Professor CarolI’m waiting out a storm. We’ve moved everything that could get damaged by hail into the barn. Since it’s Holy Week, the menacing clouds and thunder seem right in tune. In my lap is a 1956 edition of The Baptist Hymnal. I now have 35 of … Read more
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 … Read more
I love conferences. From the moment we hit the exhibitor’s parking lot, it’s an adventure. After long hours of driving, it’s a relief to jump out of our ’99 Ford Expedition and enter the lofty exhibit hall. I register, locate our booth, and look around … Read more
You asked for it . . . And now it’s available on CD-ROM. The Discovering Music Teacher’s Manual gives you a syllabus, unit-by-unit course plan, four comprehensive exams with answer keys, and a new detailed listening plan. See sample pages here. Highlights: Exams designed for high-school … Read more
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 … Read more
How long is each DVD-lecture? Lectures range from c. 25 minutes to 1 hour. Is it necessary to watch all the lectures in order? Yes and no. Understanding any given lecture does not depend upon having viewed the previous lecture. However, a student’s … Read more
If only Caspar David Friedrich could have seen our Texas moon last night. It wasn’t quite full, but it was a bossy-bold moon, so bossy, in fact, that it would have inspired Friedrich to rethink his already revolutionary style of painting. Oh, those Friedrich paintings—the … Read more
I guess it’s the heat. I’m feeling a bit draggy. Are you? Our Texas drought has dashed any hope of a normal agricultural season. The barn is hot. The animals are hot. It’s hard watching our livestock foraging for anything that resembles grass. Yet, I … Read more
This article states so well the life-and-death importance of the Arts in our lives. (Note that I wrote “in our lives,” not just our children’s lives.) The author, Ronnie Sanders, a member of the Texas Commission on the Arts, describes the plethora of recent studies … Read more
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 … Read more