Ashanti Mills from my Patreon had a brilliant idea. He said, hey, you know how you combined interviews with Toni Blackman with hip-hop songs to explain hip-hop pedagogy? You should do that with music theory: have songs that explain their musical content to you. This is one of those ideas that seems obvious as soon …
Category Archives: Autobio
The politics is in the drums: Producing and composing in the music classroom
This post was published in the Journal of Popular Music Education! Pierre Schaeffer and DJ Premier Introduction Digital audio workstation software, recording equipment and MIDI controllers have become steadily less expensive and easier to learn over the past two decades. As a result, it has become possible for schools at all levels to offer “an …
Continue reading “The politics is in the drums: Producing and composing in the music classroom”
I made a Patreon page
I have a lot of blog posts and videos in the pipeline, but I’m feeling some anxiety about where all this work is taking me. Don’t get me wrong, I love blogging for the sake of blogging, it has improved my life immeasurably and has had major professional benefits as well. But it’s not very …
Interview with the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society
Klara Huebsch of the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society was recently my host for a conversation about the Groove Pizza, music visualization, the health benefits of drumming, participatory music cultures, and antiracist music education. It’s a good one!
Our book is out!
I wrote a book with Will Kuhn and now it exists in real life! You can buy it from Oxford University Press, Amazon, Powell’s, Apple Books, and many other places. The foreword is by Adam Neely. Electronic Music School is a complete guide to starting and running a creative music technology program. We include many …
Blues tonality update
I have been doing a major overhaul of my blues tonality post. It now cites more literature and has a more logical structure. The post is my best attempt at a complete description of blues harmony, its history, and its role (or lack thereof) in music theory pedagogy. I hope you find it useful.
Boogie Chillen
Here’s one of the heaviest and most wonderful recordings ever made. The song is so mysterious, so intense, so ancient-sounding yet so fresh. John Lee Hooker recorded it in 1948 at United Sound Systems in Detroit. (He re-recorded it many more times afterwards.) It went to number one on the R&B chart, which is pretty …
Brokedown Palace
My stepfather died a year and a half ago, but thanks to the pandemic, we’re only now able to have a memorial service for him. My sister, stepsiblings and I are going to sing a Grateful Dead classic: For me, “Brokedown Palace” represents the high point of the Dead’s acoustic folkie side. On American Beauty, …
Kicking out the JAMS
That’s JAMS as in the Journal of the American Musicological Society. I wrote a review of Ableton Live 11 as a tool for musicology and education for their new issue. Email me if you don’t have university library access and I’ll send you a PDF.
Music Ed Tech Talk with Will and me
The current episode of Robby Burns’ podcast features Will Kuhn and myself talking about our book, our philosophy of music education, and our opinions about Star Trek. We talk a lot about Star Trek at the beginning. If you are not interested in Star Trek, feel free to skip ahead.