This summer we unveiled our new plans for Co-ops and Schools, or any larger groups wanting to undertake Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Arts, History, and Culture.  Some packages include individual texts and CD sets for each participant, others have the consumables (fill-ins) available as .pdf files, while still others include multiple copies of the DVDs and reference CDs for school and church libraries.

Let us know what your needs are, and we’ll find a way to help you meet them.

I used to wonder how people came up with FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions).  Now I know!  They really are frequently asked questions, especially at conferences!

So, it’s with pleasure that we launch an FAQ section on our Professor Carol website. We hope this new content will be helpful to all of our Discovering Music families.  Your comments, as always, are most welcome.

Which part of Conference Season 2010 is more fun: experiencing the new conventions or returning to the ones we first visited in 2009?  The answer is “both.”

It’s rewarding to look up and see the families we first met in 2009 who ordered Discovering Music during the pre-publication phase.  That made you co-pioneers with us!

It’s equally fun when the people we chatted with last year walk over to our booth, pick up the course, and say: “Ah-ha, that’s how it came out!  It looks good.  Tell me about it again.”  We are happy to oblige.

Our current mission is to gain the confidence of the new families we meet.  So many parents do recognize the well-established fact that study of the Fine Arts (cultivation of the Right Brain) enhances the academic and spiritual development of a child.  When they spot Discovering Music, they often exclaim: “Where have you been?  We’ve been looking for a course like this for years.”  You can imagine how gratifying that is.

But for students and families who haven’t had direct contact with the Fine Arts, the task is trickier.  Our message is simple: the Fine Arts are not a frill.  But the battle to get the message across has to be waged on several fronts.  It’s a mission many of you share.

Many people see words like “music” and think “extracurricular.”  But the Fine Arts have traditionally been at the core of a well-rounded education, or a true academic education.  The nuts and bolts of history, geography, literature, and technology are the columns that support our multi-media study of the Fine Arts.

In fact, it’s interesting how our corporate name, “Silver Age Music,” gets a reaction very different from my trade name “Professor Carol.”  We borrowed the corporate name from one of my favorite periods of Cultural History, the Russian “Silver Age”—the decades around the turn of the 20th century when artists as varied as Chekhov and Stanislavsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev, Chagall and Kandinsky fashioned a revolution nearly as far-reaching as the political bomb Lenin unleashed.

But while “The Silver Age,” is a pretty phrase to the ear, it isn’t a well-known cultural description.  (Someone asked me if we were promoting “geriatric music.”)

Meanwhile, the students using Discovering Music seem to like the “Professor Carol” nomenclature.  It’s serious but fun, which is always my goal.  Secondary-school aged students using our curriculum for college prep know that their lives soon will be shaped by a stream of professors, so they’re ready for the term.   The younger kids are comfortable with it too—maybe it strikes their ear as funny.  That’s my best guess.

Speaking of younger students, I love the emails from the elementary-aged kids who connect so strongly with the video component of the course:  “Professor Carol, why do wave your hands so much?”   Or, “Professor Carol, I like the unit on the French king who was so good at dancing [Louis XIV].  Can you do another one like that?” Or, (if they read my bio), “Professor Carol, why do you like goats so much?”

My unruly goats!  That’s a topic for another post.  But let me close this post by thanking each of you who has been a part of this adventure.  Whether actively using the course with your families and co-ops or just following the Circle of Scholars, you have been instrumental in our growth and we thank you.

And we certainly are growing, both in the US and across the globe. (Welcome Australia!)  Much is on tap for fall, and we’ll be telling you about it soon.  Meanwhile, if you haven’t read the posts below, read on.

Thomas Hampson.  His name keeps coming up, or, better said, I keep bringing it up.  Sometimes it’s at a workshop called “The Roots of American Music” that I like to give at conferences.  Or maybe I’m simply talking with students who, finishing Unit 16 of Discovering Music, are surprised to learn how seriously our American song tradition ranks alongside of European music.  Regardless of the context, I’m so happy to acquaint people with the name of Thomas Hampson, for he has been a key player in the reemergence of American Song. 

First and foremost, Thomas Hampson is a great singer.  Born in Elkhart, Indiana in 1955, he grew up in Spokane, Washington.  His big breakthrough came in 1981, when he won the enormously competitive Metropolitan Opera Auditions.  He was taken under the wing of conductor Leonard Bernstein, and made some significant recordings with him. 

