brain: I am the left brain. A scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. A master of words and language. Realistic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.

Right Brain: I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feet. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.

Since people with ACC have trouble sending information from one side of the brain to the other, they often have problems with motor development, language skills, cognitive delays and social skills.

Music uses both the logical and creative sides of the brain at the same time. Listening to and playing music creates stronger neural pathways between brain hemispheres, which results in faster access to complex information and better communication between the sections of the brain, on both sides. This is the basic premise behind the “Mozart effect”, and reinforces using Music Therapy to strengthen neural pathways in the brains of people with ACC.

For more information on the brain and to give both sides of your brain a test, visit the NODCC website.

Upcoming Events

Katherine — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 04:01:46 +0000

Get ready!! MTC is going to be very busy for the next month. Here are some upcoming events you should keep in mind:

February 19th: Be sure to check out Don’s band, BFunk at the Cottage Bistro. I heard from a reliable source that this performance will include a light show!! And be sure to try the cheesecake when you need a break from dancing.

March 4th: Winter Extravangza, Coast Capital Playhouse, White Rock, BC. This is a fundraiser for the Rec and Leisure Program at Semiahmoo House Society (which is a program run solely on donations!). Come and see the Rec Rockers (aka Wreck Rockers) make some noise, and the Musical Theatre group perform a musical version of “Around the World in Eighty Days”. You never know what is going to happen, and will not be disappointed! Tickets are 15 dollars and are available through Semiahmoo House Society at 15306 24th Ave or by calling 604-536-1242.

March 10th: VASS Cup Race (see previous blog entry for more information). Go Don Go!

March 13th: Soul of the World Multicultural Choir is giving a performance to conclude the portion of the project that was generously sponsored by an EmbraceBC grant from the BC government. This is sure to be an exciting and lively performance. Katherine will be leading a full band which will include three African drummers.

Be sure to stay tuned for more info on all of these events! Everyone has been working very hard on these and we can’t wait to share them with you!

Katherine