A few things I've learned over the last few years teaching adult education courses about music:
* It's harder to decide which artists and songs to leave out than it is to decide what to include.
* It can be difficult to endure the first recorded version of a song that has endured.
* With each course, it's harder to overlook "almost" rhymes (e.g. home/alone, find/mine, etc.) which, in turn, has dampened some of my enthusiasm for earlier songwriting heroes. It probably wasn't wise to read Stephen Sondheim's memoir "Finishing The Hat" several years ago. But I can't put that genie back in the bottle, unfortunately. BTW, reading that book has also complicated my own meager attempts at songwriting.
My learning is also invariably abetted by participants. Comments and suggestions made in and out of class frequently lead me to re-consider my presentations. And I'm grateful for the continuing support of returning participants.
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