Concert Photography - Technique

I'm going to assume you've already read my article on equipment, or else you are already satisfied with your equipment choices. To summarize, you'll want a camera that gives you acceptable quality at the high ISO speeds you will often be needing, and a lens or lenses with a relatively wide maximum aperture (f/2.8 or better, ideally) in a focal length range that provides the sort of field of view that works for you. For me, that means a DSLR (Pentax K200D) and lenses in the short to medium telephoto lengths. 100mm is the sweet spot for me on APS-C, although I know others prefer wider angles, and longer is useful if you can't shoot from as close to the action as you otherwise might. Although I mostly use primes, I think a 50-135mm zoom would be ideal for most people.

Pretty much any camera that satisfies these basic requirements - good high ISO performance, wide aperture lens - should also give you control over ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. It doesn't really matter whether this is done via a completely manual mode, or via the use of aperture priority or shutter priority modes combined with exposure compensation, exposure lock, or other manual overrides. Basically, any DSLR should do the job, but a film camera or full featured fixed lens camera that provides this same type of capability would be fine too.

Before we go further, I should point out that my main musical interest is jazz, and that affects my photography in some significant ways. For one thing, it means my photographs tend to be more about individuals than the the "band", because such is often the nature of jazz. It means that my subjects are often playing wind instruments, which have their own set of issues regarding focal length choice, composition, and focus. It means I am often working in small clubs with very simple but very poor lighting - not the type of elaborate lighting displays typical with some rock bands. And the listening environment is often pretty quiet compared to typical rock shows. So if some of my comments seem strange to you - like if you cannot possibly imagine anyone caring about the sound of a DSLR shutter - then feel free to take those with a grain of salt. Still, I expect most of what I have to say will be relevant to anyone who has stumbled upon this article.

Here's an example of the kind of photograph I like to take:



Even if you have a different creative vision than I do, you may still find my technical commentary useful.

Basic Settings

Beginners are often bewildered by the various settings on their cameras. I can cut through some of that by telling you there are only three that really matter - ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. These are the basics of exposure and have been since the dawn of photography. If your camera provides controls over sharpness, contrast, saturation, and so forth, that's fine, and feel free to mess with them if you like. But none of those things make a fundamental difference to the image in the same way the basic exposure settings do. And especially if you shoot RAW - more on that in a moment - you will find that the exposure settings are the only things that are fixed when you take the picture. All else can be changed later.

I personally use "M" (manual) mode to control my exposure. I did this at first because with my old manual lenses, it is the only way exposure can be controlled. But I soon realized I liked the control it gave, and I found I would get more consistent results that way too, so now I use it all the time even with my modern lenses. The optimum exposure doesn't vary from shot to shot nearly as much as an autoexposure system will tend to think. Consider a person wearing light colored clothing in a spotlight standing against a dark colored background in the shadow (a typical situation). As long as the person doesn't change their clothes or move out of the spotlight, there is no reason for exposure to change. But an autoexposure system can easily be fooled by such irrelevant factors as how much of the dark background is visible in the shot, whether the lighting on the background changes, whether a second person enters the shot, whether an instrument or microphone happens to catch a reflection from the spotlight, whether the spotlight itself is in the picture, etc.

Also, the autoexposure system often recommends a shutter speed that is too slow to stop camera shake or subject motion. In low light concert photography, you often need to be prepared to underexpose in order to get a sharp pictures, and then expect to improve the exposure in post processing (PP). You will probably be needing to override the default suggested exposure more often than you think. So some amount of manual override is often necessary no matter what mode you shoot in.

On the other hand, if you are not used to shooting in "M" mode, it can be daunting at first, and you are indeed likely to blow some shots until you get the hang of it. Stage lighting often varies in color from one part of the stage to another, and sometimes in intensity as well. An exposure that works for one musician in one area of the stage might work another musician in another area of the stage, but it might not. It will be up to you to monitor changes in lighting across the stage, and also over time - systems that change the lighting every couple of minutes are common in some venues.

So anyhow, as I see it, you have two choice: use "M" mode and watch for changes in lighting, or use an auto mode and watch for everything else. Your call. If you use an autoexposure mode, you need to either make liberal use of your exposure-lock control or expect to be constantly adjusting exposure compensation based on your read of the scene. Otherwise your exposures may vary wildly for no good reason, even when shooting what seems to be the same scene, and some will be blurry from too slow a shutter speed.

I'll deal with the specifics of setting exposure later. For now, I want to run down the other camera settings you can make before you start shooting and mostly leave alone.

First, as I alluded to before, you'll want to shoot RAW. Whatever you might think about doing PP, it's almost always going to help a lot in concert photography, and need not be particularly time consuming in order to be useful. Batch setting white balance, noise reduction, and perhaps a global exposure adjustment can be done in seconds for an entire cardful images, and will turn a set underexposed, noisy, orange-colored images into something you can really be happy with. There are programs that try to provide this same level convenience to JPEG, but the very nature of JPEG is such that you will not be able to maintain the same quality when doing these sorts of adjustments. If you insist on shooting JPEG anyhow, be my guest, but expect to never be able to get rid of of the stage lighting color casts, and expect any shots you underexpose in order to get a fast enough shutter speed to never look anywhere near as good in terms of detail or noise as it could - it is just not possible to PP that type of JPEG image to the same extent as with RAW.

