Disclaimer: This is transcribed using AI. Expect (funny) errors.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:00] I’m Mindy Peterson and this is Enhance Life with Music, where we explore the ways music makes our lives better. My guest today is joining me from New York City. Carolyn Sloan is an award-winning author, educator, composer, and entrepreneur. She has a unique flair for breaking down complex musical concepts into clear descriptions and narratives that have been pivotal in introducing both children and adults to various regions of the vast world of music. Carolyn writes music for theater, television, and children, and is the founder of an online education technology company. Welcome to Enhance Life with Music, Carolyn.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:00:43] Hi Mindy. Thank you so much for having me.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:45] It’s great to have you here. Carolyn, your most recent book was published recently. Congratulations. It’s called Welcome to the Opera. It is written primarily for children, but it is for opera lovers of all ages. And I’ll add, music lovers of all ages. I’m a prime example of an adult that this book is wonderful for. I love music, obviously, and I started taking piano lessons in first grade. I continued throughout high school and college. I was a classically trained pianist, but I really was not exposed to opera until I was an adult, and when I was exposed to it, I found it enough of a distinct genre that even as a musician, I didn’t totally feel like I got it all. There are so many terms and words and concepts that I kind of had this vague understanding of, but didn’t totally know what they meant or what they were. So when I read your book, I was like, ah, now I get it. So I love this book because it puts the words and concepts that are commonly used in opera into plain English. And just as a couple of examples in your book, you say an opera is a story told through music, libretto are the words performers sing to tell the story. So I love how this book just kind of demystifies these words that aren’t part of our common vernacular, even for musicians in the 21st century. And you point out that the opera genre dates back to the 1500s, which can explain a little bit of the vagueness around some of those terms that has been around for so long, but aren’t maybe commonly used anymore. So before I take over the conversation, just gushing about your book, well, let’s have you tell us more about the book, who it’s for, and what your goals were in creating the book.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:02:37] Well, I think you’re right to say that the book really is for music lovers of any age. Um, what I aim to do and what I, I love about what people tell me they enjoy about the book, is that it really can serve children as young as 2 or 3 years old, because they love to just push the buttons and hear the music come out of the book.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:00] Yes, and I’ll just point out, for listeners who aren’t aware, there is a strip of buttons on the right hand side. It’s an interactive book where listeners, kids, adults can push the button and hear examples of things like finale, uh, baritone, tenor, bass, soprano, things like that. So it’s really helpful to give audio aural examples of what we’re reading about in the book.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:03:24] Yeah, it’s a way of making, um, when you say demystifying these concepts in opera, it’s a way of making these concepts concrete, right? Because music can be very abstract, as you know, and you can talk about something, but if you’ve never heard what it is that we’re talking about, it’s hard to conjure that up in your imagination. As an example, if someone said to you, oh, I really like that red car or that red coat, and you had never seen the color red, or you’re colorblind and you cannot see the color red, that does not mean anything to you, right? It is a descriptor or it is a way of saying something, but it is not a concrete example of what it is that you want that person to see. So when I was raising my son and he was very small, I was reading him books and there were many books on music that, you know, we bought or brought home from the library, and many of them did not have any music that went with these music books. Um, and they would talk about a violin or they would talk about, you know, jazz, or they would talk about monk or a composer or, you know, and but he didn’t he had never heard these things.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:04:37] So then I had to go and find examples of these things to go and play him. And, you know, look, we all know moms have, you know, 400,000 things to do. We do not have time to do this. So I the immediacy of having something in the book was really attractive to me. So welcome to the opera. As in the other books in this series like welcome. To the symphony and welcome to jazz, our ways of introducing wonderful music to the general public from like ages three all the way till 99, to talk about music in ways and give examples of these things to, um, improve people’s understanding and by improving their understanding, improving the level of joy that they can receive in listening to this music. Because the more that you’re familiar with something and the more that you understand about something, you know, it reaches you on deeper and deeper levels. And that is my mission, really, because I was raised as a classical pianist, too. Um, I played since I was seven, and then I got really into singing and voice, and I was introduced to opera simply because when I was studying, there weren’t voice programs in, um, in conservatories across the country at that particular time that specialized in any other kind of voice training, except opera.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:06:00] So I, um, my mom loved to listen to opera. Like, I can hear her listening to Carmen now. Like, you know, when I think about her, um, and I think opera just needs to be demystified because a lot of people kind of think it’s very elitist or they, you know, they don’t think it’s going to be something that they’re going to enjoy. But really, the more that you are exposed to something and this is the secret, I think, to learning anything, the more you can find things in that genre or that subject that you’re not familiar with, that you will go, oh, that’s interesting. Let me learn more about that or let me learn more about that. You know, it’s exposure is key. And so I thought we need to expose kids, especially with the shortage of really great music programs in schools right now. Because as we know, when budgets are cut, it’s usually the first thing because they think it’s quote unquote not necessary. Music does so much for us and so much for the brain. Absolutely. Um, and I won’t, um, I won’t go on a whole sidetrack of that, but we can talk about that maybe if it comes up later. Right.
Mindy Peterson: [00:07:03] And I’ll link to some other episodes, because I’ve had many guests talking about those benefits to the brain and children’s minds, the developing child’s mind. So I’ll link to those in the, in the show notes. Great. Yeah. Well, that’s a fabulous. And you mentioned how opera can sort of come across some to some as an elite or elitist type of mentality. And I think some of the phrases and concepts, words that are used in opera that are unfamiliar to many people can be a little intimidating because it sounds elite or, um, like, wow, I feel like I should know what this means because I’m a musician and I’m an educated person. But what exactly is a recitative? You know, something like that. And you don’t. You don’t want to be, you know, the the dude who’s like, uh, what exactly is that? So.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:07:52] Well, first, first I’ll pronounce it. Um, it’s recitative.
Mindy Peterson: [00:07:54] Uh, there you go. See?
Carolyn Sloan: [00:07:58] Um, yeah. See, but that’s okay, because I don’t think anybody would necessarily know what recitative is, but what’s. But then you can once you can define it and then you recognize what it is when you hear it, it’s, you know, it just makes it that much more enjoyable because you’re familiar with it. Um, and, and that’s what we don’t understand. Like, pop music is pop music, because let’s be real, you know, a lot of it sounds very similar to everything else. So people, it’s comforting in a sense, because you can recognize it right away. Right. So stuff that’s new takes a minute to digest, you know. Um, um, recitative is, uh, you know, it’s a fancy word for something that is pretty simple, which is singing, that is sounds like conversation, that sounds like talking. It’s not necessarily a refrain, like a chorus. It’s something that’s just, um, a conversation, like just talking words like you. You wouldn’t make necessarily an aria like a song out of, you know. Hello. What are you looking for? Who are you looking for? Um. Is the king here? You know, I’ve come to see this. That’s the kind of stuff that they’re going to put in, like recitative. You know, that’s just kind of talking. Sure. Right.
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:09] And that makes me think of the popularity of Hamilton. Have you seen any kind of resurgence in interest in opera as a result of the incredible popularity of Hamilton?
Carolyn Sloan: [00:09:21] Well, it’s interesting you say that, um, obviously Hamilton is like one of or the most popular musical of all time, aside from like shows like wicked and and other big blockbusters like that. Um, but if you think about Phantom of the opera, right, that was kind of putting, um, opera sort of in the public eye and in the, the public site Geist, if you will, or, you know, the ecosystem of, you know, popular opera because, uh, all of it was sung. But if you think of shows like Jesus Christ Superstar, that’s also technically an opera because it’s a rock opera, but it’s an. Opera because everything is sung right. So we don’t usually refer to a musical that’s on Broadway as an opera. But technically, if you’re talking about storytelling through music and it’s sung through, you could refer to it as an opera. Mm.
