The Goal
Music slips beneath the conscious layers of thought, completely bypassing my rational centers, which I find really weird. I seem to be drawn to the arrangement and composition of notes, tone, melody. Even though I don’t play an instrument I’d like to try to compose music. It’s another form of communication!
The Approach
This is the goal that I am expecting a lot of pushback on from traditionalists. Over the years I’ve tried traditional approaches to music instruction, but they have focused on performance over theory, whereas I want theory driving performance. Fortunately, today there is ample material available that makes a non-traditional approach to music composition viable, and I know some musicians who seem cool with that to talk to.
Some tangible artifacts that would fulfill this goal are:
- Write a short piano ditty, around 2 minutes long, with a beginning, a middle, a bridge, and an end.
- Write some song lyrics, maybe 50-100 words, and write a short piano piece around it
- Perform and record the song, with me singing
- Arrange the song for more instruments
March 2015
- I have been attending Piano Karaoke, which is a live-accompanied form of karaoke, since maybe Spring 2014. I started going because my friend Elise was doing it, and then I kept going because I found I was learning a lot about the relationship between people and their favorite music. It occurred to me that learning how to get up and sing is actually a good experience, because I’m learning some vocal mechanics and being exposed to a variety of songs and singing styles. Recently, Elise has been posting short snippets of the performances on SoundCloud, so now I can actually hear myself analytically. I’ve been too chicken to listen to myself, but the challenge is there.
February 2016
- I’ve gathered audio gear and prepped screencasting softwareto make it possible to experiment and capture my initial sessions.
- I prepped an introduction
- I started making lists of song videos to review in the screencasts.
REFLECTIONTAB
