Professor Carol“Music is connected to everything.” That’s our motto at the Professor Carol office and it proved a good one yesterday. I came home to find a fist-sized tarantula in my kitchen, perched at a 60° angle in front of the refrigerator. Okay, where’s the musical … Read more
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 … Read more
I kept two plastic cannons on a shelf in my office at SMU. Each was two inches tall, and made of flexible green plastic. The wheels turned and the gun barrel went up and down. They became known as Dr. Reynolds’ cannons. But wait: these … Read more
What’s green, takes up a five-foot bookshelf, and promises to “carry you forward upon this road to the high goal toward which all of us are making our way“? If you shout The Harvard Classics, then you’ve guessed correctly. The 51 green volumes once widely … Read more
It has to be the best part of the conferences: meeting the actual students who are using Discovering Music. Increasingly, families are coming up and introducing themselves like this: “Hi, we’re the XYZ’s, and these are our kids. . . .” Usually the kids are shy. Sometimes … Read more
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 … Read more
“World Read-Aloud Day”—that’s what the cheerful announcer on the morning newscast declared this morning, as we were eating our breakfast in a hotel near Little Rock, Arkansas. Behind him stood a bevy of young students and a large stuffed “dog” known as “Clifford.” The kids … Read more
Research—such a lofty word. In fact, research is anything but lofty. Research throughout the history of Western Culture has often been a leap off the edge, aimed at an unknown goal. That’s when things start to sizzle! In an earlier post I recalled the joys … Read more
My intention today was to write about my favorite academic resource, The Chicago Manual of Style, the most comprehensive guide for research, writing, and publishing in all of Western culture (as far as I’m concerned). But instead, something came up in the cow pasture that … Read more
For decades I taught a course a graduate music course called “Intro to Grad Studies.” The name always bothered me. It sounds so bland and unsubstantial. The proper name for this traditional course is “Music Bibliography and Research Methodology.” That has more “umph,” doesn’t it? … Read more