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

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

  I Found Your Keys Written by Laurie Richards Laurie Richards is an accomplished musician and music educator. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration in the 1980s and worked as an Accountant for several years. During that time she also taught…

• Written by Allison Gray on Sep 8, 2022
• I Found Your Keys, interview, Laurie Richards, 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