Classical Education

Louis Carrogis dit Carmontelle - Portrait de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Salzbourg, 1756-Vienne, 1791)
CLASSICAL MASTERS:  We were determined to finish up week 4 of our Intro to Classical Music class today, and that meant listening to lectures about and music by Mozart and Haydn this morning and afternoon. There are definitely worse things!

I have to think one could teach an entire university course on Mozart. Almost a shame to condense it down to a couple of hours, but when you're trying to cover thousands of years worth of music, something's got give.

We learned that Mozart was a prodigy, touring by the time he was 5 (depicted above, with his father on violin and his sister singing). He wrote his first symphony at age 8. Works we listened to included "Little G Minor Symphony," which he wrote as a child, "Piano Concerto No. 21," and the wildly complex "Jupiter Symphony," Mozart's 41st. Here's a graphical visualization of the latter, by Stephen Malinowski (YouTube user Smalin)

http://youtu.be/SiX3z_fOR5k

One of the lectures we watched showed clips from the marvelous film "Amadeus." Unfortunately, it's not streaming on Netflix or Amazon Prime, though it looks like we could rent it from Amazon for $2.99. Might just have to do that.  

We knew virtually nothing about Frederic Joseph Haydn before today, beyond a vague familiarity with some of his music. Turns out the guy is the father of the string quartet. That's a pretty big deal, wouldn't you say?!

                      "Haydn Portrait" by Ludwig Guttenbrunn - Photo Nevilley at en.wikipedia.

We certainly recognized the second movement from Haydn's "Emporer" (Op. 76 No. 3).

Written in 1797, Haydn reportedly played the tune every night before retiring in the months leading up to his death. Today, the music is the national anthem for both Austria and Germany (no doubt it's most familiar to us from hearing it played during Olympic medal ceremonies!).

You can hear a lovely version of it by the Verdis Quartet here. It's the one our professor shared with the class.

http://youtu.be/mBmCcSz6HWw

THEY OUGHTA BE IN PICTURES:  This afternoon, CJ and Annabelle started a movie making class they're pretty jazzed about. They'll meet for a couple hours weekly with 8 of their peers and an adult advisor. Together, they'll come up with the concept, a script, work on dialogue, acting, special effects, filming, editing and more. Sounds like a blast. 

This evening we screened the finished project last semester's class made. It was very creative, with lots of special effects. 

FOR BUBBY: We put together a special delivery today.  There's a young boy here in Washington that has been dealt a terrible hand in life.  Bubby Everson contracted a virus (cytomegalovirus) at birth. Usually it's harmless, but in Bubby's case, it left him deaf, autistic, with scoliosis, autism and cerebral palsy. His life span is expected to be severely truncated due to his ailments. 

Given that, Bubby's parents are trying to make his 9th birthday, Feb. 7, one to remember. 

Apparently Bubby loves getting mail, and REALLY loves stickers, so his parents are asking people to send their son some mail with stickers in it. They've set up a PO Box in their hometown of Graham, WA, and the story has gone viral.

You can Google Bubby's name and find any number of stories about him, or check out this link: http://q13fox.com/2015/02/03/family-plans-sons-9th-birthday-like-it-will-be-his-last-hopes-simple-act-by-others-will-help-fulfill-his-only-wish/

I had the kids dig through our craft drawer today and they came up with a nice little selection of stickers. 

If you want to send Bubby something, here's the address.

Bubby Everson
P.O. BOX 1142
Graham, WA 98338

Our stickers won't make it to him by his birthday, but somehow, we think Bubby won't mind having his birthday festivities drag out a few days - or weeks!

Bach in the Saddle Again

               Georgheeg [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], from Wikimedia Commons

COMPOSED:  We spent at least a couple of hours today trying to keep up with our "Introduction to Classical Music" class. Most of today's talks centered on Bach and Handel, both born in 1685.  

We learned a little bit about Bach's personal life. Turns out he was twice married and had 20-ish children. Yowza. His family was so big, at one point, his employer literally raised the roof on a building he was living in to add another couple of stories to accommodate his brood.

Pictured above, the Bach House in Köthen was his first home with his second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach (mother to 13 of his children).  She was an accomplished singer and had the job of transcribing many of Bach's compositions. 

Here is the first page of the Suite No. 1 in G major, in Anna Magdalena Bach's handwriting.

