Robert Styron – Robert Styron

Dixieland Jazz as a Foundational Early 20th Century Form of Music

Robert Styron is a music educator who delivers instruction to students in New Orleans public schools. He emphasizes music theory, analysis, sight reading, and singing. Robert Styron is also active with the Jazz Educator Network.

Dixieland jazz developed around the turn of the 20th century. It is an improvised ensemble form that became popular in small-town marching bands. The version combined New Orleans ragtime with blues, polka, spirituals, and waltzes. An assemblage of instruments supports the confluence of cultures and traditions, including the clarinet, trumpet, and cornet for melodic elements and tuba or string bass for a bass accompaniment. The banjo or guitar supplies the rhythm, while percussion adds simplicity or complexity to the music.

Unlike later styles of jazz, such as swing and bebop, which emphasized harmonic complexity, Dixieland jazz remained essentially free from embellishments. It heavily favors basic seventh chords and triads, with only a few altered chord forms and extended chords. The form gives nearly unlimited room for each musician to improvise within the set meter. Often, one instrument tackles the melody while a second delivers free-form variations. With multiple instruments sometimes improvising together, it provides an exuberant, multilayered quality to the music.

Tips for Learning to Freestyle on a Snowboard

Robert Styron studied music education at the University of Colorado, graduating with a master of arts in 2000. Then, Robert Styron became a resident artist at Hymel School of Music in Gretna, Louisiana, in January 2019. Outside the school, he is an avid sailor, water skier, and snowboarder.

Snowboarding is a winter sport that combines creativity and agility. Freestyle snowboarding lets riders express themselves with a variety of tricks and techniques. However, novices need to begin with the basics. For example, pick up the right gear: a snowboard, boots, and bindings. Freestyle boards are typically shorter and more maneuverable, making them ideal for tricks and stunts.

Next, master the fundamentals of snowboarding. Develop a solid foundation by learning how to carve, control the speed, and ride comfortably in various terrains. As riding abilities improve, pick the suitable terrain. Designers specifically create freestyle terrain parks with jumps, rails, and features for tricks. Begin with more minor features, gradually progressing to larger ones as your skills improve.

Freestyle snowboarders will find that maintaining proper balance and body positioning is critical to executing tricks successfully. Keep weight centered over the board, bend the knees to absorb shocks, and maintain control during landings. Start with ollies and 180-degree spins, then go on to grabs, flips, and spins.

Finally, prioritize safety. Wear appropriate safety gear, including a helmet and protective pads. Remember to take breaks to prevent fatigue and learn from others.

Hiking from Eaton Canyon to Idlehour Trail

A distinguished music aficionado in New Orleans, Robert Styron serves as a talented music specialist with Jefferson Parish Public Schools. His responsibilities span a diverse range of musical aspects, from piano methods and vocal technique pedagogy to music composition and performance coaching. During his leisure time, Robert Styron enjoys outdoor activities such as water skiing and hiking.

For hikers in Los Angeles who are looking for a moderately challenging trail destination, the Eaton Canyon route to Idlehour Trail Camp is a good choice. The distance between the two points is foot-accessible and roughly 6 miles, which means a round trip of 12 miles. According to theoutbound.com, it’s ideal to come along with water, sunscreen, and trekking poles when tackling the journey.

Located near Pasadena, the Eaton Canyon route features challenging terrain, limited shade, and steep ascents for the initial 3 miles. On weekends the first 2 miles are busy with day hikers, but the trail becomes less crowded at Henninger Flats. Beyond that point, most hikers come across occasional mountain bikers, and the trail typically changes from these points as hikers pass a sequence of coastal oak and manzanita bushes. Idlehour Trail Camp is about one mile from this point.

The Basics of Planning a Music Festival

Robert Styron is an accomplished music educator and musical director with two decades of experience. An alumnus of the University of Colorado, Robert Styron is well versed in multiple areas including music performance and directing, retreat planning, teaching music, and music festival planning.

Planning a live music festival requires a lot of coordination in order to create a unique musical showcase that will attract both members of the local community and guests. For a music event to be successful, the purpose of the event has to be clearly identified from the outset. Musical events should always begin with a concept that will focus on what the event hopes to achieve, whether the event will focus on a specific musical genre, for example, and what will make the music festival or event unique among others.

Once the goal or purpose of the festival has been identified, the next step is to gather the performance lineup. The goal should be to determine how many musicians will be invited for the concert and start sending out invitations to find out their interest and availability. A good idea is to first book the main or headlining performers as early as possible. Once this has been done, organizers can then focus on contacting other smaller or local performers expected to be part of the event. Having backup performers is also recommended, as they can fill in should one or two groups be unable to make their appearances at the last minute.