Hampson has appeared in opera houses all over the world, but in recent years he has turned his energies to homegrown American song repertoire.  He’s been helped in his efforts by the enormous resources of the Library of Congress, which has been preserving America’s cultural treasures since its founding in 1800.   

Ah, the Library of Congress.  My favorite place in the world!  If you’ve never taken the tour, put that on the top of the list the next time you’re in Washington, D.C.  But for the moment, I want to tell you about their initiative called “The American Memory Project.”  Born on the wings of the digital revolution, The American Memory Project has placed massive resources in American arts, culture, and history on line for all to consult. 

In 1997, Mr. Hampson teamed up with the Library of Congress for a project called “I Hear America Singing.”  Along with Librarian of Congress James Billington, and several archivists, he toured the U.S. giving recitals of American song enhanced by a traveling exhibit of American musical treasures (both manuscript and printed).  In 2005, this marvelous concert came to Texas as part of the Van Cliburn Foundation Concert Series.  We were able to woo the archivists out to our old Decatur Courthouse for a spell-binding program. 

And a day or two later, I was thrilled when Mr. Hampson graciously came to the lecture I gave on American song for the Cliburn series.  I’m still weak in the knees remembering what it was like to stand next to Thomas Hampson as his beautiful, booming voice urged the audience to rejoice in the heritage of American song.

Recently, Mr. Hampson launched a fantastic project, the Hampsong Foundation.  Visit this beautiful site to find out virtually anything you want about American song.  Plus, I urge you to explore his recordings of American song, including these three recordings:

Once you hear him sing these American treasures, you’ll never want to be without this music.

A few years ago, buried in term papers in my 2nd-floor office at the Meadows School of the Arts, I couldn’t have imagined spending Spring traveling cross-country for “convention season.”  And yet, here I am, doing just that. 

Without question, the greatest delight is the opportunity to meet with students and parents, both those already taking Discovering Music and those about to start their journey through the Arts.  From the day we created this curriculum, I looked forward to these occasions, and they’re even better than I imagined.  I love it when the kids come up and ask me to sign their books, or query me: “Why did you say ‘this or that’?” or “What did you mean by ‘such-and-such’?”  Fabulous.

But another delight has been quite unexpected: the chance to forge relationships with the other exhibitors of educational curricula.  One week we could be chatting in Cincinnati, the next week in Santa Clara.  We bid each other goodbye, saying “See you in Arlington. In Atlanta. In Phoenix.” 

I’ve learned just how many of these companies are family businesses, born when moms and dads tried, in vain, to find certain kinds of teaching materials.  In the absence of desired resources, the parents simply created the materials themselves, shared them, and, voilà, a small business was born. 

Wow, these vendors work hard: they haul, they unpack, they assemble, they make everything neat and organized.  Then, for two-and-a-half days, they interact for 10-12 hours straight with hundreds of students and families.  Suddenly, it’s over, and it’s time to tear it all down again. Fortunately,  it comes down a lot quicker than it goes up: I’ve learned that lesson too.

It’s a new world for me, and one I like: movement, action, long hours, and (best of all) hundreds of people to talk with.  A continual buzz of activity.  All topped off by a fantastic feeling when the exhibit hall closes for the day, and it’s time to wobble out and find some food! 

And that brings me to a story I want to tell you that happened in April in Cincinnati, late on a Friday night after we exited the Duke Energy Center and stumbled into magic.  But I’ll keep that story for a later post.

See you at . . . the next convention!  For us, that will be this weekend, May 15-16: CHEF of Alabama.  It’s taking place at a beautiful resort outside of Birmingham.  I’ll have four workshops, and I’m looking forward to meeting many of you there.

Image: Glyn Baker (creative commons)

Wednesday, pre-dawn, we’ll be heading out for the Bay Area Homeschooling Conference – CHEA.  It starts Friday evening at the Santa Clara Convention Center. We’re in booth 405, so do come by and visit.  Also, please join me for two talks on Saturday, May 1st: 

• Academic Success, Western Culture, and the Arts 12:10-12:50 p.m.
• College Prep Through Serious Study of the Arts 2:40-3:20 p.m.

