In the fall of 2019, I started teaching Fundamentals of Western Music at the New School’s Eugene Lang College. It combines the usual Music Theory I content with a broader, more ethnomusicological perspective that brings in various forms of pop, non-Western musics, and (most excitingly for me) the blues. It’s an existing course, but I …
Continue reading “Developing an intro-level music theory course”
I recently met a gentleman named Samuel Halligan, who, among other things, makes music education utilities using Max For Live. One of them is called Pop-Up Piano. If you use Max or Ableton and you could use some help learning music theory, you should go and download it immediately. It’s a Max For Live Device …
Continue reading “Samuel Halligan’s awesome Pop-Up Piano for Ableton Live”
It looks as though I’ll be teaching Fundamentals of Western Music at The New School’s Eugene Lang College for the next two semesters. If ever there was a place that aligns with my personality and approach, that is it. They showed me a music theory quiz that uses an image from this very blog. That’s …
I’m currently working with Techrow Fund to develop an afterschool music technology program called The Producer Club. We’re doing the pilot program at New Design Middle School in Harlem with a group each of sixth graders, seventh graders, and eighth graders. Techrow had approached me to teach, but I suggested that, rather than hiring a middle-aged …
I have a longstanding musical relationship with Michael Jackson. There’s nothing remarkable about that; many people do. Like the rest of my age cohort, Michael entered my consciousness with Thriller in the early 1980s. Aside from a period in my teens and young adulthood, he has rarely been out of my ears since. The relationship …
I’m in the process of doing some large-scale writing about the way I teach music technology. To that end, I thought I would talk some about how I evaluate students’ creative work, both for grading purposes and during in-class critiques. The main thing I have students do in music tech class is make original music …
Continue reading “Critiquing creative work with a growth mindset”
I complain a lot on this blog about traditional approaches to teaching music theory. Fortunately, there are some alternatives out there. One such is Everyday Tonality by Philip Tagg. Don’t be put off by the DIY look of the web site. The book is the single best resource I know of for how harmony works across …
One of our key design principles at the NYU MusEDLab is not to confront beginners with a blank canvas. We want to introduce people to our tools by giving them specific, real-world music to play around with. That was the motivation behind creating presets for the aQWERTYon, and a similar impulse informs Ableton’s approach to their online music tutorials. …
Ableton recently launched a delightful web site that teaches the basics of beatmaking, production and music theory using elegant interactives. If you’re interested in music education, creation, or user experience design, you owe it to yourself to try it out.
I’m currently working on a book chapter about the Disquiet Junto, the internet’s most innovative creative music community, run by author and blogging inspiration Marc Weidenbaum. As part of my research, I conducted a survey of the Junto mailing list. Here’s a summary of the first 130 responses.
