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Project Ideas

Forensic Musicologists in the News Again!

The recent New York Times article The Man Musicians Call When Two Tunes Sound Alike by Alex Marshall provides some well-deserved attention to forensic musicologists and has some great potential for related project work in music programs. Marshall explains how many people “stumble into the profession,” but if we include forensic musicology as a way of engaging musically in K-12 programs, perhaps some young people might see it as a viable career pathway. We sometimes assume that students in music… Read More »Forensic Musicologists in the News Again!

Visualizing Music

I’m always interested in the ways that people visualize and represent music. As a field, we can often be very Western standard notation-based. I’m increasingly interested in digitally mediated ways of visualizing sound and music. I discuss some aspects of this in my chapter Inter/trans/cross/new media(ting): Navigating an emerging landscape of digital media for music education. If you are interested in the topic of music visualization, I also highly recommend Webb’s articles Music analysis down the (You) tube? Exploring the potential of cross-media… Read More »Visualizing Music

Dead Prez & Jean-Pierre Rampal – A serendipitous sample discovery

While listening to the following recording this morning I immediately thought to myself “I know that melody” . . . Jean-Pierre Rampal & Lily Laskine performing Kojo no Tsuki Now check out Dead Prez performing Behind Enemy Lines I looked at the liner notes of Dead Prez’s album let’s get free and couldn’t find any mention of the sample or its source. So, I am not sure of the actual sample source or whether it was manipulated during production, but… Read More »Dead Prez & Jean-Pierre Rampal – A serendipitous sample discovery

Serial opera format as a springboard for musical exploration?

Allan Kozinn reports on the opera Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser composed by Lisa Bielawa, which will be broadcast over television or via the web in short installments over two years. I can imagine multiple ways students might engage with this as a topic or even the work itself, though I’m not yet familiar with the opera. The notion of creating music that can be shared in both a live setting (as this opera will be performed… Read More »Serial opera format as a springboard for musical exploration?

Eric Whitacre, participatory culture, and remixing the virtual choir

Music educators can embrace participatory culture and related musical engagement right now by providing students with the opportunity to remix Eric Whitacre’s composition Fly to Paradise, the fourth virtual choir piece. To assist in the remixing process Whitacre’s team made individual tracks of the final master available. Remixes can be listened to on a dedicated Soundcloud group. The process of remixing this music and all of the related discovery, performing, creating, responding, and connecting that occurs could be productive in… Read More »Eric Whitacre, participatory culture, and remixing the virtual choir