I’m currently working with Techrow Fund to develop an afterschool music technology program called The Producer Club. We’re doing the pilot program at New Design Middle School in Harlem with a group each of sixth graders, seventh graders, and eighth graders. Techrow had approached me to teach, but I suggested that, rather than hiring a middle-aged …
Tag Archives: confidence
Talent considered harmful
My fellow radical music educator Jared O’Leary wrote a pretty remarkable paper with a deceptively dry title: A Content Analysis on the Use of the Word ‘Talent’ in the Journal of Research in Music Education, 1953-2012. It got me thinking about talent, and what a pernicious concept it is.
Kramer
Kramer is the name my mom’s father’s parents gave at Ellis Island because they thought it they might have an easier time with it assimilation-wise than Garfinkel. In Eastern Europe, if you want a WASP-y sounding name, you usually choose something German rather than British. My mom’s wing of her extended family calls itself the …