After the conference, I’ll be gathering with Discovering Music students and their parents for a special session at the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, San Jose State University. This Center houses the most significant collection of Beethoveniana (Beethoven-stuff) in America. The esteemed director, Dr. William Meredith, is a terrific Beethoven Scholar and a long-ago friend from graduate school back the University of North Carolina. It’ll be fabulous to have Dr. Meredith hosting our exploration of the Life and Times of Beethoven. In a second workshop, we’ll dig up the origins of some of our favorite types of American music – from old-time hymns to Broadway. And the third workshop, my favorite topic: opera. If “opera” sounds dull to anyone out there, come join us. This workshop might stand you on your head.  I hope the room is soundproof because the kids and I are going to have a blast.

I’m looking forward to every aspect of this trip, starting with the gorgeous drive from Texas to California. See you soon!

Goodness, it’s been an exciting time.  With the end of the concert season and the beginning of the conference season, it’s hard to know which way is up.

First, let me greet all of you who are new to the Circle of Scholars, especially the wonderful folks I met at the Catholic Homeschooling Conference in St. Louis and at the  Midwest Conference in Cincinnati.  Talk about contrasting events—one so peaceful, under towering trees at the Cardinal Rigali Center, and the other in a place as bustling as its name: the Duke Energy Center in downtown Cincinnati!

In both cities, we visited with terrific families, all dedicated to their children’s education.  And, gratefully, those families are eager to incorporate the Fine Arts.  They know that the study of music, art, architecture, dance, and drama bring a deeper appreciation of life and an increased perspective.  And they also realize that the study of the Arts is a powerful tool in academic success.

Bottom line: I continue to learn so much from all of you.  Never could I have imagined how far Discovering Music would expand in less than a year! The course is now in 37 States, and that’s due in large part to all of you, telling your friends and colleagues about it.

Now, for some news.  We’re refashioning our website www.professorcarol.com.  Take a look at our new photo gallery (Who’s in the Course), featuring many of the musicians and specialists you have met in Discovering Music. In many cases, you can explore their web sites or watch YouTube clips of their performances.  More will follow.  We’re preparing material for the rising number of co-ops interested in implementing Discovering Music. And we’d like to set up forums for students to post their work.

Some of you have asked about our baby goats.  We gave the does a year off, knowing how much I’d be traveling at kidding season (no kidding!).  But we do have calves due in June.  We’ll get some photos up when those big babies get here.

I send my best to all of the students working hard to finish the school year, and my congratulations to everyone who has helped them do it.  Kuddos to you making the endless car-trips to participate in math, science, and debate competitions, music and dance lessons, and all of the fascinating field trips and lectures you attend!  Students, make sure you thank the moms, dads, grandparents, and older siblings, who wait patiently while you learn and grow.

Meanwhile, I’ll be out in California soon, for the CHEA conference in Santa Clara and for several special events with Discovering Music students and families.  Here’s the conference Schedule for Discovering Music in 2010.

What about August?  August will take us to Weimar, Germany, our second home and base as we shoot more footage for Discovering Music.

We’ll have more to share in our next report.  Meanwhile, best wishes as we continue Discovering Music. ]]> http://www.professorcarol.com/circle_of_scholars/on-the-road-again/feed/ 0 http://www.professorcarol.com/circle_of_scholars/off-and-running/ http://www.professorcarol.com/circle_of_scholars/off-and-running/#comments Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:37:50 +0000 Professor Carol http://www.professorcarol.com/circle_of_scholars/?p=274

Tomorrow it starts in earnest—the 2010 Conference season!  We’re off to St. Louis for SLHC, followed two weeks later by the mammoth Midwest Conference in Cincinnati, and then the Bay Area conference in California.  And that’s just March and April.

Educational conferences have the greatest energy—so many kids and parents, interesting vendors, a lot of good will, and endless things to learn.  I’m so glad for the opportunities to visit with students and families who are already part of the Circle of Scholars.  And there will be chances to connect with new students and their parents.  Let’s not forget the grandparents who diligently shepherd their grandchildren through their education!

Depending on the city, I’ll be a Featured Speaker, giving curricular workshops, or hosting a Demo Booth to showcase Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Arts, History, and Culture.  That’s really going to be a blast!   In several places, my workshop will concern college prep, one of my favorite topics (I could have used a bit of this insight before going off to college, that’s for sure).  And in other spots, we have scheduled special events for Discovering Music students and their friends, including a visit to the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University.

Photo: Kelly Martin (Creative Commons)

Sammy Nestico

Even if I wanted to, I can’t pick up the phone and call Brahms.  Or Bach, or Palestrina.  So imagine how excited I was to grab the phone and call Sammy Nestico!

