Downtown Beats

by Pam Everhardt Bloom  Rowan Public Library

Helen Keller said it beautifully, “Alone we can do little; together we can do so much.” The arrival of 2017 is an opportunity to continue to build community within Rowan County. To this effort, Rowan Public Library offers an opportunity to come together on a positive note.

Monday night, Jan. 30, 2017 from 6-7 pm, RPL will host the debut of DOWNTOWN BEATS, Rowan’s new impromptu chorus. Here’s the hitch, this isn’t one of our Community Concerts. We all can be part of this chorus. There is no need for talent, no need for commitment and definitely no charge!  Expect to arrive at 6pm for a short practice of two songs, With a Little Help from My Friends by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and Lean on Me by Bill Withers. The evening will culminate with the final performance being videoed. The chorus performance will be released on Rowan Public Library’s YouTube channel and facebook page. Downtown Beats will meet once a month on the last Monday of each month, January through April.

Why sing at all and why sing with a group? Music can connect us in ways our neighborhoods do not. Standing side by side with a member of your community and smiling and laughing for an hour might just transform some of our perceptions of those neighbors we don’t yet know. Most of us have antidotal evidence of how music can soothe, energize and connect. If you need more definitive evidence to convince yourself or to encourage friends to join you, check out the following from Rowan Public library.

Singing in the Rain, Sister Act and other musicals often bring a tune and a smile to our lips. Two award winning movies possibly overlooked, Young @ Heart and The Chorus = Les Choristes tell stories of the restorative magic of song. Young @ Heart depicts a chorus formed in 1982 consisting of residents of an elderly housing project in Northampton, Massachusetts with musical choices from James Brown to Coldplay. The chorus has continued for 30 years and new members, currently ages 73 – 89, are still singing and performing. The Chorus = Les Choristes, portrays how music can bring hope and inspiration to a home for troubled boys. Nominated for two Academy Awards, this film may be a movie you never forget.

Content to sing in your car or shower? Imperfect Harmony, Finding Happiness Singing with Others by Stacy Horn may convince you to give DOWNTOWN BEATS a try.  The author prefaces her story of the history and science of choirs with these thoughts on singing, “I become temporarily suspended in a world where everything bad is bearable, and everything good feels possible.  Don’t cry, sing.” Daniel J. Levition continues the science connection with The World in Six Songs, How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature while Donna S. Davenport portrays the memory of song with her haunting memoir, Singing Mother Home, A Psychologist’s Journey through Anticipatory Grief.  Should you be more interested in the mechanics of a working chorus or the popularity of the pop song, How Can We Keep from Singing, Music and the Passionate Life by Joan Oliver Goldsmith and The Song Machine, Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook may be among your next books to borrow from the library.

Still undecided?  Ponder this line from Mitch Albom’s Tuesday with Morrie, “Devote yourself to your community around you and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”  Come build community with Rowan County’s new impromptu chorus DOWNTOWN BEATS. Together we can find the right notes.

On a final note, Bebe Moore Campbell’s novel Singing in the Comeback Choir is my next read. One review promises that her intricate rousing harmonies of gospel music may make you want to shout “Amen!”  This book promises a story of family and community, hope and faith.

RESOLVE TO PLAY AN INSTRUMENT THIS YEAR

by Paul Birkhead  Rowan Public Library
     
    Did you make a resolution for the new year?  If so, surveys indicate it was probably to lose weight, pay off debt, or spend more time with family.  These are all worthy goals, but there is another you should consider.  Resolve to play an instrument in 2017.  If you choose to do this, Rowan Public Library has materials you need to get started.

    If you’ve never learned how to read sheet music or need a refresher, Learn to Read Music by Howard Shanet would be a great choice.  Shanet’s book, which has been out for many years, is often praised for its succinct writing style and easy instruction methods.  Of course, you could always start playing music by ear, but learning music composition and theory will give you a stronger foundation on which to build.

    If piano is the instrument you want to learn, the library has many books and DVDs that can certainly help.  Teach Yourself Visually Piano gives an excellent introduction to the subject.  This volume of the popular Teach Yourself Visually series is authored by Mary Sue Taylor, who has taught music for decades.  The book has helpful information and colorful graphics to get you playing in no time.  Two other good books on the subject are Play Piano in a Flash and Piano: An Easy Guide.  If instruction by sight is more your style, be sure to check out the DVD of Creative Keyboard’s Anyone Can Play Piano.
 
    Another popular instrument that the library can help you learn about is the guitar.  The Complete Guitar Course: Learn to Play in 20 Easy-To-Follow-Lessons is a book that gets checked out quite a bit.  The author, Tom Fleming, is a professional guitar player and has taught people to play for over a decade.  In the first few lessons of The Complete Guitar Course, you’ll learn the components of acoustic and electric guitars and enough about chords to start feeling good about the sounds coming out of your instrument.  The book offers short lessons which are broken up by interesting vignettes on music history and popular guitar players.  Again, if you learn better by watching, there are several DVDs available at the library to assist you.  These include: Fingerpicking Guitar Techniques, The Hal Leonard Guitar Method, and Getting Started on Electric Guitar.

    There are also a few classes you can take online at home (“Music Made Easy” and “Introduction to Guitar”) from Gale Courses, courtesy of Rowan Public Library.  To access your FREE subscription to Gale Courses, a premium online learning program, all you need is your library card number and PIN.  To get started, visit www.rowanpubliclibrary.org and click on the Gale Courses link.  Each course lasts six weeks and includes twelve lessons total.  Upcoming start dates are February 15 and March 15.

