Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Elf Fun

I was going to tell everyone about selling at the flea market yesterday. Which had some very funny moments, but then someone sent me this! It is hysterical. I've already sent it to many of my friends and I hope that they elf themselves and send a link back to me. I just had to share.

I just made a total elf of myself. Check me out by clicking the link
below.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=0310ae40ad245dfb4511c03G06122004

Labels:

Monday, December 18, 2006

Music in our Little House

Melissa Wiley, over at Here in the Bonny Glen, posted a link to a special NPR program, called Arkansas Traveler which focused on Little House on the Prairie Songs. If you've ever listened to any of the books on tape with Cherry Jones reading, you'll remember that she would sing the songs sometimes with a little accompaniment of fiddle. This show combines excerpts from the audio books with songs from a new album called, "The Arkansas Traveler: Music From Little House on the Prairie." You can buy the album on-line at Pa's Fiddle, where they also have information about another album of Little House songs.

Once at the NPR site, I discovered other special programs related to Christmas, including a Handel's Messiah performance at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. On that page are other links to more music. So, this week in our "little house" we will be listening to music from the prairie with heavy influences from Scotland and the beautiful Messiah performed here in Philadelphia in addition to our new favorite Christmas CD, Savior - free song download from that album here.

Technical information for Mac users to download audio from NPR.

If like me, you own a Mac and have been frustrated because you can't get audio from NPR, I've finally found what to do.

Click on the audio link, but don't open it with quicktime, SAVE it to disk. Now, open Text Edit (search your applications folder) and open the SMIL file you just downloaded. You will see just a few lines for text. Look for the link that looks something like this (which is the correct link for the Little House Show): rtsp://real.npr.org:80/real.npr.na-central/holiday/20061201_holiday_arkansas.rm?v1st=5EE6D9AD23EB8779&mt=7

Copy it! Now, open Real Player and then under File, open location. Paste the link into the box and click "open".

Labels: , ,

Friday, December 01, 2006

How to be your own music teacher

I had great intentions of teaching my kids how to read music, of singing, playing recorder, maybe then guitar or piano. I would go at it in fits and starts, but then they feel in love with dance. First one with ballet, then all three with Highland. Music is a part of dance, I figured. They sing at home and church and we can't do everything, can we? They can always start lessons when they are a little older. It was with a little resignation that I finally came to terms with the fact that although I desire my kids to learn to play an instrument, I really can't find the time right now.

Enter Erin the eleven year old who, with no great announcement or proclamation of her intentions, has for the last 5 days been teaching herself to play recorder. No prompting by me, just a curious girl who noticed a recorder and the music and decided to do something about it herself. Not sure how long this will last or exactly what to do about it if anything, but I am enjoying it! If she does keep it up we may have a pretty decent rendition of a carol by Christmas.
Filed under: