Enter keywords into the search box below to find posts by subject.
Suggested Keywords: aesthetics, amateur, animation, atonality, bach, beethoven, best, canon, chopin, coding, connections, fragments, fun, hatto, loops, mashup, meaning, mozart, pedagogy, peterman, poetry, program notes, random, recordings, satie, strauss, stravinsky, theory, translation, twitter, viola
| Tip of the Hatto: Debut post, explores the fascinating story of pianist Joyce Hatto who became famous for recordings that turned out to be by other pianists. Explores implications for how we hear music. | 2007/02/24 | meaning; hatto; recordings |
| The Hatto Sonnets: A series of six sonnets (in "Onegein" style), retelling the story of Joyce Hatto. | 2007/03/14 | hatto; poetry; creativity; best |
| Great Moments in Stupid Headlines: More exploration of the Joyce Hatto story, particularly the idea that what "we know" about a performance greatly affects what "we hear." | 2007/03/18 | meaning; hatto |
| Hyperspace: Musings on how the hyperlinked world of the Internet might particularly appeal to creative minds. | 2007/03/27 | meaning; tech; connections; creativity |
| Bell Failure: 2 sonnets summarizing the notorious "Joshua Bell in the Subway" experiment. | 2007/04/10 | poetry; creativity; aesthetics |
| Too Good To Be True?: Problems with perfection. | 2007/05/07 | meaning; amateur |
| A Taste of 1825: An imaginary conversation, in which a culinary master reflects on how recordings change the way we think about music. | 2007/05/19 | meaning; recordings |
| Translation, Transcription, Transimpson: How does a work retain its identity when transferred to another medium? With Stravinsky transformed into Simpsons form! | 2007/07/31 | translation |
| Transcription as a Metaphor for Listening: In short: when we're listening, we're transcribing. | 2007/08/12 | translation; recordings |
| Tradition!: Thoughts on performance traditions which, in spite of distortions, have much to offer. | 2007/11/12 | meaning; aesthetics |
| Saving the best for first: A classical problem: when the best part comes first, is the rest a letdown? (not really answered!) | 2007/11/19 | aesthetics |
| Classical Vanity: License Plates Inspired by Classical Music | 2007/11/22 | fun |
| The Metamorphoses of Don Juan: An unexpected link between early and late Strauss works. | 2007/12/01 | connections; strauss |
| The 12 Composers of Christmas: The classic song re-imagined with 12 composers and their music joining in. | 2007/12/11 | mashup; pedagogy; fun; christmas |
| The Best Christmas Party Music Ever: Chamber music in its natural environment. | 2007/12/23 | amateur |
| An Old Viola Joke: Fun little personal jab hidden in Britten's Albert Herring | 2008/01/28 | fun; viola |
| the kind of infectious it's good to spread around: In praise of A Mighty Wind | 2008/02/13 | fun |
| Warhorse Wordsmithing: Program notes for Fauré's Requiem and Dvořák's 'New World' Symphony | 2008/02/22 | pedagogy; program notes |
| Strange Loop: A Tchaikovsky sequence looped so that it never ends, mixed with an ever- rising staircase. | 2008/02/28 | loops; scorimation; Bach |
| Canon Loop: Bach's infinitely rising canon, recorded with infinitely rising "Shepard Tone" technique. | 2008/03/02 | loops; animation; Bach; canon |
| Retro Loop: Bach's "crab" canon, animated with crabs. | 2008/03/25 | loops; animation; Bach; canon |
| Ambigramania: An original ambigram of Bach's name, turned into an animation in which the ambigram takes shape along with a Bach canon. | 2008/04/13 | Bach; canon; creativity |
| Carrousel perpétuel: The score of Poulenc's most famous work is wrapped around a carousel. | 2008/04/27 | loops; animation |
| The Doctor in Spite of Himself: A blog devoted to my performing edition of Gounod's comic opera, including links to six "Doctor Karaoke" singalong videos. | 2008/08/07 | animation; translation; creativity |
| Webern in Mayberry: A video illustration of how comfortably atonal music fits into a lighthearted 60's sitcom. | 2008/11/24 | atonality |
| Le sacre du Peterman: Stravinsky's most iconic work, imagined as a page in the J. Peterman catalog. | 2008/12/08 | Stravinsky; fun |
| For that special masochist in your life...: Schubert's iconic Erlkönig becomes the subject of a J. Peterman ad. | 2008/12/09 | fun; best |
