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I teach in Oregon City and online videochat. I work with all ages and levels and a variety of styles. I specialize in creative exploration, the psychology of music, and conscious music practices. Visit the lessons page to learn more.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

What is the whole point of music?

Music lessons generally involve learning the technique to play a specific instrument or learning the rules, patterns, and jargon of a particular music culture. However, those nuts and bolts do not address questions of why we bother with this music stuff in the first place.
I've heard explanations like, 'music is part of what makes us civilized', or 'music is food for the soul', or simply, 'music is wonderful and enriching'. Clearly, those answers don't really tell us anything. In some cases, we tend to hear about extramusical side-effects, such as learning teamwork or that music involves mathematics. Certainly, music is one of the many forms of play that develop all sorts of general skills, but as many of us sense, music can be deeper than just playing around.

Perhaps the main drive to music is simply that, for most people, it achieves a strong emotional response. How that happens is certainly worth studying, and that is a substantial aspect of the field of music psychology. Music can have useful functions as well. We use it to control our sense of time, coordinate groups of people, support rhythmic physical activity such as repetitive labor or exercise, augment verbal expression, control moods, entertain, assist in memorizing, and more.

There is an unlimited number of different pieces to learn and techniques and styles to study. Without an understanding of what music is and why we use it, music study can lose direction and meaning. With such understanding, we can prioritize and focus on the specific skills, techniques, and pieces that achieve our practical goals. We can more effectively teach, write, practice, and appreciate music. I strongly believe that no technique or theory should be taught without also explaining its purpose (or at least asking the questions if the answers aren't yet known).

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Benefits of Music Study

In many ways, music is only one of many fields through which students may gain various important lifelong skills. Some people claim music to be more important than other fields such as athletics, visual arts, etc. However, in many respects, the best music teachers, the best athletic coaches, and the best science teachers are all essentially teaching how to be a dedicated, critical, and creative person. Music happens to be my field of expertise, so I teach through music.
Music's intrinsic values and functions should be paramount. Still, there is nothing wrong with discussing some of the more broad benefits as well. It is not reasonable to study music just because it helps with math, but some subjects, such as confidence, have no direct course of study. Confidence is not an activity or field of study, it is something gained through many varying activities, music among them. And while the best way to excel at math is to study it directly, it is alright to note that music does involve math as well.

Below is a list of extramusical items that can be learned through well-taught music study. This list includes both broad skills as well as tangential, interdisciplinary subjects. Any good music teacher should strive for including all of these. (And with such a broad list, there's no excuse for artificially connecting truly unrelated things to music just to be "interdisciplinary") This list helps define some of the what and why of music study, which should always be a prerequisite to studying the how of teaching or learning anything.

Music study may involve or encourage, in no precise order, explained only when I felt necessary (and not an exhaustive list):

Self-awareness & reflection

Critical thinking

Imagination - specifically developing control of aural imagery ('audiation')

Creativity - through interpretation, composition, improvisation, and experimentation

Curiosity

Diligence

Confidence

Respect - for traditions, for teachers, for audience, for fellow musicians...

Teamwork - through ensemble playing

Independence - practice is often done alone, especially at more advanced stages

Vocabulary / language / poetry - through song and songwriting, and through analogous pitch and rhythm aspects of relating language to music

Personal expression

Control over one's own mindset - such as the ability to choose when to have one's listening or playing be more emotionally versus more intellectually focused

Control of the experience of time - different music can encourage smaller or larger time-scale focus. Also, learning to focus on longer and shorter sections of the same music is fundamental to advanced playing. Patience is actually a skill contained within this overall time-flow control.

Habit control - to succeed in music, one must understand of how habits work, how to recognize them, how to unlearn bad habits and develop desired ones.

Physical control, coordination, dexterity - some variance depending on instrument, but the physical skills of playing or singing are substantial. Good music teaching informs students what physical positions are healthy, how muscles work, and how to be conscious of these issues.

Pattern recognition - a major aspect to understanding and learning music. Awareness of the way human psyche processes patterns, including illusions is important.

Mathematics - unfortunately, typical western interval names in music (e.g. "major second") actually are mathematically problematic because they create a fence-post error (two major seconds make a major third, 2+2=3?!? — this is because the naming system lacks a zero and double-counts the note shared by both "second" intervals). Additionally, rhythm terminology is mathematical but often taught purely by rote. It is enabling to learn the real math behind how rhythm, harmony, and melody operate. Explicit math is not a necessary factor in music, but music is overall very mathematical.

Physics - the acoustics of instruments, rooms, and anatomy of the ear are all relevant and should be taught from the very beginning. I haven't yet had a student of any age struggle to understand that strings vibrate - and that is what makes sound. And furthermore that they vibrate faster and slower based on (A) mass (practically described as a string's thickness/density and length) and (B) tension. Many music teachers unfortunately deprive their students of these simple insights by simply asking them to accept by rote that a sound is "low" or "high." Learning these insights into the physics of sound is not only interesting, but also provides the ability to think critically about the actual effect of technical choices in one's playing.

Psychology - music is nothing if not psychological. Because it is so multifaceted, music offers significant insight into psychology in general and everything else listed here exists within a psychological framework.

Culture and history - Music is among the most ancient elements of human society. Musical patterns that happen to have become common historically are very relevant to being a musician in the real world, but they need context and qualification. The best teachers should not say "music works like this" when referring to a cultural tradition. All music should be taught with cultural and historical context.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

A Rational View of Copyright

Revised December 2013

For years, we've heard arguments about "piracy" and "theft" referring to illegal copying. But obviously, the comparison of music downloading to stealing a car is absurd.


(side note: I made a barbershop quartet arrangement of the song in that video)


Okay, so copying is not theft, but that doesn't mean we can just ignore copyright infringement and assume everything will be fine. If we want quality products, they must be adequately funded, and it is important for everyone to contribute their fair share. Instead of the inappropriate metaphor of "piracy" for illegal file-sharing, we should use the term freeloader. With this more accurate frame, we can go about figuring out what issues are real and how to move forward and deal with the problems.

We face great challenges to maximizing open access, creative output, fair use, individual expression, individual freedoms, and fair wealth distribution. In this article, I am going to attempt to thoroughly discuss the issue, asking questions, proposing ideas, and sharing links to important resources. My goal is to take a broad view, focused on what is best for society as a whole while respecting individual concerns.