I have always been interested in how accents of speech develop and change. I was very interested to discover this website that features English accents from all over the world. This is a fairly systematic study of the way English is pronounced using the same text sample. You can hear accents from Mongolia to California and everywhere in between. Read the rest of this entry »
I have been thinking a lot lately about the Rainbow Songs approach to teaching and learning music. I have come to realize that there is interconnectedness between music, movement and language that support each other though the learning process. Read the rest of this entry »
It seems to me that things have changed a lot since I was a kid. There is just more stuff than their used to be. It just keeps piling into our lives and it seems there is nothing we can do about it.
Last week was my son Jake’s 4th birthday. So far, my wife and I have tried hard to keep our kids away, as much as possible, from the constant bombardment of advertising. We don’t let him watch regular tv and we try not to expose him to too much branding. As a result Jake thinks that Ronald McDonald is just a clown and nothing more. In fact we have never been to McDonalds with him and he does not know what it is. When we went out for his 4th birthday last Thursday he asked to go out to our local Thai restaurant. He even likes the spicy asparagas. Hooray for Jake!
Anyway you still can’t escape it advertising is everywhere and Jake has an Achilles heel. He loves trains.
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Ahhh we turned our furnace on for the first time of the year. This act made me pause to remember the summer past.
My fondest memories of this summer are the trip my family and my sister’s family took together to Kitchener. We had a great time and were lucky that there was a blues festival going on the same weekend we were there that added an extra gritty flavour that was greatly appreciated.
In fact it was called the B3 festival for Blues, Brews and Bar-B-ques which meant the flavour was Cajun with hickory and lots of malty beverages to wash it all down with.
Like many great trips this one begins and ends with a trip by. . .
train.
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Well it’s Fall and for me and many who are students and work in education it is the beginning of a new year. I am back teaching music classes with Rainbow Songs after the summer working on other projects. It feels good to be activly making music with people again.
Several other events signify this change for me now. One of my favourites is the Roncesvalles fall harvest festival. Read the rest of this entry »