Mindy Peterson: [00:10:14] Well, I’m just going to mention a couple other things that I really loved about the book. Something as simple as the illustration showing a female conductor. There aren’t a lot of female conductors, and I love that you show in the illustration a female conductor. You have a lot of really great resources right there in the book for educators and parents. There’s a why sing section at the end that again, as you mentioned, we could have another episode on that topic. Why sing? But there’s some really great information there for parents and educators at the end. There’s also a meet Mozart segment. The the book is kind of uses as an anchor. Mozart’s The Magic Flute. And so the segment at the end explains more about Mozart with that Meet Mozart segment, there’s a glossary with soap opera words and definitions. All of those things are really helpful, and I just also want to read a couple quotes from the book. One is from spiritual services to rock concerts. Music brings us together because songs can touch us in ways that ordinary words cannot. And that is such a foundational concept and so true. I mean, music definitely expresses things that words cannot. It reaches us in ways that words cannot. Another quote that I really liked is welcome to the opera is an introduction to a profound musical art form, but it’s also an invitation to imbue your life with singing. And then it gives some ideas for when and how to do that. Let song be a part of your life and your children’s life. Let it be an outlet and a point of connection. It’s fun to sing and it’s a profound experience to sing with others. So love those quotes as you mentioned. Yeah, as you mentioned, this is the third book in your welcome to series. There’s two other titles, Welcome to the Symphony and Welcome to Jazz. Tell us a little bit about those books and what you want listeners to know about those.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:12:20] Sure. Um, Welcome to the Symphony was the first, um, uh, because I had been teaching at the time, um, and I had asked my fourth graders if they had ever been to a symphony. Um, and even though I was teaching an independent school in Brooklyn, and even though most of those children are from families with means. Right. So it wasn’t like a cost factor that they couldn’t go, um, and there is a range. There’s always a range, you know, like, you don’t always I mean, it doesn’t have to cost you a lot of money to go hear a symphony, but, um, only three out of 53 had ever been to a symphony concert. Oh, wow. Symphonic concert. And, um, I was like, that is just crazy. I have to how am I going to how am I going to combat this? So that combined with the idea that music is, um, abstract and needs concrete examples, I kept thinking about this idea for an interactive book. And so welcome to the Symphony was the first one. It uses Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, you know, da da da da as the symphony to show different examples of concepts and musical concepts and also to showcase all the instruments in an orchestra. So kids get to hear what a violin playing the theme sounds like, what a viola sounds like playing the theme. What a cello sounds like playing the theme. We have an oboe. We have the oboe solo. And what’s what I particularly like about the book is that it doesn’t only play you these things sort of in a vacuum, it gives contextual information to it.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:13:58] So in other words, you get to hear an oboe, but you get to hear an oboe play the theme that it plays in the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. So when you’re listening to it, you understand how it fits into the greater whole. And I think that’s really important when you’re teaching is always to give context, because then kids understand it’s like a puzzle, like like it just makes a whole lot more sense when you’re looking at and putting all the pieces together. And, um, I found that kids just loved a pushing the buttons. I would I would test it, I would bring pages in as I was reading to my classroom, and I would say, and I would read. And if anybody would lose focus or lose engagement or they stopped looking at the pictures, I was like, oh, I got to work on this because it’s not it’s not working. This page is not working. So yeah. So that’s welcome to the symphony. And then welcome to jazz, which is a completely different idiom, of course, because symphonic music of course is more, um, Western Europe. Right. It’s more European. That’s where classical music came from, right? All the instruments to write were invented in Italy for the strings and, um, Belgium and different places for other for wind instruments. Anyway, that that learning the history of all that is super important to. I wanted something specifically American for Welcome to Jazz.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:15:22] And of course jazz came out of music that was being played in Congo Square down in New Orleans from, um, you know, enslaved people. And, you know, the history is not fun to talk about because it’s, it’s it’s it’s hard to accept and it’s hurtful in a lot of ways. But I think it’s important to know. But what’s miraculous about it, and what I love about it, is that this incredibly complex, beautiful art form came out of the pain of what it was like to be enslaved. It’s I mean, it’s a really interesting story, but the book itself does not talk about that as much as it just talks about the music. There’s a obviously, I had to refer to the history to enlighten people. I think people don’t understand a lot about jazz either, as much as classical music too. But it was really great to explore this music that is specifically American, right? And it’s part of our American heritage and African Americans specifically. So it uses When the Saints Come Marching In or When the Saints Go Marching In. I should say, um is the song that we use to give context to concepts like improvisation, talking about more of the brass instruments that were in New Orleans at the time. Um, like trumpet. Trombone instruments? Like banjo. Right. Where did the banjo come from? Right. Um, talks about syncopation, which is a really complicated topic to try to talk about in a book. But if you can give an.
