geekery.of.all.sorts

This week we looked in depth at how to think and communicate about rhythm. We discussed meter and rhythmic feel - how many beats per measure (aka, how do you count the music you're playing) and what feel does the song have: straight, swing, triplet, etc. We also delved into subdivision - how to break the beat into smaller pieces, to make your time more accurate and help communicate about the placement of notes. Check out the slides Homework includes: Listening and analysis Speak your subdivisions while listening to the radio Listen to music you find interesting and figure out where the melody falls in the subdivisions. Find challenging music to explore new rhythms, and study the history/culture. Practice Practice scales and other technique exercises at 60bpm, with a metronome.  Listen to where your notes fall, early, late or on time. Then fix it. Subdivide like crazy, to improve your time accuracy and feel.

Greetings to all - here's a synopsis of the second week of our music class! We talked a lot about hearing the individual notes of the major scale. We sing these notes all the time, but it can be really useful to learn to pick them out and recognize their distinct personality when used in a melody. We talked about how some of them are very stable sounds, and others have a lot of energy or tension, and want to move to a more resolved place. That interplay between stability and instability (or dissonance) is what adds motion and interest and direction to our melodies. We talked about listening to the radio while driving or working and attempting to do the following: sing 'do' for anything you hear on the radio sing the main melody, using numbers or syllables sing bass lines, using numbers or syllables sing hooks and instrumental parts using numbers or syllables You can find the slides on Google Drive Here's my Spotify playlists for songs that prominently fea...

Hi all - Here's a recap of my first music class for Practicing Musicians. We talked about our individual backgrounds in music, and set some goals for ourselves.  Listening and Practice goals for week one One big one was that we discussed picking a particular musician and learning their music by ear. For example, I'm learning a jazz solo by John Coltrane on tenor saxophone right now, listening to the recording and playing along with it. Some folks mentioned they knew the style or even the tune they wanted to learn, but they didn't know who the player was. No problem! That's what the internet is for! You can definitely start listening and playing along to your favorite tune, and then go research who played it and what else they did.  It's great to study a particular player (or singer!), and get a sense of their approach and individual style from several different recordings and examples of their playing. If you can copy them note for note and sound just lik...

The setup Although there’s a chapter break separating them, I think that the story covered in John 2:13-3:20 reads as one piece.  Jesus had just busted up the temple courts and made a big splash in Jerusalem around passover, claiming to be able to rebuild the temple in three days, etc.   I think that the cleansing of the temple is actually a preface to the story of Nicodemus.  It sets up the circumstances of his visit, as does the statement that Jesus knew what was inside a man (John 2:25).   That’s the opening statement to Nicodemus’ story.  Jesus knew what was in his heart, and spoke to that, rather than to the surface of how he approached Jesus. Nicodemus: seeker or pharisee? John 3:1-2 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not w...

I've been thinking about Jesus and his title 'The Word of God', for a while now...here's some notes. I was first introduced to this as a serious angle of study and major theme of the New Testament ( rather than a nice verse in John 1 ) when I read 'Prayer' by a German theologan named Hans Urs von Balthasar.  http://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Hans-Urs-von-Balthasar/dp/0898700744   This is probably as difficult a book as I've ever read - but it was transformative for me in a variety of ways.  I need to go back and find a copy and see if it stands up after 10 years. Jesus is represented in scripture as the Word of God - a title that needs to be understood 'as the scripture says', not from the definition our church culture has put on it.  Good evangelical protestant types tend to worship the Bible like it's part of the trinity (usually replacing Holy Spirit). When we say 'The Word of God' we usually are referring to the Bible.  Now, the Bible...

My good friend Will commented on my last post, sharing 3 essential problems that make studying eschatology. I can't speak to the first without further study, can't argue at all with the second - but the third I have thoughts on. Here they are: He said that regarding eschatology, it is the realm of mystery, and 'mystery remains mystery'. Here's my response: Mystery didn't remain mystery for Paul, who stated that the mystery of gospel which had been held since the creation of the world had been revealed, so that the Gentiles could share in the salvation that comes from Christ. See Romans 16 and Eph 3. Daniel was told to seal up his the words until the time of the end - it's spoken twice in Dan 12, the second time affirming that the mysteries shown to Daniel would be sealed until that time. The use of the word 'until' indicates to me that those mysteries would be UNsealed when the time came. It's consistent with the unfolding nature of divine re...

I'm a bit interested in Eschatology. For those of you who don't know what eschatology is, it's the study of eschat . Really, no, I'm just kidding. I don't even know what eschat is... But I heard some fairly convincing stuff from a preterist this last week. Preterists believe that the last days described in the Bible happened in the first century, and that it's all done. Well, I don't think that's right. So I've been thinking on that. Here's a bit of it: Preterists take the time words very seriously - the statements that are made in Matthew 24, Revelation 1-3, and elsewhere, where Jesus says that 'this generation' would see the kingdom, or that 'the time is near', or 'these things must soon come to pass'. I was challenged to take those seriously as well - I had not given them as much thought as other elements of those same passages...but I find the strict preterist interpretation simplistic, as I understand it. Ba...