I believe I'm mentioned before that one of our favorite summer traditions is the Summerfest concert series. Summerfest is an annual concert series by the North Carolina Symphony held at Koko Booth Amphitheater, which is a mostly outdoors/uncovered performance space. We go with another family that we've been friends with since our boys were in a playgroup together over 10 years ago. We bring lawn chairs and a picnic (including wine, which is allowed for this series), and usually hang out for a couple of hours before the concert starts at 7:30. It is a perfect place for children to begin their classical music education, because it is affordable (kids under 12 are free!) and they can eat and run around and such in addition to listening to the music. Plus, the concert themes are often geared to family interests--for example, a couple of years ago they did a whole concert on pirates music!
This past Saturday, the keystone of the concert was The Planets Suite by Gustav Holst. However, in addition to hearing the entire suite played live by the Symphony (with some unusual additions, like the celestra, the instrument most famous for the opening tones of the Harry Potter theme song, but which means "heavenly" in French and thus is perfect for this music), they were projecting high-resolution images from NASA of the planets in the music. And, of course, we were under the open heavens ourselves, on a beautiful warm North Carolina night (that part of the concert didn't start until 9:00 PM).
I have to say, it was one of the most powerful concerts I have ever attended. The transporting music, the compelling images, and the wonderful atmosphere all came together to make it really a magical experience.
So while I can't reproduce the sensations for you, below I have included some videos of the London Symphony, who apparently recorded the Planets Suite using the same images we saw. Even without being in the night sky, they are still pretty powerful. Enjoy!
After yesterday's post exploring the connection between Shakespeare and Hip-Hop music, it only seem right to follow up with new research linking physics to heavy metal music--specifically, the physics underlying the contact between people in "mosh pits" at heavy metal concerts.
If you are not familiar with mosh pits, they are places in punk or heavy metal concerts where people dance together in a way that largely consists of smashing into each other (for more information, see this WikiHow article on the rules and steps of moshing).
But where most of us would see chaos, the Complex Matter Physics Group at Cornell University sees physics. One of their research projects is on human "flocking"--the collective movement of large numbers, or flocks, of people moving in an atypical situation (that is, not a normal or controlled situation, such as walking down a sidewalk). The point of their study is to better understanding human "herding" behavior in uncontrolled events in order to design buildings and public spaces to prevent stampedes and other injuries during emergencies or panicked evacuations.
After recording and breaking down numerous videos of interactions in heavy metal mosh pits, the physicists found that there were underlying physical principles that seemed to control people's movements and collisions. In fact, they were surprised to find that a simulation of the typical interactions among mosh pit dancers resembled the classic movements of gas in a 2D space. (For more on their research, visit their website.)
But you don't have to take my word for it. Below is the simulation they created of interactions in a typical mosh pit. To me, it does look like gas particles bumping into each other.
If you want to play with the setting, go to the simulation website. There you can adjust sound levels, number of participant, or levels of "flocking" and see how it changes the motion of and between moshers.
So....maybe if we keep looking, we can find ways to connect all our high school subjects to rhythms that appeal to our music-obsessed teenagers!
The art studio where my son takes art classes, Egg in Nest Studio, always celebrates National Poetry Month with an art exhibition and live poetry reading/performance event that celebrates the intersection between words and arts. The students write poems, create art pieces based on those poems, exhibit their art in the Halle Cultural Arts Center in downtown Apex, then read their poems to an audience, appearing onstage with professionals in various art forms who also discuss and display their talents. It is always a creative and inspiring event, and brings greater depth and understanding to the students' art studies.
This year, my son had two pieces in the show.
I really liked both of the them, especially because they were a departure from his typical techniques and demonstrated some of the ways that his wonderful teacher, Miss Jenny, is encouraging him to grow and stretch as an artist. On the other hand, they also contain elements of his inimitable style.
This was his first piece, which was based on the poem he wrote that was entitled, "The Saga of the Sproing-Boing," where he was experimenting with the sounds of invented vocabulary:
The second one had a two word poem written into the picture. The poem is "Extinction Distinction"... or maybe "Distinction Extinction"--he never would tell me.
Of course, my photos don't do the artwork justice. If you are in the vecinity of downtown Apex before the exhibit closes on May 5, go check them out in person at the Halle Cultural Arts Center (at the intersection of 10-10/Center Street and Salem Street).
Here is the artist showing the pictures to his father:
This past Sunday was the live event called ForWord. There, each participating got to read his or her poem with comments and encouragement from Miss Jenny:
But the student readings were interspersed with live performances and commentary on the connection between words and other art forms by a local music group, Jack the Radio:
a local grafitti artist, Blake Burnette:
poet and NC State writing professor, Chris Tonell:
and dancer Marie Garlock:
All in all, it's quite a big event, which Miss Jenny and her hard-working assistant, Miss Amanda, put on AT NO CHARGE for the benefit of the students--just one of the perks of taking class at Egg in Nest Studio:
Of course, the greatest perk of taking classes there is that each week the kids get to work with Miss Jenny, who is not only a wonderful and creative artist in her own right, but an intuitive and inspiring teacher who loves all her students--just like they love her (although some demonstrate it more than others):
What more could you want from the person teaching your children?
