Chapter 2: Balancing Interests with Needs: Conceiving an Encyclopedia for Curriculum Studies

During my recovery phase from the editorship of the SAGE Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies (Kridel, 2010), an experience that proved satisfying but also quite trying and frustrating, I continue to be interested in the field and in this publication; yet, my primary interest remains and will always remain with the Eight Year Study, my life’s work. I am also interested in educational film and, in fact, stumbled onto the first documentary of African American education in the United States, filmed in 1940, but misshelved and forgotten for 65 years. And I am most interested, as an organologist (one who studies musical instruments), in low brass instruments of the early nineteenth century, an area where I am quite active professionally. Those are my interests; can I change this afternoon’s topic and discuss the cimbasso?