Kablammo!

Well, it certainly seems like this will be the Semester of Music. In addition to having Meeskoor every other week, I’ve got the following courseload:

• History of Jazz and Blues.
• Music Theory I.
• Introduction to Digital Audio Production.

The history and theory courses are with the same professor—a guy who (a) knows his stuff, (b) loves what he does, and (c) is articulate. So at least as far as the professor is concerned, I’ve hit the trifecta and I’ve got no excuses in that regard, even if when the courses turn into a lot of work. And doing the work for the theory course should prove helpful with this semester’s Project I Won’t Get Around To Doing, which involves computerizing the sheet music for a bunch of Meeskoor songs.

So far (after one class each of history and theory) I’ve noticed a very striking schism between the classes: in one, the focus has been squarely on things like the “harmonic principles of the common practice period” and “the structural, formal, and procedural workings of Western European tonal music”; the other focuses on a style of music that rejects quite a lot of that stuff and replaces it with decidedly non-mathematical, non-notational content. Quite interesting.

And in a few hours, I get my first taste of the production class, which will hopefully (a) motivate and (b) require me to get off my ass and record some of the songs I’ve been meaning to record for weeks/months/years. (Possibly after I use the theory course to improve them as needed.)

Song of the Moment: «Chicago» — Django Reinhardt

1 Comment

• Laurel says:

  January 18, 2006 at 15:48

  Wait, you’re back in school? Catch me up.

  Reply