How to use this Page

Display Comments Add a Comment

Want:




Need:




Now that the teeth are starting to come in, it's time to learn how to brush! He had one of the baby versions of these and loved to chew on it, so we're upgrading to toddler.


Wear:




Read:


Elliott LOVES B is for Bear, so I knew I wanted to get another in the series.


Create with:



He's still a little young for paint or crayons, but this will hopefully inspire a bit of a creative side! Who wouldn't love blue bath water?? ;)


Santa gift:



The kid is obsessed with his bath hoops set, so we thought Santa would bring a real one.


Christmas Eve:




His ornament for the year has the world "joy" embroidered on it, which I just loved. He has filled us with so much joy these past 12 months that I thought it fit perfectly! I bought this one from this lovely shop.

Our choice for his Christmas Eve book this year is:



It's one of my very favorites and we definitely needed to add it to our collection.



So, that's what Elliott is getting on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.  Have a wonderful holiday!

Display Comments Add a Comment

By Meghann Wilhoite

2012 has been a poignant year for avant-garde music. German composer Hans Werner Henze passed away in October at age 86; a little over a week later American composer Elliott Carter passed away at the age of 103. The late John Cage was, as Musical America put it, “feted beyond his own wildest dreams” this year in celebration of his birth centenary.

All three of these composers wrote music that challenged listeners to reconsider the boundaries of what qualifies as music.

John Cage once stated, “I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, ‘You’ll come to a wall you won’t be able to get through.’ So I said, ‘I’ll beat my head against that wall.’”

Elliott Carter (touchingly eulogized by Paul Griffiths last month on the OUPblog) likewise acknowledged that most listeners did not understand his music: “One thing I can’t understand is why people have such trouble with modern music. It seems to me to be perfectly intelligible. When I hear one of my pieces again, or listen to the record, I don’t see why people could find this perplexing in any way. Yet audiences can’t make head or tail of it… I finally said the hell with that whole point of view and decided to write what I really always hoped to write, and what I thought was most important for me. I’ve taken that point of view ever since.”

Hans Werner Henze, according to Norman Lebrecht, knew that his music would not be fully understood or appreciated during his lifetime.

What is it about these composers’ music that “perplexes” people so, and yet holds their attention? What makes Howard Stern, listening to a young composer’s piece exclaim “We couldn’t even figure out if it was music” and then spend ten minutes of his show excoriating it?

I personally have long been fascinated by this type of music — highly structured, arcane music that challenges my ears, requiring deep listening, still managing somehow to stimulate my emotions. Really this music is why I studied music theory throughout my graduate years; I wanted to be able to talk about what I was hearing in a meaningful way.

My journey began with Morton Feldman’s music, but after I moved to New York City I quickly became involved with the thriving and vibrant community of avant-garde musicians that live here.

Last July I interviewed two composers about the progression of their compositional styles over their heretofore relatively short careers. One of the interviewees, Matthew Hough (who wrote the piece featured on Stern’s show), seemed to subconsciously channel Carter when he said “At a certain point [in my career] I realized I was thinking too much about how I was being perceived and not thinking hard enough about why I’m doing what I’m doing and what composition means for me.”

And here we get to the crux of the matter: Is it music when someone approaches composition in this way? Is it music when what we hear defies classification? Indeed, I use the term avant-garde here, but one of the challenges of talking about this music is terminology: What do we talk about when we can’t talk about chords, melodies, themes, etc.?

Ultimately, my answer to the first two questions is ‘yes’; my answer to the last question is ‘get creative’. Above all, open-mindedness and a willingness to listen actively and creatively are absolutely necessary if we’re going to appreciate avant-garde music on its own terms.

“The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.” –John Cage.

Meghann Wilhoite is an Assistant Editor at Grove Music/Oxford Music Online, music blogger, and organist. Follow her on Twitter at @megwilhoite. Read her previous blog posts on Sibelius, the pipe organ, John Zorn, West Side Story, and other subjects.

Oxford Music Online is the gateway offering users the ability to access and cross-search multiple music reference resources in one location. With Grove Music Online as its cornerstone, Oxford Music Online also contains The Oxford Companion to Music, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only music articles the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Is it music? A listener’s journey appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

We've made it to double digits! I can't believe that Elliott is already 10 months old and is quickly approaching 1. I'm amazed at how fast he's learning things and how it only takes once or twice of practicing a new skill before he's mastered it.

What Elliott has been up to:

-Pulling up on everything
-Learning to climb stairs
-Boycotting naps
-Eating puffs and other harder things
-Putting his face in the water
-"Singing" when everyone else is singing (church, baby class). He really yells at the top of his lungs.
-Playing in the mirror. He loves looking at himself and trying to kiss the "baby" in the glass.
-Sleeping 11 hours a night, but still has to be in bed by 6pm or he has a meltdown
-Has started to dislike being in his carseat. He can move and wants to ALL the time.

He is just SO much fun to hang out with and the most joy-filled baby I've ever met. I'm so lucky he's mine!

Display Comments Add a Comment

Some fun facts about Elliott:

-He rolls front-to-back now, right on schedule for being 2 months behind.

-He loves The Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton. Something about that "bee-bo" that has him giggling.

-He gives us belly laughs when he's tickled and thinks his dad is hysterical.

-He loves bath time and kicks his feet to splash himself. I see swim "lessons" in the near future. His Nonni just bought him his first baby pool :)

-If he's upset, all Dad needs to do is sing "Piano Man" and the tears stop.

