Book Review: Dr Fuddle and the Gold Baton by Dr Warren L Woodruff by ajoobacats

Description

When the dark musician Jedermann and his fierce Seirens of Dis gain control of the legendary Gold Baton, Tyler, his sister Christina, and their friends are drawn into a perilous adventure foretold by an ancient prophecy.

Guided by the mythical Dr. Fuddle, the explorers must leave earth and journey to Orphea. Will the Messengers of Music be able to save the world of the immortal composers from chaos and destruction? For them to have even a chance at victory, they must master the most difficult instruments of all—themselves.

Review

A delightful tale of good versus evil, by a music teacher, where the power of good is conveyed through classical music. This is a lovely book for children from the age of 10, who are advanced readers, the illustrations are lovely but I wish there were more.

It’s difficult conveying a story like this without actual music but Dr Woodruff does it well. For those children who are musically inclined this is a good story which aids and enthuses children learning music. It isn’t the most imaginative story for children around but it ties music and reading together adequately, despite the lack of audio.

A good lesson about finding your voice no matter what disabilities maybe in your way.

Five Star Review For Dr. Fuddle and the Gold Baton

Read - let it touch your soul - DR. FUDDLE AND THE GOLD BATON will do that.

Sure to reach a whole new generation of musicians, DR. FUDDLE AND THE GOLD BATON was written in honor of a mother who knew her son was brilliant, and it is a privilege to read his beautiful work. 

The writer, Warren L. Woodruff, "holds Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Piano Performance as well as a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Miami School of Music". When you read his novel, you will be given a look at music like never before told. Music enters a new dimension as time stops when, after about the first few paragraphs, you make the decision to adventure into reading this story. Many thanks go to Warren L. Woodruff, Ludwig Van Beethoven, The Bach family, Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff, and Orpheus for this contribution to the world of children's literature. Read where readers are introduced to the Messengers of Music who bring them to a place where love meets strength and together with them you will hang on to hope amidst peril and the forces of evil. Perhaps fine music really may reach the ears of angels in dark times. 

If you have a child interested in music they must read DR. FUDDLE AND THE GOLD BATON because they will thoroughly enjoy it; and even if your child is not interested in music, they will love reading this book as they nevertheless learn to appreciate harmony, chords, chromatic scale, chamber orchestra, rhythm, crescendos and fugue sounds with enthusiasm throughout mystery, intrigue and adventure, in a tale that may appear like a Scooby Doo adventure at first but brings you into a completely - worthy of the respect of one of the well written great mysteries - solved mystery that will become a classic in time. After all, there is a place to learn about how well sound may be put together with story. 

Illustrations added to the story are from "an accomplished pencil and charcoal portrait artist", Donna Burtch. Overall, the novel is a job well done, thus earns a position on a livingroom/readingroom bookshelf beside the best in literature for Middle School and High School aged students. 

*The writer of this review has not received benefits other than copy of review book to review and has not been contracted to promote a business or products.

To purchase DR. FUDDLE AND THE GOLD BATON at Amazon click here.
To hear Rachmaninoff concert music click here.

Dr. Fuddle's Musical IQ Quiz #26

Top Five Studies on Classical Music and Health

1. Lowering Blood Pressure

Looking for a calming experience? The most often cited benefit of listening to the three B's is stress relief. The soothing experience when you hear a masterful opus isn’t just imagined; a 2004 study out of the University of San Diego found that after hearing classical music, listeners had lower blood pressure. A 2008 article published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing also claimed pregnant women reduced levels of stress, anxiety and depression after listening to a 30-minute CD of classical hits.

2. Relieving Pain After Surgery

Reach for the Beethoven along with the Bayer aspirin. It turns out that melodious music can help tune out pain. A team out of Britain was able to reduce the amount of opiates given to people recovering from stomach surgery with a steady dosage of classical music. Another study in the Journal for Advanced Nursing showed that music could relieve chronic pain.

3. Making You More Emotional

Music may be the food of love, and a 2001 study out of Southern Methodist University seems to support Shakespeare’s claim. Researchers found that listening to classical music heightened the emotions in the study subjects. Not only were they more expressive and effusive with their comments, but they were more forthcoming as well.

4. Making You Sleep

If you’re looking for better sleep, why not turn to Brahms? A Hungarian team showed that listening to 45 minutes of classical music before bedtime helped students from 19 to 28, who had problems falling asleep. The researchers suggest turning on the famous Lullaby or similar peaceful pieces, could be an effective way of battling insomnia.

5. Making You Smarter

And the Granddaddy of them all, the infamous Mozart Effect. When researchers in 1993 published studying drawing a link between listening to the maestro's music and heightened IQ scores, it spawned a cottage industry of brain-power boosting products (remember Baby Mozart?). However, later studies have shown that playing his works have lessened symptoms associated with epilepsy.

Rhapsody In Blue: Gershwin At His Greatest

On June 23rd, 1959, Leonard Bernstein and the Columbia Symphony took their places at the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn, N.Y. and made a landmark recording of Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue.'

Rhapsody In Blue, the first "serious" composition by George Gershwin (1898-1937), is likely to remain his most popular work in any form, more for its prodigious melodic richness rather than for any deeper expressiveness or structural brilliance. 

 In the hands of another composer, Rhapsody In Blue could easily have turned into a disjointed exercise in symphonically dressed up jazz rhythms, melodic figures and quasi-improvisatory instrumental licks. Instead, Gershwin's uncanny sense of timing, and a gift for memorable melody unparalleled in the 20th century, turned the Rhapsody into an embodiment of the Jazz Age's upbeat lyricism and dance-driven vitality. The roaring Twenties had a soul, and this was it. 

The piece was composed in considerable haste, for a concert on February 12th, 1924, organized by jazz bandleader Paul Whiteman. It took place at New York's Aeolian Hall, billed as an "Experiment In Modern Music." The piece was scored for jazz band by Whiteman's arranger, the multitalented Ferde Grofé, and Gershwin himself played the piano solo — though at the time of the premiere he had not yet written it out. Grofé also scored the work's orchestral version. Listen to the entire Rhaspsody in Blue

Dr. Fuddle's Musical IQ Quiz #25

Baseball's Prince Fielder goes classical with walk-up music

 

Prince Fielder is not your prototypical slugger. The Tigers first baseman famously went vegetarian for a while, and now he's going classical with his walk-up music. Fielder is now using Mozart's 1791 piece Requiem during his at-bats at Comerica Park in Detroit according to John Lowe of the Detroit Free Press. Here's the backstory, courtesy of Lowe:

Fielder said his path to choosing Requiem began when he found out that Torii Hunter listened to classical music leading up to games.

Fielder sought classical music used in movies.

“I thought about how all the scores for the ‘Batman' movies are pretty cool,” Fielder said. “So I went on Pandora and typed in movie scores, and I thought, ‘This isn't bad.'

“I heard one, and I liked it.”

I dig the originality. There are only so many top-40 tracks or generic rock songs players can walk-up too. Variety is the spice of life.