It was brought to my attention that June is a very important month.... it is National Accordion Awareness Month!!! Since 1989, this month has been established to show off the skillz and pleasure that this wonderful instrument provides in our times at Happy Hour! Here are some interesting facts about the Accordion:
- The accordion is a member of the reed family, not the keyboard family.
- Billy Joel and Barry Manilow also play the accordion.
- Actress Lucy Liu plays the accordion
- China is the largest manufacturer and exporter of accordions in the world. (Shocker!!)
People have asked me, with my music background and love for musicology (Music History) - why don't we have more modern day Mozarts or Beethovens? We have a lot of smart people in the world today but one of the big reasons that I see is that we encourage students to develop a well rounded education during their development (including high school). Mozart and Beethoven studied only music at an early age (which will include other Humanity subjects like literature, art, some math and general science). But most of these "geniuses" lacked the other skills that were not taught to them.
Today's educational format allows students to explore different areas at the same time. My feeling is that if we have high school students (who now adays are too immature to understand the impact of their decision on their later life) declare a focus, we restrict their educational potential. I enjoy talking to people that are well rounded, not those that only have something to say when it deals with their narrow scope of the world. That's what I am, I have an opinion about everything but that's because I took courses on everything and enjoyed learning about it. Forcing our youth to give up part of that well rounded education in favor of getting the core courses leads to potential burnout (something seen very often with child prodigies in music who are forced to a high standard and give up the "normal" developmental activities with other kids). I am not afraid of change, I just think that decisions such as this (and many other decisions made by our current idiots in government) are impulsive and detrimental to the culture or shape of our society.
"That's a bad thing and that's all I have to say about that."
World Cup is 2 days away.... more to come on that.
Song of the Day - I had some Velvet Revolver (Scott Weiland, Slash, Duff) playing today while I was experimenting with the AirPlay from my roommate for my iPod. The thing works better than my iTrip, but still not 100% sold on it yet. Back to VR - they are writing their next record which I will anxiously wait for! It's the "new STP" as I call it! While not as good as STP, they come very close in some songs.
Video of the Day - The Beautiful Hazel and I finally went to The Da Vinci Code last night. It was pretty good, just felt very rushed and almost too fast at points. I noticed many things from the book that were skipped and even the somewhat changed ending (which I wasn't as fond of). I never felt any character development as I did with the book but that's usually what happens. As Emily has said "not to sound too cliche - but it wasn't as good as the book":) I agree 100% with you Emily!
Webpage of the Day - Proof that some people have WAY too much time on their hands. Headline reads "Women lowering voices to raise salary". Sorry, it's the best I could do today.
No comments:
Post a Comment