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Date: | Thu, 20 Mar 2003 19:55:52 -0700 |
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Chris Mullins wrote:
>Maybe sooner or later one or two will realize they've heard a certain
>piece before and want to know a bit more about it - even if it doesn't
>have words! Could work... Maybe...
Sounds as if you're on the right track. Just beware that some music with
words might still turn them off. 'Way back in the olden days, there were
required music classes in the public schools. Even then, in junior high,
I remember that some of my classmates disliked these classes and would
skip that period. I wasn't especially musical, but I loved the classes.
We learned a bit of theory and tried out some choral works, but then
Mrs. Monaco attempted to introduce us to opera. I'm not sure what
possessed her, but she started with "The Medium" and twice weekly we
would be required to listen to still more of it. Absenteeism increased
exponentially and even I hated it. I didn't dare play hookey but I waited
20 years to give opera another chance. Stronger forces than Mrs. Monaco
were in play.
On my 30th birthday, my sister (who is 20 years my senior) and I took
music study tour to Vienna. Having retired to our hotel after an evening
at the opera, she suddenly sat up in bed and announced: "Well, it took!"
Then she explained that, when I was a baby, she had read somewhere that
the way to encourage children to love good music was to expose them to
it in infancy. So, she used to sit me on the floor in front of our big
console radio whenever the Columbia Masterworks program came on the air.
Suddenly, it had occurred to her that she had proven the theory.
Madeline Jenkins Millard
Colorado Springs
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