If your camera or lens features some form of stabilization (IS, VR, SR, OS, AS, or whatever the manufacturer of your gear calls it), turn it on unless you are using a tripod and the manufacturer recommends it not be used with a tripod. Most stabilization systems work fine with a monopod. If you don't have stabilization, a monopod is a cheap way and relatively unobtrusive to improve stability.

If your camera gives you a way to quickly switch between auto and manual focus, find it and learn to use it. Pentax DSLR's have a button that can temporarily disable AF while pressed without needing to actually switch to MF mode; I find that incredibly useful. Others like to set up their cameras so that pressing the shutter does not perform AF at all, but instead a button press does. That's an option too. What we're looking for here is a way to achieve focus on a subject, then make sure the camera doesn't refocus while you fire off a string of shots of that subject.

If your camera requires you to do something special to turn off flash, do that now. If you plan to shoot with flash, you can safely skip the section on exposure, because it won't be relevant. You'll have to turn elsewhere for help with flash exposure. But do make sure you know flash is acceptable before assuming you'll be using it. As a musician myself, I can tell you it's never acceptable during my performances, but that's my world. Yours may be different.

Although ISO is one of the three exposure parameters that in theory might vary from shot to shot, in practice, light levels are often low enough that you'll just want to set it as high as you stand (in terms of noise) before you start shooting and not mess with it again all night. I shoot at ISO 1600 practically all the time in my concert photography.

Positioning And Composition

Once your camera is set up, your next step is to position yourself and frame your shots to get the results you want. This is the part that is the most personal, so my advice here will be pretty general.

In general, the closer you are, the better. You'll be able to capture more detail, you'll have more dramatic perspective and depth of field effects, and it will be easier to position yourself to avoid obstructions. You'll also be less intrusive to fellow attendees if you are between them and the band than if you are continually pushing through the crowd. Although you do want to be respectful and not stand directly in someone else's line of sight for long. Nor do you want to be so close you are distracting to the musicians. But shots like this can't be taken from further back:




If you are close and you want a shot of the whole band, you'll need a wide angle lens, and if you don't have anything suitable, standing further back will have to do. Sometimes the only convenient spots to be near the stage don't allow for unobstructed views of all the band members, so some shots might have to be taken from further away with a longer lens. This is obviously very specific to the venue and band. Depending on the arrangement of the musicians and where you position yourself, you might be able to capture shots of the whole band from surprisingly close with a 50mm lens, or even 70mm, as I did here:



While occasionally it works out that you can get all the shots you want from one position, more often than not you'll be better off moving around. To minimize disruption, it is usually best to do all the shooting you need to do from one spot (including lenses changes as necessary), then move to another spot, rather than constantly flitting around. On the other hand, you may also want to minimize lens changes, and that might suggest taking all shots you think you will want with one lens, moving around as necessary, then change lenses and repeat.

Because my main musical interest is jazz, and jazz is so much about personal expression, I tend to be primarily interested in capturing images of individual musicians more so than shots of the entire band. I usually take one or two band shots just to have them, but I mostly focus on more intimate portrait-like shots, as you can see from the examples I am including. Because so much jazz involves wind instruments in the front, and piano, guitar, bass, and drums further back, I can often use a longer telephoto lens and still incorporate the whole instrument than I could if I were mostly shooting guitar players in the front line. But all this varies according to the specific band and how they are set up on stage. One of the things I do in planning my shots is think about what focal lengths I will need to capture head-and-instrument portraits of each musician from a variety of different vantage points.

Obviously, you will never be able to completely anticipate every shot you might want. You will likely find that moving around suggests shot to you that you might not have thought of otherwise. But if you try to keep these ideas in mind, things usually go smoother. Here's a shot I had not planned to take, but once I arrived in the spot where I was planning to shoot the pianist, I saw an opportunity to shoot the whole rhythm section:



Any shot you can take while leaning against a wall, or post, or other support - or seated - is likely to come out sharper than any shot you take while standing unsupported. Camera/lens stabilization and monopods can help, but still, the steadier you are yourself, the better.

All basic compositional concepts you might learn about in any book on photography technique - or drawing or painting, for that matter - apply. However, given that you should be expecting to post process your shots to some extent, and that can include cropping, it might not be worth obsessing too much about composition while shooting. But there are some things that you are much better off paying attention to now than trying to deal with later. When lining up a shot, try to be aware of things that are in the frame but might turn out to be unnecessary or distracting, such as overly busy backgrounds, objects or people in the background that appear growing out of your subject's head, etc. When shooting singers using microphones or people playing wind instruments, it is often best to shoot from an angle to either side so that you can still see most of the face:



On the other hand, sometimes with a wind instrument especially, the "coming right at you" look can be quite effective too, even if it partially obscures the face:



I also like to be on the lookout for interesting geometric shapes formed by the musicians, their instruments, and whatever else is in the frame, to create the occasional semi-abstract shot. I don't know or care if anyone else would find this shot interesting, but I do, and that's all that matters to me:



For maximum impact, try to get the most contrast you can between the subject and the background - usually a light figure against a dark background. Even "black" skin in a spotlight will often be lighter than an unlit background:



Of course, a darker figure against a lighter background will "pop" just as well, and that can happen at times even with "white" skin if the lighting is right:



Watch your subject for motions that keep repeating and see if you can identify a spot in the cycle where the subject is holding a pose for a moment - that will allow you to shoot with a relatively slow shutter speed and still get a reasonably sharp picture. For example, for anyone who rocks back and forth, there is always a point of zero motion at either end of the "rock". On the other hand, shots of musicians engaged in an action that cannot be stopped at the kind of shutter speeds you will be using can be effective too - nothing says motion and excitement like a little subject blur. Particularly if parts of the subject are in motion but parts are not. I usually strive to freeze the face but show motion in the limbs, at least for instrumentalists:



One more word about the sort of portrait-like shots I usually take. I tend to go for shots showing moments of intensity, often featuring almost pained looks on the faces of the musicians:



These seldom turn out to be the musicians' favorite pictures of themselves. So I do try to capture them smiling or otherwise looking as they might like to see themselves:



Exposure

Once you've settled on a basic location and composition for a series of shots, you need to set exposure before you can actually shoot. Yes, I know - your camera has autoexposure, and in other settings it works just fine to just point and shoot and let the camera take care of the rest. But for various reasons that I alluded to above, this doesn't usually work so well for concert photography. I will be more specific about this now.

When shooting a single lit figure against a dark background - something very common in concert photography - a camera autoexposure system will typically try to exposure the background to "medium" brightness, like an 18% gray card. This will virtually always result in an overexposed figure, and depending on your aperture and ISO, probably too slow a shutter speed to stop blur. You want to expose for the figure in the light, not the dark background. Here is an example where the dark background would have led the camera to suggest a shutter speed that was unusably slow, yielding a blurry subject and blown out detail in places, and it would have ruined the effect of the dark background as well. If you think the cord growing out of the keyboardist's back is distracting now, imagine how it would looked if the background were a stop brighter:



Conversely, if there is a bright light in the picture frame, most cameras will underexpose the shot in order to avoid blowing out that light and to keep the average brightness of the scene down. This picture would have come out almost completely black except for the spotlight if I had just blindly accepted the exposure suggested by the camera:



To some extent, overexposure and underexposure can be dealt with in PP, but best results are always obtained when you get thing as close as practical in camera. The trick is in learning how to do this efficiently.

Instead of letting the camera choose an exposure based on the whole scene and then trying to figure out how much adjustment might be necessary and in which direction, I usually find it more effective to use substitute metering - setting exposure based on a scene that is dominated by the kind of lighting I want to expose for. Spot metering can be useful for this, although I actually prefer center-weighted. Either way, you can point directly at your subject and zoom in to center the meter on him or her, then set and lock the exposure using the exposure lock control or simply by being in manual exposure mode. Or you can use a spot on the floor or wall that is in the same light as your subject if that works out better. Once you have set the exposure in this way, you can shoot any composition you want containing that subject with confidence that your subject will remain consistently exposed regardless of how the rest of the scene changes from shot to shot.

For example, the camera-suggested exposure in the following shot would have been far too low because the spotlight in the frame would have fooled the meter. The singer would have lost in the shadow:



But the following shot, taken moments later, would have been overexposed because the spotlight was not in the shot, so the dark background would have fooled the meter instead:



By carefully metering on the singer himself in the shoot, and then leaving that exposure alone while shooting, I was able to capture both scenes as I wanted them, without having to dial in different amounts and types of exposure compensation throughout the series. The same exposure worked for all shots of that subject form that vantage point, and that is going to be true more often than not.

As I mentioned before, I use manual mode more or less exclusively. Pentax cameras provide a button that quickly sets what it thinks is an appropriate shutter speed while I am pointed at my chosen metering target, so I can still take advantage of the camera's metering system, and I can then adjust that suggested exposure as necessary to get the subject as bright as I want. Once set, I can and do simply leave exposure alone until the lighting changes or my attention turns to a subject in different lighting.

Even when using substitute metering techniques, you might still need to use compensation at times, however. For instance, positive compensation is often needed for subjects under bright spotlights or else the camera will try to expose to make your subject look only medium bright instead of looking like he or she is in a spotlight. Or, if you are deliberately trying to create a silhouette against a light background, negative compensation might be necessary if metering off the subject. Also, shots taken under strongly colored lighting are likely to cause one color channel of the camera to "clip" - and therefore lose detail - long before the picture looks overexposed as a whole. So you often need to underexpose in strongly colored light. For these reasons and others, compensation can still be necessary. But it is much easier to adjust based on your subject and how you want it to appear, rather than trying to figure out how to adjust an exposure your camera is making based largely on one aspect of a scene (like a dark background or a spotlight) in order to make a totally unrelated aspect of the scene (like your subject) come out the way you want.

I should note that in practice, I actually don't bother going through all of this very often. At some venues where I shoot regularly, I know before I arrive what exposure settings with work. ISO 1600, f/2.8, and 1/45" is so typical at one venue, for instance, that I can set that before leaving my house and never revisit it. Usually, when I first begin shooting at a venue I will take test shots of different spots on the stage to see if exposure needs to be adjusted up or down from one spot to the next because of the arrangement of lights. I then memorize the shutter speeds that worked: 1/45" when shooting most of the musicians but 1/30" for the drummer and 1/60" for anyone at the front microphone, for instance. Again, using manual mode makes it simple to actually get the camera to use the settings I want, as long as I remember to change shutter speeds when appropriate.

