I presented my class on Musical Appreciation tonight… to two people. 🙂 Oh well. I was warned that it could be a crowd of two or twenty, so I wasn’t really that bothered by it. In fact, I was relieved, because the class didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Why? Well I’ll tell you…

The class was for a women’s group that’s a part of my church’s social interaction kinda deal. Once a month or so, a bunch of women get together to socialize and learn something. This month it was all about literacy, hence why my topic was musical literacy and appreciation. But, to kick off the night, we all sat down in the same room and ate cake. What better way to start a class, right? I hadn’t eaten much today, was very hungry, and I’ve been a good little girl for the past few weeks, cutting back on sweets. So I ate lots o’ cake. There was just so much to choose from!

Unfortunately, I think I was allergic to something in one of the cakes. It’s impossible to tell what it was because, um, as I said, I ate lots o’ cake. 🙂 But the allergic reaction didn’t really kick in until halfway through my class. My whole face, neck, and upper chest turned bright screaming red. It became kind of difficult to talk just because *everything* itched and I was so uncomfortable. My Mom was part of the group (the uncounted third class member – she’s my Mom, that doesn’t count) and as soon as I finished my spiel she said, “Are you okay? You’re all red!” She rushed to find me some benadryl, and thankfully one of the dutiful mommies in one of the other rooms had some on hand. I’m back to being my usual pale, ghostly-white self, but I still itch like mad. Ugh. I’m one Kathy Bates short of misery!

Other than having an allergy attack, the class went pretty well. My biggest fear was boring people, honestly. I’m still not sure if I did or not, but oh well. At least the ladies said they enjoyed it. I’ll probably end up posting my lesson on the blog because, well, it took me a ridiculously long time to research and prepare, and I ended up being crunched for time so I skipped half of it. Plus, only two people! So I’m going to post it here once I edit it down a bit – it was, after all, part of a religious class. I’ll edit it a bit and keep it to the science and history.

Anyway. Afterwards my Mom said it was practically a dissertation and I should save it if I’m ever required to write an essay on early 20th century music and the development of modern American culture. I’m pretty proud of it, I think I did a pretty decent job of summing up the influence of jazz and blues on the world today. I also had pretty little pictures of all the artists I focused on, but wouldn’t you know it, I was so distracted by the itching that I forgot to use them. Whoops. I felt pretty stupid about that afterwards.

I didn’t even end up really using the CD I burned. I think I was way over-prepared. It seems I’m horrible at judging how to project how long something will be. Silly me, I stuck to the old stickler of the screenwriting industry, one minute per page. I completely forgot that, duh, that minute per page rule also includes loads of direction that’s going on at the exact same time as the dialogue.

To answer Renee’s posted question about what was on the CD I burned for the class, here’s the playlist:


Louis Armstrong – La Vie En Rose


Billie Holiday – Solitude


Glenn Miller & Johnny Desmond – Long Ago and Far Away


Charlie Parker – Cool Blues


Antonio Carlos Jobim – Luiza (one of the absolute most romantic songs I have *ever* heard)


Bing Crosby & Grace Kelly – True Love (another heart-melting number)


Sammy Davis, Jr – Yes, I Can


Dean Martin – Return to Me


Frank Sinatra – One For My Baby


Frank, Dean, and Bing – Style

It might seem from the CD that I focused on the Rat Pack a lot. They weren’t as prominant in the lesson as it may seem, I was just trying to condense it a bit. And, I’ve been appalled lately by how many people under the age of thirty know absolutely *nothing* about the classic crooners. It’s completely unfathomable to me that someone could go through life not having a clue who Frank Sinatra is. Actually, I knew a 28-year-old once who had never heard of Fred Astaire. That’s preposterous to me. Frank, Fred, all those guys, they’re the foundation of American entertainment. They’re world icons now, for goodness sake! So I focused on them in the lesson, since I was told I’d most likely be teaching this class to a bunch of 20-somethings.

The rest of the lesson focused on lots of other people, including Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, etc. Actually, I was lucky enough to combine Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington on the CD since I happened to have an Mp3 of her singing ‘Solitude’ – one of my favorite Duke Ellington numbers.

