It has been a week since my roll out at Patreon, and I have been awed and no small bit humbled by the response. I thank each and every one of you who have signed on. As per my listed Patreon
Principals:
- Gary Cohn
- Dr. Judith Davis
- Leigh O. Harper
- Ernie McWilliams
- James Rea
- William Mark Thompson
Deities:
- Gregg Garbin
- Bennett Markel
- Mickey Urdea
- Lis Young
A heads up on what will be appearing on my Patreon page over the course of the next week:
I have managed to dig up and digitize a television advertisement for my Teaching Company/The Great Courses survey “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music” from 1993. It’s a bit painful for me to watch: I weighed 30 pounds less than I do now; I had all my hair (including a very large moustache); and I wore contacts. I looked good, but most painful of all, I looked young. The production values back then in the early days of The Teaching Company were, well, let’s say minimal: I’m working from notes without a set, with only a blackboard and an upright piano on stage to keep me company..
I have also managed to obtain both the short and long versions of an advertisement The Teaching Company/The Great Courses created in 2007, which features not only myself but John McWhorter, Alex Filippenko, Patrick Allitt, and Michael Starbird (the latter two in the longer version) as well as a group of professional actors. This ad ran on the History Channel and other like cable channels for roughly a year. It was filmed in Chappaqua, New York, the home of the Clintons, which is a story in and of itself, one I will tell when I post the video.
The vlogs that I’ve posted thus far (as well as the webcourses I published last year, one of which – “Mozart in Vienna” – is still available for download from my website) were recorded in my studio with bookshelves in the background (it’s a very “doctor’s/lawyer’s office” look). I have been asked to show the remainder of my office/studio, small though it is. Probably with the help of my soon-to-be 12 year old daughter Lillian I will record a vlog this weekend offering a brief and no doubt self-indulgent guided tour of the space in which I spend, rooted, roughly 12 hours a day.
I have also been asked to name my “favorite pianist(s)”, which is a way more complicated question than one might think. I haven’t yet decided whether to blog this or vlog it; one way or the other I will answer the question within the next week.