    Happy New Year to everyone.  Don’t forget Rowan Public Library has materials to help if you’ve resolved to learn a musical instrument in 2017.

Only a Click Away

by Gretchen Beilfuss Witt  Rowan Public Library

 

            An often overlooked resource, One Click Digital is an additional way in which the library provides materials to  patrons electronically.  Ebooks and Audiobooks are both available on One Click.  You may be able to locate materials on One Click that you thought the library did not have available.  While there is some overlap of available books from Overdrive and One Click, for the most part the collections are not the same.  Recently, I discovered the entire collection of Isobelle  Carmody's Obernewtyn Chronicles on One Click; a fantastic find for those who follow series but are unable to find the "next" one in physical library holdings.  The physical circulating collection has only one of the books and Overdrive has only two of them.  One Click gives an additional option to find books that may not have been added to physical collection or to the Overdrive collection.

            There are several ways to use One Click.  You do have to set up an account to use the resource, but you have several access points.  Both Android and Apple have apps for the program so you can go directly to the "App Store" or Google Play to acquire the app for your tablet, Kindle Fire, IPad or phone.   You can set up an account on a desktop computer, but you need to download the files to another device in order to listen to the book.   Once the app is downloaded, the application walks you through setting up your account - chose the country, then enter your library card number at the prompt etc.  You can set up a variety of preferences in One Click; for instance you can set the application to download only through a wi-fi connection rather than using up a telephone data plan or automatically download when a book becomes available.   There are tutorials with simple instructions and pictures indicating actions.  Another feature for many of the audiobooks included in One Click is the option to listen to a portion of the book before actually checking it out.  Patrons are also able to search by narrator as well as by the usual author and title. 

            There are two distinct tabs in One Click, one for ebooks and one for audio which differs from Overdrive which requires filters to distinguish types of materials.  One Click was originally set up for audiobooks but now does offer a variety of ebooks, primarily fiction.  In Audiobooks there are more genres to select from - you can choose from African American Interest to Foreign Language Study, Mysteries, Political and Current Events to True Crime or Urban Fiction.  For the student, there is a collection of EngLits - audio summaries of well-know pieces of literature like "A Tale of Two Cities" or "Othello".  For best sellers like Martin's "Game of Thrones" or biographies like "Long Walk to Freedom" discover more books for your listening pleasure brought to you by Rowan Public Library.

Young Adult Titles Read by more Adults

by Hope Loman  Rowan Public Library

 

Did you know that more young adult books are bought and read by adults than their intended audience?  According to a 2012 study by Bowker Market Research, 55% of YA books are bought by individuals over 18, with 28% of overall sales coming from adults between the ages of 30 to 44—and what’s more, 78% of the adults interviewed said that the YA books they purchased were for their own reading, not a gift for a teenager that they knew.  The social stigma of picking up a YA title rather than a book from the adult fiction section is rapidly fading, especially as adult fans connect in-person, online, and (when a popular series inevitably spurs a movie adaptation) at the theater.

This begs the question: why are YA books so popular for older readers?  Georgina Howlett’s article in The Guardian speculates that there are several reasons: they provide escapist appeal, especially with the many fantasy and dystopian series that are on the shelves (thanks, Hunger Games); evoke nostalgia, reminding adults of simpler yet more exciting times in their lives; and finally, they are capable of appealing to readers across the world--or even across generations, as the Harry Potter series continues to prove with its continued popularity.

Here at the Rowan Public Library, we boast over 21,000 young adult fiction and non-fiction titles in our system, with new titles constantly being added to the collection.  From realistic fiction to romance, humor to horror, there’s guaranteed to be a book that you will enjoy.  If you might be interested in picking up a YA book to read as the New Year approaches, here are some recommended new and bestselling releases from 2016:

Heartless by Marissa Meyer: Known for her sci-fi/fantasy series The Lunar Chronicles, Meyer has released her first stand-alone novel, a “fractured fairytale” about Alice in Wonderland’s Red Queen. The School Library Journal calls it an “unforgettable” story that imagines the evolution of a young girl that dreams of true love to a madwoman best known for her phrase “Off with his head!”

Scythe by Neal Shusterman: The first in a new series by the award-winning author of the Unwind dystology and The Skinjacker trilogy, this book follows two teens are they learn the “art of killing.”  In a world that has conquered death, only Scythes can end life to keep the population under control.  Two reluctant apprentices must compete against each other to become a Scythe—and the one who wins must kill the loser.

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys: Named the Goodreads YA Book of the Year, this is a fictionalized story based on the sinking of the German ship the Wilhelm Gustloff during World War II.  Told in alternating points of view, four teenage narrators from very different backgrounds must unite and fight for survival when tragedy strikes.

Finally, Victoria Schwab’s This Savage Song: In a future where evil deeds spawn monsters that wreak havoc on humanity, two teens from feuding families become unlikely allies when one is framed for an attack.  Described as a “post-apocalyptic urban fantasy with a Romeo and Juliet theme,” this was a New York Times bestseller and an Amazon Best Book of the Year.

If any of these pique your interest, or you’re curious to find something more to your liking, I encourage you to come down to any branch of the Rowan Public Library and seek out the young adult section today.