Rock on brotha. 🤘🏻

Your suggestion that I create a competing music education system is kind of hostile and defensive and weird.

I probably misread what you were saying up there. No hostility intended.

I’m retired out of music now. I work in the industrial sector and do music on the side. And I’ve learned a lot more about music since escaping academia that I’d never have gotten, and encountered people who have similarly broken away from the formalized, conservatory educational attitudes and grown as performers.

Regarding your question about samba and bossa nova, I’m not very experienced with those styles. You’d likely find instructional videos or articles out there that can explain what’s going on harmonically better than I could. I’m mostly a rock guy lol.

but I think the theory should follow the music.

My friend, it does. That’s has always been its purpose. That’s one of the points I’m trying to make. If your teachers never made that clear to you, they owe you an apology. And yes, I’m fully aware that there are musicians who place theory above practice. You don’t have to take them seriously.

I get it - if I’m reading you right you’ve come to the conclusion that ear training isn’t being given the focus it deserves. Which may be your experience but I feel like in the larger musical world aural skills are highly valued. Yeah, I’ve seen many “highly trained” kids who can sight read their ass off but freeze when you take their sheet music away. It’s common. Their teachers failed them. The music education system at large is a very fragmented thing. It’s filled with microcosms created by short-sighted instructors who value X over Y. In the performing world that I lived in, we were all ear people. We had to be. That was the way you survived on our stage. There’s lots of that happening out there. If you think you can devise a system that doesn’t currently exist that hammers that home, I’d be the first person to encourage you to do so.

Hard disagree on your point regarding music theory. Learn as much music theory as possible because that’s the path to understanding what you’re playing and why musical sounds gravitate towards and away from each other the way they do.

If you’ve viewed theory as this abstract, academic set of “rules” designed to force you to play and write only in a certain way, this is just straight up wrong. It is not that and was never intended to be. If you wrote or played something that skirts your current understanding of music theory, and it’s still sounds good, great! Carry on. You may eventually come across a theoretical explanation for it, and if you never do, that’s okay too. It’s probably still out there somewhere.

I spent several decades as a professional musician. I can’t begin to count the number of dunderheads I’ve encountered who’d say, “I don’t want to learn theory. I think it’ll limit me.” Those people are morons. There’s no such thing as knowledge that makes you less knowledgeable. If you’re one of those people, I implore you to stop being one of those people. I’m much more impressed by intellectually honest people who’ll say, “I don’t want to learn theory because I can’t get my head around it, but I still love playing.” Then carry on, brother!

All that being said, music is, at its core, a uniquely human way of expressing the human condition. And we are all allowed to use it in any way we like for whatever reasons we choose, selfish or otherwise. We’re allowed to excel at it. We’re allowed to suck at it. We’re allowed to love that music that everyone else hates. Every musical sound is meaningful. And if a music teacher is failing to make that the core of their instruction, then that music teacher is failing, period.

Nope you’re right, it was Frank. I looked it up. I got my comics mixed up lol.

Brian Regan I believe.

“Here’s a guy who when he puts on his glasses he can see better!”

Okay, let me do this for you. Imagine me standing in front of you. Okay, now imagine I’m garlic toast.

spins around singing triumphantly

See?

So today I was heating leftovers in the microwave for lunch. I had a pretty thick piece of garlic toast that, instead of laying it on its side like normal people do, I decided to stand it up on its edge. The sight of the rotating upright garlic toast, coupled with the accompanying triumphant music I made up in my head for it, made me laugh way more than is probably rational. I may also be slightly sleep deprived today.

Hmmmm…. I think there’s potential in the name Thousand Island Felon

My Ministry story: The one chance I got to see them was on one of the first Lollapalooza festivals, in Raleigh. They came on stage, started playing, and people in the audience started tossing plastic cups back and forth. For a while it was pretty great, but then people started getting stupid. They stared putting mud in the cups. They started throwing the cups on stage. Stage managers were running back and forth trying to collect the cups. Then one of the cups hit Al. He stopped singing, cussed out the crowd, left the stage, and refused to go back on. Their set was done and they had done maybe three songs. Someone came on stage and threatened to cancel the rest of the festival if people didn’t settle the fuck down.

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Gonna be showing my age here, but I was heavy into the likes of Dead Kennedys, Ministry, the whole D.C. Underground punk scene (Black Flag, Fugazi, etc). Anymore, though, I don’t actively seek out music with strong political messages. I prefer to hear artists sing about their personal experiences, their struggles, triumphs, losses…and a political slant is okay as long as it’s an organic part of the song’s message and not just endless proselytizing or ruining your own music by being a political douchebag. (Looking at you, Ronnie Radke!)

Edit: Almost forgot, dude, if hip hop is your thing, check out Run the Jewels.

1. Big Stone Airb&b
2. Rich fuck
3. Probably Not Australia

How’d I do?

I would only want a tail if I could use it to swing a hammer.

I used to have a little Balinese who would ek at me when I sneezed. She was…special.

I’d pick Fantastic Mister Fox.

And honestly, the way that movie is, people probably wouldn’t even notice.

I was having this discussion with a friend of mine yesterday, talking about how US citizens managed to positively move marijuana legislation in a better direction…I think this is a good example…

NORML was a major player in changing political and social attitudes about marijuana. They’d stage major demonstrations that were more than just performative. They’d hand out leaflets with information. Gave you the contact info for your reps to put the pressure on them. There was merch for fundraising. The atmosphere at those demonstrations was electric - people were happy to be a part of the movement.

And here’s the most important part: they never let up. Not until they started hearing sincere conversations happening in congress. Not until states started changing their attitudes. And all this in the days before social media was ubiquitous.

NORML’s approach is a great model to follow to effect positive change - change that the people genuinely want.

When I see, for example, the No Kings demonstrations, I have to ask if their follow-through is as effective. Do they encourage people to continue to engage with their government after they go home? In addition to the anger at the current situation, are they also generating excitement about what could be? Because if it’s just periodic protests with silence in between, that’s not going to be as effective.

Let’s be clear - our government didn’t get this bad overnight. It took decades of silent fascist creep to effect a gradual shift. It’s not going to get fixed overnight either. Make those demonstrations loud, festive, informative, and make sure they echo for months after the fact, until the next one. Raise funds for the cause by selling shirts and hats and stickers people are proud to wear. Sell the message. Let it be known that the message is for all Americans, even the ones you hate for voting this shit into existence, because those are the hearts and minds you have to change.

It can be done. It might take decades but it can be done. It’s been done before, in way worse environments than this.

And hey, if it helps, even in the backwater red counties I drive through, I see way less enthusiasm for this garbage than I did even just two years ago. I feel like that’s not insignificant.

Off the top of my head, and of course these are completely subjective, I just think of songs that still feel relevant or still reflect a popular attitude today. Feel free to agree or not.

You’re So Vain by Carly Simon

Devil Went Down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels Band

Piano Man by Billy Joel

Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine

Fast Car by Tracy Chapman

And here they are, hard at work…