What’s in a (note) Name?
If note-naming exercises are a step toward music literacy, do they have a purpose beyond that point?
Happy Birthday, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel!
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel was born on this day, November 14th, in 1805. (Google honored on this, her 216th birthday, in its daily doodle.) She wrote more than 460 pieces of music, at least some of which were published under her brother Felix's name. The first work published under her own name was her Opus [...]
Fascinating Freda Miller
Freda Miller Modern Dance Musician, 1911-1960 Remember Modernism? Soon after women won their right to vote, they began the audacious exploration of dance as their own art form. Women were often their musical collaborators, as well. Here I'll introduce you to a significant one: Freda Miller. The staples of suburban dance studios seem to reference [...]
Step by Step
Why I Walked Away “Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.”Mahatma Gandhi Walking. I know people who walk on treadmills at the gym, count daily steps with a wrist device, yet habitually look for parking spaces near buildings to minimize walking. Maybe we only give conscious thought to walking [...]
Piano Myths: Part III
Piano Myths: Part III (See Part I and Part II) There are many young women, who, when they sit down to the piano to sing, twist themselves into so many contortions, and writhe their bodies and faces about into such actions and grimaces, as would almost incline one to believe that they are suffering great [...]
Piano Myths: Part II
(Piano Myths Part I here) Myths of Piano Touch and Tone Could you hear a difference in a single piano tone depending on the way its key is depressed? Are accomplished musicians able to discern sounds produced by a virtuoso’s hand versus those made by an object? Is there any physical approach to a [...]
Piano Myths: Part I
Old Myths Die Hard It’s human nature to look skeptically at information that contradicts something we believe. Once we become anchored to untruths, reality is an annoying intrusion. Psychology has terms for the ways we receive new knowledge. Confirmation bias: seeking only information that conforms to the belief, dismissing new information; Assimilation: reshaping new [...]
April Fools’ Day
I do not like April fools, or any other sort of fools. (I do not suffer them gladly.) I don’t like practical jokes when they’re mean-spirited, and so often they are. For example, there's the family that gathered the kids for an Easter egg hunt, with no eggs. (Something like this happened to my daughter [...]
Just a thought
... for now.
“Cult of Dalcroze” – Snarky 1913 Article
If you think people today don't understand what Jaques-Dalcroze's work was about, take a look at this article from 1913! Journalist Rothay Reynolds visited Hellerau to see what Jaques-Dalcroze's new method was all about. His report, Higher Culture Gone Mad in Cult of Dalcroze, suggests he was confounded by the encounter. Published in the Courier-Journal of Louisville [...]