Mindy Peterson: [00:17:08] Yeah.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:17:09] Yes, but if you can give an example of syncopation, then it makes it that much easier. Um, and we also talk about and give examples for scatting, um, which is super fun. And I have to say, a lot of children who read the book love the scatting button.
Mindy Peterson: [00:17:24] I bet.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:17:26] So, love the scatting button. I get all these videos from parents of their kids trying to scat, which is the best.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:17:33] I love that. So, um, Art Jackson did the scatting button, so I want to do a shout out to her. It was great.
Mindy Peterson: [00:17:40] I saw on your website that schools and organizations around the country are using your songs as integral components to music curriculums and elementary and middle schools. In my day job, I work a lot with K through 12 music teachers. Can you tell us some more about how schools are using your songs and your books as resources, and as part of their music curriculum?
Carolyn Sloan: [00:18:03] Oh, sure. Well, I first I just want to say a shout out to all the music teachers across the country. Yay for you and thank you for doing the good work, because I absolutely, for over 20 years and I know how difficult it can be and challenging and incredibly rewarding at the same time. But thank you. I just want to say thank you. Ditto teachers in general, but especially music teachers. So, um, the books are an integral part, I think, of music appreciation for a lot of it gives teachers a way in to teach about things that, you know, not so easy to make interactive and interesting for kids sometimes, like you just don’t know how to like, how do I play a symphony for my kids and make it fun, right? You know, how do I talk about jazz or talk about the history of jazz or how do I? So this is just a great diving off point. And I think teachers have really enjoyed using it as such, that this is the they’ll read the book, they’ll talk about the concepts, they’ll play the music. They can you can even attach the music. You can use a smart speaker or use a microphone or something like that, or to amplify the sound. Anyway, um, a lot of teachers have been using it that way in their music appreciation curriculums. And in terms of my songs, well, you know, I was a music teacher for many years, and I had a choir that I was working with, and they were young. They were like second, third and fourth graders. Now, those of you who know what choral music is like, a lot of the great choral music is written for high schoolers or junior high schoolers and above. And the stuff for little kids is it’s like really too babyish a lot of them. And, you know, or or it’s just too hard or it’s not something in their vernacular, meaning they don’t want to sing it.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:56] Okay. Is a lot of that music has it been? Around for a long time and kids have just changed. I mean, today’s ten year old is not the same as a ten year old in the 70s or the 80s.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:20:09] Well, exactly. But I think it started even in the 70s and 80s that kids, you know, with, with media with and computers and, you know, kids have access to so much more information and they and, you know, television, we’re just in a different space right now. So what I did was sort of take the popular song form. And if I knew, for instance, that I wanted kids to learn how to sing in counterpoint, I would write something that was contrapuntal, you know, meaning. And, you know, for those out there that this is unfamiliar vocabulary. Counterpoint is just two different lines of music sung at the same time. So it’s like two separate melodies but sung that fit together, that can be sung at the same time. So I would just create one. I would create a song. I was a songwriter really from the time that I was a teenager. So this is not a skill that I, I have, um, and I just started writing pieces for the kids based on, you know, more popular song forms, but at the same time making them rich with the concepts that they needed to learn, like counterpoint and harmony and, you know, partner songs, singing two different songs at the same time, or, you know, and kids really like them. Not only did the kids like them, but their parents liked them. And so I have probably over 100 that I’ve written for seasons, for school holidays, for Doctor Martin Luther King’s birthday, for to celebrate different things, graduation, to celebrate winter, to celebrate the holidays, to have a million different. I have a song called Holiday Swing, you know. And I started finding that the kids love them. And then my friends who are also music teachers started asking for them, and that’s kind of how it started.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:06] Mmm; and those songs are available in printed score form?
Carolyn Sloan: [00:22:10] Um, yes. Not all of them, but you can reach me through my website and also on my website there. I have a little mini store that has a lot of them there for sale, and so you can buy them there. And J.W. Pepper, actually, the J.W. Pepper catalog also has some of my songs.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:28] Okay. So they’re available in printed format also recorded or no.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:22:34] Yes, a lot of them are recorded. Not all of them are recorded. But um, I would say almost all of them are in printed form.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:40] Okay. And we’ll for sure include your website in the show notes. But just for listeners who want to hear it, tell them where to find you. What’s your website?