The best part about the lesson, that really made me feel like I accomplished something, came from the first segment where I explained the uncontrollable physical responses to music. I quickly summed up how it alters our heartrate, brainwaves, respitatory rate, and even how profoundly music affects our emotional state. The funniest bit was when I asked, “Would you eat this?” and held up a really hideous picture of mold-encrusted strawberries. Then, “Would you drink this?”, to which I showed a picture of a cup of coffee that was so moldy it had what looked like a gigantic iceberg covering the surface of the liquid. Then I said, “Then why would you let this into your mind?” and I showed a picture of Christina Aguilera in a particularly disgusting, trampy Vesace ad. It’s no big secret that I loathe Christina, Britney, and the like. They’re obviously talentless who pride themselves in being whore-iffic “role models” for young girls. Even if you don’t agree with me that they’re immoral or nasty, science has already shown that such influences on preteenagers is so profound that it’s altering their body clocks, pushing them into early puberty and messing with their hormonal balances. If you have any doubt, I have a pretty disturbing article from Time Magazine that I can show you that illustrates my point perfectly. I used this in my lesson to simply ask the question, “Why?” Why, when we have so many good, talented musicians in this world, do we give our attention to such talentless attention-seekers? Honestly, I think it’s just laziness. (Sorry, my soapbox keeps getting bigger and bigger, doesn’t it? But I don’t feel like quitting yet, I want a good rant…) People eat up what publicists tell them to eat up; people support the likes of Christina Aguilera not because her music is really good, but because they’re told she’s “hip”, she’s “cool”, she’s – that dirtiest of all advertising dirty words – “edgy”. Grow up. She’s none of these things, she’s a crack whore whose voice is digitally altered so she’ll at least sound decent. Britney Spears has prided herself on being a pedophile’s dream, doing stripteases before she was even legal. If you want good music, look for it. If you won’t eat moldy food, why listen to moldy music? It’s going to have the same ill effect on your body, you just may not notice it right away.

So, I got through just the straight science of what music can do to your body, then moved on to the basic modern foundations of today’s music – the jazz explosion of the early 20th century. After all of that, when the class was finally over, this blonde woman in the class looked down on the floor and said sheepishly, “I need to get rid of my rap. I won’t even let my children listen to that, why should I?” She went on to explain how she could feel the difference it made in her body, how angry it made her, how stressed out she felt. But she never really recognized how it affected her heart rate, and that she could feel the difference in how her brain functioned. It was remarkable – all it took was explaining to her what was going on with her heart to convince her that hey, maybe rough music has a rough effect on you. And maybe that’s not so good to surround yourself with constantly.

Okay, soapbox speech done. I’m out of the closet – I hate the Blonde Bimbo Brigade. So be it. 🙂 If you have a problem with that, tough nookies.

In happier news, guess who called me today? Mr. Producer-Man, Dean Love!! He called me just after I woke up, which was very convenient (and somewhat spooky…) He repeated how much he loves the Count idea, and we talked about what we could do with it. He went off on this little spree about how cool it would be to cover the real history of Dracula and Romania, and really open the country up, then went on and on about how much fun we could have with the show, all of the cute little situations we could find ourselves in while filming. He sounded really excited about it. And, to top it all off, we only have one month to wrap up the idea to have it ready to be pitched at some big meeting in Cannes, but despite this serious time crunch, Dean still really wants to work on it. That’s very reassuring to me, shows he has real faith in it. I trust him enough that if he has faith in it, I know it’ll be successful.

So the next step is to talk to the Count himself. I emailed his assistant today to try and arrange for an interpreter so I can call the Count and pitch the idea to him. I can’t imagine he’d say no – it’s a great investment that requires absolutely no money on his part at all. I don’t see how there’s a downside for him. He even seems like just the personality type that would eat this kind of thing right up. If I don’t hear back from the email soon, I may just go ahead and call since I already have his number. Trouble is, he only speaks German, and I only speak English. Know anybody in the Washington, DC area who can speak both languages and wants to be oh so very kind and help me out? I’d be most appreciative, yup, that I would.

I’m miserable. I’ve got a headache, I want to stop itching, and I’m bored. And I’d better wrap this blog up, cause it’s already waaaaay too long. Plus, I think I’ll get in trouble on some search engines for saying those words about Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears… oh well. 🙂 Had to be said, I’m tired of not saying it, dang it. I’ve had to see one too many pictures of that kiss between Britney and Madonna and I just can’t take it anymore! Pop culture stinks.