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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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. … Read more
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 … Read more
T-M-E-A. The Texas Music Teachers’ Association Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas (home of the Alamo). That’s where I spent four days last week, and I simply have to tell you about it. My head is still spinning. Thousands of accomplished high-school musicians, their families, … Read more
You will find a new featured video on the home page: a conversation with Michael Conrady about the pipe organ. Michael is the music director at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Dallas. You’ll also meet him in the discussion of Johann Sebastian Bach (Unit … Read more
We live in a visual world. We constantly analyze what we see on a sophisticated level, but most of us are not nearly as skilled in listening. That’s why many of us prefer music in styles that are already familiar. Opening our ears and mind … Read more
What is the most famous four-note melody in the world? One where three of the four pitches repeat the same note? Now that’s a toss-up: either the opening of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, a.k.a. “Fate Knocking at the Door” (dah-dah-dah dum) or . . . ready?. … Read more
This chart is included in the workbook for Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Arts, History, and Culture. Watch for more reference guides like this one in the near future. Eighteenth Century Enlightenment Nineteenth Century Romanticism Music is an expression of balance … Read more
Do you Tweet? Recently I’ve been exploring Twitter. And while the 140-character-limit is frustrating, and the anonymity and pace are daunting, I’m intrigued by what one can observe. What are people tweeting about Classical Music, for example. And not just the words “classical music,” but … Read more
