I just found your blog as I was meandering through improv themes and the like on the web. I’m eager to read through your post history and very much look forward to each of your future posts.

Feel free to come on over to visit my blog, www.tedwordsblog.com, to see what I’ve got going on. I’m using my sabbatical year from my regular teaching gig to explore the interplay between contemplative practice (mindfulness, meditation, shared silence, artmaking, etc.), improvisational theater, positive reinforcement training, and alternative assessments. The central inquiry: what makes for courageous, creative and collaborative learning?

Thanks for doing what you’re doing here. Again, I look forward to diving in further.

Warmly, Ted

I am in Owen Sound about 200km north-west of Toronto, on the edge of cottage country, one of the last places in Ontario to still host a city-sponsored community band (who share many of my pragmatic attitudes to societal music, see http://blog.teledyn.com/the-eternal-golden-band) and one of the very few municipalities who allow unlicensed public music on their streets, so we’re a good match.

I don’t consider myself a teacher per se, although Eric McLuhan tells me that in his dad’s day teachers didn’t lecture, lecturers lectured, teachers were there to guide you to asking better questions so as to streamline your self-study; back in the 30′s, students who attended classes were looked on with suspicion, as an ardent student wouldn’t have time for classes! I like that model: I’m only their Sherpa guide. I fully expect most of them will get lured into the music machines and its promises of fame and glory, despite my warnings, but I’m hoping they will remember that crazy old guy they knew as kids and stop now and then to ponder what I’d said and done. I guess all teachers hope that.

I consider it partly my honour to lead these kids into what I see as a truer jazz tradition, and partly my social responsibility as a matter of cultural survival — Marshall Allen tells us that if we want a better world, we need to make a better music, and Plato also warns us how changing the modes of the music invariably changes the structure of government; we’ve seen change in Owen Sound since we started gifting our sounds on the street market, we’ve upped the ante for other street musicians and challenged the local gigging jazz players to rethink their distancing themselves from the people by gated halls (they occasionally sit in and have to admit our steam-punk jazz is a blast to play) — Sun Ra tells us the world is falling apart because the musicians are untrue to themselves, neglecting their shamanic duty; by volunteering to play charity and public events other musicians wouldn’t touch, we’ve also upped the ante for the politics of ordinary citizens working together without regard for costs or rewards, it’s like a stone thrown into a pond, the ripples keep going out — I also get paid the same as the kids, we each get an equal share of the busking booty it’s barely my mall-shopping cafe coffee money, but the real payback is that its the best band I’ve ever been in, we’re making a difference, and its the best job in the world

yes, lets do keep the discussions going! as you can tell, I love talking about my work (not many ask, many who do quickly glaze over and abruptly walk away — I’m always eager for new dialogue and new ways to advance the science of what I’m doing.