Fickle Ears

Skeptical of those jazz media darlings right about now? Don't sleep on Christian Scott. A Spotify investigation into the work of the Nex...

Iyer is feeling the blogospheric heat after receiving a MacArthur "Genius" award, and while no one could possibly claim to be surp...

A typically green New Music Box article about teaching 4-part writing develops into an atypically productive and stimulating discussion. Co...

Hermes Camacho, an instructor with Austin Soundwaves, discusses his students: Many of the kids come in with a variety of challenges, soci...

George Colligan relates a familiar story, drawn in this case from his early years on the East Coast scene: What often ends up happening i...

This almost hit me in the head at work the other day, so I picked it up after it came to rest and snapped an iPad picture for the blog: I...

[Fickle Ears makes its first and probably last foray into the issue of human reproduction, posted today in honor of the author's thirty-...

"People just keep coming here," a relative of mine once said indignantly, and as if she wasn't talking to one of the more rec...

Blog Month just belongs in October, chock full as it already is of playoff baseball, occult holidays, and Kac family birthdays, and this yea...

From The Musical Times (May 1, 1923): X.–There is no legal restriction as to the use of the title 'Professor,' but properly speaki...

The core of my educational philosophy is an emphasis on achieving “functional” musicianship, defined as the possession of skills and experie...

Instead of repeating such Western myths of the noncontingency of artworks, why not search for jazz meanings behind the music, in the life-s...

Nate Chinen has a humorous (at least to me) column on the "Jazzbro," defined as "a self-styled jazz aficionado, overwhelming...

I imagine I'm not alone in having substantially modified my listening activities in recent years to take full advantage of the advent of...

Given all the blather about the before, during and after of my CalArts sojourn, you're probably wondering what, if anything, I actually ...

City of Minneapolis inspectors evidently have claimed another casualty, this time the Riverview Cafe and Wine Bar , a lovely establishment r...

In many ways, the day jobs I have held have engaged, challenged and utilized my entire physical and intellectual capacities to a much greate...

Being a musician is not my "dream." My "dream" was to be a professional baseball player, something farfetched enough, in...

It is in one sense quite odd to me, and in another not at all, that the prescription for musicians to make friends with their audience tends...

"...but would you rather listen to Bach or Vivaldi after a long day at work?" Um...is this a trick question? My name is Stefa...

Scroll to the bottom of this page for tangible, real-world utilitarian proof that post-tonal theory should be more widely taught and unders...

Upon running into a non-musician CalArtian friend before a concert and learning that she is attending in order to hear the work of a musicia...

Happy New Year, enjoy the Month below, don't worry about seeking an explanation, yada yada yada. Look for some exciting changes to Blog ...

"Acquiring a familiarity with a particular style of improvisation frequently involves performing the same piece, or limited group of pi...

The blessing and the curse alike of improvisation is that what goes in tends to be what comes out. I would define improvisational technique ...