mathmom's blog

Amanda has taken to doing math before bed instead of reading stories. I'm not sure I understand, but I do enjoy---we've looked at addition, subtraction, multiplication, roman numerals, symmetry, and so on. If you have any ideas for what to cover next, I'd love to hear them! One night I decided to look at math in music---specifically, some patterns in the violin piece she's been practicing. I told her that we would be doing music math that night, and she said skeptically, " Ooookaaaay ..." She seemed to enjoy the subject. But afterward, she said that she was a bit surprised. "I thought that by math music, you meant something like 'One violin plus one violin equals one banjo, and one banjo plus one banjo equals one guitar!" I guess I know what she thinks of banjos... =)

I was inspired by reading some other blogs to post my favorite Christmas carols. My top three are: Of the Father's love begotten. 5 th century Latin poetry, 11 th century music. Mysterious, eerie, chill inspiring (in a good way =). It really manages to integrate doctrine and music; you get an idea of what questions the Christians were asking at the time from what Prudentius writes about in the hymn. Lo, how a rose ere blooming. 15h century German lyrics, music by Praetorious . I love the rhythms and the harmonies, which can be difficult to sing unless you have training from a young age in the Lutheran church... Hark the herald angels sing. Charles Wesley could certainly write a good tune (that is understatement, by the way). Fun to sing as loud as you can, with trumpets and organ, if you can find them. The girls like Away in a manger and Silent night, probably because those are the ones I can remember all the words to, those are the ones I sing to them at night, and thos...