You might find that your favorite venue lets you be similarly consistent about exposure. If it is especially well lit, you might not need ISO 1600 or f/2.8, or you might be able to get a faster shutter speed. If it is not as well lit, you might need to increase ISO further if your camera allows, or use a larger aperture if your lens allows. Or, you might just settle for an underexposed picture in order to keep shutter speeds high enough, and hope to be able to correct this in PP. I routinely shoot a little underexposed at ISO 1600 and push exposure up to a stop or so in PP - giving me the equivalent of ISO 3200 - and still get acceptable (to me) results in terms of noise. That depends on your camera and your standards. But if you're thinking that you'll be able to shoot with a typical f/4-5.6 zoom at ISO 200, you are likely to be extremely disappointed.

In case you are unclear on the tradeoffs between ISO, apeture, and shutter speed, you might want to read up more on exposure elsewhere. What I'll say here is this: higher ISO means more noise (graininess); larger aperture - represented by smaller f-numbers - means shallower depth of field (DOF) which can make getting your subject in focus more difficult; slower shutter speed means blur from camera shake or subject motion. Expect to need ISO around 1600 and aperture around f/2.8 in order to get a shutter speed fast enough to combat blur. The faster the shutter speed the better, so even if I have the luxury of having enough light to not need ISO 1600 or f/2.8, I'll often leave ISO and aperture there just to take advantage of faster shutter speeds. But if your camera or lens does not perform well enough for you at those settings, by all means, decrease ISO or stop down the lens when you can do so without introducing too much blur.

I find 1/30" a good benchmark for controlling blur from subject motion if my timing is good, and it's fast enough that between the stabilization technology built in to my camera and taking advantage of whatever physical aids I can (walls, posts, chairs, etc), I don't have to worry too much about blur from camera shake even when using my 135mm lens. Of course, 1/30" won't stop a subject in active motion, but as I said, if my timing is good, I can expect a high percentage of reasonably sharp pictures.

If necessary, I'll shoot slower, but I expect to need to take more shots in order to get lucky enough to have one come out acceptably sharp. I've occasionally resorted to speeds as slow as 1/6" and managed to get good results, but that's not something one can count on. Here's one where I got lucky at that speed:



At 1/120", unless you are shooting at long telephoto lengths (200mm or beyond on APS-C) or not supporting yourself and the camera at all, you can reasonably expect most shots to come out sharp. Some musicians I find notoriously difficult to get sharp pictures of because the move so much, but if I can get them in a situation where I can use 1/120" or faster, I can usually nail them. So although f/2.8 is usually adequate for me, I am happy to have a 50mm lens at f/1.7 to help me get those those kinds of shutter speeds when I really need them:



Most of your shots will probably end up between these extremes, so your success will come down to your timing and ability to stabilize yourself and the camera/lens.

Focusing And Shooting

Focus similarly can be done using a combination of automatic and manual techniques. The main problem with simply pointing and shooting is that often, the camera will notice a microphone or instrument and focus on it instead of the musicians' face. This is of course most likely not what you want. Also, AF tends to be slow on many cameras in low light, and erratic in highly colored stage lighting, causing you to miss more shots than you might like. Plus, when taking multiple shots in a row of the same subject - something you should be in the habit of doing in order to increase your chances of at least one coming out blur-free - you don't want the camera stopping to refocus (and possibly getting it wrong) between shots. So just as with exposure, you will often want to set focus once, then shoot a whole series.

The specific of how to do this vary with camera brands and models, which is why I suggested looking into this when initially setting up your camera. As I mentioned, I have mine set up so that a button on the back of the camera temporarily disables AF. I'll half press the shutter to perform an initial focus, and if I judge that the camera was successful, I will then park my thumb on the AF cancel button while I snap as many shots as I want. Others will use a button to focus and have their cameras set so that pressing the shutter does not refocus, which accomplishes the same goal: focus once, shoot as often as you like.

That initial focus, of course, is very important. Many of my favorite concert lenses are manual focus only. That takes practice, but I am pretty good at it by now. When using an autofocus lens, I will usually let the camera try, but knowing that it might miss, I rarely accept its focus without verifying it for myself in the viewfinder. Most modern Pentax lenses allow you to override focus manually after AF lock has been achieved, without having to turn off AF, and I use this facility quite often. So even if you mostly use AF, having good MF skills can help a lot.

Psychologically, many of us have a tendency to make the same mistake the camera does: to focus on a microphone or instrument in front of the subject rather than the subject himself. You have to be very careful not to allow the camera to do this when using AF, and also not to do this yourself when using MF. Here's a shot where an AF system might have been fooled, but focusing manually I was able to get what I wanted:



I will often take a test shot and examine the results on the LCD at high magnification. Only after convincing myself that focus is good will I take more shots. I might do this several times before being satisfied. Luckily, musicians usually tend to stay in one spot long enough - or at least return to one spot often enough - to make this feasible. In that sense, it is easier than most sports. So by all means, check images and/or histograms on your LCD periodically to make sure you are getting the shots you think you are in terms of exposure and expression as well as focus. But be aware that depending on the setting, the bright light from the LCD might be distracting.

Speaking of distractions: for all their other advantages, DSLR's have a reputation for loud shutters (and Pentax DSLR's especially so). Even the quietest DSLR makes more noise than is normally acceptable during a quiet classical concert. I try to time my shots to occur during moments when it is not likely to be bothersome. For some concerts, that means I can shoot whenever I want, of course. For others, it means avoiding shooting during certain tunes only. For others, it means waiting for the loudest passages, or perhaps only when the applause starts at the end of a piece (but hopefully before musicians have put their instruments down).

