I am teaching two new NYU classes this fall. One of them is History of 20th Century American Popular Music, which I wrote about recently. The other is Pop Music Analysis for Non-Majors. I enjoy teaching new classes, even though they require a lot more work than teaching an existing class. The history class takes …
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The album Coltrane’s Sound begins explosively. There’s a single-note saxophone pickup, and then bang, straight into the full band playing a big, bright latin tune. A few seconds in, the feel changes to swing, then back to latin. Sometimes the chords are pedaled, floating and modal; other times they seem like regular functional circle-of-fifths changes, …
In the fall, I’m teaching a new music history class at NYU on 20th century American popular music. This is not a history of rock. When the department says “20th century”, they mean the entire 20th century. We don’t get to Elvis until after the midterm. The most difficult part is going to be the …
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Improvisation is the easiest and the hardest thing in music. Little kids do it effortlessly, while world-class performers and composers find it terrifying. I am a confident improvisor, but it took me a few decades to get here. Now I’m teaching classrooms full of undergrads to do it, which means coming up with more of …
Most of the music I write about ranges from well known to iconic. I am not one of these people who takes pleasure in knowing about obscurities that other people don’t. However, I do have one intense fandom for a couple of guys who you are likely not to have heard of: Tim Eriksen and …
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I don’t know whether this is my best podcast episode, but it is definitely my most podcast episode. It covers the Beatles, James Brown, Parliament, Michael Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie, Underworld, The Orb, Run-DMC, Ella Fitzgerald, Simon and Garfunkel, the Grateful Dead, Stevie Wonder, Sabrina Carpenter, the Temptations, Herbie Hancock, Count Basie, Eddie Harris, Miles Davis, …
You can feel it all over by Dr. Ethan Hein You can feel it all over people Read on Substack We’re coming up on the 50th anniversary of Songs in the Key of Life’s release, and I plan to put in some quality musicology on it. I’m starting now, with a look at a single …
My favorite NPR show included my remix of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 21 in their most recent episode about hookworms! It’s under the end credits. This is something I posted to Bandcamp six years ago and forgot about, but you never know what people are going to go looking for online. Classical Remixes Volume One …
I have mentioned the Beatles on the podcast before, but this is the first episode entirely about one of their songs. It will probably be the first of many. Blackbird singing in the dead of night by Dr. Ethan Hein Take these broken wings and learn to fly Read on Substack
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.
