Thursday Interlude: Some MENC Staffers to Learn Web Spinning

John Mayer, a 1998 alumnus of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, is nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance Grammy Award. Scroll down for the other Berklee grads or faculty members who were nominated. This photo and the one below are by Phil Farnsworth.

And a happy Thursday to Y'all. Actually, I have trouble believing today is Thursday. Busy, busy week. What? You've heard me say that before? When, I guess, you are wondering, is it not busy around here. Um, let me get back to you on that.

A lot of us are trying to clear the decks because we have a Web writing class coming up the next few days that will take up a chunk of time. As EWL and SR told you in their blogs earlier in the week, we have a really cool Web redesign coming up in a few weeks, so we are getting ready for that.

I do spend a lot of time writing stuff for the Web (like my blog stuff, for example), but I have never really had instruction in it. My goal once we have the new Web site in place is to update my news online as frequently as possible. I am looking forward to learning something new.

Right now I update the news once a month. I basically take the news that is printed in the magazine for the upcoming month and add stuff. I include information there wasn't room for in the print version. I include tons more photos, that kind of stuff. That is what I spent a lot of time on this week, preparing the February online news, the text and photos. I think I have mentioned that DP then takes all of that stuff and creates my online version. He is wiz. The February news will be up sometime next week.

I am sure you are aware of the the tug of war that is going on between print and Web right now. I grew up with print, worked for a daily newspaper and this is my second magazine job. I really think both mediums have strengths and weaknesses.

I love the immediacy of the Web, the fact that you can link video, audio, photos and text for a complete multi-media experience. On the other hand, it is all so instant gratification. There isn't as much time for reflection and context. The 24-hour news cycle has been a reality for quite some time now.

My husband is a newspaper editor and his reporters cover politics. Throughout the day they are writing for the paper's Web site, updating when necessary and writing for print. It is almost a never-ending job, if you want to get it right.

Now, am I saying I will be updating my MENC news around clock once our new Web site is up and running? Uh, no. But I want to make it fresher and more-up-to date, so look for my news once the Web site is launched in the spring.

Hmm. Music stuff I discovered this week. I found this cool story ab0ut Beethoven's lost opera on the NPR music site this week. Actually, the story discusses whether Leonore is a first draft of Fidelio its own piece. Check out the arguments and the music.

Also recently I received a press release from the Berklee College of Music headlined:

Berklee Alumni and Faculty Earn 24 Grammy Award Nominations

Nominees include John Mayer, Steve Vai, Howard Shore, Diana Krall, Juan Luis Guerra, and Quincy Jones. Click here to read Berklee's press release.

As for Berklee, the photo below, right is of Oscar Stagnaro, one of the nominees for best Latin Jazz album, is a professor of bass at Berklee. He performs Funk Tango in the Paquito D'Rivera Quintet along with Diego Urcola '90, Pernell Saturnino '95, Alon Yavnai '95,

and Mark Walker, a Berklee associate professor of percussion.

The 50th Annual GRAMMY Awards will take place live on Sunday, Feb. 10 at Staples Center in Los Angeles. And yes, they will take place, despite the strike by the Writer's Guild. The Grammy folks were granted a waiver for writers to "script" that witty chatter presenters utter before they hand out those cute little grammophones the nominees are dying to get their hands on. I can't wait.

Nominees Alicia Keys, Brad Paisley and the casts of "The Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil" and Across The Universe in a special Beatles segment are the latest performers announced for the 50th Annual GRAMMY Awards telecast by the Recording Academy.

Two summers ago, my husband, son and I saw "Beatles LOVE" in Las Vegas. It was so fabulous, both the reworking of the Beatles' music and the Cirque du Soleil performers. Can't wait to see that on Feb. 10. I am an awards show geek. Truly. And especially for the Grammys.

For a complete list Grammy nominees, click here.

I include the snippet below from the Grammy press release. Click here to read the whole thing.

Well, as they say in France, C'est tout for this week.

Hope things around your neck of the woods (as weather man Al Roker says) are going well. Let's chat next week about the music performances at the Super Bowl this Sunday. You know you want to.

Til Next Thursday. RF

Midweek Meanderings and Miscellany xxxxvi: Endings, and Beginnings!

Well, it's the end of January, and I say whew! Seems like the longest month of the year to me every year, most likely because of the cold, dreary drab weather, the post holiday let down, the disappearance of holiday decor and cheer, and reality fully back on one's plate in the form of work, taxes, exercise, and general "no more holidays on the horizon for a while!". (One colleague at MENC, however, did a very smart thing - she spent two weeks just after the holidays in HAWAII on a well deserved vacation....talk about a good way to spend the first two weeks of January!! Here's a quick view to help you forget winter gloom!)

