The Fifth Beatle, or Music Education Begins at Home!

As you might expect, I’m an enthusiastic proponent of music education in all stages of life, starting in early childhood and continuing as long as a person has life left in ‘em. An early start confers many advantages: in addition to the sheer joy and fun that it can bring, involvement in music is believed [...]

Play a Mile in These Shoes!

I bet you’re jealous of these super-cute shoes!

“Where can I get a pair of my very own?” I hear you asking. Well, we’ll get to that in a minute, but first, ask yourself if you’re prepared to do what it takes to fill them!
Can you handle this?

No, this is not some overgrown cousin of [...]

Happy Easter!

It’s a very different kind of Easter for me than usual: this is the first Easter in many years that I didn’t play the organ for several church services! I’m on a little sabbatical from church music at the moment, as McDoc and I really wanted our weekends to be flexibile given the heavy demands [...]

When Can We Write the Requiem for This War?

Miss Music Nerd is not an overtly political blog, and it is, for the most part, a lighthearted affair.
But there are times when I am moved to take a stand.

This video is from a performance of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. In the piece, Britten intersperses the Latin text of the traditional Requiem Mass with poems [...]

New Tabs for your Clicking Pleasure!

I direct your attention to the top of the page, where you’ll find two new tabs to click on!
Listen to This! is a collection of the original pieces that I’ve posted on the blog (or elsewhere on these vast wide internets) before, conveniently corralled so you can listen to them anytime.

The Fascinating Life of a [...]

Theremin Concerto Media Wrap-up!

Well, here I am back home in Michigan, but I’m still basking in the glow of last week’s excitement. The three performances of the Theremin Concerto went very well, and the audience response was fantastic! So many people came up to me afterwards and told me how much they enjoyed it — a few even [...]

Theremin Concerto: T minus 95 minutes!

DATELINE: San Diego
Real quick update, as I have only intermittent internet access!
The rehearsals for the concerto have gone very well, and now I’m just about to go get gussied up to attend the premiere. We got a really nice write-up in the San Diego paper last week, and tomorrow we’ll be on the local public [...]

Announcing: Keyboards of the World!

Today I’m introducing a new feature here at Miss Music Nerd: Keyboards of the World!
When I travel, I tend to take pictures of pianos and organs wherever I find them. So I figure, why not post them here? Some of them will be the ones I’ve been lucky enough to play myself. Others might be [...]