Carolyn Sloan: [00:22:48] So my website is Carolyn Slone. Com so it’s Carolyn sloan.com.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:55] Carolyn is spelled I know there’s multiple spellings but go ahead and just spell it.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:22:59] C a r o l y n and Sloan s l o a n no e. So it’s not Carolyn, it’s Carolyn and Sloan without any.
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:13] Got it. Well, I want to hear about your edtech company, but before we jump into that, I know we’ve really been focused on your welcome to series of books, but you also wrote Finding Your Voice A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Singing and Living. What do you want listeners to know about that book before we jump into your online edtech company?
Carolyn Sloan: [00:23:36] Well, actually, that’s sort of a good transition from that book to the company, because I just was thinking about this actually recently, because what I was doing with my voice students many years ago was that I knew that as a singer, what’s different about teaching voice than any other instrument is that the person, the singer, is the instrument themselves. Um, and in order for them to get better, they can’t just blindly follow some pedagogy that you’re going to give them. They really have to experiment and see how that pedagogy sits and works with their own vocal apparatus. So if you’re not testing it and you’re not thinking through things like almost like a scientist, then you’re not going to figure out those things that when you reach a place that like a part in a song that you’re having trouble singing, you won’t be able to figure out exactly why a teacher can try to guess and give you a remedy. But really, it’s the singer that needs to identify what exactly is happening. By zeroing in on what’s happening, most good vocal instructors will be able to say, well, I think this and this and this and this is happening and this is what I think you should do, and try it and then work with the singer. To to fix whatever it is that they’re trying to work on. But if you’re not really being kind of thoughtful and thinking about how you’re actually producing these sounds, you’re not really going to grow. Um, in the same way that you would if you were. And so having.
Mindy Peterson: [00:25:17] That awareness of your own body and probably your own psyche to some extent, too.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:25:24] It’s very much like being it’s mindfulness. Right? It’s being mindful of what it is and how it is that you’re, um, performing. So I thought about I said to someone once, I said, well, you know, when I’m older, like like 80 or 90, you know, I’ll write a book on singing and I’ll talk about how you need to be a warrior, a scientist, a detective, and a spiritual master in order to be a singer. And then literally, the person that I said that to went to someone who they knew sold books to publishers and said, you should talk to Carolyn, because I think she’s got a really good eye and not that’s literally how it happened.
Mindy Peterson: [00:26:10] Good for them. I love that story.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:26:13] Yeah. So, uh, there I was, writing this book way before I had planned to, but that’s all good. And then the reason I so it really is a holistic approach to singing. And it the biggest point in the book that I try to drive home is that you don’t look like anyone else, so you’re not going to sound like anyone else. Like everybody like singers would come to me and say, oh, I want to sing like this person, or I want to sing like Whitney Houston, or I want to sing like Madonna, or I want to sound like this. And I was like, well, you’re not going to. So let’s let’s just get that off the table right now. That’s not happening. Yeah. Yes.
Mindy Peterson: [00:26:55] Love that. And of course, we’ll have links to all these books in the show notes. Tell us about your online edtech company, Teach Me TV. It’s an award winning e-learning platform. Tell us who it’s for, what it offers and why you started it.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:27:11] Yeah, teach me TV is for kids ages 5 to 12. We sell both to schools, after school centers and also to families. I started seeing digital products being used in the classroom when I was still teaching, and a lot of them looked great, but I didn’t find them particularly impactful, meaning that, um, kids were using them. But I didn’t necessarily think that the they were growing that much from using them. And I was sort of curious about that and started doing some research. And, and the thing that I thought was missing was really impactful feedback. You know, it would just be like, you’re wrong, try again. But it wouldn’t tell them how to try again. Also, it wasn’t giving them the kinds of tools and strategies that kids need to have in order to solve problems. It and the reason I said that finding your voice is sort of a good transition to this is because it’s the same kind of principle of, you know, if you really if if you are set on growing and learning, you have to take a certain amount of responsibility yourself in being really engaged and involved in your own learning, even if you’re a kid and to whatever extent you are able. And what that means is, you know, what kind of tools do I need to solve this problem? What do I need to know in order to solve this problem? What it is that what is it that I don’t know? You know, knowing what you know and knowing what you don’t know, a lot of people are not really aware of that. And and to boot, what happens is then when they don’t know, they don’t have the tools or the, the ideas of how, how am I going to get that knowledge? How am I going to learn that, you know, can I learn that? Do I need some help? What kind of help do I need? You know, those kinds of questions are really, really important. And I think if we get kids to ask those kinds of questions, then they can really grow and really learn. You know, it’s absolutely.
