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

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

Think of the word “jazz” and chances are you’ll picture something like a smoky bar with a small group of guys hunched intensely over their instruments. Or perhaps a concert hall with an ensemble of tuxedo-clad men swinging through Tin Pan Alley standards. What you…

• Written by Gordon Harvey on Nov 19, 2020
• album review, Diana Krall, jazz, jazz pianist, jazz singer, music, music education, piano, piano player, Review, simply music, the playground

Stories of Music is a multimedia book with heart and soul, telling its tales through poems, pictures, videos, recorded music and text in print and online, and giving something back in the process by its contribution to music-based charities. Publisher and Editor Holly E. Tripp…

• Written by Guest Contributor on May 5, 2016
• anthology, collection, holly e. tripp, hungry for music, mel karajas, music, music and memory, rachel geans, simply music, stories, stories of music

Simply Music lessons with a teacher or online are a wonderful way to begin a lifelong relationship with music, but it doesn’t mean you have to stop there. Rachel Geans has discovered “The Usborne Classical Music Sticker Book”, a delightful, multi-sensory experience you can use as…

• Written by Guest Contributor on Nov 9, 2015
• classical music, learn, learn music, learn piano, music, music lessons, neil moore, piano, piano lessons, rachel geans, simply music, teach, teach music, teach piano, team music, usborne, usborne classical, usborne classical sticker book

What if you lived in a world where your opportunities, your place in society, your relationships, and even your self-image were determined by the distinct natural vibrations you emitted? This is the premise of the science fiction film Frequencies (2013), which portrays a society both…

• Written by Guest Contributor on Apr 14, 2015
• Frequencies (2013), Frequencies movie, Isaac-Newton Midgeley, Marie-Curie Fortune, Mr. Strauss, simply music