MINDY PETERSON, NCTM

 

October 1, 2019

Organ music immediately sets the mood for fans, fills breaks in the action, and engages the crowd. Hear the story of St. Louis Blues’ rallying cry, “Gloria,” and engage with your hockey team’s organist on Twitter.

Guest

Hockey editor Josh Gold-Smith joins us from neighboring frozen tundra (much of the year), Toronto. He is senior editor at theScore, a publicly traded digital media company that delivers sports scores, data, and news.  Josh also runs the Twitter account Organist Alert, promoting sports organists & the songs they play.

Improv

1. See how many hockey organists you can find on Twitter. Twenty-seven of the 31 teams employ organists and many of them have Twitter accounts.
2. The next time you watch a hockey game that features an organist, see how many songs you can identify just by listening closely to the broadcast.

Connect

How can listeners learn more about your work and connect with you?

• Twitter: @OrganistAlert or on my personal account (@GoldAndOrSmith)
• theScore

 Coda

We listen to the YouTube video of St. Louis Blues organist Jeremy Boyer playing Laura Branigan’s “Gloria”, the song the team adopted as their rallying cry before an unexpected run all the way to winning the Stanley Cup this past June.

Additional Resources

• Intro clip: YouTube video from 2018 Stanley Cup Final, organist Bruce Anderson and announcer Doc Emrick

Here's Mike Emrick staying silent so everyone at home can hear @Bruce_CapsOrgan, then making a point to say he just likes hearing organ music once in a while: pic.twitter.com/qpwiu9l7iv

— Organist Alert (@organistalert) June 5, 2018

• YouTube scene from “The Simpsons” where a church organist plays “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” (aka, In the Garden of Eden)

Listener Improv

A special thank-you goes to listener Nicole, who posted on Facebook:  “I am enjoying your podcast! I am finding the topics useful in my own life (and my preschool teacher life too)!! Music is a gift!! As a preschool teacher, I use music for all ends of the “activity spectrum”….from getting the sillies out, to just for fun, to finding the calm!! In many instances it works as our classroom stoplight…green for GO and red for STOP.😃”

This is another example of an idea I wish I thought of when my kids were little. If you are a preschool teacher OR have preschool age children, experiment with playing different kinds of music for different purposes. You may find that playing different music can set the stage for winding up and getting energized in the morning; calming and winding down before a nap or bedtime; I’m sure certain music can have a soothing effect; and I’m curious if music with a certain energy can help kids having a tantrum feel like they are more fully expressing their emotions!  Let me know if you experiment with this, what you observe.

Send me your Listener Improv, like Nicole, by sharing the practical ways you use music to enhance YOUR life. Leave a comment below, comment on social media, or email me at mindy@mpetersonmusic.com. I would love to hear from you!