Mindy Peterson: [00:29:18] And that’s what turns kids into lifelong learners, too, when they’re not just handed information, but they’re given tools and strategies. It’s that same concept of, you can give a person a fish and feed them one meal, or you can teach them how to fish and feed them for the rest of their lives.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:29:36] Exactly, exactly. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do. But having said that, we know that you need to engage kids first before you’re going to teach them or help them with anything. And so the front facing part of it is all very friendly, interactive, like children’s media looking things, meaning that it’s animated, there’s audio, there’s music we have. Almost everything on the site. So we have math activities, we have language arts activities, we have exercise videos for kids.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:30:10] We have music for kids. A lot of the songs that I’ve written for children are on that site with downloadable lyric sheets, so kids and families can sing along. Um, we have videos about jazz. We have me doing my jazz book, um, reading my jazz book aloud with the New York Youth Symphony Jazz Orchestra, members of the jazz orchestra playing alongside. So to demonstrate concepts. So we have a vast amount of things. We have science too. And also we have downloadable printable sheets so that if you don’t want your kid on the screen the whole time, you can download coloring sheets, you can download puzzles. We want to get kids off of YouTube. I know that’s an uphill battle. Um, and we want to be the antidote to that. We are the anti YouTube. Um, and look, um, you know, if anyone from Google is listening, I’m sorry, but, um, we look, YouTube can be very, very handy for, you know, for adults who are careful and want to research things and we all use it and I use it. But I think for children it can be really harmful. And um, and no matter how many controls you put on it and YouTube kids, I’m sorry, but I think they’re just trying to sell you a lot of things. We do not advertise on MTV, which is why it is a subscription. Okay. Um, so for just, you know, 1099 a month, you can join. It’s pretty reasonable. And if you join for the year, it’s even more reasonable than that. We do not advertise. We don’t collect data. So you’re not going to find that, like, people are like following you around the internet after you use it. We don’t do that. In fact, we don’t even really advertise too much ourselves. So this is the way we sort of get the word out by friendly podcasters like yourself and different interviews, and we go to education conferences and things like that. So.
Mindy Peterson: [00:32:10] Sure. Well, yeah, like you said, YouTube can be a great, great resource for adults who have the discernment to kind of weed through the the junk and the jewels that can be found on there. But yeah, for educators and parents, it’s nice to know that you can sort of you have a platform that you can turn your kids loose on and know that. So they’re not going to be coming across the junk. And not only is it not junk, but it’s stuff that’s really going to be inspiring, that natural desire to learn and igniting that spark and feeding it and teaching them not just information by rote, but really equipping them with those tools and strategies to be pattern spotters and puzzle solvers. And those are skills that transfer to other areas of life, too. And I love how this is, um, it’s not just music, but it really approaches the holistic education of the child. So that’s pretty neat. Wonderful. Okay, well, we’ll definitely have links in the show notes to that as well. Anything else that you want listeners to know about your songs, your music, your books, your edtech company? Before we close things out with the coda, anything that I haven’t already asked you and you want to leave as a parting word before we close things out.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:33:27] Um, you know, you’ve asked a lot of really great questions and given me so much opportunity to talk about so many different aspects of what I do. So thank you very much. I just want to say that, um, I really appreciate it. And the one thing that I would just say is, you know, I’m a mom, too, um, and an educator and a business owner, and I care deeply about the generations that we are raising right now. And I think it’s super important for all of us, educators and parents and business owners and everybody who cares about our kids and our country, to think about what we’re putting in front of children right now. Um, what you put in — not to be cliche — is what you’re going to get. And so I think it’s really important that we work a little harder and search a little harder to put the good stuff in front of our kids. Um, there it’s you cannot you cannot keep them from the world. So I don’t I don’t agree with any kind of banning anything, but I do think it’s really important that we work to put stuff in front of our kids that grows their minds, that gives them good ideas and that supports them in being kind individuals. I think it’s really one of the most important things we can do right now.
