Introducing Tuniversity by Dr. Ethan Hein and my co-founder, veteran songwriter and teacher Derek Fawcett Read on Substack My NYU colleague Derek and I are delighted to introduce you to Tuniversity, our new music learning venture. Our first songwriting course starts next month, and we are holding our inaugural Tune Up event at the end …
Author Archives: Ethan
The Gospel According To Aretha
Aretha Franklin’s Gospel Blues by Dr. Ethan Hein Singing the song vs channeling the ancestors Read on Substack It’s blues melody week in theory and aural skills. That doesn’t just mean we’re looking at the blues genre, though; we’re covering all the genres that use what Richard Ripani calls “the blues system”: the characteristic pitches, …
Angine de Poitrine on MusicRadar
My most recent column for MusicRadar is an explainer on Quebec’s hottest microtonal prog-techno sensation.
Check out these grooves that I have my aural skills students improvise over
If you major in music at most universities, you have to take several semesters of aural skills classes. These classes traditionally consist of two main activities: sight-singing and dictation, that is, hearing a melody or chord sequence a few times and then writing it out in notation. Aural skills class was the definite low point …
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A unified theory of rock harmony in one sentence
All the chords you need for rock by Dr. Ethan Hein can be found using a simple formula Read on Substack When I was learning guitar, I did a lot of studying and memorizing chord progressions. I did even more thinking about chords when I was learning to play jazz. When I shifted over to …
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The Weight
Take a load off, Fannie by Dr. Ethan Hein Take a load for free Read on Substack There is a truism that art makes the strange familiar and makes the familiar strange. The Band’s biggest hit is intimately familiar to every classic rock listener, but it is quite a strange song. The lyrics seem like …
What I learned from remixing “Dreams” over and over
I was planning to talk about “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac in class when we discuss modal harmony. Music theory teachers like to bring this tune up as an example of Lydian mode, but I don’t hear it as being in F Lydian. It’s also not clearly in C major, or A minor, or really any …
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Twelve remixes of “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac
I’m working on a podcast episode about “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac, a perennial object of debate in the music theory world because no one can agree what key it’s in. This is because the melody doesn’t align with the chords particularly, and neither the melody nor the chords belong unambiguously to any specific key. To …
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Happy In A Silent Way Day to all who celebrate
Today is the anniversary of the recording session for the best Miles Davis album, and in its honor, I did a podcast two-parter. In A Silent Way, side A: “Shhh/Peaceful” by Dr. Ethan Hein The conceptually weirdest Miles Davis album is also the best one Read on Substack In A Silent Way, side B: “In …
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Free improvisation
Recently, I went to see a performance by my NYU colleague Ramin Amir Arjomand, whose counterpoint class meets on the opposite side of the wall from my pop theory class. Ramin’s concert was an hour and a half of extremely intense free improvisation on unaccompanied piano. It wasn’t jazz; Ramin is a classical composer and …