Join the Foothills Methodist Church, 17 Fremont St.
in Gloversville on Sunday, October 30, at 3:00 p.m. in the church
sanctuary for an exciting Halloween organ recital featuring a
smorgasbord of classics, favorites and surprises. Malcolm Kogut will
perform pieces such as the vivid and bristling with energy Dubois
Toccata and the ubiquitous Toccata in D Minor by J. S. Bach. Other
music will include Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," Boellmann's famous suite
Toccata, and "In the Garden." The organ recital is free and open to
the public.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Halloween Organ Recital
-----------------
One thing Malcolm Kogut loves about living in New England is the endless number of mountain trails there is to explore. Malcolm loves challenging himself and friends to explore a new trail together and he enjoys both the defiance of and going with gravity. His favorite hikes over the years have been St. Regis near Saranac Lake, Mt. Baker in Washington state and Ice Caves Mountain in Ellenville, NY. Hiking is one of the best ways to get fit and explore nature at the same time. Malcolm's commitment to hiking is especially important to keeping up his musical pursuits for, hiking gives him something to play about. After all, nobody lies on their deathbed wishing they worked more.
One thing Malcolm Kogut loves about living in New England is the endless number of mountain trails there is to explore. Malcolm loves challenging himself and friends to explore a new trail together and he enjoys both the defiance of and going with gravity. His favorite hikes over the years have been St. Regis near Saranac Lake, Mt. Baker in Washington state and Ice Caves Mountain in Ellenville, NY. Hiking is one of the best ways to get fit and explore nature at the same time. Malcolm's commitment to hiking is especially important to keeping up his musical pursuits for, hiking gives him something to play about. After all, nobody lies on their deathbed wishing they worked more.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Stop and Frisk App
Most everyone carries a phone with video
capabilities today so it is not surprising that when something happens
in the community, the footage we see on the news is from someone who
just happened to be passing by rather than a professional journalist.
Most all of the headline news video evidence against police wrongdoing over the past few years has been shot from bystanders who saw the encounter and pulled out their cellphones. These videos can not only help to get bad cops off the street but, it can also be used to protect the good ones who are often accused of negligence but later exonerated because of amateur video evidence.
The ACLU has developed an app called "Stop and Frisk App" or "Mobile Justice App" which was designed to serve this purpose, to both protect the rights of those suspected of malfeasance and the officer from those who foolishly resist their authority.
Here is how it works. You install the app on your phone and when you are pulled over or detained by the police, you trigger the app. It then sends out a message to nearby users where the police encounter is happening. Those community groups who monitor police activity can then go to the scene and record the interaction. The video is recorded live and also saved on the ACLU servers where it is inspected and preserved as evidence.
I have to repeat that this app is a great tool to both protect the police and protect the rights of those who are being detained by the police. It is also a message to Big Brother that Little Brother is watching, too.
Check it out at the ACLU website:
https://www.aclu.org/feature/aclu-apps-record-police-conduct
https://youtu.be/U1M-tLoiJ4s
Most all of the headline news video evidence against police wrongdoing over the past few years has been shot from bystanders who saw the encounter and pulled out their cellphones. These videos can not only help to get bad cops off the street but, it can also be used to protect the good ones who are often accused of negligence but later exonerated because of amateur video evidence.
The ACLU has developed an app called "Stop and Frisk App" or "Mobile Justice App" which was designed to serve this purpose, to both protect the rights of those suspected of malfeasance and the officer from those who foolishly resist their authority.
Here is how it works. You install the app on your phone and when you are pulled over or detained by the police, you trigger the app. It then sends out a message to nearby users where the police encounter is happening. Those community groups who monitor police activity can then go to the scene and record the interaction. The video is recorded live and also saved on the ACLU servers where it is inspected and preserved as evidence.
I have to repeat that this app is a great tool to both protect the police and protect the rights of those who are being detained by the police. It is also a message to Big Brother that Little Brother is watching, too.
Check it out at the ACLU website:
https://www.aclu.org/feature/aclu-apps-record-police-conduct
https://youtu.be/U1M-tLoiJ4s
Thursday, September 15, 2016
If You Live in NY . . .
. . . Register to vote here before it is too late:
https://dmv.ny.gov/more-info/electronic-voter-registration-application
A friend of mine may have just lost an election because people who supported him just didn't get out to vote. Well, the next time you face a judge in Albany county for speeding (or murder if that's your thing), you'll wish my friend was the judge dropping the gavel.
https://dmv.ny.gov/more-info/electronic-voter-registration-application
A friend of mine may have just lost an election because people who supported him just didn't get out to vote. Well, the next time you face a judge in Albany county for speeding (or murder if that's your thing), you'll wish my friend was the judge dropping the gavel.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Musicians Warming Up
Every once in a while I come across a
piano teacher or musician who think that they need to stretch their
hands or run scales to "warm up." The myth behind warming up is that you
are able to isolate a body part such as the hands and move them to warm
them up. If that were true, the blood that you think you warm up in
your hands while moving them, because of circulation, doesn't stay
there. It circulates throughout the rest of the body meaning "cold"
blood is coming back into the hands. Furthermore, you are not warming
up the blood or muscles, the blood is already at its maximum
temperature. The real issue is circulation.
A danger in moving cold hands or other body parts is that the elasticity of the muscles and tendons are compromised because they are in a contracted state and if you try to move cold body parts fast, you can cause damage to the tissue such as micro tears and pulls to either the muscles or the tendons. Slow movement and in the medium range of motion is always advised when the extremities are cold.
When the body is cold, the blood is kept near the core vital organs and circulation is slowed to the extremities such as the hands and feet. That makes our hands and fingers feel cold and stiff. Stretching is not a solution and our teachers and coaches have been teaching this mistruth about stretching for years.