Posture and Breathing in Sight-Singing

An accomplished music specialist and educator, Robert Styron serves as a resident artist at the Hymel School of Music in Gretna, Louisiana. He also teaches and mentors students at Jefferson Parish Public Schools in New Orleans. Robert Styron’s expertise extends to music arranging, performance coaching, and sight-singing.

An essential skill for vocalists and musicians in general, sight-singing is the practice of reading and singing music on the fly without prior rehearsal. It requires the ability to translate a musical score’s pitch, rhythms, and other elements and execute them vocally. Sight-singing practice helps develop skills for learning new music quickly and accurately independently.

Sight singing is typically done while sitting. Maintaining good posture by sitting upright at the chair’s edge, keeping the back straight and the thighs parallel, is crucial. Sight-singing performers focus on diaphragmatic breathing, not chest breathing, and articulate syllables clearly while singing and counting.

To perform diaphragmatic breathing, the shoulder should be relaxed while one sits and breathes in through the nose and out through the mouth. This causes your abdomen to move in and out, indicating free blood flow through the diaphragm. Diaphragmatic breathing uses full lung capacity to produce sound rather than exerting tension on the throat and neck.

A Brief Overview of NAfME Virtual Learning Resources

Robert Styron recently spent 14 years as the director of vocal music with Denver School of the Arts. During his time in this role, he received the Colorado State Most Outstanding Musical Award, among other distinctions. Robert Styron is a member of several professional organizations, including the National Association for Music Education.

The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) provides musical educators with a range of services, including an ever-expanding library of virtual teaching and learning resources. Through this service, members have access to various resources developed by NAfME society and council leaders, including members of the Society for Music Teacher Education and the Council of Music Program Leaders. Members draw on their personal teaching experience in crafting lessons and other teaching tools, while also referring to other trusted, peer-reviewed resources.

Members are further aided through a series of free webinars. Recent webinar topics have included introductions to online music education methods and insight into developing more responsive students. To register for alerts regarding upcoming webinars, or to learn more about virtual teaching and other NAfME membership benefits, please visit www.nafme.org.

Major Functions, Skills, and Abilities of a Music Director

A music performer, educator, and administrator with over a decade of experience, Robert Styron has experience as a music teacher as well as a conference, concert, recital, and music retreat planner. Also, Robert Styron is an experienced music educator and a vocal music director.

A music director, also known as a director of music, is tasked with the entire process of a musical performance. The major functions of a music director include selecting the pieces of music to perform, assisting singers to fit into the selection, managing and/or hiring soloists, transcribing musical compositions, and providing a link between composers and producers.

A music director should be able to manage budgets, recitals, conferences, retreats, and banquets. Apart from directing, they should possess skills and abilities such as decision-making, active listening, and social perceptiveness, as well as creative abilities such as originality, the capacity to generate new ideas, and the ability to differentiate between sounds and pitches. Communication, especially communicating ideas clearly, is essential.

Scat Techniques as an Essential Part of Improvised Jazz

Robert Styron is an established Colorado vocal music educator who has taught middle and high school students in areas such as musicals, music theory, and a cappella performance. One major area of focus for Robert Styron at the Denver School of the Arts was teaching vocal jazz.

With jazz known for its improvisational elements, the most basic songs can be expanded to the point where they resemble a new work of art. A key facet of this is scat singing, a technique in which the lyric’s words are switched for rhythmic phrases that create new syncopations and vocal possibilities.

Also known as a voice instrumental, scatting is often composed of nonsense words and phrases that have no meaning beyond the sounds produced. Alternatively, scatting can be in a vocalese style that utilizes the song’s lyrics in new forms that build on, but do not closely resemble, the original melody line.

Because scats are pitched indefinitely, vocal inflection takes the place of a traditional melody in suggesting the underlying musical theme. Accents tend to be articulated strongly, often through altering the vowel and tying a primary accented note to a series of tied notes that follow in rhythmic succession. All while utilizing coordinated breath energy.

Tone is another important element of scatting, and it can be endlessly modified through techniques such as changing the shape of the mouth, altering vowel sounds, and effectively ppsinging with solid diaphragmatic-costal breath coordination. Some scat stylists, like Bobby McFerrin, go so far as to pound on the chest as a way of creating unexpected percussive and tonal modalities.