That’s JAMS as in the Journal of the American Musicological Society. I wrote a review of Ableton Live 11 as a tool for musicology and education for their new issue. Email me if you don’t have university library access and I’ll send you a PDF.
Category Archives: Autobio
Music Ed Tech Talk with Will and me
The current episode of Robby Burns’ podcast features Will Kuhn and myself talking about our book, our philosophy of music education, and our opinions about Star Trek. We talk a lot about Star Trek at the beginning. If you are not interested in Star Trek, feel free to skip ahead.
Conversation with Jim Frankel on the MusicFirst podcast
The Electronic Music School promotional tour kicks off with an appearance on the MusicFirst Podcast, hosted by our old friend and MusicFirst founder Dr Jim Frankel. Enjoy the mellifluous sound of my new Shure SM7B.
Music is not a universal language and this klezmer song proves it
My man Adam has a word: Music is the universal language the same way English is, in that it isn't — Adam Neely (@its_adamneely) May 3, 2021 I can prove this with an example from my own life. When I was younger I got interested in my Jewish heritage and spent a couple of years …
Continue reading “Music is not a universal language and this klezmer song proves it”
I am making my students write raps and I wrote one too
The hardest songwriting assignment I’m giving to the NYU Pop Music Practicum is to write and record a short original rap verse. The students come from classical, jazz and musical theater backgrounds, and while many of them enjoy listening to rap, almost none have tried making it. So we are all outside of our comfort …
Continue reading “I am making my students write raps and I wrote one too”
Teaching songwriting to music education students
This spring I’m having the pleasure of co-teaching the NYU Music Education Popular Music Practicum. This is an opportunity to enact my long-held belief that music teachers should know how to write songs. My method for teaching songwriting is to say, okay, go write some songs. But I don’t throw the students straight into the …
Continue reading “Teaching songwriting to music education students”
My Favorite Things
My kids have been watching The Sound of Music a lot lately. I have known many of the songs since elementary school, but I somehow never got around to watching the movie until now. Apparently it was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s last musical, and boy did they leave it all on the stage. I was sitting …
Adam Neely video on “Hey Joe” and blues tonality
It’s a delightful sensation to be watching a new Adam Neely video and then being startled by hearing my own name. A commenter says, “he just humiliates you with terminology while looking through pages of his thick clever books and then casually quotes some random guy on the internet like yeah whatever.” That random guy …
Continue reading “Adam Neely video on “Hey Joe” and blues tonality”
I’m doing a session for the 2021 Remixing General Music conference
You should come! It’s on Zoom. Follow some live tweeting here. I’m going to talk about drum programming with the Groove Pizza as part of a broader philosophy of centering groove in music ed. Online conferences are good, I hope we keep doing them after the pandemic is over.
Songs vs Grooves
Anne Danielsen’s book Presence and Pleasure: The Funk Grooves of James Brown and Parliament is one of my favorite works of musicology. In the book, Danielsen distinguishes between songs and grooves. “Yesterday” by the Beatles is a song. “The Payback” by James Brown is a groove. In structural terms, a groove is a small musical …