Unfortunately, Bach wasn't regarded as a musical genius until after his death, in 1750. (He was regarded as an accomplished organist, but it was widely thought at least a couple of his sons were better composers.) When Bach died in 1750, he didn't have much of an estate. What there was was parceled out to his children, including his hand-scribed sheet music, some of which was apparently sold for the price the paper could fetch. :/  Bach's surviving sons sank into conflict, and widow Anna was left with three daughters, living in poverty. When she died 10 years later, Anna was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave.  Sad story.

On the other hand, George Frederic Handel seemed to have a gift for self promotion, and he was regaled as a virtuoso during his lifetime. His works, such as "Music for the Royal Fireworks" and "Water Music" were enjoyed by audiences in the hundreds of thousands. 

George Frideric Handel (left) and King George I on the River Thames, 17 July 1717, by Edouard Hamman (1819–88).

The class requires a fair amount of our time attention, but it's time well spent. And, of course, we're learning about so much more than just classical music. There are plenty of straight up history lessons woven in along the way. Good stuff!

TO THE TEST: We took a test today, from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services' Web site.  It was a 25 question self test to help one prepare for passing the civics portion of the naturalization test. 

Apparently when you're interviewed as part of the screening process, you can be asked up to 10 questions max, and need to answer 60 percent to pass. The site we checked out lists all of the 100 civics questions on the naturalization test, which is nice, as it means there are no surprises for test takers. 

Fortunately, the kids were able to pass the 25-question test easily (each 80 percent plus) without any studying or previews.

If you're interested in giving the test a go, check out this link: http://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/quiz/learners/study-test/study-materials-civics-test/naturalization-self-test-1 

The USCIS site also has an electronic flashcard set test takers can download to practice with, information about where to find help to study for the test, a video showing what to expect, and more. 

Hat tip to GPa for suggesting MPA give the citizenship test a go. 

Change of Venue

"Johann Sebastian Bach" by Elias Gottlob Haussmann -. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons 

BACH TO BACH:  It's a good school day when your first hour is learning about and listening to Johann Sebastian Bach.  The painting above shows him holding a canon he'd written, a couple of years before his death in 1750.

Bach's works we listened to today included Toccata and Fugue in D minor, organ

http://youtu.be/ipzR9bhei_o

We also listened to Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582
http://youtu.be/1atQFLYbzuk
Both of the videos above are from a YouTube channel by a man who goes by smalin, but it looks like his real name is Stephen Malinowski. We've been watching his videos for years. It's fun to see the visualization of the instruments in a bold, graphic representation. 

CLUBBING: Over the past couple of weeks, we'd made a rather major shift. For the past four-plus years we've been attending classes in Shoreline (a city to the north) once or twice a week, as part of a homeschool cooperative up there. 

A couple of weeks ago, we made the decision to leave that co-op and join one in Seattle. The Seattle one, in fact, is in the midst of moving from a location in the north part of the city to a building at the north end of Queen Anne hill, not even five minutes by car for us. That fact will save us travel time, and it will make it possible for the kids to be involved in extra curricular activities. For instance, today, they checked out the first meeting of a social issues club. 

It was a lunchtime meeting, and the theme for today was water - specifically water scarcity. We learned that 70 percent of available water is used for farming, 20 percent is for industry, and 10 percent is used by individuals (think cooking, cleaning, drinking). We learned that 800 million people don't have access to enough water (frustratingly, there may be water available, but they can't get at it for lack for lack of a well, for instance). 

The group leader shared a story from a lesson plan from The Water Project about a young boy in an African country whose mother used to spend four hours a day walking to a 'nearby' stream and then carting water back to her family. When a well was installed in the family's village, it was a game changer, improving inhabitants' health, and freeing people up from the arduous, never-ending chore of water gathering, and allowing them to devote their time and energies elsewhere.

It was certainly an interesting way to spend a lunch hour, and the kids are looking forward to future meetings.The kids are also signed up for a movie making class at the Seattle school, and CJ's taking a history course, while Annabelle will have art twice a week. Here's to a new adventure and opportunities. 

OH SAY CAN YOU SEE: Check out these microchips.  If you look closely, you can see CJ and Annabelle's names on them!

