help me with my class?

(there is no YT clip of the Matewan scene that i can find ☹️)

thanks for trying! it's ok -- we had a lot to cover anyway

idk why but i freaking LOVE talking about improvisation. it's such a relatable topic, maybe more relatable than playing composed music because everything about life is improvisation. i feel like my students connected with the concept really well.

Here's another possibly useful thread---we also talk about some school marching bands and stuff like Music For The Knee Plays on here, but mostly the evervolution of
New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

Also: Brooklyn Raga Massive's performance of Terry Riley's "In C" is all here:
https://bkragamassive.bandcamp.com/album/terry-riley-in-c-2

I think maybe all or a good many of the tracks from The Langley Schools Music Project collection, developed with Orffian techniques, are currently on youtube, anyway here's some of the backstory etc:
http://www.bar-none.com/langley-school

this week i am heading into the growth and reach of jazz (jazz pt 2). it's going to be a pretty lite overview, but they will have 3 weeks to work on their next presentations so we can do some of the research together. i think we need to do this considering how the last ones turned out to mostly be artist bios and very little discussion of the music. aside from the one about yodeling, which suffered from rather severe technical difficulties.

now i have to start writing the midterm! it's the week after next. man i have so many things to do :-/

my slides this week are so cluttered with information it's dizzying
going from jelly roll to sun ra in 3 hours, put on your helmets!

i was thinking of trying to explain how jazz is like druids

<3

Sorry for those last two inclusions, somehow I didn't get just how jazz the focus is right now----are you ging to have ear quiz? I took this course where we had to name the artist and styles, especially the latter--rag, stride, swing, classic bop, hard bop etc.---hardest thing was just that the teacher had kept talking ("YA HEAR WHAT HE'S GETTIN' TO THERE?")over the records when originally playing them, some way early in the semester, but it turned out okay (for the students who hadn't dropped out long before, having realized it wasn't going to be an easy-peasy elective after all).

I didn't take *this* course; at another school, I took Jazz and Pop Culture (which was almost all the former, except for some crossovers like Cole Porter and Kurt Weill and several older performers; also I turned the teacher on to Pretzel Logic, this being the 70s).

no name that tune in my class
we are however going to bliss out to this at some point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxPMKgY_8qk

La lechera, this class is sounding like a great success! Good job

going through slides and making my midterm study guide
we have learned a lot!

choosing what selections to use for their midterm exam listening/writing section is tough
going with two songs i think they will like and have a lot to write about given the stuff we have covered in class so far.
i think they have learned a lot! there is always more to learn.

folk: "the foggy dew" (folk ballads unit)
jazz "lush life" (this has been tough but i am happy with my choice -- they liked the coltrane/hartman album when i played it for them as intro music once and it is not going to aggravate them)

for a different class, i would have chosen different songs. for this group, i think they will both like and have things to say about these two selections. we'll see i guess!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XCzbdXivCM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0izjSUqCcSQ

i gotta brag because i am pleased with myself -- i offered two options for listening: youtube or CDs. we have laptops available for the people who want to use youtube, and i set up a listening station (complete with party light for visual entertainment) for students who prefer to listen offline. the IT department had headphones for us to use and everything seems to be working. it's a nice reprieve from the constantly malfunctioning laptop projectors/their speakers. i have so far avoided spending my own money on a bluetooth speaker.

also proud because my students are all working really hard, brought their study guides, and seem very focused.

idk how they handle testing on these subjects at other places. i wrote my own exam because the existing one was pitifully bad. is there a departmental exam you have to teach to, sund4r?

I've actually never had to teach to a departmental exam for anything, even for core theory courses. I know that it does happen for theory at some places but I've never heard of it for elective history/appreciation sorts of courses.

my school where i teach is very small and very weird, i have no idea how it's done elsewhere. this course was moribund when i took the assignment and there were basically no materials.

when i was in college, the course was called "history of rock and roll" and i did not take it because i thought i already knew everything i needed to know about "rock and roll"
lol

the hubris of youth, I almost miss it sometimes
(I do not)

your students are so lucky to have you, srsly and sncrly

also, i would love to take over a 'History of Rock n' Roll' college course and start out the semester in full crumhorn squall

I don't know anything about music but you sound like a great teacher.

thanks y'all! i think i am an above-average teacher. i could probably be greater and for that, i have time. hopefully! this class has taken its toll on my pursuit of my own musical endeavors, which is alright because spring break is coming up AND summer AND this will be easier next time. and i think i am doing a good job. i am looking forward to reading their answers to the midterm. that's not something i say every semester.

Great song selections for the midterm!

thanks!
i was extra pleased about "the foggy dew" because i was having trouble finding the lyrics, was about to type it out myself, and then typed in my favorite phrase from the song ("what the foggy dew has done") and up popped the folkways pdf of the liner notes from the original folkways release of false true lovers, which i screenshotted and used on the exam!!! it is a tiny bit...ribald but my students are adults. i truly enjoyed this pointless tidbit and sharing it with them. also they got to read a short paragraph about the song as well as Shirley's opinion about that version of "the foggy dew"!! WIN WIN WIN WIN

now playing shirley box disc 3 bc of u

enjoy!

take a warning by me itt

this is mostly off-topic and might be old news but i'm gonna put it here anyway because because dag

The University of Glasgow's Historical Thesaurus of English

post-midterm having a serious disciplinary situation to deal with

REQUEST: need to find good examples (online, need links) of evocative descriptive writing (in English or Spanish) about music
scene reports, issues- or beef-based music journalism less useful; looking for descriptions of music -- ideally popular music, nothing super out there (i can handle that part!)

is allmusic still the most comprehensive online (professional) review site?