I've given my opinion on flash elsewhere, but again for the record: don't use it unless you know for a fact it won't be disruptive. And I don't know about any other musicians, but from my own perspective, I can tell you it's always disruptive to me. If you do shoot in a situation where it is acceptable and you don't think the light from the flash will ruin the mood of the shot, that does of course change everything regarding exposure, but you'll have to turn elsewhere for advice on that - it's just not my thing.

One final note: I usually shoot with some sort of objective in mind. For instance, to capture at least one good shot of every musician, to capture different group poses that seem representative of the band as a whole, to capture of a shot of someone playing a specific instrument that I have not captured them using before, and so forth. When I think I have shot enough, I usually put my camera away and go back to just listening. This frees up space for other photographers if I am in the front, but it also allows me to enjoy the music more - which is, after all, presumably related to why we shoot concerts in the first place.

Creative Improvised Music - A Wakeup Call From Ken Vandermark

I attended a show recently that featured saxophonist Ken Vandermark, and it got me thinking.



I first became aware of Ken almost 20 years ago. At the time, I was mostly into very mainstream jazz - Charlie Parker, Bill Evans, etc. I was knew of, had respect for, but didn't really listen much to, certain "free jazz" musicians that had strong ties to the tradition - Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman in particular. And at some point after moving to Colorado in 1988, I began subscribing to Cadence magazine. Cadence covers jazz, but also more generally "creative improvised music" - much of which exists outside the radar of the mainstream jazz media. And it seemed that every other CD they reviewed at that time featured Ken Vandermark.

I don't know that it is possible to describe this music succinctly, because by its very nature, much of it defies convention of genre or idiom. It often involves improvisation that is free of typical chord structures and hence is often atonal. Some people find it hard to identify any sort of structure, but then, many find it hard to recognize structure in bebop.

I started listening to some of this music, including Ken's, and was intrigued. For quite some time I worked incorporating some of these sounds and ideas into my own composition and playing, and I found it very musically rewarding. I even ended up recording a CD with trumpeter Hugh Ragin for the Creative Improvised Music Projects label, which is run by the same folks (Bob Rusch & company) that publish Cadence Magazine.

That was all while having a day job as a software engineer, treating music as a hobby. At some point I realized that playing music "as a hobby" was about as fulfilling as when someone you really like tells you that they like you too - "as a friend". So I quit the day job and went into music full time. At some point after that, however, I had to accept that as personally fulfilling as this "creative improvised music" was, my career pretty much demanded I focus primarily on traditional forms. Between playing a steady gig for many years at El Chapultepec (where it was all about playing "standards"), going back to school to study composition, teaching jazz theory, and any number of other factors, my musical thinking has been much more focused on mainstream jazz again for the last decade or so. It's not that I deliberately turned my back on "creative improvised music", but I did not go out of my way to make room for it, either, and not surprisingly, it didn't make room for me.

When Ken Vandermark came to town last week with Dutch musician Ab Baars, I of course attended, and really enjoyed the performance. It also served as a wakeup call - a reminder of something that had been missing from my musical expression for too long. I'm not sure how I'll respond to that realization, but it was an eye-opener. I still have a lot of straightahead compositions I hope to record soon, and I still expect to be making my living playing mainstream jazz. But I need to keep in mind what it was I loved so much that it set me on this path in the first place.

Here are some shots from the concert featuring Ken along with saxophonist Ab Baars, bassist Wilbert De Joode, and drummer Martin van Duynhoven:









By the way, I was also surprised to see that Ken was about the same age as me, and had actually only just hit the scene when I became aware of him. For some reason, as much as I was seeing his name back then, I assumed he had been around a long time already.

A couple more shots:

Big Birds at Prospect Park

I'm lucky to live in an area with a lot of wonderful parks and open space areas. One of my favorites is Prospect Park, and I've visited it several times lately. The weather has been all over the map the last couple of weeks - from warm sunny days to blizzards - but that's spring in Colorado. And that's a beautiful time and place to be. I've done my share of landscape painting over the years, and landscape photography as well. But for some reason, this month it has mostly been birds that have caught my eye.

I am sure cormorants have been around here longer than I have, but this year is the first time I've noticed them, or knew what they were. A whole flock has taken over a tree on a pond at Prospect Park:



They use the tree as a launching pad for excursions to feed and to collect nesting materials:





The way they are building a network of nests in the tree reminds me very much of the condominium building visible behind the tree:



One day while my wife Wendy and I were watching and photographing the cormorants, a couple of birdwatchers came and told us where we could find a hawk in a tree elsewhere in the park. We were a bit skeptical that it would still be there when we got there, but there it was:



We thought we were lucky to get off a couple of shots, as we were sure it would fly off at the sound of our shutters. But it turned out this hawk was unflappable. We were able to photograph it from as close as we wanted:



On two separate occasions I watched and shot this hawk for probably an hour. It didn't do anything really dramatic, but I managed to catch a number of "moments", such as here when it might have found some prey:



Rather than dive and attack, it started calling out - perhaps to alert the other hawks in the area:



This bird was circling above us the whole time, but never came in any closer:



Eventually, my friend on the branch above me lost interest in whatever had commanded its attention, and went back to more mundane activities, such as scratching its head:



At one point it shifted position and lifted its tail and I was sure it was going to fly off, but all it actually did was poop:



When the wind blew, it would have to do something to keep its balance. In this instance, it apparently decided it was best off balancing on one foot:



It was also a gust of wind that prompted the most dramatic pose offered by the hawk:



I have no idea how long this particular hawk will stay in the area, but I plan to visit as often as I can, as this was just an amazing experience.

