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
How do you teach classical music to boys? I was fortunate enough to spend New Year’s Eve at a concert – complete with cascading balloons in the grand finale. Listening that night, I thought about all the things awaiting discovery by my children, details of … Read more
Ready or not, here comes the second semester. And maybe you’ve been thinking about some curriculum adjustments, maybe working more arts, music and Western cultural history into your homeschool curriculum. Or maybe you’ve avoided thinking about curriculum by . . . watching sports! There are … Read more
Curriculum. Is there a word that grabs our attention more quickly? Especially when the choices are so rich and, potentially, overwhelming? Well, what would you expect from a word that means “race course”! Yes, curriculum comes directly from the Latin verb currere—to run. Common words … Read more
. . . in Life In my last post about incorporating music into your homeschool curriculum, we looked at how music needs some consonance and some dissonance in order to move forward. Too much consonance, and the music will not move – or will need … Read more
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 … Read more
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
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
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
