Teaching the "Wire Choir" » Uncategorized

Cool Cello

dlewis — Sun, 17 May 2009 01:01:14 +0000

I saw this video on the Cellomania blog and had to repost it. Hmm, I wonder what it sounds like?

El Sistema: Why not in America?

dlewis — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:22:11 +0000

During a time when music in American public education is an oft endagered component, Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog April entry highlighting the 60 Minutes segment on El Sistema and the Venezuelan National Youth Orchestra was very refreshing. I cannot imagine anyone not being very glad for the positive impact this music program is having on the impoverished young people of Venezuela. This orchestra program enables the Venezuelan young people see that there is an alternative to poverty through hard work and discipline. It shows them that there are constructive ways to express the many kinds of human emotions. In addition, the imagination, creative thinking music engenders can enable these young people to excel in a variety of fields outside of music. (See Sir Ken Robinson’s talk, entitled “Do schools kill creativity?” He refers specifically to music and arts relationship to the needs of the 21st century and future job opportunities.)

Why do we have such a hard time convincing school administrators, legislators, et. al. of the powerful impact music can have on a child’s life? What do you think?

(Related BBC Article: Venezuela youths transformed by music (2005)

Wordpress Theme Problem, Sorry!

dlewis — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:32:18 +0000

My prior theme was not playing nicely with Wordpress 2.51 on the "back-end" of my blog. So, I’ve changed to another theme for the short-term. Thanks for your patience!

Scala: A Rockin’ String Quartet

dlewis — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:35:03 +0000

I came across a video of Scala on John P.’s One Man’s Blog. Scala is a string quartet recently featured on Britain’s Got Talent. You will certainly recognize the faces on the panel if you watch any of the American talent shows. This may be something to show your string students and let them see some of the possibilities for string instruments. They are not as limited as some might have you believe.

Teaching the Wire Choir has a new home!

dlewis — Mon, 05 May 2008 02:20:15 +0000

Teaching the Wire Choir has a new home and its own domain name! You may be here as a result of an automatic forward from our previous home. The change was made this weekend and fortunately, there weren’t too many difficulties. All seems to be working fine. Please bookmark the new URL and visit again!

NAXOS Online Subscription for Music Ed Bloggers

dlewis — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:02:16 +0000

Wow! Thanks to NAXOS and Dr. Joe Pisano, the first 100 Music Bloggers who join the ME Bloggers campaign will receive a free subscription to NAXOS’ new online service. I was considering giving this service a try as a resource for the listening I like to have my students do in class. Now I am able to test it out for free! This will be a great addition to my teaching tools.

If you are a music teacher and haven’t heard about the 100 ME Bloggers campaign, head over to www.mustech.net and learn more about it. I began just a little over a month ago, and it’s been fun to put down some thoughts for my blog.