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How to groove
When teaching guitar, I find that my students need the most help with groove. Students come to me expecting to learn chords, scales, riffs and ultimately entire tunes. I do teach those things, but...
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What are the greatest basslines ever?
The bassline is neglected by most non-musicians. But if you want to write or produce music, you quickly find out how important it is. The bassline is the foundation of the whole musical structure, both...
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How did the word “groovy” come to acquire its current meaning?
The word “groovy” originates in jazz slang, referring to music that’s swinging, tight, funky, in the pocket. The analogy is to the groove in a vinyl record — the musicians are so together that it’s...
View ArticleIs it boring to play repetitive music?
Quora user Andrew Stein asks: Musicians: How do you deal with playing songs that have very monotonous parts? I’m going to use James Brown’s Sex Machine as an example. Don’t get me wrong, I love the...
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The Groove Pizza
Walking to the subway this morning, I had a bright idea for how to make the Drum Loop more kid-friendly by representing the radial grid as a pizza. Here’s a very quick concept sketch: To really make...
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What is groove?
You hear musicians talk all the time about groove. You might wonder what they mean by that. A lot of musicians couldn’t explain exactly, beyond “the thing that makes music sound good.” The etymology of...
View ArticleThe Blurred Lines lawsuit
Marvin Gaye is one of the great singers and songwriters of all time, with a status deservedly approaching secular sainthood. Robin Thicke is a sleazy dirtbag who made a giant pile of money by knocking...
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Musical simples: Stir It Up
The I-IV-V chord progression is one of the cornerstones of Western music, uniting everything from Mozart to Missy Elliott. Bob Marley’s “Stir It Up” is as clear and concise an introduction to I-IV-V as...
View ArticleSeeing classic beats with the Groove Pizza
We created the Groove Pizza to make it easier to both see and hear rhythms. The next step is to create learning experiences around it. In this post, I’ll use the Pizza to explain the structure of some...
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Visualizing trap beats with the Groove Pizza
In a previous post, I used the Groove Pizza to visualize some classic hip-hop beats. But the kids are all about trap beats right now, which work differently from the funk-based boom-bap of my era. From...
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Philip Tagg’s Everyday Tonality
I complain a lot on this blog about the traditional teaching of music theory. Fortunately, a better alternative exists: Everyday Tonality by Philip Tagg. Don’t be put off by the DIY look of the web...
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Remixing Satie’s Gymnopédie No 1 with Ableton Live
Following up on Debussy’s “Claire De Lune”, I’ve taken on another of the greatest hits of the classical canon that my ear does not intuitively understand: Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédie No 1“. My first...
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Draft dissertation literature review
Read more sections of my dissertation in progress here In this chapter, I examine the literature on the role that hip-hop plays in American school music programs, as well as the obstacles to its...
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How did the word “groovy” come to acquire its current meaning?
The word “groovy” originates in jazz slang, referring to music that’s swinging, tight, funky, in the pocket. The analogy is to the groove in a vinyl record — the musicians are so together that it’s...
View ArticleAin’t No Sunshine
I was in a rock/funk/soul band that covered this many years ago. Always loved that one part, you know which part I mean. If this is not the most soulful thing in history: The basic idea is simple. The...
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Clair de Lune
I struggle with the rhythms of rubato-heavy classical pieces, and no one loves rubato more than the Impressionists. When I started listening in earnest to recordings of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” I...
View ArticleWhat does it mean to remix the classical canon
Here’s an exciting thing that happened recently. I used your classical remixes album today for a lesson on anti-racist music ed for 150 high schoolers. — Scott Anderson (@olabscott) June 9, 2020 I...
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Mothership Connection
In high school, my friend Aubin, who was much cooler than me, told me I needed to go listen to some Parliament. I bought a cassette of The Clones of Dr Funkenstein, probably just because of its name. I...
View ArticleChildren of Production
My four-year-old daughter is currently super into “Children of Production” from Parliament’s classic 1976 album The Clones of Dr Funkenstein, their followup to Mothership Connection. If that album...
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What is going on in this Noname beat?
Hip-hop in the post-Dilla era has been pushing the boundaries of rhythmic dissonance. The coolest and most mysterious groove I’ve heard in a rap song lately is “Sunny Duet” by Noname. The rhythms here...
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