Mailbag: “Think of the Children”

November 06, 2007

Dear Michael,

During a reception after last nights local Cathedral of the Madeleine Eccles concert here in Salt Lake City, the conversation turned to Pipedreams and future fundraising efforts. Locally Pipedreams is aired at 9 p.m. For some people it is too early for some too late, as often is the case.

My Suzuki organ students ages 5-14 don’t have a chance to hear it since most of them need to be in bed by then…and the computer is just not the same. So my alternative right now is to encourage them to watch the ‘Spoken Word’ broadcast in the hopes of hearing and seeing the organ.

Walter Rudolf, General Manager of KBYU FM suggested throwing everyone in a room and whoever comes out on top gets to decide what time to make the program available, …I am not sure I want to be responsible for causing an upset. It did however trigger a different thought.

What is the objective of Pipedreams for the adults? What about a mini 5 minute Pipe Dreams for kids ? Maybe during the daytime hours on Sunday or Monday. . . . perhaps the timing is up to each station?

On occasion I have accidently caught what I thought was Classics for Kids and don’t know enough about it, their funding, or if it includes anything about the pipe organ. From the Top seems to highlight the achievement of the kids more than giving historical info, such as with the other two programs.

AGO is trying to encourage young people to be interested in the organ, through POE’s, videos and suggested school programs. Some of that is very cumbersome to achieve and does not reach enough children fast enough. Would a 5 minute mini program on organs, geared to elementary age kids be a good bridge towards the more experienced organ music connoisseur? This could ‘groom’ them to enjoy the ‘real’ thing. Just as we teach the little once early in Suzuki to catch their interests before they get too busy with school activities. Having them use adjustable pedal extension so that when they are grown everything will fall easily into place.

The saying: “They don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care” applies to mini organ students in training, when they realize the public really cares that they are studying now, which in turn can be a great encouragement to the days when studies are a little tougher.

I hope this made some sense, in this brain storm.

Looking forward to your response,
Ingrid Hersman

 

Ingrid,

Your idea about ‘pipedreams for kids’ is a good one…which would probably require as much time (to do it right!) as it takes to produce the entire present program. But is definitely is worth our consideration…possibly as a podcast or download (kids use the internet much more than old folks).

Don’t know just how to go about dealing with this…but there is potential there. Perhaps AGO National should be encouraged to work up a pilot. MPR could be the ‘producer’.

Keep poking…you never know when someone/something might respond. :-)

JMB

 

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