Hiatus

I'm gone until New Years.

I will be sitting on the beaches of Mexico reviewing my 18th century theory. So brush up on realizing figured bass, and explaining modulation the classical way if you so miss Maria's Music during my absence.

I don't understand why jazz musicians say "first inversion" and classical musicians say "6". Jazz musicians say it how it is, and classical musicians come up with a symbol to describe how it is. Jazz is a fast paced art. You need short, simple phrases to get the idea across quick. Classical music is a thought-out art. The better part of a jazz song, the improvisation, is lead only by chord changes. The whole of a classical work is written out.

Check out the new Do The Math if that doesn't interest you.

Have a merry Christmas! And a happy New Year.

National Honor Society

I am a tad (well, very) cynical about National Honor Society and programs like it. The idea that membership in a club, who's main purpose is to volunteer (i.e. without selfish motives), is going to get you into a "good" college is ridiculous. Membership in National Honor Society does not reflect any sort of scholarly output of the members either. You are only asked to join if you have good grades already.

But as always, Mr. Ethan Iverson has it spot on.

From 9th grade on every great teacher I've ever had would know who Schoenburg is. More and more I am led to the belief that an eclectic music library and being smart go hand in hand. Few idiots listen to Charlie Parker or Mozart. I'll have to think about it more before I start forming to many shameless characterizations.

Genres

I hate genres.

You can't describe any good artist with one or two words.

Sonny Rollins: 1959, 1982, 1988 - 1990

John Coltrane: 1958, 1960, 1961 and 1965, 1965

Ludwig Van Beethoven: 1797, 1806 1824

John Cage: 1939, 1940, 1942

Herbie Hancock: 1975, 1992, 2006

Happy Apple: 2004, 2006

Kenny G: 1986, 1988, 1997
For the record, I am embarrassed to put this music with the other artists. I don't think Mr. Gorelick is a "good artist" but one word wouldn't describe his music.

Green Day: 1994, 2005

I especially hate the label "classical":

J.S. Bach, Frederik Chopin, Claude Debussy, Sergey Rachmaninov, Alexander Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky,

Reviews

Mwanji Ezana has an interesting post about reviewing music. The comments are pretty cool to read too.

If somebody says they like Kenny G I immediately think they know nothing about jazz. That's probably more of a stereotype than anything else. A well grounded stereotype in my opinion. Nevertheless, it's very easy to draw more from the review than what is actually there. At least concretely there. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.