-He sleeps through the night in 11 hour stretches and takes 2-3 naps a day. It's awesome...other moms, be jealous.

-He tries to hold his bottle, loves to chew on his toes, and thinks getting undressed is the silliest thing.

-I think teething is in full-swing, despite the lack of teeth.

-He LOVES being outside. Another instant soother.

-He makes the BEST facial expressions. Everyone says how expressive he is and what an easy-going personality he has. 

-He is a fantastic snuggler, loves his dogs, and is honestly the greatest gift I've ever received.

Display Comments Add a Comment

Just a quick Elliott update for this week's review post.

They took his feeding tube out this morning, because he's had a full day of eating all of his meals by bottle. YAY! He started off slowly this morning, bringing Aaron and my stress level up a bit, because he was just NOT interested in eating.  He ate them, but took forever (he has a time limit) and we just don't want that feeding tube to go back in. We blame his disinterest/squirminess on this nasty multi-vitamin that goes in his 9am bottle...it just really seems to upset his stomach, making him very squirmy. Once that's out of the way, by 3pm he ate like a champ and even took 7 extra cc's of food. We're cheering him on, for sure. We want out of here!

We're trying so hard to be patient, but we're just so close now that I am getting more and more anxious for things to move along, so we can go home. We're incredibly blessed to have this room at the Fisher House, but it's not my home, my dogs aren't here, my BED isn't here. And Aaron had to go back to work this week, so I basically only have nurses to talk to. A bit lonely!

We are so lucky that this eating thing is the last step for us to go home...it's only been 2 weeks since he came screaming into the world, so I really can't complain about too much! He's still doing beautifully.

An after bath time picture:

Display Comments Add a Comment

is way more fun than blogging! See you soon!

Display Comments Add a Comment

In my neck of the woods, it’s time to head back to school. It’s still 98 degrees here in Texas, but for many kids, summer is already over! So, let’s take a look at three new poetry books that are kid-friendly collections with poetic forms that kids are sure to imitate. Strong on rhyme and humor, with odd or interesting illustrations, these are worth checking out.


There Was a Man Who Loved a Rat; And Other Vile Little Poems by Gerda Rovetch



This slim collection is very repetitive, with many rhymes beginning “There Was a Man” which kids will enjoy imitating and riffing on. Much in the spirit of Edward Lear, with humorous ink drawings on paper plates (paper plates!) by the poet’s daughter, Lissa Rovetch, here’s a sampling:

There was a man in Abilene
who loved a little lima bean.
He kept it in a velvet bag
and only took it out to brag.

Rovetch, Gerda. 2008. There Was a Man Who Loved a Rat; And Other Vile Little Poems. New York: Philomel.

Of course, being from Texas, this poem particularly appeals to me (since Abilene is a Texas town). But I can also see using this limerick-like quatrain form with kids, as they try their hands at creating nonsense poems. Put a lima bean in a small velvet (jewelry) bag and present it mysteriously before reading the poem aloud.


M is for Mischief; An A to Z of Naughty Children by Linda Ashman


I wrote about another new book by Linda Ashman earlier this summer (June 20), Stella, Unleashed; Notes from the Doghouse (Sterling, 2008), and amazingly Ashman has a second poetry book out this year. M is for Mischief is an ABC book that provides a poem for a child named for each letter of the alphabet. It’s illustrated by Nancy Carpenter with inventive images that are suggestive of the rambunctious Eloise. Each poem is boxed in a color square, with cartoon kids cavorting across the pages. Here’s my favorite example:


Vile Vern
by Linda Ashman

Look at Vern: he’s always venting.
Vicious temper, unrelenting.
Vern’s explosions, most volcanic,
Put his victims in a panic.

Aimed his venom at a snake.
Vexed the viper.
Vern’s mistake.


Ashman, Linda. 2008. M is for Mischief; An A to Z of Naughty Children. New York: Dutton.

There’s a long tradition of rhymes and verses about “bad” kids including X. J. Kennedy’s wonderful/horrible “Brats” collections. And of course kids may enjoy seeking out other ABC books that use first names as their structure—like A my name is Alice, Alice to Zinnia, etc.



On the Farm by David Elliott



For our very youngest poetry fans, On the Farm is a delightful collection of animal poems with a fun, modern feel. I have to admit that the wonderful woodcut and watercolor illustrations by Holly Meade completely captivate me and pump up the volume on these simple rhymes. The large scale (poems in a big font, images oversized) makes the book ideal for group sharing and reading aloud. And kids will learn the poems quickly and join in. Just try one:

The Rooster
by David Elliott

Crows and struts.
He’s got feathers!
He’s got guts!

Oh, the rooster
struts and crows.
What’s he thinking?

No one knows.

Elliott, David. 2008. On the Farm. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick.

This Elliott and Meade collaboration reminds me of the large image, oversized picture books of Flora McDonnell, particularly I Love Animals (Candlewick, 1996) a perfect companion to this book. Or look for the classic Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown or Mother Goose collections of animal rhymes. And of course young children will love making animal noises and animal movements to accompany the read aloud.

For more Poetry Friday poetry, go to Big A Little A-- thanks for hosting, Kelly!

Picture credits: www.cookiemag.com;http://www.lindaashman.com/;www.textbooksrus.com

Display Comments Add a Comment