Returning To The Scene

As some of you know, I played the piano at a jazz club in Denver called El Chapultepec (aka "the Pec") for a number of years, ending back in July. I hadn't been back since - not because there were any hard feelings, but simply because there hadn't been any particular reason to visit. A few days ago, the saxophonist I had worked with most of those years - Keith Oxman - suggested we meet there and visit. OK, and also to see about maybe playing there again. When they ended our run last summer, they decided not to have anyone there on a steady basis any more on weekend nights but instead to bring in different bands each night, as most clubs do. No particular reason we couldn't be one of them!

So we dropped by last night. It was great to see the owner Angela, the bartender James, and the rest of the crew again. The band du jour was led by trumpeter Hugh Ragin, who was the first musician I worked with regularly in Colorado, going back almost 20 years. This from last night:



BTW, that was shot at 1/6". I was able to rest my elbows on a countertop, so you can't credit me or Pentax shake reduction too much for the lack of camera shake. But for the lack of subject motion blur, you've got to credit Hugh, who has one of the most relaxed trumpet techniques you're ever likely to see.

They've made some cosmetic changes at the Pec over the last few months. Nothing really major - some faux brickwork behind the stage, new carpet in the dining area, etc. But one of the most immediately noteworthy changes was the lighting. At least the way they had it set last night, it was still as bad as ever toward the front of the stage where Hugh was. But the light on the piano was a *lot* brighter and cooler than in the past. Actually, I think it mostly came from a neon beer sign, but light is light. In this shot of pianist Ron Jolly, it's hard to recognize it as the same place, as anyone who has tried to shoot there will attest:



Keith and I sat in and played a tune or two. No pictures of me, of course, but here's Keith, pretty much back to 100% after his bout with cancer:



On those last two, I'll take some credit for good timing in getting reasonably sharp pictures at shutter speeds of 1/20" and 1/15" respectively :-)

Oh yeah - we did talk to Angela, and she's more than happy to have us back from time to time. I think playing there on an occasional basis will be great - it will be more likely that we'll be able to get people to show up to hear us as opposed to just depending on the people who happen to drop in as we always had (it's the busiest neighborhood in the city). So hopefully I'll be seeing some of you there at some point!

Rene Marie - Voice of My Beautiful Country

Many of you have probably heard of Rene Marie, whether you remember it or not. Jazz fans may know her from several recordings she did for the MAXJAZZ label. But beyond the jazz world, she had her additional "fifteen minutes of fame" in the United States at large last year when she sang at the Denver State of the City address. She had been invited to sing the national anthem, but she chose to use her own arrangement of the song in which she superimposed the words of the patriotic spiritual Lift Every Voice And Sing over the melody to The Star-Spangled Banner. That caused quite a stir and was a hot topic for a while on talk radio and political commentary nationwide, as some people took great offense at this.

Before I go any further, I should disclose that I know Rene and consider her a friend. Not so close that I think I can speak for her, nor so close that I imagine she would particularly care what I think. But close enough to be confident that she would encourage me to be honest just as I believe she has been.

If you're looking for insight into why Rene made the choice she did, you can read the statement she released on her web site some time ago. Frankly, the State of the City story is old news. What I really want to share is my reaction on hearing the piece - and the whole three-movement suite of which it is a part - performed in full last week at an event honoring the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. However, to the extent my feelings were informed by the events of last year, and since the story from my perspective does start with the State of the City address last year, I'll begin by saying a few words about the earlier event.

I was not present at the State of the City address, but like most people in Denver, and many around the country, I heard about it after the fact. My feelings at the time were probably what a lot of people thought: that it was an a very odd thing to choose to do, but also not worth getting as worked up over as some people were getting. I mean, on one hand, she was asked (albeit apparently not being paid) to sing a song, and she responded by singing a somewhat different one: same melody, but different lyrics. A questionable choice, to be sure. On the other hand, consider that a good number of performances of the national anthem have no lyrics at all (eg, every time it was played at an Olympic award ceremony last year). So it can hardly be claimed that omitting the original lyrics was a travesty in itself. Furthermore, the lyrics she used instead can not reasonably be said to be inappropriate for a civic function:

Lift every voice and sing,

'Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Liberty, rejoicing, faith, hope, victory - these are the themse of practically every patriotic song ever written, including The Star-Spangled Banner. It is not like Rene was singing "kill whitey" or "death to the infidels" or any such nonsense, as one might have surmised from the vehemence of the reaction by some against her.

To the extent that there was anything wrong with her choice, it really just had to do with the idea of meeting expectations - and expectations that have particular meaning to a lot of people. Now, as a jazz musician myself, I know that the notion of surprise is one of the defining elements of the genre. It is the basis for the appeal of improvisation. I would hate to be called to task every time I have substituted a Db7 chord for a Gmi7. On the other hand, I don't need to be told that there are certain liberties one might be "expected" to take, and others one might not be. As far as I could see, Rene may have crossed a line, but it was hardly a line between black and white (in any sense of the words), nor did she cross it very far, and I don't really see why people took so much offense.

Even among people who were trying to be civilized in their criticism, I thought one comment in particular was off-base: the comparison to a house painter being hired to paint your house green but responding by painting it red instead. There are two major flaws in that analogy. One is that no money was involved. And the other is that if someone paints tyour house, that is something you have to see every day until you pay someone to paint it again. There were - or should have been, I thought - no similarly lingering effects from a song. No money wasted, no real harm done.