Now, don't you feel better!?

I for one am glad the short and sweet month of February is upon us! Days are longer, birds are starting to chirp (at least in Virginia!), and you get a good sense that Spring IS On the way....

(candy always helps, too!)

And speaking of short and sweet, this will be a short and sweet blog today....!

A quick update to last week's (1/23) posting about the MENC Social.....On Friday 1/25, Dr. M hosted the MENC Monthly staff social. The Theme? Ice Cream Sundaes!
You may think it strange to have ice cream in January....but, it went down WARMLY and WELL thanks to the wonderful member who made a Christmas gift of her state's famous hot fudge sauce. A VERY big thank you to member RAK for her generous "donation" ! The large can of the milk chocolate sauce was gently heated in a pot of warm water, until just the right consistency for spooning and drizzling.......here's one of the finished creations....(although, it seems to be missing a cherry!)

And here are three happy MENC staff (2 of the super hardworking mail room/handyman/know how to get it done guys...and one staffer who I'm sorry I'm not able to identify..... ) pausing from their labors to have the treat:

There were several other interesting photos, particularly of Dr. M drizzling the sauce from on high like a chef........and another of him sitting with staff with a diet soda in his hand! Many other photos (courtesy of BS, super photographer!) of staff in various states of ice cream enjoyment and concentration as they constructed their sundaes...but, you will have to imagine these scenes........Overall, staff enjoyed and got the appropriate sugar high to see them through Friday afternoon on a dreary winter day!

As for the endings, in addition to the month disappearing........today we say goodbye to MENC Teaching Music Managing Editor, BP. She has been a real boon to MENC. BP contributed to MENC not only with her fine managing editorship, but she co-directed, and performed in the MENC Recorder ensemble (playing AND singing!), and one summer she even ran a yoga class for interested staff! BP is also a licensed pilot, an accomplished singer and choral conductor, and Mom! She will be missed!

And, a new beginning: this week, a handful of staff will be receiving special "write for the web" training, as soon, the MENC website will be completely converted with a new look for members (sometime late spring, early summer), and it will have a new technical interface for staff, so staff can post materials directly to the website themselves, instead of having to rely on our production/web team. Stay tuned!

Hope to bring you, in coming weeks, comments and segments from our monthly on-line survey, The Question of the Month, most recently about musicians and health. Some good suggestions and feedback received in January from members! February's question of the month topic will be TECHNOLOGY in the music classroom, and, separately, RETIRED MUSIC EDUCATORS..... Please take a look after 2/1! (and see below for some TECH in MUSIC links!)

Knowing you are all busy, so below are just a few bits and pieces of resources/interest. Hope your week goes well, and til next week, SR

BITS AND PIECES/RESOURCES

TECHNOLOGY
MENC's Opportunity to Learn Standards for Music TECHNOLOGY

The Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME)

Music Tech Teacher

VERMONT MIDI PROJECT

WHY TECH ENHANCES STUDENT SUCCESS

write to info@menc.org if you would like a few more sites with useful info about classes and other tips!

AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH

NAEP: National Assessment of Educational Progress, Arts Assessment 2008

How I Won the Meeting

I go to a lot of meetings here at MENC. Not as many as do some other people, but still, a lot. Meetings are ok, even good, when they are productive and the participants have good attitudes. Coming out of a meeting with a lot more work to do can be a little discouraging if the goal of all the new work hasn't been made clear. A meeting where someone drones on and on, saying the same thing over and over, is the worst. (I'm probably guilty of that, so I try to be careful.)

Sometimes, however, a meeting can be quite fun. Just now, I had a very fun meeting with the Web team. Our project list is really long right now, and while we're doing everything on the list, we're also dealing with the gigantic project of overhauling the whole Web site for a spring launch. We spent a good portion of the meeting chuckling about the staff members who think they are going to bypass procedure to get their project done before any others (i.e., "cut in line"). We also discussed how great it would be to be a judge on "Iron Chef" and how a little office gossip isn't always a bad thing. We prioritized and set deadlines and had good attitudes. Fun, productive, and not too long. (Because I had another meeting to get ready for!)

I was watching a DVD of the first season of "30 Rock" recently and I liked the way Liz Lemon called for "two minute dance break" during a long brainstorming meeting. The characters instantly cranked up the boom box and started boogie-ing around the conference room. I thought this was a great thing to add to any long meetings at MENC. Of course on the show, Liz Lemon's boss showed up in the middle of the dance break and didn't seem to think it was that great of an idea! I'll have to check MENC's policy on dancing during meetings.

