Here we are at the beginning of another decade, and this promises to be an exciting one. Mary Ellen and I have just completed our upgrade to DoveSong.com, with a full explanation, and unveiled our new direction in music education: Don Robertson's Musical Kaleidoscope. Next, we will have the pleasure of producing the new music videos many of our fans have been waiting for. If you subscribe to our two YouTube channels, you will be notified as new videos are released:
Musical Kaleidoscope Videos
Don Robertson Music Videos
I hope to have the final DonRobertsonMusic.com website online this year. However, my music is available on the current single-page temporary website. We will soon be announcing the release of the CD version of my third digital symphony "Celestial Voyager."
Our message is spreading. My free, online book "Music Through the Centuries" is finding its way into college classrooms (via the Dovesong.com website). We feel that the time is at hand. Many people are looking for a new direction in music.
Our new MusicalKaleidoscope.com website (along with its Facebook application) is a very simple way for me to continue to provide materials for music education. It is, and will remain, just a single page (keeping life simple). On this page I will be providing playlists, both video and audio, as well as the Studies in Music Composition that I have been preparing since 1971. You can be informed of new additions by subscribing here:
http://www.scribd.com/DonRobertson
My studies are prepared using a method that I have been developing over the past 30 years. Music students for too long have been taught to follow "rules" created by music theorists, rather than studying the composer's scores directly. The great composers did not follow rules. They learned by studying the masters that proceeded them, just as we can do today. Only now, everything is at our fingertips. We don't need to find orchestras and musicians to perform the music in order to hear it, and neither do we need to travel to other cities to study scores. Every technique, every solution to contrapuntal problems, every aspect of orchestration, harmonization and form is available through the study the scores. We can observe for ourselves what techniques the master composers used in the creation of their masterworks. Over the years that I have been prepared study scores, I have developed a technique of upgrading the score with highlighters to further enlighten us about the process used by the composer. These studies can be used by beginning and advanced students as well. This is how I teach myself, and there is never a reason to stop learning. Studying music in a university is a great start, but a mere beginning only.
I also believe that it is time to change the direction of music. The Internet is now providing us with, until now unthinkable, access to all of the great music of the world's cultures, throughout many periods of time. The idea that music only exists through the "Top 40", or only in a single genre is dying away quickly as the gifted among the younger generations become wise to the world of their parents: a world of hip-hop and angry rock music, where there was no access to great music either at home or at school. New talent will emerge with new music… music filled with meaning and emotion, music that heals, and music that supports strength of character.
And now, the greatest music and book libraries ever assembled are now becoming available at the fingertips. There are two very, very important giant online libraries available now:
1) http://imslp.org - The Petrucci Music Library contains the most valuable music-score resource ever assembled. It is a gold mine of important scores waiting to be downloaded free of any charge for study and illumination.
2) http://archive.org - This fantastic resource is divided into sections: video, live music, audio and texts. Through the text library, many important music books, long out of print, can be downloaded free of charge. Another feature of this amazing web site is the "Way Back Machine." Here you can find past versions of important websites. For example, our Dovesong.com is represented on the Way Back Machine here:
DoveSong.com on the "Way Back Machine"
You can see our DoveSong website as it existed as early as April 12, 2000. Many features that are no longer on DoveSong.com, such as the controversy about Christian heavy metal music from 2002, can be found on the Way Back Machine: information that I removed from the website in 2002 because those opposed to my opinions began cyber-attacking DoveSong.com and sending me death threats. I decided to "lay low" for a while (whew!).
I wish each and every one of you a very prosperous and important new year, and new decade. Problems in the world are not going to go away and life, in many ways, will become more difficult. Those of us who are working to become more aware and who are growing in the reality will be called upon to help bring about change.
Bless Us All!
Don Robertson
January 1, 2010
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