Tracking our progress helps us know whether we are on the right track, both in our choice of activities to pursue and in our progress within them. Sometimes the progress is transformative.
Real
Technical and Analytical Readings
- Joshua Foer, Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything (The Penguin Press, 2011): the author practices and comments on the skill of memory.
- Bonnie J. Ross Leadbeater and Niobe Way, eds., Urban Girls: Resisting Stereotypes, Creating Identities (NYU Press, 1996).
- Bonnie J. Ross Leadbeater and Niobe Way, eds., Urban Girls Revisited: building strengths (NYU Press, 2007).
- Linda Lantieri, Building Emotional Intelligence: Techniques to Cultivate Inner Strength in Children (Sounds True, Incorporated, 2008).
True Narratives
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We have reading lessons every day. Usually we take one of the little "Readers" up in a big tree near the house and spend an hour or two finding the words Helen already knows. We make a sort of game of it and try to see who can find the words most quickly, Helen with her fingers, or I with my eyes, and she learns as many new words as I can explain with the help of those she knows. When her fingers light upon words she knows, she fairly screams with pleasure and hugs and kisses me for joy, especially if she thinks she has me beaten. It would astonish you to see how many words she learns in an hour in the pleasant manner. Afterward I put the new words into little sentences in the frame, and sometimes it is possible to tell a little story about a bee or a cat or a little boy in this way. I can now tell her to go upstairs or down, out of doors or into the house, lock or unlock a door, take or bring objects, sit, stand, walk, run, lie, creep, roll, or climb. She is delighted with action-words; so it is no trouble at all to teach her verbs. She is always ready for a lesson, and the eagerness with which she absorbs ideas is very delightful. She is as triumphant over the conquest of a sentence as a general who has captured the enemy's stronghold. One of Helen's old habits, that is strongest and hardest to correct, is a tendency to break things. If she finds anything in her way, she flings it on the floor, no matter what it is: a glass, a pitcher or even a lamp. She has a great many dolls, and every one of them has been broken in a fit of temper or ennui. The other day a friend brought her a new doll from Memphis, and I thought I would see if I could make Helen understand that she must not break it. I made her go through the motion of knocking the doll's head on the table and spelled to her: "No, no, Helen is naughty. Teacher is sad," and let her feel the grieved expression on my face. Then I made her caress the doll and kiss the hurt spot and hold it gently in her arms, and I spelled to her, "Good Helen, teacher is happy," and let her feel the smile on my face. She went through these motions several times, mimicking every movement, then she stood very still for a moment with a troubled look on her face, which suddenly cleared, and she spelled, "Good Helen," and wreathed her face in a very large, artificial smile. Then she carried the doll upstairs and put it on the top shelf of the wardrobe, and she has not touched it since. [Annie Sullivan, Letters, May 22, 1887.] |
Other narratives:
- Joyce West Stevens, Smart and Sassy: The Strengths of Inner-City Black Girls (Oxford University Press, 2002).
- Geoffrey Canada, Reaching Up for Manhood (Beacon Press, 1997).
- Paul Tough, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008).
- Rebecca Carroll, Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America (Clarkson Potter, 1997).
- Dierdre Paul, Talking Back: Raising and Educating Resilient Black Girls (Praeger 2003).
- Emma Forrest, Your Voice in My Head: A Memoir (Other Press, 2011): a “protracted meditation on the blessing of self-transformation”.
- Mike Wallace, Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919 (Oxford University Press, 2017). “The 20 years that made New York City.”
- Zora Neale Hurston, Hitting a Straight Lick With a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2020): “ Its 21 stories are presented in the order in which she composed them. As a result, readers can note the progression from earnest “apprentice” works and experiments with form to the polished brilliance of her best-known stories.”
- Celia Paul, Self-Portrait (New York Review Books, 2020): “. . . Paul’s account of her life and her work — or, more precisely, of her attempts to realize the possibilities of each despite the constraints thrown up by the other.”
- Glenn Adamson, Craft: An American History (Bloomsbury, 2021): “. . . Adamson manages to discover 'making' in every aspect of our history, framing it as integral to America’s idea of itself as a nation of self-sufficient individualists.”
