Weave: The Social Fabric Project is an Aspen Institute initiative that seeks to celebrate people who work to heal divisions in our society. David Brooks, the director of Weave, describes the movement:  "Weavers are repairing our country's social fabric, which is badly frayed by distrust, division and exclusion. People are quietly wor...

Engaging in acts of kindness and collaboration is a mainstay of healthy living and a profound way to head off feelings of isolation, burnout, and depression. At the age students typically start piano lessons, they are also reaching a developmental stage in which they begin to think outside of themselves. All schools implement statewide curriculum g...

In 2012, we are so far removed from the so-called silent film era (ca. 1894-1929) that most of us have only a vague concept of what it was really like. Although the films of that period were silent, their presentation was not. In the small venues, films were accompanied by the local pianist (who was often the neighborhood piano teacher) or a small ...

Just when we have reached the point where traditional, personal computers have become ubiquitous in the home, modern society has become inundated with new mobile computing devices. These mobile devices are basically computers disguised as cellphones, listening devices, and e-readers. As Apple's Steve Jobs has informed us, we can now carry the Inter...

Multimedia is nothing more than the combination of two or more modalities of communication. Combine images with text, motion video with music, or ballet with sound effects, and you have created a multimedia piece. Unlike traditional recorded music, the live concert experience has always had a visual component to it. As members of the audience,...