Music and More: Sara Penny Blog

  Bit by Bit to Create Art  By Sara Penny, CCAC Vice President       “With a big task, we don’t get overwhelmed. We break it down, and those become our milestones. That is the engineering mindset,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM CEO. This struck me because in violin teaching we strive for “one point lessons” where we focus on just one technical challenge such as posture or bow hold or getting the second finger in tune. This is more effective instead of expecting the student to make multiple corrections all at once. Learning something like vibrato takes months for many students. We have to balance the violin on the shoulder so the left hand can be relaxed. We have to feel the motion of the undulations to mimic the vibrato of the singing voice. We have to adjust the width depending on the intensity of the musical phrase. The same for notereading. This takes a dedicated step by step procedure and lots of repetition. Sometimes the math brain skills need to develop be...

by Sara Penny, CCAC Vice President for Iron County Today Authors create worlds to explore, and in some cases, survive. An older book that has stuck in my mind is the adventures of a ship crew that got stranded in Antarctica in 1915. The leader Sir Edgar Shakleton has become a case study in business schools for leadership in crisis. He had unwavering optimism with a heavy dose of reality. He prioritized his crew over the mission and the 27 men managed to survive in brutal conditions. My favorite part was when they sailed to the wrong side of the island to find rescuers and had to sled down a mountain. When things were going badly he suggested the "Need to put the footprint of courage into the stirrup of patience."  Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage  by Alfred Lansing will make you appreciate your warm home and hot meals that are much better than boiled seal.  A more recent book is the  Wild Dark Shore  by Charlotte McConaghy. Layers of myst...