                    Source: NASA OSIRIS-REx mission

Just kidding ... but they are there, NASA promises. Last June, we submitted our names via the Planetary Society to catch a ride on NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid Bennu.

The mission, full name Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer, is set to launch in 2016.  Then, the kids and a presumably hundreds of thousands of others on the chip will spend a couple of years traveling to Bennu, arriving in 2018. They'll hang out there for over 400 days there before making their way back home with a sample capsule.

Here's a short video from the OSIRIS-REx folks about asteroids.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tOKCeW66ncM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

SOUNDS FAMILIAR: I have seen the same WIRED magazine story pop up on multiple homeschool forums and lists today. The headline: "The Techies Who Are Hacking Education by Homeschooling Their Kids."

Interesting read, to be sure, and I certainly found a lot of parallels between the parents profiled and what we do here at MPA.

The Fifth Quarter

SUPER STUPOR: We're still recovering from the wild weekend that was the Super Bowl. We spent all day Saturday and several hours on Sunday morning getting ready for the big game. Of course, that involved making some Seahawks-themed cookies and cupcakes.

A few of the cookies were topped with some Nutella-flavored energy bites. A no bake nugget that included oatmeal, coconut, flax and chia seeds and honey, they were pretty darn tasty! (Recipe here: http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/nutella-energy-bites/)

Christian made a neat-o column out of balloons. 

Our staircase was decked out in streamers we collected on the opening day of this season, at the big NFL party and concerts near CenturyLink.

We had four TVs set up downstairs,and the place looked like family friendly sports bar. We gave it our all in game preparation, and cheered as hard as we could, but it was to no avail. The Seahawks lost in spectacular fashion, the outcome being determined on the very last play of the game, when, for reasons many will never understand, they opted to pass the ball when on the 1 yard line, and the pass was intercepted, game over. Heartbreaking for Hawks' fans! (That said, there were many other plays during the course of four quarters that could have changed the outcome - it's never just *one* play, is it?)

Anywho, the balloons and streamers are down, but our spirits are high. We're looking forward to seeing what they can do next season, and we absolutely can't wait until baseball season. Go Mariners!

FUN AND GAMES: I was deleting a bunch of old photos from my phone and came across a few I neglected to share involving games we've played with the kids over the past couple of months.  

Can you solve this riddle from 30 Second Mysteries (a great game!)?

And here's a scene from a fun game called Head Bandz, where you have to guess what you are (the word on the card you're wearing), by asking a series of questions with a time limit (30 seconds I think).

Here, the kids learned to play high stakes poker. We take our Fritos seriously.

And speaking of food that's very not good for you, here's a bonus shot, related to the game of baseball. The kids talked me into buying some Pop Tarts from Grocery Outlet a week or so ago. Would you believe the very first pack we opened produced a Seattle Mariners' Pop Tart!? It has to be a sign, I tell you. We're World Series bound, I say!

IN THE BOOKS: We completed all the lectures and the test for week 3 of our class all about Magna Carta/Charta.  Much of this week's discussion was about how, for hundreds of years, various individuals and groups have cited the Magna Carta to bolster their arguments and how Magna Carta has been interpreted so differently by so many. Some, like Sir Edward Coke, saw Magna Carta as a foundation of English life, underpinning everything, while others are rather dismissive of its import (for instance, Oliver Cromwell famously called it "Magna Farta").

Day Before the Day Before

TWELVES:  Our morning started early. We were out of the house slightly after 7 a.m., in search of some Blue Friday fun. 

Why the early rise?

As I explained to the kids at one point today, you just never know when your team is going to be in the Big Dance, and when they are, you have to soak up every second.

Obviously with any sport, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. If you win more than you lose,* sometimes you get to play more. But, unfortunately, the 2011 Seattle Mariners are a 
good' example of just how fleeting even a 'best' team can be. 

The 2011 Mariners were the Best Baseball Team Ever based on their win/loss record. Naturally, that success led them to post season play. There, they were trounced in the first round. In a way, it rendered their 'best ever' record meaningless. 

Lesson learned: Drink up the victories when you can. Being "#1" is fleeting, at best.

And so, back to us in the freezing fog outside CenturyLink just after 7 this morning.  It was fun seeing all the other "Twelves" milling around the stadium, spirits high.

We went to the King 5 booth, where we donated cans of food, met the King 5 mascot ... 

and scored some cool "Twelfie" sunglasses!

