What Music Means to Me

In this episode of What Music Means to Me I want to discuss the significance of Repetition in music. Specifically, we’ll look at how the right mix of repetition and variation of musical ideas – on both a small- and large-scale – contributes to how music is understood by listeners.

This episode of WMM2M is one in a series of episodes I call “Music Lessons.” Aside from the obvious joy and aesthetic pleasure that comes from producing music, and the way music augments intellectual development (often called the “Mozart Effect”) music additionally teaches valuable life lessons to those who formally study it. Stick with studying an instrument and years later you will have learned far more than how to perform some songs.

In the “Music Lessons” series I will share some of the lessons music has taught me which, looking back over the years, I appreciate so much. In this installment of my Music Lessons series we look at two very closely-related traits that music teaches: Tenacity and Diligence.

Perfection is a standard that – in almost every case – can never be met. How many lines can really be drawn “perfectly” straight? And for those of us working in the arts, what exactly does “perfect” mean? We'll examine the usefulness of high standards and expectations as applied to music making - and life - in this episode of WHAT MUSIC MEANS TO ME.

Pitch, Melody, Harmony, Rhythm, Meter, Tempo, Texture, Tone Color, Dynamics...these are often referred to as the Elements of Music. As a composer, all of these serve as building blocks when I craft together a composition. Of all those “elements” of music, I have a favorite! It is, in my opinion, the most “elemental” – or basic – of all the so-called elements. Can you guess which one? It’s RHYTHM. So what about rhythm raises it above all those other worthy elements to become, in my view, a “Meta-Element”? In this episode (a requested reposting of an earlier episode), I explain why.

The idea that we join forces with others to do something bigger than ourselves, and that we might not live to see finished, seems kind of foreign to contemporary sensibilities. Yet we do sometimes have the chance to become a part of something that is larger than ourselves: perhaps our faith or a cause with which we devote ourselves, and we gain a satisfaction that is deep and lasting. Ensemble music can teach us much about this idea!

[NOTE: Originally released 10/5/2008, this is a "rebroadcast" of one of my more popular episodes.]

In my last episode, I vaunted the glories of certain types of notes in music called "Non-Harmonic Tones." I shared how I liked the way non-harmonic tones mirror the virtues of diversity and delayed gratification in life. If you haven’t listened to that episode, I hope you will sometime. But one non-harmonic tone that I wanted to set apart for special discussion is called ”Pedal Point.”

Pedal Point is a non-chord tone extraordinaire. It lends an exciting air to the music that employs it, and – best of all – it’s so easy to use as a composer. Pedal point can be heard everywhere in music, from medieval chant to Indian folk music to concert art music to pop and rock to virtually every film score in the last 30 years!

Find out why I LOVE pedal point in this episode of WHAT MUSIC MEANS TO ME.

In this episode I’d like to talk about a term from the world of music theory….NON-HARMONIC TONES. Non-Harmonic Tones….the phrase sounds so negative, doesn’t it? NON-Harmonic Tones…it’s as if they are outcasts and don’t fit in, somehow they’re different than the other, perhaps more “cool” tones in the song, like they’re not part of a composition’s “in-crowd.” But in fact, Non-Harmonic Tones are some of the coolest, most interesting notes in music. Just what are NON-Harmonic tones, what makes them so compelling, and what can they tell us about the larger world in which we live?

[Note: This episode is a rebroadcast of what was Episode 7 before switching podcast hosts.]

Many folks imagine that composers are suddenly struck with a lightning bolt of creativity as they sit at their pianos, enabling them to pour out divinely dispensed notes onto the page. In reality, inspiration plays a much smaller role than you'd think. It's the craft of composition - the nuts and bolts work that transforms a small idea into a cohesive and musically satisfying whole - that takes up the majority of a composer's time and energy. As composer Leonard Bernstein famously quipped, "Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time."

In this episode, a "fan-requested" rebroadcast of an earlier episode, I break down some of the craftsmen-like decisions at work in my piece, Fantasy On An Old English Air, in an effort to demystify the process of composing music.

(NOTE: Fantasy On An Old English Air was originally published by Shawnee Press but is now available as "print-on-demand" from Hal Leonard.)

This podcast is based on my book, USING TECHNOLOGY TO UNLOCK MUSICAL CREATIVITY (Oxford University Press), and deals with pedagogical techniques to free students to create musical content in project-based learning. I'll be presenting on the topic at the SoundTree Institute METOS: Spotlight on Creativity online conference on Jan. 16, 2012. This episode is a rebroadcast of episode 11 from the original What Music Means to Me podcast.

Each year the talented students in my Music Production class at Parkland High School produce a holiday CD to sell in our school/community for charity. This year's CD, called "Parkland: A Season for Giving," will be officially released on Dec. 7 and will raise money to support the Allentown Rescue Mission, helping the homeless. In this episode I share some of the music, and the story behind the songs, from our 6th "Season for Giving" effort. It's a great CD - featuring 11 all new tracks and 12 "greatest hits" tracks from the previous 5 years. If you'd like to support the kids, and our charity, you can buy the CD online by visiting our blog: season4giving.edublogs.org - or the iTunes Store.

On Sunday, October 14, 2007 I posted my first episode of my podcast, WHAT MUSIC MEANS TO ME. With this 44th episode, I'm moving my podcast to Podomatic. The main theme of this podcast is finding intersections between music and life.

Back when I started my podcast, I imagined I’d use some episodes to explain my work as a composer – sharing the story behind a commission or other favorite piece. As it turned out, I had so many other stories to tell that I rarely did that, the exception being Episode 19 in which I profiled my concert band piece, Fantasy On An Old English Air. In this episode, I do the same for a recently published piece of mine for concert band, entitled Night Journey.