Music! Its Role and Importance in Our LivesChapter 4: Find the Beat, Feel the RhythmFrom the TopName: Rattan Trio Rattan Trio member Stefani Weiss on performing Stubernic on the From the Top radio show: Q: What are your thoughts and feelings about the music you performed? A:Stubernic is such an exciting piece of music because there are so many different elements to it. There's the fast part at the end when all we have to do is "rock out" as our coach Sarah Barnes tells us. There's another part towards the beginning when I'm rolling softly with some crescendos. In that part I like to imagine the ocean. If I close my eyes while playing I can hear the waves and imagine myself on the sand. In the middle there's a section where all three of us are playing on different sides of the instrument. It's kind of like being in STOMP! or Blue Man Group because we're creating so many different sounds on the same instrument. Q: What is unique about the music you performed? A:Stubernic is very unique because it is written for three players on one marimba. It is also unique because it utilizes all parts of the marimba including the sides, bars and pipes so we can extract as many different sounds as possible out of one instrument. The most important thing for us to get across to the audience while playing it is that we're having fun. Michael, Molly, and I just have a blast playing together, especially with all of the energy that's in Stubernic, and we want the audience to have fun while they're watching and listening. The hardest thing to nail in the piece is the parts where we're in unison. We have to make sure that each note is exactly together even though we're moving our hands really, really fast. Q: What was it like to prepare for and appear on From the Top? A: Getting ready for From the Top was really exciting. We had been playing together for about 11 months and had just won the Fischoff Competition, so we didn't have to learn new music. However we were all separated for the summer. I was at the National High School Music Institute at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois;, Molly was in Europe with Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp; and Michael was getting ready for college. We only had three weeks in the same state before leaving to record for From the Top. I will definitely remember all the other people who performed on From the Top with us: Journey, Johanna, and Vicki (who has gotten the Schumann Fairy Tales for Viola stuck in my head forever! Now I love that piece!). Meeting everyone and getting to hang out with them was so much fun. I will also never forget our sketch about Sarah and Chris that was hilarious! Also getting to meet the composer of the piece we played was really exciting and nerve racking. All the people that work at From the Top are so cool! |  |