Black History Month is coming up, and it happens to coincide with the time we are studying the history of the 1920's and 1930's. So what better topic to combine the two than the Harlem Renaissance?
We have already been working on it some, but I recently found what I think is a fantastic resource. John Carroll University has created the Harlem Renaissance Multimedia Resource, which pulls so much information about this fascinating period of modern American history into a central site.
What I love about this website--beside the fact that it is FREE--is that it includes not only the aspects of the Harlem Renaissance that most of us tend to think about, such as the music and the literature, but also the politics, the philosophy, the education, and even the international connections. There is a whole section on religion as well; in fact, throughout the entire site I saw the predecessors of Martin Luther King Jr's thoughts, philosophies, actions, and words. It not only has multimedia resources--pictures, audio, and a little video (all that I found was Billie Holiday)--but also lots of links to other websites with even more comprehensive information on that particular topic.
Particularly helpful to me were the timelines included and the map of Harlem itself. It has a general timeline of the political and artistic events during that period, which helps me put things in order. Even more interesting to us right now, however, was the timeline of the music. My son has been getting more interested in jazz, about which I am not that knowledgable (confessional--even though two of my brothers were performers, students, and aficionados of that musical genre, and my father is at least a long-time fan). The timeline helped me understand how ragtime gradually morphed into swing, with dates, different jazz styles, artist bios, and short audios of outstanding pieces along the way.
So if you are looking for resources about black musicians, writers, thinkers, educators, or politicians, this website is a great place to look.
I'm sorry if I seem too stuck on this theme, which is not directly related to education. But as I said in my first blog post on this topic, I'm not sure that any content we can teach our children can compare with the context we teach them about how to deal with this issue and other tragedies that will occur in their lives. Plus, I consider Washington DC to be my home town, and I know how it feels to live in one of our enemies' Number One targets.
I'm someone who has always been highly effected by music, and we've spent a lot of the summer on music education, so it seems like one way to sum up the responses to 9/11 (and the 10th anniversary thereof) is the music we associate with it. So here is my take on things.
One of the great things about music is that there is such a variety of musical responses to 9/11 that there is something for everyone. So let's start with the biggies: rock and country. I think those are probably the most popular genres among the entire American population.
Rock
There have been many rock songs about 9/11, but probably the most popular and influential has been Bruce Springstein and his The Rising album. And that makes sense. Not only is Springstein a wonderful musician and songwriter, but he came from the area (New Jersey) middle class (his father was a bus driver) population that developed so many of the police and fire fighter heroes of the 9/11 attack. At our spiritual center, they played Springstein's The Rising as the song after our meditation on healing and peace, and it's hard to think of a better song for that purpose:
Country
There are numerous country songs on this theme, but I think the most famous is Alan Jackson's Where Were You When The World Stop Turning? Once again, it is hard to beat that one. What I really like about that song is that is poses some of our choices:
Did you open your eyes, hope it never happened
Close your eyes and not go to sleep?
Did you notice the sunset the first time in ages
Or speak to some stranger on the street?
Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow
Or go out and buy you a gun?
Did you turn off that violent old movie you're watchin'
And turn on "I Love Lucy" reruns?
Did you go to a church and hold hands with some strangers
Did you stand in line and give your own blood?
Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family
Thank God you had somebody to love?
But it always returns to the gifts of spirit, which he says are "faith, hope, and love," and reminds us the greatest of these is love:
Folk Rock
Of the folk rock contenders, my favorite is Melissa Etheridge's Tuesday Morning. This song is a tribute to a different hero than Springstein's first responders, who died while doing the job they had chosen. Instead, this song deals with the passengers on Flight 93, the ones who overthrew the terrorists in the belief that it was better to die in a field in Pennsylvania that to be the vehicle of death for others in some unknown destination, but probably a major Washington DC landmark. Actually, it is dedicated to one in particular--Mark Bingham, a gay man who apparently was one of the leaders of the resistance to the terrorists in the plane. Etheridge highlights the fact that he died to saved others, even though his native land was denying him some basic privileges. As she says,
And the things you might take for granted
Your inalienable rights
Some might choose to deny him
Even though he gave his life
It pains me to admit that the day after 9/11/11, the North Carolina legislature voted to put on our ballot a constitutional amendment to deny gay couples the right to marry. At a time when we should be pulling together, some legislators are insisting that we enact provisions that drive us apart. So I hope the people of North Carolina will embrace the unifying spirit of 9/11 and reject this legislative mandate.
If you need a reminder why, listen to Etheridge's song:
Classic Rock
Finally, I have to mention a song not typically mentioned in terms of 9/11, at least until recently. Paul Simon sang at the 10th anniversary commemoration/Ground Zero dedication, and apparently was supposed to sing the more positive-looking Bridge Over Troubled Waters. But instead, he chose to sing The Sound of Silence, which I have always thought is one of his most beautiful and poetic songs.
