The University of Illinois Band Clinics 1930–1954

The purpose of this study was to trace the development and growth of the University of Illinois Band Clinics during their twenty-five-year history (1930–1954). Founded by A. Austin Harding, Director of Bands at the University of Illinois, the Band Clinics served as an important forum for the reading and performance of contest pieces and new band music during an important period in the development of the school band movement. The clinics also served as the National Band Clinics, sponsored by the National School Band Association, from 1932 until 1937. Throughout its history, the clinics expanded in scope and size to provide directors of all levels and notoriety the opportunity to gather on an annual basis to discuss current trends and teaching techniques that were important to the growth of the school band movement. Due to their success and popularity, the clinics served as an important event for the development of other band-specific conferences throughout the United States.

On the enduring popularity of Cream's ‘Sunshine of Your Love’: sonic synecdoche of the ‘psychedelic 60s’

Few popular songs released over the past thirty years start so memorably: that bass riff, ominous, music for Jaws before there was Jaws, so insistent and unforgiving that in GoodFellas (1990), Scorsese has de Niro do nothing but smoke a ‘square’ and look – icily – off screen while the riff sounds its ten-note pattern. And you know what the combination of de Niro's look, those sounds and that smoke mean: somebody is going to get ‘whacked’. Cream's 1968 hit, ‘Sunshine of Your Love’, has been part of the shared culture of the world in which it has sounded for thirty years. In both Europe and America, ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ (SYL) continues to receive airplay today. At high school and college sporting events across the US, pep bands continue to play it (Dan Farris, Assistant Director of Bands, Illinois State University, personal communication, 5 March 1997). A band played it, too, in a 5 April 1997 episode of the NBC television network series, Profiler.