Narratives of progress on a larger scale:
- Ira Rutkow, Empire of the Scalpel: The History of Surgery (Scribner, 2022): “. . . the emergence of surgery from its barbaric past rested on four pillars — the understanding of anatomy, the control of bleeding, anesthesia and antisepsis.”
Discovery:
- Edward J. Larson, An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science (Yale University Press, 2011).
Imaginary
Visual Arts
- Lee Krasner, Rising Green (1972)
- Joan Miró, The Two Philosophers (1936)
- Joan Miró, Metamorphose (1936)
- Wassily Kandinsky, Gentle Ascent (1934)
- Paul Klee, Ad Parnassum (1932)
- Paul Klee, Conqueror (1930)
- Paul Klee, Hamamet (1914)
- Edgar Degas, Danseuse
- Ivan Aivazovsky, The Coast at Amalfi (1841)
- Bernardo Bellotto, Arno in Florence (early 1740s)
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Fictional Narratives
Elif Batuman has begun a series of novels about a young woman, Selin, beginning with her freshman year at Harvard.
- The Idiot: A Novel (Penguin Press, 2017): “The Idiot may not have a point, or a definite meaning that can be extracted and spirited away like the prize in a cereal box, but it is full of subtle, playful insight on communication, language, and the painful process of choosing an identity without falling into scripted roles.”
- Either/Or: A Novel (Penguin Press, 2022): “an even better, more soulful novel (than The Idiot). Selin is more confident and, more important, so is Batuman.”
Other novels and stories:
- David Wiesner, Art & Max (Clarion Books, 2010). (See the author's recorded interviews on the Amazon site for the book.)
- J.G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun (Simon & Schuster, 1984).
- Louise S. Rankin, Daughter of the Mountains (Puffin, 1993).
- Lauren Groff, Matrix: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2021): “. . . it’s the dogged progress of a grand life that sustains this narrative. From its inauspicious beginning in the person of a sullen, selfish, godless teenager banished by an empress to perish in squalor, Marie’s transformation is that of a woman upon whom greatness is not thrust but slowly gathers.”
- Madeline L’Engle, The Moment of Tenderness: Stories (Grand Central, 2020): on L’Engle’s growth as a writer and her search for a personal philosophy.
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Johann Sebastian Bach, Solo Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, bwv 1007: (3) Courante
Film and Stage
- American Movie, about a man with aspirations to make a film and his labors
- Empire of the Sun, about a boy’s transformation from a spoiled child of privilege to an emerging teenager ready to face life with dignity
- Il Generale della Rovere (General Della Rovere): a “study of a man's transformation during the German occupation of Milan”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Both in his development of the art form of piano sonata and in his characteristically positive compositional attitude, Haydn demonstrates the virtue and desideratum of progress. Beginning with the early sonatas and working toward the later ones, listen to the musical development as this great composer immersed himself in this genre. (Because I have chosen Haydn’s middle period piano sonatas to illustrate the virtue of groundedness, the focus here is on his earliest and latest sonatas.) Fittingly, Haydn composed these works for amateur performers, thereby adding to them an element of charm.
- Piano Sonata No. 1 in G major, Hob. XVI:8
- Piano Sonata No. 2 in C major, Hob. XVI:7
- Piano Sonata No. 3 in F major, Hob. XVI:9
- Piano Sonata No. 4 in G major, Hob. XVI:G1
- Piano Sonata No. 5 in G major, Hob. XVI:11
- Piano Sonata No. 6 in C major, Hob. XVI:10
- Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Hob. XVI:D1
- Piano Sonata No. 8 in A major, Hob. XVI:5
- Piano Sonata No. 9 in D major, Hob. XVI:4
- Piano Sonata No. 50 in D major, Hob. XVI:37
- Piano Sonata No. 51 in E-flat major, Hob. XVI:38
- Piano Sonata No. 52 in G major, Hob. XVI:39
- Piano Sonata No. 53 in E minor, Hob. XVI:34
- Piano Sonata No. 54 in G major, Hob. XVI:40
- Piano Sonata No. 55 in B-flat major, Hob. XVI:41
- Piano Sonata No. 56 in D major, Hob. XVI:42
- Piano Sonata No. 57 in F major, Hob. XVI:47
- Piano Sonata No. 58 in C major, Hob. XVI:48
- Piano Sonata No. 59 in E-flat major, Hob. XVI:49
- Piano Sonata No. 60 in C major, Hob. XVI:50
- Piano Sonata No. 61 in D major, Hob. XVI:51
- Piano Sonata No. 62 in E-flat major, Hob. XVI:52
Beethoven’s Op. 10 piano sonatas are at a higher level than Haydn’s, both in complexity and in difficulty, but for Beethoven, they represent advancement in his development as a composer.
