I wrote a lot of stuff this year! First, let’s talk about the big projects that I started in previous years but finished in 2022. The biggest one was my doctoral dissertation. Read the story of it here. Now I’m in the gradual process of adapting it into a more accessible format, probably a book aimed at music teachers. That’s percolating in the background.
I also finished a book chapter about critical race theory in music education with Frank Abrahams. We started it quite a while ago, before CRT was a regular topic on Fox News and before conservative states started banned its teaching. We were still editing about a week before it went to the printers.
On a less controversial topic, I wrote a teacher resource called Theory Hacks for the good people at Ableton, and they published it at the beginning of the year. It’s a series of creative projects for teaching music theory concepts using Live’s Chord and Scale devices. I have an Ableton fan for a long time, both for their products and their people, and I hope it’s the first of many things I do with them.
A lot of the writing I did this year was motivated directly or indirectly by my teaching a couple of new classes. The one that required the most heavy lifting was Contemporary Music Theories at the New School. This blog has been a convenient place to collect resources for the class. For example, I wrote a guide to the minor scales, along with an interactive Noteflight explainer that I’m especially proud of. I also wrote explainers about tuning (and, more specifically, this one note in a Led Zeppelin song), and blues harmony (for example, as used in this Marvin Gaye classic). I didn’t completely ignore the Western European canon; we spent some quality time with Bach, both his counterpoint writing and his reception history. We were just getting into Elizabeth Cotten when the entire university went on strike. Maybe next semester will be more normal.
Earlier in the year, I read Dan Charnas’ Dilla Time, and then immediately re-read it. I was pleasantly surprised to find this blog cited in it. (I got to meet Dan, too, and he is a mensch.) I had enjoyed Dilla’s music before reading the book, but I had no idea how it worked or why it is so important until Dan broke it down for me. Since reading it, I have been listening to some of my old favorites with fresh ears for microrhythm, like Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon“. I worked some Dilla material into Contemporary Music Theories and am planning to do more when/if I get to teach it again.
To celebrate finishing my dissertation, my wife took me on a date to see David Byrne’s American Utopia on Broadway. My kids were mad that we didn’t take them along, so I showed them the movie version. It was a surprisingly big hit with them, and we spent a couple of months with Talking Heads and David Byrne solo material in heavy rotation around the house. I ended up transcribing several of those songs. I’m teaching songwriting next semester, and I have a feeling I’ll be drawing on these tunes.
Finally, I started putting together a forthcoming book about teaching kids to groove with my friend Heather Fortune. I transcribed some iconic grooves by Prince, Patrice Rushen, and Erroll Garner. Watch this blog for updates on this project.
Also, I started a Substack. It has exactly the same content as this blog, but maybe you prefer reading things in that format? If so, sign up.