Music

Songs My Mother Taught Me

May 12, 2012

I first heard it 32 years ago, sung by a beguiling Slovakian soprano (well past her prime) who stared at me incredulously: “You do not know Dvorak’s bea-uuuu-ti-ful “Songs my Mother Taught Me? Wvat is de matter with you?” With lightning speed, she plopped the score onto on the rack of her ivory-keyed grand piano [...]

Share
0 comments Read the full article →

Earl Scruggs: a Musically Rich Life

March 29, 2012

Earl Scruggs has left this world.  Called by some the “Prometheus of the Banjo,” he was a musical hero to many of us.  He’s credited with popularizing a style of picking (3-finger) that “super-charged” the banjo style. Tunes that our pepper our musical landscape today pay tribute to his and fiddler Lester Flatt’s career, particularly [...]

Share
0 comments Read the full article →

Buying Season Tickets

August 30, 2011

We have thought about it for years, and we’ve finally pulled the trigger: we hold season tickets to the symphony.  For the kids, of course – we’re always going to take a kid!  But how, in this economy, on one income, can we possibly justify spending money on season tickets?  Even extremely reasonably priced season [...]

Share
0 comments Read the full article →

The Biggest Page Turn in Music

August 20, 2011

There it was right in front of me: an 1803 edition of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation. Our hosts, the owners of a private collection of 18th-century music, were pulling out treasure after treasure, piling the volumes on every available corner of the table.  Every item was important, historic, gorgeous. But two things stopped my heart: [...]

Share
0 comments Read the full article →

He’s a Music Man

June 13, 2011

He’s a what? It bustles with energy, this Music Man Museum in Mason City, Iowa.  The corridor jumps to life with a full-sized reconstruction of  “River City” from the 1962 Warner Brothers film The Music Man and the whole place is filled with kids.  Some are touring the museum with their families.  But others are [...]

Share
1 comment Read the full article →

Teaching Within the Family – Part 3

June 9, 2011

While it’s certainly more expensive than teaching one’s own children music lessons, hiring an outside music teacher has much to recommend it.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I taught our oldest two children piano for over two years, largely because of financial necessity.  The push to look for an affordable option came for [...]

Share
0 comments Read the full article →

Music in Classical Greece

May 22, 2011

In a talk I give at conferences called The Wrong Reasons to Teach Classical Music, I present what I believe to be an array of “right” reasons.  Reason Number Six (in my countdown) involves the role music can play as our children study the Classical World of Ancient Greece and Rome. The study of music [...]

Share
0 comments Read the full article →

If Mom (or Dad) Teaches Music Lessons

May 20, 2011

I recommend two firm boundaries for parents who teach private music lessons to their own children.  (In my last post, I outlined some of the advantages teaching one’s own children music lessons.) First, fix the lesson time and stick to it.  A specific time obviously helps the music student, but it also helps other family [...]

Share
2 comments Read the full article →

Should Mom Give the Music Lessons?

May 16, 2011

Learning to play an instrument is a great way to expose your child to music and its developmental advantages.  Giving your child private music lessons is not the only way, of course.  Curricula that explore the development of cultural movements and ideas, such as Discovering Music, can connect events and solidify an understanding of civilization [...]

Share
3 comments Read the full article →

Great Masters and Pups

March 23, 2011

I’d worked late, finishing up a podcast for the Dallas Wind Symphony and polishing up material for Cliburn Conversations, the pre-concert talk for pianist Stephen Hough’s Van Cliburn Concerts Series piano recital the following night. With a head filled with lofty thoughts about the glories of music history, especially Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and the piano sonatas [...]

Share
3 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries