From the category archives:
After decades of wishing, the composition program at the UCLA Department of Music now has a Composition for Visual Media track in its Masters degree. In its second year, we have started slowly and accepted only two per year–although we plan to expand to eight or so.
And after decades of wishing, we now have a [...]
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Last week in our MUSIC HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CREATIVITY class, we talked about musical embellishments. Robert Winter spoke at length about melodic embellishments in classical music–a rich resource to be sure. As A.J. Racy has been demonstrating Arab melodies for the past few weeks, virtually every phrase is filled with embellishments, and ones that are [...]
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The students in our fab new Music History, Culture and Creativity class have a challenging assignment this week. They are required to compose and record a one minute melody that includes microtones.
Last week one of the three teachers, AJ Racy, was on the stage with three students, a bassoonist, a bass clarinetist, and a violinist. [...]
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In an area known as “Music Education” which, for Schools, Conservatories, and Departments of Music means K through 12, there appears to be a national problem. Potentially gifted teachers may not always be the best performers: sometimes yes, sometimes no–and vice versa. So the question arises: if instrumental lessons are required of all future [...]
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[A commercial for my students.]
This is National Coming Out Week, also known as LGBT Awareness Week. Coming out is short for coming out of the closet, meaning bringing out into the open something that has been hidden away. I encourage my students to be compassionate when a friend “comes out” to them–coming out is very [...]
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This week I have been lecturing about the technique and rules regarding music notation. The angles, shading, background, lengths, proportions and stem direction. I explained the ever fascinating and source of the way music notation looks, the crow quill pen.
Sadly, I had to emulate the flowing nature of that great pen with a magic marker [...]
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This week I had several meetings planning our new class for all incoming Music, World Music, and Music History students. It will be a one year class, team taught each quarter by three full professors: one composer (me, all three quarters), a musicologist, and an ethnomusicologist. Next quarter I will be teaching with Jihad Racy [...]
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Some of my colleagues were standing around grousing about something yesterday. I joined them and found them complaining about students.
“I can’t believe that these kids have only come to 50% of my counterpoint class! BW just texts during class and it drivesme crazy. When I was in college, I NEVER missed classes.” Another joined in: [...]
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Today Prof Steve Loza visited our class to share is passion. Of Mexican heritage, he studied classical music in college, but wanted more and became profoundly curious to learn of his own heritage, and ultimately became an Ethnomusicologist, but keeping his feet in performing and composition.
He spoke of the blend of indigenous, Spanish, and black [...]
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After a week of crafting possible cuts to our department’s budget, I drove up to the beautiful Lake Arrowhead area to attend an annual meeting, whose sole purpose is to give seed money to innovative curricular ideas. We arrived on Friday night; had cocktails and a lovely dinner, followed by a short meeting, and then [...]
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