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 …
Tag Archives: music teaching
Shared sample projects
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, …
Electronic music tasting menu
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 …
Blues tonality
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 …
My music education
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 …
My NYU course this fall
Starting this week, I’m teaching my very first full course at NYU, the undergraduate Music Education Technology Practicum. Exciting! Here’s the syllabus.
Remix as compositional critique
This month I’ve been teaching music production and composition as part of NYU’s IMPACT program. A participant named Michelle asked me to critique some of her original compositions. I immediately said yes, and then immediately wondered how I was actually going to do it. I always want to evaluate music on its own terms, and …
Making rhythm tutorial videos
I’m continuing to crank out educational videos for Play With Your Music. Part of the process involves remaking old videos as both my chops and the facilities in NYU’s Blended Learning Lab improve. Here’s my series on the basics of rhythm: We’ve made several improvements, some technical, some creative. The most immediately noticeable one is …
Reflections on teaching Ableton Live, part two
In my first post in this series, I briefly touched on the problem of option paralysis facing all electronic musicians, especially the ones who are just getting started. In this post, I’ll talk more about pedagogical strategies for keeping beginners from being overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities of sampling and synthesis. This is part of …
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Reflections on teaching Ableton Live: part one
My music-making life has revolved heavily around Ableton Live for the past few years, and now the same thing is happening to my music-teaching life. I’m teaching Live at NYU’s IMPACT program this summer, and am going to find ways to work it into my future classes as well. My larger ambition is to develop …
Continue reading “Reflections on teaching Ableton Live: part one”