First piano recital!

So, I have been a piano instructor for over six years now, and have had hundreds of students.  I do not teach full time, but I do teach an amount that fluctuates between 12 and 20 hours a week.

Anyways, we had our first piano recital on March 28th.  It was outstanding.  The goal was to make every student incredibly nervous, and light a fire under their butts so I picked much harder music than everybody was used to playing.  It worked.  Everybody was really nervous, and everybody played.  I explained to them that dealing with stage fright is a part of performing, no matter what you do.  It is usually the HARDEST part of performing.  Anyways, it was really fun and I am really proud that everyone went up and did their thing.  Being the first recital a lot of my long time students have ever played in, they did not quite know how to prepare, but now they know.
So I am going to post a link here to my YOUTUBE.COM channel, where you can go and watch clips of them all!  Yay!  They should be up soon, as soon as they are all uploaded.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mackgrout




Cheers,

Mack

Last weekend of shows...

Had some really intense, awesome shows last weekend.

Karin Stevens Dance Company had their annual performance this last weekend with a show on Friday and Saturday.  Me and Devin Lowe, and Brad Gibson had a blast playin musical interludes, and performing our work with the company.  Very exciting!

Then, after the dance performance on Friday I went down to Nectar and played the Dudley Manlove Quartet 15th anniversary show.  Very exciting, we premiered the Plan 9 Horn Section, which was a definite hit.

Sunday, played at Church.

Monday evening played the CD release concert of the Clark Gibson Sextet at the Triple Door.  Very good times, exciting music.  We only played for an hour and a half, wish that it was longer.  I think Clark sold a bunch of CD's, congratulations.  On the gig was,

Mike West - Sax
Nathan Vetter - Bone
Chris Stover - Bone
Clark Gibson - Sax
Dave Anderson - Sax
Adam Kessler - Drums
Phil Sparks - Bass

Awesome.


Mack

Karin Stevens Dance - 19th and 20th! This Weekend!

I am very excited to tell you all about two upcoming performances that are very important.  The first is the Dudley Manlove Quartet Anniversary show, featuring the Plan 9 Horn Section!  It is going to be awesome, it is at Nectar this Friday (the 19th of March, 2010) and my good friends are opening up for us in "The Hemmingway Reference".  It will be a good party for sure.

THEN, the 19th and 20th at 7:00 at the Fremont Abbey I will be performing with my trio and the Karin Stevens Dance Company.  We will be playing on and off throughout the show, but will be ending the performance with some original music written by yours truly, with some original dancing choreographed by Karin Stevens.  Very exciting, read about it HERE! 

Hope to see you this weekend.

Cheers,

Mack

Is it just me...

or does everyone feel incredibly lazy this time of year?

M

You gotta check this out!

This is actually a link to my friend Jason's blog, who links to a great blog I think musicians out there should read.  It is not often that you get honest advice from someone in the music biz, so check it!

http://oneworkingmusician.com/the-best-advice-for-musicians-that-ive-heard-in-a-long-time

Happy New Year,

playing the crap out of the Sunset Tavern tonight, only a few tickets available at the door so get there super early!

Cheers,

Mack

Going to the studio tonight!

Alright, I finally did it.  I plotted out some recording time so I can finally lay down some solo piano christmas music.  It is too late to really sell or get to people now, but I figure the next couple of years I will have a christmas cd to get out there!  I played for several thousand people the last few weeks, and it would have been great if I had a x-mas cd to sell them!

Let me know if you would like a track or two e-mailed out to ya!

Mack

Ray's Boathouse - Dick's Drive In!

Had an excellent private gig tonight.  It was me, playing solo - Jazz/Blues/X-mas songs.

Thought that it was going to be kind of strange, but it turns out it was awesome.  Thirty people about, all managers and owners of Dick's Drive In's.  I decided that I have not been getting enough 'practice' at these solo gigs that I do, so I decided I was going to sing a bunch tonight!  Sang tons of Christmas songs and Blues and Jazz, and man...!  I thought it was pretty good actually.  I brought my PA instead of my amp, and my keyboard sounds way better through it, not to mention the vocals.  I feel like after a song or two I got used to singing through the PA system, and had some control over it and could just relax and sing along.

People really had a great response to it, and it was the best practice I have had at a solo gig in a very long time, especially for being a casual.  I am going to sing a lot at all these upcoming gigs!

Sincerely,

Mack