| The Rite of Appalachian Spring: One of my first really successful mashups, exploring influence of Stravinsky on Copland. | 2008/12/11 | stravinsky; best; mashup; connections |
| Canon a 2 Tempi (Take Two): Maria Callas and Renee Fleming square off in a Puccini Showdown. | 2009/03/06 | mashup; animation; canon |
| Piano Hero Reflections: Musings on an innovative series of noontime "sightreading" recitals. | 2009/03/12 | fun; amateur |
| Twynopses: A large collection of original, Twitter-sized #operaplot summaries from the legendary online contest. | 2009/04/27 | twitter; program notes |
| Magical Music: Description of an experiment in having a class create an original opera scene in the style of a historical model. | 2009/05/15 | pedagogy; creativity |
| Meta-music: Thoughts on transcribing Stravinsky for piano. Do we end up hearing more than a piano? | 2009/06/05 | connections; stravinsky; translation; aesthetics |
| The Seinfeld Sonnets: Seven episodes of Seinfeld retold in sonnet form. | 2009/10/14 | poetry; fun |
| Chopin's Funeral March (with ghosts!): A surprisingly successful mashup of the final two movements of Chopin's Funeral March Sonata. | 2009/11/01 | animation; best; mashup; chopin |
| The Joy of (looking at) Music: An experiment in projecting an annotated score of the 1812 Overture for a live audience. They loved it! | 2009/11/14 | animation; aesthetics |
| Name That Bassoon: An odd juxtaposition of two very different works, by Copland and Mendelssohn, with strikingly similar passages. | 2009/11/18 | connections; animation; mashup |
| Illuminating Ornamentation: Description (and audio/video) of a collaboration with an artist who "decorated" scores in ways I then interpreted in performance. | 2009/12/01 | mashup; creativity |
| Testing with the Stars: Comical (?) puns and other suggestions from composers which originally appeared on music history exams. | 2009/12/10 | fun; pedagogy |
| Reflections on a 2-part Invention: An audio/video "re-enactment" of a remarkable experiment in having two completley different works played simultaneously. | 2010/02/18 | mashup; best; random |
| ...in which Winnie the Pooh inspires Twitter-like program notes: An experiment in micro-program-notes. Each work in a long program described in 140 characters or less. Also features rhyming program notes. | 2010/03/02 | program notes; twitter; poetry |
| Why Twitter exists...: Remembering the great #composerfilm meme. Does "Batman and Scriabin" arouse your interest? | 2010/04/13 | twitter; fun; creativity |
| Should there be a "Free the Movements" Movement?: An argument for not always playing the whole thing. | 2010/11/22 | program notes; fragments; |
| Bach Doubled: Showing how two closely connected Bach movements can be played simultaneously. | 2010/11/29 | Bach; mashup; animation; connections |
| Sleigh Ride in a Fast Machine: A fun mashup of classics by Adams and Anderson. | 2010/12/08 | mashup; fun; christmas |
| Sax and Violence: Inspired by the "saxophone craze" in classical music, a disco- style rendition of Brahms, with mixed meter. | 2011/03/27 | translation; mashup |
| Good Friday Bach: An experiment in using YouTube annotations to show musical analysis. | 2011/04/22 | bach; animation; pedagogy |
| Und singen Halleluja!: An exploration of how Bach's musical techniques reinforce the theological content in his amazing Cantata No. 4. | 2011/04/24 | bach; meaning; best |
| Meta-unpredictability: How Stravinsky can you "surprise" you when you know what's coming. | 2011/04/26 | stravinsky; random |
| Multimedia Moonlight March Madness Mashup: A very odd mashup of works by Stravinsky and Schoenberg. | 2011/06/04 | stravinsky; mashup; animation |
| Somewhere between Beethoven and Strauss: Looking at how passages from Beethoven and Strauss can be combined to create some Bernstein. | 2011/06/08 | Beethoven; Strauss; mashup; connections; animation |
| Mozart Mashup Medley: Weaving back and forth among three different Mozart violin concertos. | 2011/06/10 | Mozart; mashup; connections; animation; best |
| Atonality on Ice: Comparing the brutal worlds of ice hockey and atonal music. One of my favorite essays. | 2011/06/23 | atonality; sports; best; aesthetics |
