Two not to miss

10 Easy Ways To Optimize Your Music Practice

Getting Kids To Practice Music — Without Tears Or Tantrums

Another repost here of two excellent articles (blog posts) from NPR's Deceptive Cadence by Anastasia Tsioulcas. The links are above and the articles are in full below. I do this as a way of sharing, but also as a way of saving things I might want to return to occasionally. By the way, the youtube video included below is from an excellent series of MANY short videos done by David Finckel on various aspects of cello playing, practice, and performance. An excellent resource. Enjoy:

Free and worthwhile!

If you would like to know more about "modern" music but don't know where to start, this free online course could be just the opportunity for you! It is taught by two faculty from The Curtis Institute of Music and starts October 1.

From the Repertoire: Western Music History through Performance

Let the Kid Study Music, Already

I'm not on Linked in, but I did read this excellent short post there after a friend passed it on. Great perspective here by a mom on the value of a music education (in college and beyond). Enjoy.

Let the Kid Study Music, Already!

Two years ago, my eldest children (boy-girl twins) graduated high school. I remember standing in the lobby outside the auditorium after their last high school concert, waiting for them to join my husband and me. I had kept it together pretty well through the concert, letting at most half a dozen tears fall as I thought about all the recitals, lessons, pool parties, science fairs and other growing-up experiences that were now behind us.

On the wall outside the auditorium hung a framed portrait of the senior class. I studied it as I waited for my two performers to emerge.

Here's a kid my son played soccer with, back in third grade. This six-foot-plus beanpole over here used to ride his bike with training wheels down our driveway. Looking at 500 kids about to head off to their destinies, I felt the usual mix of pride, joy and sadness at the end of an era - but mostly pride. A father stood next to me, also surveying the faces of the graduating seniors.

"One of these kids yours?" asked the dad. "Two of them," I said, "this guy up here and this girl, down on the first row." "What are they going to do in college?" he asked. "They're both going to study music," I said. "Oh, no!" exclaimed the dad as he turned and walked away -

"More starving artists!"

How do parents across the country watch their children grow into talented musicians, see the kids' love of and gift for music, beam at countless concerts and marching-band performances, then suddenly balk when the kid says "I want to study music."?