The first day of class

I'm back into teaching mode today, with the start of the spring semester. I'm teaching two sections of Form and Analysis, two sections of Advanced Musicianship, and Psychology of Music. This is the first time I will be teaching a course on my specialty, which I'm very excited about. It will be mostly music majors or minors, with one psychology major and a few College of Liberal Arts students that I don't think are music minors. In the future I hope to get more psychology majors, but I think for a first outing it will be good to have a fairly homogenous class in terms of musical experience.

I'm trying a new book for Form and Analysis, A Practical Approach to the Study of Form in Music by Peter Spencer and Peter Temko. I like the approach of structural functions and phenomena that this book takes, and the exercises are flexible. Well, time to go to my first lunch meeting of the semester, oh frabjous joy!

O Magnum Mysterium

In more cheery news, listen to some fabulous music. Morten Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium is something I first encountered at a reunion concert as an arrangement for wind ensemble. I discovered a great recording of the original choral version in the school library. Conducted by the great Robert Shaw, his Festival Singers and Chamber Singers perform several Magnum Mysteriae by Lauridsen, Tomas Luis de Victoria, and Francis Poulenc. They also have a great performance of Totus Tuus by Gorecki. But the Lauridsen is something that just washes over me, melting away all tensions and leaving a great sense of peace and love. It is not saccharine, with plenty of well-placed dissonances. I don't know the theology behind this type of chant, and I don't think it matters. The vocal and instrumental versions affect me equally, so it isn't the words that are meaningful. It is the gorgeous melodic lines, changing from simple steps to gentle leaps; it is the phrases that keep getting extended into infinity; it is the music, the music, the music.

Wait, that death doesn't count

The train derailment in California was a horrible tragedy. Apparently the government is considering making it worse. Here we have a guy that (selfishly) tried to commit suicide by train. He apparently was not able to go through with that attempt, and has been charged with murder for causing the deaths of others. So far I'm okay with this. The man probably should be in an insane asylum, given the train attempt and new attempts to slash his wrists and stab himself in the chest. Where this becomes bizarre is that the government has this man under a suicide watch while they decide whether to kill him.

I'll make it clear: I oppose the death penalty. A society that sanctions killing loses some of its humanity. The punishment is not a detriment according to studies I've seen. Financial costs are greater for death penalties than for life imprisonment. The protection of society is no different from death or imprisonment. So all we have is the desire for vengeance, the need to satisfy bloodlusts. And so killing is made acceptable as a means of solving problems, not a good lesson for any society.

A new list-ening idea

Everyone around the blogosphere and the bløgösphère have been listing the next 10 songs from shuffle mode on iTunes or whatever other software there is. Usually this is accompanied by an ironic statement that the list doesn't really reflect the person's listening habits or personality, except when it does.

I have a new idea, a list that should more accurately reflect a person's taste in music. Click on the Top 25 Most Played playlist for iTunes, and list the top ten or so. Mine is:
1."Doin' What I Please" - Don Redman and his Orchestra
2."Into the West" Lord of the Rings - Return of the King soundtrack
3.Bartók's Improvistations sur les chants paysans hongrois, op. 20 - 1 Molto moderato - Claude Helffer
4.Schumann's "Prophetic Bird" from Waldszenen - Claudio Arrau
5.Beethoven's "Tempest" Sonata, op. 31/2, 2. Adagio - Glenn Gould
6."Anduril" Lord of the Rings - Return of the King soundtrack
7.Britten's Simple Symphony (arr. Colin Matthews/Simon Wright), I. Boisterous Bouree - The Wallace Collection
8.Shostakovich's Three Fantastic Dances, 1. March: Allegro - Martin Jones
9.Johann Christian Fischer's Concerto in C major, 2. Adagio - Maurice André
10.Giralamo Fantini's Saltarello detto del Naldi - The Parley of Instruments

Tied with Fantini is some Wagner (selections from Tannhauser and Die Meistersinger), Webern's "Wie bin ich froh!", and John Tavener's "The Lamb."

I only started to rip mp3's of my CDs over Thanksgiving, and I've only done about 1/3 of my collection. So symphonies and vocal music are more scarce than my normal habits would suggest. But overall, the Top 25 list (or just listing your library by the number of listenings) gets around the randomness of shuffle mode to show which tracks you found worthy enough to go back to. Unless you only listen in shuffle mode with no weighting for ratings, in which case it doesn't matter much.

Bothersome neighbors

I leave it up to you to decide which one is causing trouble.

Leipzig in Spring

I'm quite excited. I was just informed that I will be presenting a poster session at The Neurosciences and Music - II conference in May. This means that DePauw will fund my trip, I will be able to attend some great workshops and hear important papers in my field, and be in Leipzig during the Bach Festival!

My posters will present my findings on "The effects of career path and music education on trumpet articulation categorization." While the title may suggest a snoozer or incredibly obscure research, the results were rather surprising and do have implications on music education. But I will blog more about that closer to the conference dates. For now, I need to decide which concerts to go to. The theme of the Festival is Bach and the Future [not Bach to the Future?] so many concerts feature some contemporary works as well as Baroque and style galant music. Oh, I hope the dollar/euro ratio improves in the next couple of months!

The week in music at Crooked Timber

Crooked Timber has two posts on music of quite different genres.

First, Chris Bertram tells us about an animated version of Wagner's Ring cycle provided by the Goethe Institute. It is done in both German and English, with versions for the 7-11 year-olds and the older children. Besides the animated comic book, there is information about the operas for both the kids and for teachers. One of the commenters at Crooked Timber complains that the site doesn't talk about leitmotifs, but I'm not sure that is necessary for children.

Second, Ted Barlow offers a game. If you are in charge of a satellite radio station, what music would you program? They should be popular songs, but not to be found on regular terrestrial station rotations. Paging John Scalzi and Chad Orzel.