Note-taking for Learning of Culture with Lisa Stulberg We have read some dense canonical European White Guys. None of them have been as difficult and off-putting as Freud. I would have rather read Civilization And Its Discotheques. Freud begins with the observation that for most of human history, our happiness has been tied to our …
Category Archives: Emotion
Music Matters chapter five
Public-facing note taking on Music Matters by David Elliott and Marissa Silverman for my Philosophy of Music Education class. These are responses to the discussion questions at the end of chapter five, which discusses personhood and music education. Why should music educators be concerned with the nature of personhood? All forms of music, education and community music are …
Émile Durkheim – Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
Note-taking for Learning of Culture with Lisa Stulberg This week, we read another cornerstone of the sociology canon: Émile Durkheim on where religion comes from. The book is very much a product of its time, with continual and annoying references to “primitive” religions and peoples. No question that Durkheim’s methodology doesn’t pass contemporary muster. But his theoretical insights are …
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John Dewey on music education as experience
If I’m going to understand progressive philosophies of education, then I need to understand John Dewey. So here we go. Dewey is a progressive hero. He was a supporter of women’s suffrage, a founding member of the NAACP, and was ahead of his time on the importance of multiculturalism. Contrary to what I had always assumed, he did not invent the …
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Personhood and music education
With this post, I begin some public-facing note taking on Music Matters by David Elliott and Marissa Silverman. The goal here is to explain the book to myself, but if this is helpful to you in some way, good. What is the point of music education? For Elliott and Silverman, the goal is to develop each student as a …
Ultralight Beam
The first song on Kanye West’s Life Of Pablo album, and my favorite so far, is the beautiful, gospel-saturated “Ultralight Beam.” Say what you want about Kanye as a public figure, but as a musician, he is in complete control of his craft. See a live performance on SNL. The song uses only four chords, but they’re …
Please stop saying “consuming music”
In the wake of David Bowie’s death, I went on iTunes and bought a couple of his tracks, including the majestic “Blackstar.” In economic terms, I “consumed” this song. I am a “music consumer.” I made an emotional connection to a dying man who has been a creative inspiration of mine for more than twenty years, via “consumption.” That …
We dream of Star Wars
Anna and I went on one of our vanishingly rare parent dates to go see The Force Awakens a few days ago. We had a great time. The movie is loaded with gratuitous fan service and doesn’t stand up to even casual scrutiny, but then, that was true of episodes IV and V too. Nothing that happens …
Scale necklaces and symmetry
While I was doing some examination of rhythm necklaces and scale necklaces, I noticed a symmetry among the major scale modes: Lydian mode and Locrian mode are mirror images of each other. Does this geometric relationship mean anything musically? Turns out that it does. Lydian and Locrian are mirror images in feeling, not just as …
Why is there so much Auto-Tune on everything?
See also an explanation of how Auto-Tune works When we talk about Auto-Tune, we’re talking about two different things. There’s the intended use, which is to subtly correct pitch problems (and not just with vocalists; it’s extremely useful for horns and strings.) The ubiquity of pitch correction in the studio should be no great mystery; …
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