As far as I was concerned, that was all there was to the story, until I heard Rene speak about it last week at the Lincoln's birthday celebration and then perform the full suite of which her arrangement of Lift Every Voice And Sing / The Star-Spangled Banner was a part. The event was held at St. John's Episcopal Cathedral in Denver, and it featured Dr. Vincent Harding, an associate of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., moderating a "dialog on race and the future of America." If you do read the statement on Rene Marie's site, you'll have a pretty good idea of what she said last week, but her remarks in person went a bit further in explaining the background behind how she came to write the suite. At the risk of perhaps getting some minor details wrong, I will try to summarize her story, while relating it to my own experience.



Rene began by talking about being in Russia on a concert a few years ago. A reporter who was interviewing her referred to her an American, and that took her aback slightly. She sad that this got her thinking about why she felt that way, because it was not that she was not American, or that she was ashamed of being an American. As she shared her own thoughts on this, my mind turned its attention to my own feelings.

My sense is that one identifies oneself in various different ways, but any time one belongs to an minority group, that identify is often stronger than others. For instance, I am a visual artist. Right now, I paint mostly in oils, but I do not necessarily identify with other oil painters specifically. However, when I was primarily a pastelist, I identified with other pastelists to a much greater extent. I joined the Pastel Society of Colorado, entered pastel-only competitions and exhibitions, and so forth. I think this is because oil is one of the dominant mediums in the world of visual art, where pastel is definitely a "minority." Or, as another example, I am a photographer, and as such have a certain connection to other photographers, but I feel that connection much more strongly among that minority of my fellow photographers who shoot with Pentax gear. I do not sense the same type of camaraderie among the people I know who shoot Canon or Nikon, and I think that is because they dominate the market and Pentax is little guy in comparison. I also suspect the jazz community of which I am a part is more tightly knit than, say, the pop/rock community.

Being a pastelist in a world of mostly oil painters, or a Pentax shooter in a world of mostly Canon/Nikon shooters, or jazz musicians in a world of mostly pop/rock musicians, gives me a certain sense of identity. As a white person living in America, I can't say I feel any special identity that is associated with being white or with being American. My sense of identify as a pastelist or Pentaxian or jazz musician is far stronger than my identity as a white person or as an American. If I were black, I could see that part of my identity being correspondingly stronger. But white or black, I would be surprised if an interviewer here in America referred to me as an "American," as if that were a significant part of my identity here. After all, virtually everyone I encounter in my daily life is an American too. You might as well refer to me as a ten-fingered person. And merely visiting another country does not change my self-identity. Regardless of where I am located at the moment, my identity as a pastelist or Pentaxian or jazz musician would seem more significant to me than my identity as an American.

Now, none of this is what Rene Marie was talking about. It is how I related to what she was talking about. What she was talking about was not just the irrelevance of her identity as an American, but also how it seemed somehow in contradiction with other aspects of her identity (not that she put it in those terms), even though of course she is an American. But like all black Americans, she has had to reconcile her identity as "black" with the reality of living in a country in which her ancestors were enslaved because of that identify, in which her parents were not allowed to eat at certain lunch counters or attend certain schools because of that identity. It is possible to be American and to love America even while living with that contradiction, and that is what she spoke about.

As she related, she grew up singing both "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and enjoying both. But the former was specifically about a war that was fought at a time when her ancestors were still slaves; it was about a flag that flew over buildings that her ancestors were not allowed to enter. As such, what I think I heard her saying was that it was harder to relate to as a child, even though she enjoyed singing it and loved what the country had become since then. "Lift Every Voice and Sing," however, resonated more strongly with her from the beginning, speaking as it does about the ideals of the faith and liberty.

It was thoughts on these topics - even if I have taken the liberty of personalizing some of those thoughts - that prompted Rene to want to write a suite of patriotic music that reconciled her identity as "black" with her identity as an American. So she took the lyrics to two patriotic songs - "America the Beautiful" and "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and set them to her own melodies. The music, I think, came from her identity as a black person and from her Christian upbringing; they are essentially gospel melodies and harmonies. I think that fusing "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" would have been a similar reconciliation of these two identities that are, of course, not actually in contradiction at all.

With all these ideas floating in my head, and the spectacular surroundings of the cathedral itself, it was a sublime setting to listen to the music. Of course, everyone present knew enough of the backstory that there was no question as to the appropriateness of this arrangement in this situation. And the musicians accompanying Rene - Jeff Jenkins on piano, Mark Simon on bass, and Paul Romaine on drums - are among the top players in Denver (which is saying a lot).



I have heard Rene perform in other venues and know her to be a world-class musician, but the impact of this performance was on another plane entirely. It was inspiring, uplifting, healing, mesmerizing, exciting, creative, and beautiful all at once. I think it safe to say that it would have been difficult for anyone - even her critics - not to have come away stunned in the most positive sense of the word. I don't know if she recorded this performance or not, but you can hear a studio version on her site.

Fred Hess Recording Session

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of taking part in a recording session by the Fred Hess Big Band. Fred's music is always a fun challenge to play, but spending the better part a whole week in rehearsals, a concert, and of course the recording itself added a new human dimension. Instead of struggling on my own to get my own parts down, showing up for the gig, playing the tunes once with a handful of musicians, and then going home, it was an experience shared with at least 17 other people and lkely to be remembered by all of us for a long time.

