Cliff Yankovich
The first part of this piece might be subtitled “Rebel Without a Clue” and has to do with the regrets that plague me for not capitalizing on a musical education that was right in my own house. My hope in sharing it is that some young person somewhere might read it and be motivated to take full advantage of a musical opportunity that might be staring he or sh...
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Cliff Yankovich
The Family Bredin
Cliff Yankovich
Who better to speak to the power of music and music education than Eric and Lindsay Bredin? They are both professional educators AND they are both musicians with steady paying gigs. NOTE: neither of them are music teachers per se, but for the Bredins music and education are so intertwined it would be pointless to try and separate them. Julie and I have know...
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Blues in Schools
Cliff Yankovich
As one of the roving reporters for this blog I got to witness a classic example of How Things Ought To Work recently. With a heads up from Lowell's Harmonica in Chief, Chuck Myers, I sat in on a wonderful example of pretty much everything the Spirit of Harmony exemplifies. Chuck is a member of the West Michigan Blues Society (http://www.wmbs.org/) and he let m...
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Joel Crouse: Constant Music and Change
Cliff Yankovich
Joel Crouse and I go waaay back - like back to the mid-1970s in high school when we saw Todd/Utopia, Genesis, Lou Reed, David Bowie and other great concerts for $7.50 to $15 per ticket. (We even got to see Genesis perform the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway right before Peter Gabriel went off on his own.) On the days when I got to drive the family beater to scho...
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Cliff’s Story
Cliff Yankovich
I am 56 years old and was lucky enough to go to school when music played a fairly large part of public school curriculum. Here are some highlights of the teachers and programs that helped shape my life and appreciation of music.
Mr. Mooney was my teacher in 5th grade at University Heights Elementary in Tucson, AZ in 1968. We had him all day for the three Rs, bu...
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An Interview with Jim Fox
Cliff Yankovich
I recently had the opportunity to get some insight on musical education from one of my favorite drummers, Jim Fox, who put his training to work with a couple of his friends in The James Gang.
Like many of us, Jim went to school at a time when musical education was a regular part of public school curriculum. He remembers a teacher coming around to the various ro...
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Parker Liu: A Testimony to the Power of Music Education
Cliff Yankovich
Parker Liu is a 22 year old working on his Doctorate in Pharmacy at Ferris State University in Michigan. He started playing the violin as an 8 year old and added the cello three years later. He played both through high school and has concentrated on the cello since graduating. Did I mention he has a way cool carbon fiber cello? In addition to the killer appearan...
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