In my paper about whiteness in music education, I tried to make a point about sampling classical music that my professor was (rightly) confused about. So I’m going to use this post to unpack the idea some more. I was arguing that, while we should definitely decanonize the curriculum, that doesn’t mean we need to …
Continue reading “The orchestra hit as a possible future for classical music”
If you’re the kind of person who reads my blog, then by now you’ve probably seen the video for Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.” If you haven’t seen it, watch now. Be warned that it’s upsetting. Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, is best known as a comedian, a writer, and an actor. He’s an intelligent …
I believe in using music as a tool for analyzing and discussing music. To that end, I wanted to try interviewing a musician about a song of theirs, and then do a remix of the song that incorporates the interview. A rapper named Anna Diorio a.k.a. Happy Accident volunteered to participate. We discussed the writing and production …
Continue reading “Hip-hop as a tool for hip-hop ethnography”
In the past three weeks, thanks to the magic of the Disquiet Junto, I’ve participated in the creation of three musical trios with six strangers from the internet. Here’s a family tree of the nine tracks we all did: Artist names are in black, “part one” tracks are in blue, “part two” tracks are in …
I’m in the process of doing some large-scale writing about the way I teach music technology. To that end, I thought I would talk some about how I evaluate students’ creative work, both for grading purposes and during in-class critiques. The main thing I have students do in music tech class is make original music …
Continue reading “Critiquing creative work with a growth mindset”
My new online music theory class with Soundfly launches in a few weeks. It’s a six-week mentor guided journey through advanced harmonic concepts like extended chords and modal interchange, with examples drawn from contemporary pop, hip-hop and electronica. Soundfly does great work and I’m proud to be working with them.
See also: the saddest chord progression ever. And also check out this deep dive into the groove of “I Want You Back.” We customarily think of descending melodies and chord progressions as being sad–they call it the “lament bass” for a reason. You may be surprised to learn, then, that the happiest song of all …
The Reflex is a London-based French DJ and producer named Nicolas Laugier. He specializes in a particular kind of remix, the re-edit, in which you rework a song using only sounds found within the song itself. Some re-edits keep the original song more or less intact, and just give it a punchier mix, a more …
[I wrote this before Kanye went full MAGA; I have since lost some enthusiasm for him.] Every semester in Intro to Music Tech, we have Kanye West Day, when we listen analytically to some of Yeezy’s most sonically adventurous tracks (there are many to choose from.) The past few semesters, Kanye West Day has centered …
Continue reading “The fake and the real in Chance the Rapper’s “All We Got””
I’m not arguing here that everyone loves Mozart, or that I’m about to explain what all humans enjoy all the time. But I can say with confidence that this little bit of Mozart goes a long way toward explaining what most humans enjoy most of the time. The four bars I’m talking about are these, …
Continue reading “Four bars of Mozart explains everything humans like in music”