It started with a day of rehearsal. Fred's charts are very complex and require a fair amount of explanation:





Tyler Gilmore of the 9th & Lincoln Orchestra served as conductor, so Fred could concentrate on playing. Tyler was the glue that held the whole thing together:





However, Fred led the band during our reading of his infamous "The Clefs Visit Grandma's". I suppose the most relevant thing I can tell you about this chart is that the idea of me getting up from the piano and taking a picture in the middle of the performance was not out of character for the piece:





One of the highlights of the week - and indeed, of my whole career - was working with drummer Matt Wilson and bassist Ken Filiano. As is the custom during most recording sessions, both Matt and Ken were in an isolation booths:









This was a little disappointing, as part of what makes a rhythm section work is close communication, and that's difficult when you can't even see each other. Luckily, the gig we did at Dazzle that week was another story entirely, and that was magical:





Matt and Ken have been Fred's recording and NYC rhythm section for several years now and know his music pretty well, but Ron Miles has an even longer history with Fred. Working with Ron was another highlight for me. Although we have performed together several times before, and both Ron and I have recorded with Fred individually, this is the first recording Ron and I have been on together.





Here are a few of final shots, of the saxophone and trumpet sections and of engineer Colin Bricker:

Hymn For Peter

Dedicated to Peter Fopeano (1965-2008)

Listen to a (simulated) orchestra playing my composition, "Hymn for Peter"

My wife Wendy's family has a large Thanksgiving gathering every few years, with relatives coming in from all over the world. Although he would sometimes make the trip for part of the time, her youngest brother Peter was never able to be with us on Thanksgiving day itself, because he worked at a casino and Thanksgiving was one of their busiest days of the year.





Peter lost his job earlier a few months ago, and while that is seldom a good thing, one silver lining was that he was going to be on Thanksgiving for the first time in many years. Although this year was not going to be one of the large worldwide gatherings, my wife and I made plans to fly out to Kansas City to celebrate with her immediate family, and Peter in particular.

The morning before we were to fly out, we received news that Peter had been shot and killed while sitting in his car - an unintended victim of crossfire between rivals standing on either side.

Needless to say, our trip to Kansas City took on an entirely different meaning, as our celebration was tempered by mourning. I do not think I can express my feelings about all this in words here in this blog. However, on Friday - the day after Thanksgiving - I had time to sit alone with my thoughts for some time, and not surprisingly, I turned to music for release. I decided to write a composition to perform at Peter's memorial service.

The idea started as a simple tune that I would play on the piano and embellish with improvisation in my usual manner. My model was Don Pullen's Ode to Life, which is a jazz piece that incorporates improvisation but has a classical feel to the composed sections. Because I wished to be alone, I did not compose at the piano (which was in the dining room), but rather in silence with pencil and paper only, in the bedroom where Wendy and I were staying. While this is not my norm, it is not something I have no experience with, either - I composed away from the piano often when I was writing in a classical idiom as part of my degree.

Perhaps for these reasons, when the first few phrases came out of my pencil, I realized I was writing not a jazz tune at all, but a hymn. After writing the basics of the melody and harmony for the first section of the piece, I turned my attention to arranging it in traditional four-part chorale harmony. I think wrote a second section for the piece and arranged it similarly. At that point, I had a completed hymn, but not a clear idea of what I would do with it.

Since I was not at the piano, and I had my computer with me, I entered my hymn into Finale, the scoring software I have used for years, so I could hear it, edit it, and then print it out. At first, when I hit the playback button to listen to the results, it played using the default piano sound. But at some point I started thinking about what it would sound like if it were sung - even though I had not (and still have not) written any lyrics for this. So I changed the sound to a sample of a choir singing "oooh" and "aaah". Although I can't say the results were impressive in themselves, it immediately struck me that the piece really needed to be scored for some sort of instrumental ensemble. The most obvious choice seemed to be a straight rendering of the four-part SATB harmony into the instruments of the quartet: two violins, viola, and cello. I set this up in Finale, and then started considering how I might put together a quartet or even a small string section (with multiple players per part) to record this during the week between then and the memorial.

By the next day, however, it occurred to me that I really wanted to hear how it would sound with a full orchestra. I knew there was no way I could get an actual orchestra lined up to play it such short notice (and indeed, it would be difficult even with no time constraints). But I also know that Finale comes with some fairly high-quality orchestral samples - ones that are often used in film scoring. So I spent most of Saturday and Sunday working on an orchestral arrangement of my hymn.

What I ended up with is a pretty faithful rendering of the original SATB chorale harmonization, using the different colors of the orchestra to add variety, as opposed to actually creating new harmonies and so forth. Over the last few days since returning to Denver, I have continued to tweak this, and while I suspect I'll continue to do in the future, I think this at a place where I would like to share it. So if you have not already clicked the link at the top of this entry, you can do so now.

The memorial service is Monday in Kansas City. I still have not decided if I am going to simply play this on the piano as per my initial plan, or use this recording, or use a recording of a real string quartet that I still plan to try to make between now and then. I may well decided to play it myself, since that in some ways is the most personal expression I can put forward at the service. As a composer, my orchestral arrangement is at least as personal to me as my own playing. But of course, this is not about my relationship to the music - it's about expressing my feelings about Peter.

Peter, this is for you.