The Year at a Glance

The last day of what has been a truly extraordinary, fun, satisfying and surprising year, one that somehow has stood out from the crowd, a time when various threads of my life’s direction came together in my personal multi-colored dream-cloth and revealed a design both meaningful (to me) and beautiful. What stands out?

• Taught Orff workshops in San Francisco, Oakland, Oregon, Michigan, New Orleans, Oklahoma, New Jersey and Ohio. I crossed the Northern Border and taught in Toronto, Vancouver and Niagara Falls, Ontario, crossed the Southern Border to teach in Mexico City and flew across oceans to teach in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona) and Ghana, in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou), Thailand and India. Four continents, a few thousand teachers and the satisfaction of passing on what works well with children in music classes. Just about everywhere, the additional perk of renewing treasured friendships and initiating new ones.

• Recorded and produced first CD: Boom Chick a Boom: Jazz for All Ages with Doug Goodkin & the Pentatonics. Performed with the group at various local schools, the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse and the prestigious SF Jazz Center.

• Finished teaching my 43^rd year at The San Francisco School and began my 44^th.

• Wrote two-drafts of my 9^th book Teach Like It’s Music and one draft of my 10^th Music From Five Continents.

• Received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Orff Schulwerk Association for my many years of service in Orff training.

• Spent some 30 intense delightful days on six different occasions with my children and grandchildren in their home town of Portland, here in San Francisco, on the shores of Lake Michigan and the beaches of Hawaii.

• Wrote some 344 posts this year, 2244 in the eight years of this blog, hit over 402,000 Page Views with 202 Followers.

Like I said, a truly extraordinary, fun, satisfying and surprising year. I’d be less than honest if I didn’t take some pride in the way my painstaking efforts over years and years have borne fruit and appeared to bring some fun and pleasure to, and some recognition from, others. The reward is always simply in the feeling of good work well done, but it helps when the world takes notice and affirms it. 

Grateful for it all and may 2019 bring more of the same!