Mr. Nestico, now 86, is one of the music world’s most congenial figures.  When I reached him, he was about to fly to Germany to conduct a round of concerts featuring his compositions.  But in typical Nestico style, he welcomed my call and told me “to relax, ask whatever you want, and get what you need, buddy.”

Buddy!  Apparently that’s one of his fun names for people, and it meant the world to me.  How can you be nervous talking to someone who calls you “buddy”?

Still, I was a little nervous.  Here’s a man who played with Tommy Dorsey, worked with or knew virtually everyone in the Big Band World, arranged for years for Count Basie, poured out close to 600 compositions, many of which are mainstays for bands as eminent as the Airmen of Note and the President’s Own—bands he both arranged for and directed.

Plus, he’s written and arranged music for countless television programs and series, and for about 60 movies, including blockbusters like The Color Purple. He’s created reams of music for TV specials for stars like Sarah Vaughn, Frank Sinatra, and Barbra Streisand.  And that work continues to the present time, arranging for singers like Michael Bublé.  Did I forget to mention his Grammy awards?

Well, the call was great!  I had just digested his new autobiography The Gift of Music, and was dazzled by his stories.  Plus, I was loaded with questions.  I mean, this man’s life has been so fantastic, so packed with unbelievable music-making, how could I wrap my mind around it all?  So, I needed a few clarifications.

And clarify he did.  Plus, he laughed that Sammy Nestico laugh of his, so well known in the Wind Band word and in Hollywood.  It’s as deep and joyful as any I’ve ever heard.

Sammy Nestico has lived the American Dream, surviving the tough times, and fully appreciating each step of the way.  Plus, he’s still going strong.  For example, his autobiography is getting a big response worldwide, somewhat to his surprise.  He told me he’s never felt more confident.

So if you have eleven minutes, let me invite you to meet Mr. Nestico by listening to my latest podcast.  You’ll get to hear his voice and snippets of his wonderful tunes, including 88 Basie Street and Dark Orchid. Sammy Nestico, I love you!

We’ve been talking lately a lot about stories here in the Professor Carol office.  Living in a small Cowboy town provides me a with wealth of stories, the same kind of stories I grew up with in the Virginia mountains.  Here, however, the topics involve cattle and hay production, rather than coal mining and mountain roads.

Early mornings, I like to bump into our “pasture” neighbor, Mr. Fox, when he drives out to throw cattle cubes to his 1800-lb. “babies.”  He tells stories just like my Daddy did, the kind you couldn’t break away from if you wanted to (which I don’t!).

History is a story.  The root of the word ἱστορία (istoria) means learning or knowing by inquiry, a narrative, or a story.  It goes back to the noun histor meaning a “wise man.”

History is the story of our culture.  Yes, it is open to lots of twists and turns, interpretations, and distortions.  It takes large gulps of time before anyone really knows what has happened in a given era.  Plus, we “moderns” add in interpretations that would have made no sense to the folks alive during the eras under consideration.  That’s the good news, and the bad news.

Music history has a certain advantage.  We have actual pieces of music we can hear (and even see on paper) dating back more than a thousand years in Western music.  We possess something both concrete and alive to add into the discussion.  The only thing missing from this sound-history is our imaginations.

Louis XIV

None of us can fully imagine life at Louis XIV’s court. I can’t fully conjure up what it must have felt like to have danced the bourée at Versailles, corseted up in those heavy dresses, wearing a huge wig built around a cage frame or horsehair pads!  Powdered, starched, and corseted: these people were expected to dance?

And fashion doesn’t take into account the devious court politics swirling around each aristocratic dancer.  Court Dance, as those of you taking Discovering Music know, was a vehicle of dynastic power.  Hence, political intrigue was never far behind.

But, I can try to imagine that “story”—that complex, intriguing historia—as I listen to a French Baroque dance by Lully or Rameau.  If I close my eyes, I can see the dripping wax of the candelabras, smell the starch and powder that glued the wigs together, feel the pinch of those early mules that Louis XIV made famous as dancing shoes.  I can imagine eating too much and staying up till dawn.

Or, I can imagine being one of the hundreds of servants who slaughtered and stuffed game, lugged platters piled with frosted bon-bons, cut ice sculptures, drove the mud-encrusted carriages, held the ladies’ heavy capes, and burnt my fingers replacing the stubs of candles.  All while the clear tones of a bourée and laughter sounded through the glittering Hall of Mirrors.

Go ahead.  Imagine it.  This is the key to the story of history.  And certainly the key to music history.