When you stretch beyond the mid range of motion you are creating micro tears in the muscle tissue or tendons and the body's response is to rush blood to that site to both immobilize and repair the damage. This process gives us the sensation of "warming up" when in reality we are damaging our tissue structures. Whenever we move, we must only move as far as the mid range of motion, not the extreme where we will stretch, tear and damage tissue.
There are actually two categories of muscle, fast twitch and slow twitch. Musicians should take the time to learn which ones are which and how to utilize them in their craft. Even so, forcing fast twitch muscles to move fast or to stretch them when they are cold and in their contracted state could damage them. Think of your muscles as being like warm gravy. The gravy can easily pour out of the bowl when it is warm. Now put the bowl in the fridge for half an hour and note that it no longer pours fluidly. You can't just run a spoon through the gravy to warm it up, it needs to come out of the fridge and be warmed totally.
If you have a teacher or coach who prescribes stretching and isolation exercises to warm up the body, find another teacher. It is not their fault that they have been given erroneous information themselves from their own teachers, but, their ignorance on the subject can cause you permanent damage. Ignorance is not bliss if it results in tendon, nerve or muscular disorders. That is like going to a mechanic who says that your tires are bald but you can probably get away on them for another few months. He may be the best mechanic in the world but he is risking your life.
If one wishes to truly warm up the body and consequently the hands, one needs to sit in a warm room so that the whole body warms up, not just the part they are going to use. Another solution is to do some mild whole body movement to get the blood pumping throughout the circulatory system.
There are mini steppers on the market for under $50 that a musician can take to a gig with them and use in the green room before a performance. After doing twenty minutes or about 2,000 steps on one of those, the blood will be circulating efficiently throughout the whole body and one may even break a small sweat. You won't have to warm up your legs because you've already been walking all day and, movement that is well known such as walking is as simple as the brain turning on and off a switch. One doesn't need to warm up to remember how to ride a bike. The brain just knows what to do, like flicking a switch.
Conditioning is important, too. If you can only do three minutes on the stair stepper before fatigue sets in then you're not going to achieve a full body warm up in that amount of time so, it would behoove you to do this every day so the body is conditioned to work at that level without fatigue. One doesn't want to go on stage exhausted and weak. It is also advised to be hydrated before, during and after this simple body warm up procedure.
I'll not endorse any particular brand but you can find mini steppers on Ebay, tax and shipping free. Read the user reviews on Amazon to find a brand you think you can trust.
A danger in moving cold hands or other body parts is that the elasticity of the muscles and tendons are compromised because they are in a contracted state and if you try to move cold body parts fast, you can cause damage to the tissue such as micro tears and pulls to either the muscles or the tendons. Slow movement and in the medium range of motion is always advised when the extremities are cold.
When the body is cold, the blood is kept near the core vital organs and circulation is slowed to the extremities such as the hands and feet. That makes our hands and fingers feel cold and stiff. Stretching is not a solution and our teachers and coaches have been teaching this mistruth about stretching for years.
When you stretch beyond the mid range of motion you are creating micro tears in the muscle tissue or tendons and the body's response is to rush blood to that site to both immobilize and repair the damage. This process gives us the sensation of "warming up" when in reality we are damaging our tissue structures. Whenever we move, we must only move as far as the mid range of motion, not the extreme where we will stretch, tear and damage tissue.
There are actually two categories of muscle, fast twitch and slow twitch. Musicians should take the time to learn which ones are which and how to utilize them in their craft. Even so, forcing fast twitch muscles to move fast or to stretch them when they are cold and in their contracted state could damage them. Think of your muscles as being like warm gravy. The gravy can easily pour out of the bowl when it is warm. Now put the bowl in the fridge for half an hour and note that it no longer pours fluidly. You can't just run a spoon through the gravy to warm it up, it needs to come out of the fridge and be warmed totally.
If you have a teacher or coach who prescribes stretching and isolation exercises to warm up the body, find another teacher. It is not their fault that they have been given erroneous information themselves from their own teachers, but, their ignorance on the subject can cause you permanent damage. Ignorance is not bliss if it results in tendon, nerve or muscular disorders. That is like going to a mechanic who says that your tires are bald but you can probably get away on them for another few months. He may be the best mechanic in the world but he is risking your life.
If one wishes to truly warm up the body and consequently the hands, one needs to sit in a warm room so that the whole body warms up, not just the part they are going to use. Another solution is to do some mild whole body movement to get the blood pumping throughout the circulatory system.
There are mini steppers on the market for under $50 that a musician can take to a gig with them and use in the green room before a performance. After doing twenty minutes or about 2,000 steps on one of those, the blood will be circulating efficiently throughout the whole body and one may even break a small sweat. You won't have to warm up your legs because you've already been walking all day and, movement that is well known such as walking is as simple as the brain turning on and off a switch. One doesn't need to warm up to remember how to ride a bike. The brain just knows what to do, like flicking a switch.
Conditioning is important, too. If you can only do three minutes on the stair stepper before fatigue sets in then you're not going to achieve a full body warm up in that amount of time so, it would behoove you to do this every day so the body is conditioned to work at that level without fatigue. One doesn't want to go on stage exhausted and weak. It is also advised to be hydrated before, during and after this simple body warm up procedure.
I'll not endorse any particular brand but you can find mini steppers on Ebay, tax and shipping free. Read the user reviews on Amazon to find a brand you think you can trust.
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Seymour Mountain in the Adirondacks
Seymour Mountain in the Adirondacks
Doug's trip report here: http://goo.gl/Gs98Fy
Malcolm Kogut
http://malcolmpk88.wixsite.com/malcolmkogut
Thursday, September 1, 2016
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