- Piano Sonata No. 5 in C major, Op. 10/1 (1798)
- Piano Sonata No. 6 in F major, Op. 10/2 (1798)
- Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Op. 10/3 (1798)
Composer Richard Hol did an excellent job developing the themes in these symphonies:
You can hear these composers develop their skills over the course of their careers:
- John Abraham Fisher, Symphonies 1-6
Händel’s organ concerti suggest progress and accomplishment within each concerto:
- Organ Concerti, 4: No. 1 in G minor – G major, HWV 289; No. 2 in B flat major, HWV 290; No. 3 in G minor, HWV 291; No. 4 in F major, HWV 292; No. 5 in F major, HWV 293; No. 6 in B flat major, HWV 294
- Organ Concerti, 7: No. 1 in B flat major, HWV 306; No. 2 in A major, HWV 307; No. 3 in B flat major, HWV 308; No. 4 in D minor, HWV 309; No. 5 in G minor, HWV 310; No. 6 in B flat major, HWV 311
- Organ Concerto 13 in F major, HWV 295, “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale”
- Organ Concerto No. 14 in A major, HWV 296a
- Organ Concerto No. 15 in D minor, HWV 297
- Organ Concerto No. 16 in G major, HWV 298
- Organ Concerto No. 17 in D major, HWV 299
- Organ Concerto No, 18 in G minor, HWV 300
- Organ Concerto in D minor, HWV 304
Compositions by Theobald Böhm:
- Nel cor più non mi sento
- Grand Polonaise in D Major, Op. 16
- Fantasie über ein Thema von Schubert in A-flat Major
- Fantasie sur un air allemande in E Major, Op. 22
Other works:
- Raga Shyam kalyan (performances by Banerjee, Vilayat Khan, and Shujaat Khan)
- Corelli, Twelve Violin Sonatas, Op. 5
- Krommer, Clarinet Concerto in E-flat Major, Op. 36
- Hindemith, String Quartet No. 1 in C Major, Op. 2 (1915): this string quartet displays an optimistic tone, amid continual variation.
- Goldmark, Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 28 (1877)
- Fauré, Piano Quartet No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 45 (1886)
- Locatelli, Capricci for solo violin
- Enescu, Piano Suite No. 1, "Dans le style ancien" (Dances in the Ancient Style) in G Minor, Op. 3 (1897)
- Menotti, Ahmal and the Night Visitors (1951): a story about a boy growing up, a bit.
- František Benda, Flute Concerto in E Minor
- Bate, Viola Concerto (1946)
- Bax, Symphony No. 4 (1931)
- Bax, Concertante for Piano Left Hand, with orchestra (1949)
- Bertali, Sonate Festive
- Wilms, Symphony No. 6 in D Minor, Op. 58 (1820)
- Boyer, Symphony No. 1 (2013): 1. Prelude; 2. Scherzo/Dance; 3. Adagio.
- Burgmüller, String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 4 (1825)
- Krommer, Symphony No. 9 in C major
- Moszkowski, Suite d’orchestre No. 2, Op. 47
- Saint-Saëns composed his Symphony in F Major, “Urbs Roma” (1856) for a competition when he was fifteen years old.
Albums:
- Michel Petrucciani, Gary Peacock and Roy Haynes, “One Night In Karlsruhe”
- Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp, “Efflorescence, Volume 1”
- Steven Beck, “George Walker: Five Piano Sonatas (1953-2003)”: the advances in Walker’s compositional skills over time are apparent.
Poetry
From the dark side:
- Edgar Lee Masters, “Abel Melveny”