We also stopped by the nearby booth of the local Fox affiliate. There, they were collecting signatures on '12' flags which will be inside the stadium in Arizona on Sunday.

Our timing was such that a live remote was filmed while we were there.

 Media blitz!

The kids were both featured prominently on the live remote. #GoHawks. 

*One famous exception of the win-more-than-lose qualifier to make the post-season is the 2011 Seahawks team. With a 7-win, 9-losses record, they managed to be the top team in their division, but the lowest seed in the playoffs. Their first game was up against the previous year's Super Bowl champs, the New Orleans Saints. And lo and behold, they beat the Saints (in a game in which the term 'Beast Quake' was introduced to the lexicon). They lost their next playoff game, but they did silence those whining about them being in the playoffs to begin with.

IN OTHER NEWS: SMAPS is still upright on the launch pad, scrubbed again. They're gonna try to go on Saturday morning early, stay tuned. 

We finished up our week's worth of classical music lectures and tests. The harpsichord figured largely in what we listened to today. Music to our ears!

On a Wing

SEE HAWK:  Lovely blue skies in Seattle today, so we got out in it for a bit. Though it was clear, the wind was whipping away on the Magnolia bluff, and the brisk air made our eyes water and cheeks hurt, so our walk was cut short. However, for most of our outing, we enjoyed the company of a bird of prey flying over Puget Sound. Naturally, we immediately declared it a sea hawk. No, not the ones in football uniforms, but a real live bird that inspired the NFL team's name. 

The beautiful creature seemed to be enjoying the air currents this afternoon, floating to and fro overhead with hardly flapping its wings at all.

It soared back and forth, over the park we were in and out over Puget Sound. 

Rather majestic, don't you think?

And imagine our surprise and delight when we spied a (huge!) bald eagle perched on a branch nearby. It, too, seemed to be keeping tabs on the bird's comings and goings.

I posted the photos to Facebook and one of my friends asked if the bald eagle is considered a "Patriot." I told her it was probably one of Patriots coach Bill Belichick's minions, sent to spy on the Sea Hawk.  

But then another friend posted that he thought the bird was actually a turkey vulture. Hmm. In looking at photos of them online, the wings certainly look the same-ish.  Could be a turkey vulture. But a sea hawk sounds *so* much more regal than a turkey vulture, don't you think?

TRANSFORMED:  As previously reported, Annabelle spends a significant chunk of her daily computer time creating artwork, often related to ponies (as in the My Little Pony franchise).

Today, she created an original pony character in the style of MLP, from a photo of a real horse. 

In case you're wondering, Annabelle named the character Chestnut Clover.

GOING FOR BAROQUE: Lectures we listened to today for our classical music class were about the baroque period and the advent of opera in the Western world.

We listened to parts of Claudio Monteverdi's "L'Orfeo," which was written in 1607, and we learned what terms like libretto, recitative, ostinato, and auria mean. We also listened to three different versions of part of Henry Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas." 

A Londoner, Purcell's opera was written in English. Interesting aside: Our professor declared Purcell, Handel and Paul McCartney the three most important songwriters from England (in his opinion). 

STILL STANDING:  SMAP was scheduled to lift off early Thursday morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base but high winds scrubbed the launch. They're going for it again Friday morning, 6:20 a.m. UPDATE: SCRUBBED AGAIN. NO LAUNCH UNTIL JAN 31 at EARLIEST.

In the meantime, check out this cool photo of the gantry being rolled back from the Delta II rocket.

       Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
SMAP is NASA’s first Earth-observing satellite designed to collect global observations of surface soil moisture and its freeze-thaw state. The satellite will provide high resolution global measurements of soil moisture from space, and the data will be used to enhance scientists' understanding of the processes that link Earth's water, energy, and carbon cycles.

Coverage of Friday's planned launch begins at 4 a.m. Pacific Coast time, on NASA's NTV-3 channel: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/media_flash.html#.VMrEhmjF8Yd

PARALLELS:  We took about two minutes today to contemplate the existence of parallel universes. Seems like too short a time to spend on such a mind blowing topic, but it's a start. What prompted it was a Facebook post from physicist Brian Greene.  He wrote, in part, "Without a shred of evidence for other universes, why is it that some physicists -- I'm among them -- take the idea seriously?"

We hopped to his World Science U Web site and watched a brief video where Greene elaborates on his opinion (http://youtu.be/Xm4R688pTRo).


MAKE SOME NOISE:  The Washington state governor Jay Inslee has issued the following official proclamation. "Calling all 12s. It’s time to get LOUD, LOUDER and LOUDEST for our Seattle Seahawks. I’m proclaiming three state-wide moments of LOUDNESS at 12:00 p.m. on Jan. 30, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. Join your fellow 12s for 30 seconds each day to cheer for the World Champion Seahawks. We’ll be in Olympia on the Capitol steps this Friday at noon to kick it off. Let them hear you all the way in Arizona!"

So, I guess we have some shouting to do. :)

Taste the Rainbow

CANDY CHASERS: Our plan today was to marathon watch lectures online for our Magna Carta and classical music classes. That is, until I spied this on Facebook at about 9:45 a.m. ...  

Well, that's a game changer. Who wouldn't drop everything for a pack of Seahawks' Skittles?! ;)

We all hurriedly showered and hopped into the car. We were parking out front of Safeco Field, just south of CenturyLink stadium, where the Seahawks Pro Shop is, by 10:25. I thought it would be better to park a bit further away and hot foot it in, rather than circle CenturyLink, looking for parking. Glad we did that, as on our way out, we saw dozens of people getting ticketed for panickedly parking illegally. For Skittles. . 

We could see there was a line of a couple hundred people already, but I told the kids I liked our odds, based on how many security people there were and where they were standing, and where the 'cattle' fences were. 

This shot shows where we were and where we had to get. The blue arrow is pointing to the Pro Shop, where the Skittles station was.

Everyone in line was friendly and chatty and a few minutes before 11, when distribution was supposed to start, the line started moving at decent pace, and we were seeing folks walking away, Seattle Mix Skittles in hand!

My compliments to the Skittles team. They were friendly and efficient and made lots of people happy today.

CJ and Annabelle were pretty pleased when they got the golden ticket, so to speak.

In addition to the Extra Special Magical Skittles, we each got a pack of regular (red wrapper) Skittles, a groovy Skittles headband, and some eye 'black' (er, rainbow) patches. Sweet!

I'm so glad we shifted gears at the last second and decided to go down to the stadium on super short notice. Another fun Super Bowl XLIX memory made!

And if we were so inclined, we could have turned a tidy profit from our field trip. When I checked this afternoon, the Super Bowl XLIX Skittles were going on eBay for over $100 a pack. But we're not in it for profit. It's for love of the game. We gave Rick and Ken each a pack, a headband and some under eye patches, and we can't wait to eat our pack of Skittles come Sunday. :)

OH MY: We did managed to do more than gather collector candy today. We listened to several lectures for our classical music class covering music written in Monasteries and Convents in the Middle Ages, including the chants written by Hildegard of Bingen.

We learned about Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame, dance music of the courts back in the day, humanism in music, the musical instruments and dances of Middle Ages and Renaissance, the advent of the a cappella motet, and the Reformation and Counter-Reformation movement.

The eye-popper of the day, however, was learning that women weren't allowed to sing in the Catholic church back then, and so what to do about high parts in chorales? There were three options, said our professor: Male falsettos, young choir boys, and castratos. 

Professor Church talked a little bit about castratos, and noted that Alessandro Moreschi (1858 – 1922) was Sistine castratos. Below, is a photo of his from 1904.

We listened to a vintage recording of a 40-something Moreschi singing "Ave Maria."

It was haunting, to say the least. After the lecture was over, I asked the kids if they knew why the singers were called castratos.  

Let's just say they were NOT aware, and after I explained it to them, CJ blurted, "Pass me the mind bleach."

Indeed.

SOIL SCIENCE: Early morning West Coast launch tomorrow, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in  California. Up, up and away will be SMAP, or the Soil Moisture Active Passive mission for NASA. Once it's deployed, SMAP will produce global maps of soil moisture, which will help improve understanding of Earth's water and carbon cycles and our ability to manage water resources.

The kids and I have watched a couple of press conferences about the project. Interesting and valuable information will come from SMAP. The orbiting observatory will measure the amount of water in the top 2 inches of soil on the entire Earth surface. This data is vital as, the topsoil layer is the one in which the food we eat grows and where other vegetation lives.
This video has lots more info.