Telling the truth is a problem, can’t control who tells it and who doesn’t. We raise children and tell them to do it or we try forcing them or threatening […]

Trying to go to sleep but made the mistake of looking at Netflix just to double check the Nina Simone film which is an upcoming assignment to the students to […]

I wrote to Nina Hagen tonight to ask if she would Zoom into our classroom and do Q&A. You never know. Last year I got Drake’s manager, Kevin Drew and […]

Received a letter from Bob Snider today, typed on an old typewriter which is not his usual way of corresponding. The sneaky fingers of modernity eventually get into every cookie […]

Finally the students started to play our open stage, one after the other after the other. Awesome, as I had hoped. Some are more primitive, some are more sophisticated … […]

I ask the students to keep a journal. I tell them it’s valuable for songwriting and it’s just for them and nobody is expected to show it. The down side […]

when starting my masters, a friend told me not to bother reading theodor adorno or the frankfurt school. but recently i did and it was impressive. i wonder what about […]

Heard about two students discussing Thelonious Monk’s compositions. One said those tunes integrate dissonant melodic gestures and through their repetition, position the brain to accept sequences that aren’t necessarily sweet […]

Heard about two students discussing the music of John Cage. One said did you know he didn’t write anything? The other said yes he did, lots of things. The first […]

Groups of two or three students get into seven groups and each selects one record from a list of twenty. There are seven presentations to schedule between now and Christmas. […]