A Quora user asks whether artificial intelligence will ever replace human musicians. TL;DR No. If music composition and improvisation could be expressed as algorithmic rule sets, then human musicians would have reason for concern. Fortunately, music can’t be completely systematized, much as some music theorists would like to believe it can be. Music is not …
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I contributed a chapter to a soon-to-be-released book, Learning, Education and Games (Volume One): Curricular and Design Considerations. I wrote about the potential value of video games in music education. The book will be out in October 2014. Here’s the table of contents. We’re having a launch party on October 9th at the NYU Game …
My students at NYU and Montclair State are beginning to venture into producing their own tracks. There are two challenges facing them, the small one and the big one. The small challenge is learning the tools: remembering where the menus are and which key you hold down to turn the mouse pointer into a pencil, …
Right now I’m teaching music technology to a lot of classical musicians. I came up outside the classical pipeline, and am always surprised to be reminded how insulated these folks are from the rest of the culture. I was asked today for some electronic music recommendations by a guy who basically never listens to any …
I’m reading a lot Schenkerian analyses of blues right now in service of my forthcoming article about blues tonality. Each paper I read is wronger than the last. On the one hand, they fill me with righteous rage, but on the other hand, that rage does at least help me focus my arguments. Here are …
See a more beginner-friendly blues primer here. Read this treatise in Spanish, translated by Jesús Fernández. Abstract The blues is a foundational element of America’s vernacular and art music. It is commonly described as a combination of African rhythms and European harmonies. This description is inaccurate. Blues follows harmonic conventions that are quite different from …
Before you can understand how digital audio works, you need to know a few things about the physics of sound. This animation shows a sound wave emanating through the air from a circular source — imagine that it’s a drum or cymbal. As you can see, sound is a wave, like a ripple in a …
I’m writing a chapter of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Technology and Music Education. Here’s a section of what I wrote, about my own music learning experiences. Most of my music education has happened outside of the classroom. It has come about intentionally, through lessons and disciplined practice, and it has come about unintentionally, through …
Sasha Frere-Jones was recently asked by The Guardian to make a list of perfect songs. I don’t agree with all of his choices — Taylor Swift? — but I can definitely get behind his nomination of “Sucker MCs” by Run-DMC. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXVFNs0piP8 This track was the B-side to Run-DMC’s first single in 1983, and was produced …
Starting this week, I’m teaching my very first full course at NYU, the undergraduate Music Education Technology Practicum. Exciting! Here’s the syllabus.
