When I arrived to study the trombone at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, now some thirteen years ago, I was notified that I was required to take an academic course in world cultures. This would be my first academic classroom experience in Europe. Something that struck me was the way in which students answered the professor’s…Read more French Dissertation Style: An Education Reform for America?
L’Homme Moyen: How the Industrial Revolution Influenced the Social Sciences
“The average human has one breast and one testicle.” -Des McHale When the French positivist Auguste Comte received word about a Belgian statistician’s use…Read more L’Homme Moyen: How the Industrial Revolution Influenced the Social Sciences
Buddhist Psychology: Langri Thangpa’s Mind Training
In 2002 I was first introduced to Buddhist Psychology. At the time, the practice and study was little known in colleges, and usually only within the Jungian tradition, or through Erich Fromm, D.T. Suzuki, and Richard De Martino's groundbreaking, 1970 text, Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis. Undergraduate courses on the subject were not common, and the idea of the…Read more Buddhist Psychology: Langri Thangpa’s Mind Training
Buddhist Psychology: Introduction to Lucid Dreaming Part 1
Dream Theory Sleeping versus Waking Conscious The dream is not an activity of sleep, rather, it is an appearance of a constant, unconscious, flow of emotions that becomes apparent when the sensory organs are muted by sleep. In this way, we approach the dream as something that we experience in waking consciousness at the emotional…Read more Buddhist Psychology: Introduction to Lucid Dreaming Part 1
A Parent Asks, "How often should my child be practicing?"
I received an E-mail from a parent in Warren County, New Jersey who was inquiring into piano lessons for their 13 year old. "How many hours per week should they be practicing?" they asked. This is a great question, and one that many people have. I would like to share my response for others who…Read more A Parent Asks, "How often should my child be practicing?"
You Are Your Child’s First Music Teacher
How old were you when you started taking music lessons? Most people begin weekly, private music lessons at around the age of six years. Six years old is a good age to begin private lessons, and it is typically the age that I will begin to see students. However, your child's music education should begin…Read more You Are Your Child’s First Music Teacher
Fear, Anxiety, Self-Confidence & Singing
Have you ever noticed that people who sing are often happier, less anxious, and have a greater sense of who they are? It turns out that singing is one of the most effective ways of transforming even the most timid person into an autonomous, self-assured, and confident person. The Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler proposed that we…Read more Fear, Anxiety, Self-Confidence & Singing
Rethinking Reductionism With Google Maps
"The romantic spontaneity and courage are gone, the vision is materialistic and depressing. Ideals appear as inert by-products of physiology; what is higher is explained by what is lower and treated forever as a case of 'nothing but' -nothing but something else of quite an inferior sort. You get, in short, a materialistic universe, in which…Read more Rethinking Reductionism With Google Maps
Pretty in Pinko: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Marxism but Were Afraid to Ask Molly Ringwald
Imagine this. It's just a decade after the U.S. is withdrawing the last troops from the war in Viet Nam. The nation is mourning the loss of school teacher/astronaut Christa McAuliffe and 6 fellow astronauts who died on the Space Shuttle Challenger. And an actor and former FBI informant on communist sympathizers is serving his…Read more Pretty in Pinko: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Marxism but Were Afraid to Ask Molly Ringwald
I Am, Therefore I Think
Sometime just after the first year of life, an infant will look into a mirror and recognize for the first time, this thing we refer to as “self”. It’s not too surprising that around the same time children will also start using words like me, mine, dada, mama, and the favorite expression of all two-year-olds,…Read more I Am, Therefore I Think