Muhlenberg is a welcoming environment for a folk musician! I’ve long used songs to introduce or emphasize key points in business classes. Sometimes a narrative or a particular text is exactly the right way to get a point across or convey an issue. There are many songs that have management themes in them … Michael London and I put together a program called “Songs in the Key of M” to play at regional management conferences.
My repertoire of songs about people, work, history, peace and war, love and conflict, and more fits very nicely with the College curriculum. As colleagues in different departments have asked me to play and sing for their students, I’ve put together some sets (below). I also play occasionally at weekly Chapel services.
My good friend, office neighbor, likewise professor of management, and fellow musician prof. Michael London is a frequent musical partner. He also plays songs about management in his classes, using creativity in music and poetry to teach business students, Michael is a superb singer and guitarist, with deep empathy for many kinds of music, and it’s always a pleasure to play with him. He has several CDs featuring his settings of the poetry of Rumi. There is audio and video of us playing on campus on Michael’s site www.michaelondon.net.
Here are some song programs from colleague’s classes:
- For Grant Scott’s course on English Romantic Poetry, I set four poems by WIlliam Blake to music
- For Jeff Pooley’s first-year seminar “1968,” I played folk songs and showed copies of Sing Out! magazine from that year. (Pride of Man, Society’s Child, I AIn’t Marching Any More, When I’m Gone …)
- For Eileen McEwan’s “Myth and Memory in Quebec,” I played Complainte pour Ste. Catherine, Acadian Driftwood, Un Canadien Errant, Abraham, … and talked about Quebec’s place in Canada in my lifetime.
- For Holmes Miller’s first year seminar “Why We Work,” I played songs of work and labor (Get the Bosses off Your Back, One Trick Pony, Jack of All Trades, Millworker, …
- For Holmes’ first year seminar on disasters, well there are just so many good songs about things going wrong: Mary Ellen Carter, Cold Missouri Waters, Murderers on the Cumberland Plateau …
- For Sue Clemens’ many history courses, I’ve played from Woody Guthrie to Steve Earle via Joe Henry and Little Mexico.
