This summer, I’m teaching Cultural Significance of Rap and Rock at Montclair State University. It’s my first time teaching it, and it’s also the first time anyone has taught it completely online. The course is cross-listed under music and African-American studies. Here’s a draft of my syllabus, omitting details of the grading and such. I welcome your questions, comments …
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We created the Groove Pizza to make it easier to both see and hear rhythms. The next step is to create learning experiences around it. In this post, I’ll use the Pizza to explain the structure of some quintessential funk and hip-hop beats. You can click each one in the Groove Pizza, where you can customize or alter it as you see …
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Let’s just get Vanilla Ice out of the way first. White people and hip-hop, oy. “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie is a testament to the power of a great bass groove. The song itself is pretty weak sauce–it emerged out of studio jam sessions and it doesn’t sound like it was ever really finished. …
If you have ever wondered what it is that a music producer does, David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” provides an excellent example. A producer turns this: into this:
Hearing the news of Bowie’s death made me go listen to Blackstar, which is excellent, his best work in I don’t know how long. His voice aged exquisitely well. So did his restless sonic adventurism: the man never settled in a style for very long. This particular one suits him.
In the service of teaching theory using real music, I’ve been gathering musical simples: little phrases and loops that are small enough to be easily learned, and substantial enough to have expressive value. See some representative melodic simples, more melodic simples, and compound simples. This post showcases some representative rhythmic simples, more commonly known as …
As I’ve been gathering musical simples, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to categorize them. There are melodic simples, otherwise known as riffs, hooks, and licks. There are rhythmic simples, otherwise known as beats, claves, and rhythm necklaces. And then there are the simples that combine a beat with a melody. Alex …
The NYU Music Experience Design Lab is putting together a new online music theory resource, and I’m writing a lot of the materials. We want to keep everything grounded in real-life musical practice. To that end, we’ve been gathering musical simples: phrases, riffs, and earworms that beginners can learn easily. My criteria for a good …
One of the great privileges of working at NYU is having access to the state-of-the-art Dolan Studio. Listening to music on top-end Lipinskis through an SSL console in a control room designed by Philippe Starck is the most exquisite audio experience I’ve ever had, and likely will ever have. Unfortunately, it’s also very far removed …
I hear it all the time from my friends in the rock world, and see it all the time in internet discussions: guitarists are struggling with their music theory, or they’ve given up on it completely. This is not their fault! Music theory is taught pretty badly for the most part, and it rarely addresses …