| My Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring: A mashup of Bach's famous triplets with a different hymn and a different meter. | 2011/08/09/ | bach; mashup |
| Musical Storyboards: Condensing recordings to help reveal large-scale musical structures. | 2011/09/27 | theory; fragments |
| Fun with the First Figaro Finale: First in a series of online, integrated listening guides featuring analysis, score, and video. | 2011/10/18 | Mozart; pedagogy; theory |
| Beethoven - more ahead of his time than you thought!: A "fake" musicological discovery about proto-Stravinsky hiding out in a Beethoven manuscript. | 2011/10/25 | mashup; beethoven; stravinsky; connections |
| Eroica Mix'n'Match: Demo for an integrated, online listening guide for Beethoven's most revolutionary symphony. | 2011/10/21 | pedagogy; Beethoven; theory |
| Ballade Blogging: A series of seven posts inspired by a week spent re-learning a Chopin ballade. Some of my favorite bits of writing. | 2012/03/09 | chopin; best; aesthetics |
| Child's Play: A children's story, told in sonnets, about a young violinist with performance anxiety. | 2012/04/06 | poetry |
| Now just a minute...: What does the "Minute" Waltz sound like played in a minute? | 2012/07/05 | chopin; fun; animation |
| Dances with words: Creative reflections on re-reading Douglas Hofstadter's Le ton beau de Marot. | 2012/07/08 | creativity |
| Happy Augmented Sixth Day!: Realization that Aug 6 is the day to celebrate the wonder of Augmented 6th chords. | 2012/08/06 | pedagogy; theory |
| Gateway to Insanity: Successfully (?) creating sonnets within Twitter's 140- character limit. | 2012/08/22 | poetry; twitter |
| MMrecital - the Program Booklet: An innovative program booklet in quasi- comic book style. | 2012/09/14 | program notes |
| Willkommen, Bienvenue...: Original cabaret lyrics about: 1) cabarets and 2) historically informed performance. | 2012/10/01 | poetry; creativity |
| A Splendid Sunrise: How harmony and orchestration can transform a D Major scale into something magical. | 2012/10/09 | theory; animation |
| Mr. Stravinsky's Random Accent Generator 2.0 - Now With More Random!: An experiment in randomizing Stravinsky's iconic sycnopations. Does it sound more surprising? | 2012/10/18 | stravinsky; random; coding |
| Imitation as Inspired Improve-ization: The power of imperfect imitations. | 2013/08/25 | translation; aesthetics |
| Fragmented Thoughts on Fragments: How it is that fragments can be satisfyingly complete. | 2013/09/07 | sports; fragments; aesthetics |
| Recital Revisited I: Moonlight Mashup: Live video of the "Moonlight" Sonata and Clair de lune played simultaneously. | 2013/10/09 | Beethoven; mashup; best |
| Using MMmusing: A guide to various MMmusing resources, especially for use in the classroom. | 2013/11/07 | pedagogy |
| Shostakovich 5: Mashed-up Memories: Daughter's youth orchestra performance brings up lots of memories - and makes a strange Shostakovich/Vaughan Williams connection. | 2013/11/24 | mashup; amateur; connections; memory |
| The Good, The Shred, and The Ugly: A distinctively viola-esque mashup of a Bach prelude and "Pop, Goes the Weasel." | 2014/04/04 | fun; viola; mashup; Bach |
| Satierical Gymnasium: Satie's most famous piece, randomized in various ways as an exploration of its timeless qualities. | 2014/05/01 | satie; random; fragments; coding |
| Twelve Little Notes: A 12-tone matrix generator which can play back rows and their transformations in counterpoint. | 2014/05/01 | atonality; random; coding |
| Serial Satie (Gymnopédie No. 12): A program which converts 12-tone rows (original or randomly generated) into variations on Satie's most famous piece. | 2014/05/28 | satie; atonality; random; mashup; coding |
See also:
- The blog itself, MMmusing, featuring almost 500 total posts from 2007-2014.
- MMmusing's YouTube Channel, featuring more than 100 original multimedia creations.
- the MMmusing Reader, a large, multimedia PDF that can be read offline. (very large file!)
- Michael Monroe's Musical Manipulatives, a series of fully functional prototypes for integrated audio/video/score/analysis listening guides.
- Or, if you're feeling lucky, spin the wheel on MMmusing's Magical Multimedia Musing Machine
