The Playground

The Great Courses: Creativity & Your Brain I’ve been a fan of The Great Courses for a long time. Typically designed as packages of ‘lectures’ that might mirror a semester of university study, these comprehensive courses cover topics as varied as your imagination. In my…

• Written by Gordon Harvey on Jan 12, 2023
• course review, Creativity, gordon harvey, Indre Viskontas, music, music education, piano, playing-based music education, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, simply music, the playground, University of San Francisco

Quincy Jones may well be music’s all-time greatest multitalent. From jazz trumpeter to band leader to arranger for the likes of Frank Sinatra, conductor, composer, Broadway and Academy Awards director, producer for the likes of Michael Jackson, record company executive, impresario, educator, activist and more,…

• Written by Gordon Harvey on Nov 30, 2022
• 12 Notes, book review, Creativity, gordon harvey, music, music education, piano, playing-based music education, Quincy Jones, simply music, the playground

Book Review By Katie Schmidt Welp, if I were a psychology professor, I would definitely make this book a requirement for all my students. Although I am not said professor, I do wish all of us would read this book. It gave me a much…

• Written by Guest Contributor on Oct 21, 2022
• book review, Creativity, Daniel Lieberman, katie schmidt, Love, Michael Long, music, music education, piano, simply music, the playground

Mihaly reading his book ‘Flow’ War is horrific. There’s no getting away from it. But sometimes out of the horror there’s a contribution to the world that wouldn’t be here otherwise. Such is the life’s work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The study of what he has…

• Written by Guest Contributor on Sep 23, 2022
• book review, Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, music, music education, piano, playing-based music education, simply music, the playground

A World Where Everyone Plays is a collection of stories of how Simply Music has impacted people’s lives. Each chapter is written by a student, teacher or loved one. The stories vary from a ten-year-old student, to a professional circus clown, to a retired teacher,…

• Written by Allison Gray on Aug 8, 2022
• A world where everyone plays, Bernadette Ashby, book review, music, music education, piano, playing-based music education, simply music, the playground

Have you met Maddalena Casulana? Born 1544 in Italy she was the first woman to publish her own musical compositions! Women’s roles in the early 1500s largely centred around domestic duties and a constrained societal existence with the expectation that they would live humble, demure…

• Written by Gretta Dunn on Jan 29, 2021
• composer, italy, madrigal, music, music education, piano, simply music, the playground, Women in Music

Whether you’re looking for a new book to read or a present for someone this holiday season, we’ve compiled a list of books for you! Some we have read and some are on our own ‘to read’ lists! If you’ve got any recommendations please leave…

• Written by Gretta Dunn on Dec 4, 2020
• Blues, books, jazz, music, Music Books, music education, music history, piano, Reading List, recorded music, simply music, the playground

I’m sure if you’ve even stuck your toe into the pool of modern Jazz, you’ve heard of Diana Krall! The Canadian jazz pianist, songwriter & singer, known for her contralto vocals, she has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15…

• Written by Gretta Dunn on Nov 12, 2020
• Diana Krall, Female Piano Player, jazz, jazz pianist, music, music education, piano, simply music, Songwriter, the playground, Women in Music

Intro: Music of the last hundred years would sound completely different without the Blues. You may have a certain picture in your mind when you think of blues music, but you may not realise how diverse the genre actually is, and how it has seeped…

• Written by Guest Contributor on Oct 22, 2020
• Blues, music, music education, piano, Robert Relly, simply music, teach piano, the playground

Hazel Scott was a Trinidadian-born jazz and classical pianist, singer, and actor. She was a critically acclaimed performing artist and an outspoken critic of racial discrimination and segregation. Scott was a child musical prodigy, receiving scholarships to study at the Juilliard School when she was…

• Written by Gretta Dunn on Oct 14, 2020
• 'The Hazel Scott Show'." ... she was also known for playing 2 piano's at a time!!, classical music, female, female musician, music, music education, musician, pianist, piano, piano concerto, piano player, piano. She was prominent as a jazz singer throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, she became the first African American to host her own TV show, simply music, the playground