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 …
Continue reading “What I learned from remixing “Dreams” over and over”
Someday I want to write something long about Bach. (Maybe I’ll call it Bach to the Future, ha ha.) I have been slowly building toward it by doing a lot of Bach analysis here on the blog. My pandemic project has been learning movements from the D minor, G minor and E major violin partitas …
My kid is learning the Moonlight Sonata. It’s lovely and all, but for a truly fresh take on this piece, you need to hear Isaac Schankler’s version. You can think of the first movement as having three parts: the bassline, the arpeggios, and the melody. Isaac shifted the bassline a bar later and the melody …
Classical music is both familiar and strange to me. My parents played classical radio constantly when I was growing up, and I have primal memories of Robert J Lurtsema intoning “This… is Morning… Pro Musica… on National… Public… Radio.” My dad in particular was a huge opera buff, with a floor-to-ceiling collection of tapes and …
Continue reading “Classical music as ancient alien power source”
While investigating the Bach Chaconne, I found this beautiful lute performance by Hopkinson Smith. It’s enlightening to compare Smith’s performance to Moran Wasser playing the Chaconne on 11-string guitar. The lute is less bright and resonant than guitar, but I like Smith’s playing better, he’s not as melodramatic. I couldn’t find any video of him playing …
My dissertation research includes a methodology of my own invention, which I’m calling analytical remixing. I’m writing about three hip-hop educators, in order to illuminate hip-hop as an education philosophy, not just a subject area. That includes centering the remix as an important and underexplored music education practice. Beyond just writing about remixing, I am making …
