Leading, Teaching, Being 'Plugged-In'

This should inspire us to reevaluate our roles (and goals) as educators, whether we are working individually or in a group setting.

Groovin' to the Tunes

A new study demonstrates the power of music to alter our emotional perceptions of other people.

'In the experiment, 30 subjects were presented with a series of happy or sad musical excerpts. After listening to the snippets, the subjects were shown a photograph of a face. Some people were shown a happy face – the person was smiling - while others were exposed to a sad or neutral facial expression. The participants were then asked to rate the emotional content of the face on a 7-point scale, where 1 mean extremely sad and 7 extremely happy. '

'The researchers found that music powerfully influenced the emotional ratings of the faces. Happy music made happy faces seem even happier while sad music exaggerated the melancholy of a frown. A similar effect was also observed with neutral faces. The simple moral is that the emotions of music are “cross-modal,” and can easily spread from sensory system to another. Now I never sit down to my wife’s meals without first putting on a jolly Sousa march.'

Read the full article here.

I Get It...

I just came across Jim Plamondon's blog and found it quite interesting. I wonder what he would think of MusickEd.com and DSM? I may get the chance to find out very soon. It turns out that Jim currently lives in Austin and is relocating to Dallas soon and I have invited him to take a tour of our facility. We'll keep you posted! In the mean time - enjoy his blog entry about instrument selection. Cheers !

Seth Gets It...Education at the Crossroads

Music educators take note. Change in our profession will not come from within academia (or within music itself). It will come from the 'outside' through a combination of business and technology which will create productive and successful options for learners.

Seth Godin gets it. His prediction? 'If you think the fallout in the newspaper business was dramatic, wait until you see what happens to education.' This should not be taken as a threat or dire prediction, but rather as a call to arms for us to think outside the El-Hi band, orchestra and choir box.

Education at the Crossroads should be mandatory reading for all educators and music educators should be made to read it....TWICE.

What About Bob?

This post was a reply to a blog at Music Teacher's Helper. Ed Pearlman posed an interesting question about a hypothetical private music student named Bob. Although he did not give personal details, I presume Bob is a professional adult probably in mid-life career mode. One thing is for sure, Bob loves his music and music lessons.

You can read the entire post here:

What Would You Do? - Bob (#7)

Here is the response:

I know Bob really well. Bob is as passionate about playing as I am teaching. Bob gets about 5% of a new idea each week (maybe) and is happy as a clam to get that. I know Bob loves music and is a life-long learner. My relationship with him goes way beyond his instrument. I know his family and kids, what he does for work and what he dreads. The last thing I will do is 'require' him to play anything.... though he might tell you how I 'gently nag' him to help keep things fresh and moving along.

Music educators should love Bob. There should be professional facilities in every major city who cater to all of the Bob's in the world. If we marketed to all of the Bob's the way say, fishing and golf has marketed to their 'fans', then we wouldn't be begging for jobs every year in academia.

It's the student that matters - not musical results. In Bob we have a life long music lover, a life long music purchaser and a life long learner.

That's a win-win!