Together with Adam Bell, I’m planning some in-depth writing about the phenomenon of pop musicians (like me) teaching in formal, classically-oriented institutional settings. This post is a loosely organized collection of relevant thoughts. What even is “pop music?” As far as the music academy is concerned, all music except classical or folk is “popular.” People …
Category Archives: Music Teaching
My Montclair State students evaluate me
I’m wrapping up my first semester as a legit college professor, and that means my first round of student evaluations. Here’s what my Intro to Music Tech students at Montclair State University had to say about me. The creation of original music was a big hit, predictably. Everyone in the class is from the classical …
Adam Bell evaluates my teaching
Adam Bell is a fellow pop musician turned academic, and he hired me to teach at Montclair State University. He recently offered to observe my teaching; here’s what he found. Teaching Observation of Ethan Hein – MUTC-101: Introduction to Music Technology As the students began to trickle into the music technology lab and power up …
What if music theory made sense?
Music theory is hard. But we make it harder by holding on to naming and notational conventions that are hundreds of years old, and that were designed to describe very different music than what we’re playing now. Here are some fantasies for how note naming might be improved. Right now, the “default setting” for western …
Composing for controllerism
My first set of attempts at controllerism used samples of the Beatles and Michael Jackson. For the next round, I thought it would be good to try to create something completely from scratch. So this is my first piece of music created specifically with controllerism in mind. The APC40 has forty trigger pads. You can …
Toward a statement of purpose
I’m in the process of applying for a PhD in music education, and I have to come up with a statement of purpose. Here’s my most current draft. I dream of a world where music education serves everyone, not just potential classical virtuosos, with a radically revised curriculum that erases the distinction between “school music” …
How to write a pop song
My students are currently hard at work writing pop songs, many of them for the first time. For their benefit, and for yours, I thought I’d write out a beginner’s guide to contemporary songwriting. First, some points of clarification: This post only talks about the instrumental portion of the song, known as the track. I …
All student work should go on the web
Well, it’s official. All of my students are now henceforth required to post all music assignments on SoundCloud. It solves so many problems! No fumbling with thumb drives, no sharing of huge files, no annoyances with incompatible DAWs. No need to mess with audio-hostile Learning Management Systems. Everyone gets to listen to everyone else’s music. …
Panel on games in education
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 …
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, …