I've never looked into this myself, but maybe worth a look? https://www.rocksbackpages.com/

that does look useful, thanks!!

The Guardian's jazz critic John Fordham is one of the best at writing evocative descriptions of music, imo. Describing free improv in words is no easy feat but he does a great job, as here for example:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/mar/06/dave-holland-evan-parker-review-vortex-london

thank you!

we discussed the rest of the semester last night, and what we were going to cover. i thought for sure students would want to learn about classical music (at least a little?) but interest was low. they became more animated when i suggested that we go through the 20th-21st c decade by decade focusing on innovators & the most influential figures & sounds from around the world. so i have a lot of work to do, but it sounds fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun (to me)

we're going to launch this spaceship with the carter family & the difference between harry smith's folk anthology/the lomax recordings that we have already studied and land somewhere in the post-spotify landscape. i think learning this stuff will result in at least as much "music appreciation" as a syllabus that focuses mostly on western art music..

oh! and i played the half-speed Heavenly Music Corporation from No Pussyfooting as their entry music this week. i walked out of the room and came back and it sounded like my classroom was underwater and inside a whale. :) i also taught them what a synthesizer is!

Love the plan!

Disappointed a tiny bit to hear they have zero interest in poking around classical music but I have had to accept that by and large people are super turned off by it (there’s a reason the ny port authority pipes classical music into the halls to keep homeless people from loitering)

Heh, at least several students in yesterday's class liked Wendy Carlos's version of Bach's Fugue in Cm more than Angela Hewitt's.

my favorite carter family song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-n7RwGfnn8

the verses about lawyers and doctors are hilarious, and great reminders about how the stuff that drove us crazy 90 years ago isn't all that different from the stuff that drives us crazy today.

class tonight was really fun -- we covered Tito Puente (a student presentation), the beginning of the recording and distribution of recorded music (Thomas Edison*, records, radio), the 1950s from Doris Day to Bo Diddley to a lively discussion of La Bamba, and so many other things. They loved "Only You", laughed at "Yakety Yak", did not seem to care about Buddy Holly (one student knew Weezer, but only "Beverly Hills" and I am not joking) and did not recognize the picture I chose of Celia Cruz on the front page of the presentation. i feel like i did a good job considering the circumstances. that's all a person can expect.

* My youngest student (spent her 20th birthday on an outing for class <3) said, upon hearing (what i assume is an actual recording of Thomas Edison) "That is actually Thomas Edison?" and (based on my understanding, this is not a hoax video?) I told her yes, that is Thomas Edison. I hope it is not a hoax because that blew her mind.

this is the one i used, seriously hope i did not lie to my students!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnGsHx7QD2o

It's not a hoax, it's just a recording from much later (I think 1930s) that people always cut up and try to pass off as the original, long-lost tinfoil recording from 1877.

oh
do you know if there is a real one?

this is what i get for trying to show off!

there are def extant v v primitive recordings of brahms playing the piano which were made in 1889... twelve years earlier though...

are they on youtube? i feel dumb for believing that this was real but oh well.
if everything else didn't ruin my feelings about this class, this isn't going to do it!

i think so yeah (brahms 1889 on youtube)

wow the earliest playable sound recordings are a LOT earlier than I guessed

http://www.firstsounds.org/sounds/

Is the 1878 Edison on this site the debunked one?

Don't worry, it's still really him! So you didn't really lie to them.

I am trying not to spam my website too much, but I do make this history of recorded sound - the relevant episodes are here - https://centuriesofsound.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/1878-1885/ - and here - https://centuriesofsound.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/1887-1888/ - please feel free to dig around there too, the most recent episode about 1901 is easily my favourite so far - https://centuriesofsound.wordpress.com/2018/04/02/1901/

But as for the specifics - there *is* a recording of a voice reciting 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' from 1878, but it almost certainly isn't the voice of Edison, actually very interesting anyway, you can find out about it here - https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/scientists-recover-the-sounds-of-19th-century-music-and-laughter-from-the-oldest-playable-american-recording/264147/

The earliest recording of Edison's voice that I'm aware of is this weird thing 'Around The World on the Phonograph' from 1888

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ajRIMXgFA

ooooooh thank you!! that's awesome!! i will share with them.

I am trying not to spam my website too much, but I do make this history of recorded sound

which is totally amazing.

it's not spam if "help me" is in the thread title :)

Thanks for the reassurance, it takes up most of my free time right now and will do for the next decade or more, so I'm sort of self-conscious about talking about it too much on here, especially when I post a new episode and don't get any replies, just don't want anyone to feel that they are being continually told about something not of interest to them.

it takes up most of my free time right now and will do for the next decade or more, so I'm sort of self-conscious about talking about it too much on here, especially when I post a new episode something i made and spent time/effort on and don't get any replies, just don't want anyone to feel that they are being continually told about something not of interest to them.

i know that feeling -- hard to straddle the line between not bothering people and being invisible. these days i am erring on the side of "do it regardless" because no one will know it's there unless i tell them. likewise for your project! the more you share it, the more other people will see it and be like hey that's cool. if people are annoyed, they are free to ignore me, which is where i was at the beginning so no harm done. self-promotion is unnecessarily stigmatized because a minority of people go overboard imo. in general, there is no other way to let people know what you have been working on! i have thoughts about this apparently.

wow also thank you for sharing all of that information.
i for one am grateful and my students will love that i made a mistake and found better information for them.

No worries sharing information - I have been immersed in (so far) 1859 to 1913 for more than two years now and am absolutely itching to share things with anyone even vaguely interested.