Last weekend's Dilbert comic strip was about how to know when you've "won a meeting" -- I thought it was hilarious!

After lunch, two more meetings. So I'll leave you with a link to the Web site of one of my all-time favorite musicians, Richard Thompson. I saw him for the manyith time last week in DC. He tours frequently, either with a four-piece electric band or solo acoustic, performing his wonderful catalog of songs dating back to the late 60s and his days with the group Fairport Convention. Last week's show, however, was his "1000 Years of Popular Music," a tongue-in-cheek performance of the best pop songs of the last millennium. Highlights included music from the Mikado, "Shenandoah," tunes from Abba, the Korgis, the Beatles, the Kinks, and Nelly Furtado (!), some Cole Porter and Ella Fitzgerald, an English madrigal, an Italian renaissance song, and much more -- all performed "shamelessly" by RT on acoustic guitar/voice, Judith Owen on keyboards/voice, and Debra Dobkin on percussion/voice. (Harry Shearer, a voice from "The Simpsons" and "This is Spinal Tap," was sitting just in front of us. He is married to Judith Owen.) Highly recommend you check "1000 Years" out on CD or DVD.

Onward -- EWL

Thursday Interlude: Takin' Care of Business

Hi,
If you read my blog post last week, you may recall that I was on my way to the Midwest to visit my family for a long weekend. We celebrated my mom's birthday and my parents' wedding anniversary with a party and it was nice seeing my parents, as well as my sister and brother and assorted nieces and nephews. The weather there was cold to put it mildly. I don't think the temperature got much above 20 or so the whole time I was there and at night the temps were below zero.

I know, I know, I grew up there, but Northern Virginia, with its relatively mild winters, has turned me into a wimp. I readily admit that.

Anyway, before I forget, I want to express my appreciation to airport workers everywhere. Last Thursday it started snowing as I headed to Dulles Airport and I sat in there terminal watching the snow fall and inside the airport beleaguered gate agents were trying to placate upset passengers ("What do you mean all of the flights to Denver are full!"). Outside as the snow fell, workers labored in the cold, blustery weather to keep runways clear, plane wings deiced and and help planes to take off. Those people work really hard to keep all of us going where we are going, whether it is a business trip or a family reunion.

There are some kind of new rules about how long people sit on planes, how many planes can be in line to leave when the weather is bad. So, we got on our plane, we got off our plane, we got on the plane, we waited on the plane and finally five hours later, after the de-icing and watching a stuck plane get towed back to the gate, we took off.

Personally, I had a good book to read (and a book club meeting coming up) and since I spend so much time rushing about, I was perfectly happy to just sit and read. In fact, most of the people on my plane took it all in stride, talking, calling whomever to say they were being delayed or reading like I was.

When we finally landed, the flight attendant actually got on the intercom and thanked everyone for being so nice and polite and not yelling or throwing things at the crew. I was immensely proud of all of us.

Anyway, since returning to the office, I worked on finishing up final revisions for March Music Educators Journal stories and catching up on a gazillion emails. Oh, and I made flight reservations to head out to Bismarck, North Dakota for the North Dakota Music Education Association conference in March. (And, no, I am not skittish about getting on a plane again. I know in March, they can still have snow in the upper Midwest, but hey, I know those people know how to clear runways.

I just wanted to pass along a link for a story I heard last weekend on Weekend America, the American Public Media show. The story is called "An Architect's Morning Music." It is a interview with architect Daniel Libeskind, who says "I don't think I would have a good day if I wasn't able to start by listening to music." It is a fascinating story about how closely he links music and creativity.

His projects include the Jewish Museum in Berlin and in February 2003, Studio Daniel Libeskind's design study was chosen as the master site plan for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center Site in New York City.

Oh, and Ameican Idol? I didn't see it last night because of my aforementioned book club meeting. Feel free to add a comment if anyone has touched a nerve for you during the competition thus far.

Well, gotta go. My day job calls.
Til next Thursday
RF

Midweek Meanderings and Miscellany XXXXV: Sunshine, Moons, Music Man and Puccini!

Well, today is as bright, sunny and blue as yesterday was gloomy and grey. This is a nice respite before another dose of winter dull daze tomorrow!

(*and we have had, the last few nights, the MOST HUGE, BRIGHT, silvery, beautiful dollar coin sized full moon beaming down from 5am - 7am lighting the commute and early morning risers! Amazingly beautiful! If you ever saw the 1980's movie "MOONSTRUCK", you will get it....and there's even a musical tie in to this BELOW!)
(looked like this, only SILVER, not yellow)

In honor of winter (or perhaps to make us think "SUMMER!"), on Friday this week, Dr. Mahlmann is treating MENC staff (during our monthly "socials") to ice cream sundaes!