Mindy Peterson: [00:34:50] Mm. Do you have any schools who are using. Teach Me TV, and is there a subscription that allows them to use it for their. Students, whether their students are in a classroom or at home. Because I’m thinking of my cousin, for example, she’s a school teacher in a very under-resourced area. And when the school shut down because of Covid, she was worried for these kids lives. Like, are they are they going to survive this? Because she knew what they were dealing with at home? And I’m thinking if the school has a subscription that allows kids to tune into this platform and be learning and have wholesome, nurturing content they can access when they’re not in the four walls of that classroom, they may have parents that aren’t going to force that or enforce them using that versus some other unwholesome platform. But if there’s enough of that spark that’s been ignited in the child, they may choose that.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:35:46] Yes. And I just want to say also to the all the educators out there, we do have school subscriptions and we also sell subscriptions to individual teachers. And and we have a year round discount for teachers. It’s 20% off all the time for a teacher. So all you need to do is tell us that you’re an educator. But what’s really great about our activities is that you can take a link, like just like a URL from our from our site, and you can integrate it in your Google Classroom or whatever learning platform you have, what LMS, the, you know, learning management system, Schoolology or whatever you’re using. You can take that and you can take our link and you can put it in there, and you can recommend different activities based on what it is that you’re teaching, because all of our things are standards aligned. And plus, like I said, we have lots of music and we even have exercise videos. So if you, you know, if it’s if you have ten feet of snow outside and it’s hard for you to get out.
Mindy Peterson: [00:36:51] I’m from Minneapolis. I’m I’ve been there.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:36:54] You can put on an exercise video with your kid and they can do it. And they’re super fun. So there is a way that yes, we are. We sell subscriptions to schools, of course.
Mindy Peterson: [00:37:04] Excellent. Well, Carolyn, as you know, I ask all my guests to close out our conversation with a musical ending, a coda by sharing a song or story about a moment that music enhanced your life. I know you have a song that you’re going to be able to share with us today. Tell us a little bit about the clip of the song that listeners will be hearing next.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:37:24] Sure. Well, you know, I was talking about how I was writing songs for my young chorus at school, and this is one of them. It started actually as a as a kids song. Um, because I wanted to talk about, I said, you know, we have to raise kids to be kind, right? Choose kind. So this was part of that. And it’s also kind of echoes what I like to think about the holidays. Most often, you know, it can become a very kind of commercial venture. The holidays with lots of buying and buying presents. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I like presents just as much as the next person. But, um, I really wanted to talk about, you know, let’s give love instead of, you know, thinking that it’s always about the material, but like, like, let’s give love, let’s give attention, let’s give joy, let’s give things to support people. Let’s give, you know, happiness. Let’s, let’s, let’s support our friends and our neighbors and our kids and, you know, and I think that’s the essence of the holidays. You know, I think that’s what it’s about. Right? So that’s where this song came from. Give Love.
Mindy Peterson: [00:38:34] Love that. Well, I really resonate with that, partly just because of the stage of life that I’m in. My kids are in college, and my husband and I are financially fortunate and comfortable enough that we don’t really need a lot of stuff. And we chose this year. Instead of getting each other a Christmas gift, we decided to rent a place in Florida over the holidays where we would be able to have more time as a family down, uh, by our near our daughter where she lives. And it’s just been fabulous. And I told my kids, I’m like, you’re in college, don’t spend money on me for a gift. Like I get to be with you. Your presence really, truly is the biggest present for me. So that that and they just it’s hard for them to really get that, like, come on, we want to get you some. I’m like, you’re here. I’m with you. Like, honestly, that’s all I want. So that really resonates with me. And tell us again the name of the song.
Carolyn Sloan: [00:39:31] The song is called Give Love.
Transcribed by Sonix.ai