Until I wrote this post, however, I never knew that he wrote the song in response to the John K. Kennedy assassination. But when I learned that, it seemed even more appropriate. I think the JKF assassination threw an entire generation into shock and upset and re-alignment and questioning, just as the 9/11 killings did for the generation about 40 years later. And once again, it seems to me that the song is about not just the event, but our choice to use it to either connect, or to avoid each other with the sound of silence. My favorite lyrics, delivered by the author who has grown gravelly and grey since the time he first shared them with us, are:
"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But why not listen for yourself?
To me, all of these songs say that certain events happened, and they weren't very happy events. They weren't events than most of us could control. But our interpretations and reactions to those event--that is our responsibility. We can choose to use these events to move us towards love and connection, or towards hate and separation. It is our choice.
But, as always, I hope we choose love. If we can't choose that for ourselves, then let's choose that for our children. We can leave them a much better world that way.
Today my son and I broke out some new curriculum I bought recently for this academic year. It is a 13-hour DVD course entitled Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Arts, History, and Culture. It is a middle school/high school level course that relates music history to the political, religious, scientific, artistic, technological, and other cultural developments that shaped the composers and musicians of each succeeding era.
This is exactly how I like to study subjects. I don't believe in examining each discipline in isolation; rather, I think you can understand them best when you cover them in relation to the other developments going on at the same time that effected them. However, music history is one of my personal weaker points--I can do a much better job explaining literature and art, for example, in terms of what was going on in other realms at that historical period than I can do with music. So I am glad to have this opportunity to fill in some of my ignorance as I take this course along with my son.
We did the first unit, which I think is a lot more "talky" and theoretical than the bulk of the course, because it is laying the foundations and explaining why we should study history via music and study music via history, etc. But my son enjoyed it enough that he wanted to move onto the second unit right away. This one also was setting up the big picture, rather than getting into the music itself too much, but we both learned quite a bit and are looking forward to the next session.
The course was developed by, and features, Dr. Carol Reynolds, an enthusiastic and experienced music history educator from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She does a good job as a lively but easy to follow narrator of the course material, as well as playing a grand organ herself to demonstrate a piece of music written by Martin Luther (I never knew he wrote music along with all the other stuff he was up to in revolutionizing European Christianity).
This class is also perfect for us because it begins in the 15th century, but really focuses on Western history from the early 1600s to World War 1. We have already studied World history up to that date, so I'm hoping we will have at least touched on all the major political, scientific, and large artistic movements covered in the DVDs. That will allow him to concentrate on the new information about the music and hang that onto what we have already covered, as well as helping him get a better understanding of that history.
The curriculum isn't cheap, but you get a lot for it. In addition to eight DVDs that contain over 13 hours of instruction, you receive a 236 page workbook and three professional quality CDs that contain the works discussed in the course to listen to on their own.
We've only gotten started, but I'm impressed with the quality of the materials we've looked at so far. My son is enjoying it, and I'm already learning stuff I never knew....so what else could you ask for from a curriculum? But I'll give a more informed review of the curriculum in a future blog post once we have completed more of it.
This is a wonderful learning resource I got from my friend Michelle, who maintains two great web presences: she runs the website Homeschool Literature, which reviews books with protagonists who homeschool, as well as blogs on her own homeschooling experience at Pandahoneybee's Homeschooling Adventure.
Anyway, Michelle turned me on to the series of YouTube videos being done on the Historyteachers channel called History for Music Lovers. In these videos, actual teachers dress up in cheesy wigs and costumes and change the lyrics to popular pop or rock songs to teach actual history content. But lead vocalist and actress Amy Burvall is a good singer, and looks like she is have a lot of fun while actually conveying historical information. She's like a real life Holly Holiday, the Gwyneth Paltrow character on Glee, except that she sings about her subject matter instead of her students' love lives!
To get an idea of her work, check out this video on the French Revolution, set to Lady Gaga's song, Bad Romance:
And just like everyone remembers that "In 1400 and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," so no modern middle schooler will ever forget the year of the Norman Invasion after watching this version of the story of William the Conqueror set to Justin Timberlake's Sexyback:
She has a lot of videos set to songs from the 80s, such as this hilarious one about Charlemagne, based on Blondie's Call Me:"
But some go back to the 60s, including several Beatles' songs and this classic by the Mamas and the Papas (except this time it is about The Canterbury Tales):
I also love the way that Burvall tries to incorporate some of the look or dance moves of the original artist in addition to all the historic content. But in addition to how much fun they are, and how well they incorporate some key facts and figures about the subject of each video, what is really remarkable about these is that Burvall wrote and recorded many of them while she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. However, when her hair fell out, it gave her an excuse to go buy more wigs, and she used the insomnia produced by the cancer drugs as an opportunity to write more songs.
So kudos to Amy Burvall and her video partner, fellow teacher Herb Mahelona, for creating some wonderful educational videos IN their spare time after a full day of teaching and (in Burvall's case) while deal with a baby and breast cancer (thankfully, Burvall has been in remission now for about four years). All in all, they've made about 52 videos on all sort of subjects in world history, particularly ancient history. It's a great testimony to the wonderfully creative ways to approach their subjects that outstanding teachers take...that is, when all of their time and energy isn't tied up taking standardized tests.