As explained before, these "socials" give busy staff a brief respite from the computer and phones and meetings and moving the mail, to enable us to have some "face to face" time and remember staff birthdays and anniversaries of working at MENC.

The fudge sauce to be served on the ice cream is the motivation for the social's theme, as Dr. M was gifted the fudge sauce from one very wonderful and involved MENC member at Christmas time. Thank you, RAK! (and Dr. M of course for sharing the bounty!).

So, the Exec dept (ML, CW, MJ, PS, LE, and me tagged on as an orphan department) will be hosting and setting up and all - come Friday.....

Ice cream and of course, the MENC staff "social" always remind me of .....ICE CREAM SOCIALS!!! You know (if you're of a certain age), those "old fashioned" gatherings families, churches, and schools used to have to bring folks together.....it was always a treat when I was a kid, all the ice cream you wanted! MENC still holds over from those times the old word "social"....I love it! keeps me connected to childhood!

(trivia: It's official - Two Rivers is recognized by the Wisconsin State Historical Society as the REAL birthplace of the ice cream sundae. There is a Sundae Week every summer, and the city gathers in Central Park for an old fashioned band concert and ice cream social during the annual Sundae Thursday. (courtesy of THIS SITE

Speaking of ice cream socials....THAT always reminds me of THE MUSIC MAN! (Meredith Willson, you know, the musical, starring Robert Preston and Barbara Cook in the original broadway version, Shirley Jones in the 1962 Movie ...click HERE for more details!

That scene of the ice cream social...the footbridge.....Class of "aught five", and "Pick a little talk a little.... Chaucer..Rabellaise...BALZAC!"....Marian the Librarian.....76 Trombones......

and the Salesmen Train Conversational Song about "But ya gotta know the territory!"; Gary Indiana, The Sadder but Wiser girl for me, Goodnight my someone, Lida Rose/Dream of Now, Trouble (in River city!).... need I say more?! (well, guess who played my brother Winthrop when I was Marian in 8th grade? 7th grader Paula Poundstone! She was GREAT!).

And speaking of LIDA ROSE/Dream of now - (my absolutely all time favorite song in the entire show, it was a joy to sing against that full barbershop harmony!)......this brings me back full circle to "ICCCEEE CREEEEAMMM!" - the first words sung by Jacey and his fellow town managers after being beguiled into harmonizing by the conniving Prof. Harold Hill, as he distracted them with their vocal chops and made his escape onto conning more townspeople of River City Iowa into buying band instruments and uniforms!

Now that I've had my little nostalgia trip (how many of YOU have been in the Music Man, either as a musician, or cast member on stage? Comment below!)......(and wasn't it at LEAST a bit more interesting to read than hearing about how I'm slogging through survey #2 sent to 2000 members, and the about to start sorting another 2000 names for sending for survey #3?)..........let me leave you with a few resources on China, barbershop singing, civil rights (in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King's recent birthday/holiday), and a wonderful 6 minute video/sound clip for those who love Puccini (and maybe were intrigued by my mention of Andre Rieu in the last few blogs).... this is something special, worth seeing! SEE BELOW!

Hope you have a good week, and see you next! SR


RESOURCES:

SPEBSQUA: Society (for the) Preservation (and) Encouragement (of) BarberShop QUartet (singing in) America; AKA Harmony Foundation (singing valentines! only three weeks away!)

One of the most beautiful renditions ever: Carmen Monarcha of Brazil, in Cortona, Italy, singing "O Mio Babbino Caro" ( Oh my dearest daddy) with Andre Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra...click HERE

Synopsis of the Puccini opera Gianni Schicchi, from which O Mio Babbino Caro comes

With the world's largest population and an exploding economy, China may represent the future for international touring artists. Click HERE

Eyes on the Prize/ PBS/History of Civil Rights movement (saw this again after many years, SO worth seeing and sharing with others!):

PBS SITE

WIKIPEDIA description

RIVER CITY IOWA: AKA as MUSIC MAN SQUARE, Mason City Iowa - click HERE

(and did you know MENC's first meeting in 1907 was also in Iowa? see www.menc.org and go to the INDEX and click on CENTENNIAL!)

Gray Tuesday

A little depressing today -- as I plug away at my projects, I can see out my window a construction crew clearing a formerly lovely spot of forest in which to build a new office building. Too bad.

It's already mid afternoon and I have so much to do that I must leave it at that! Back next Tuesday!

Onward -- EWL

Closed for Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday

Follow your dream

MLK did

You can too