Full Week Schedule

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  Sun, Oct 25 Theory Gym Start your day at the 'gym' with a morning music theory workout w/ Nathan ·
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  Mon, Oct 26 Weekly Beat Challenge Gather and listen to anyone's Beat Challenge song ideas -- just for fun w/ Nathan ·
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  Mon, Oct 26 Office Hours Ask questions, get help, and connect. w/ Nathan ·
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  Mon, Oct 26 Ear Training Test your ears and discuss - Music, Mixing and more! w/ Nathan ·
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  Tue, Oct 27 Production Gym Start your day at the 'gym' with a production breakdown of your favorite songs w/ Scott Hampton ·
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  Tue, Oct 27 Office Hours Ask questions, get help, and connect. w/ Kallie ·
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  Tue, Oct 27 Instrument Gym Practice and workout on instruments! w/ Kallie ·
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  Wed, Oct 28 Ear Training Test your ears and discuss - Music, Mixing and more! w/ Jam ·
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  Wed, Oct 28 Weekly Beat Challenge Gather and listen to anyone's Beat Challenge song ideas -- just for fun w/ Nathan ·
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  Thu, Oct 29 Office Hours Ask questions, get help, and connect. w/ Nathan ·

What We Covered Recently

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  OFFICE HOURS Worked through a chord analysis discovery on Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years," demonstrating that the chord widely charted as a half-diminished chord is actually a minor sixth chord — verified by splitting stems and identifying a C-sharp in the piano part. Also covered setting up multiple audio interfaces simultaneously on Mac using Audio MIDI Setup and Aggregate Devices. A question about sampling permissions and copyright came up, with practical discussion of how to handle dialogue samples from broadcast media.
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  THEORY-GYM We worked through the harmony of Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years," using it as a vehicle for exploring gospel and churchy chord voicings, figured bass notation, diminished chord function, modal interchange, and chromatic bass motion. Topics included the cadential 6-4, common-tone diminished chords, suspended chords (including the "super sus" voicing), and chromatic bass lines moving through borrowed chords to pivot between keys. The bridge was identified as particularly complex and was not fully analyzed in the available time.
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  THEORY-GYM We worked through the chord progressions of "Black Hole Sun" (Soundgarden) to examine how notoriously unusual chords function in context. Key topics included major/minor ambiguity, polychords, anchor notes in melody, tritone substitutions, and modal interchange — using the song as a vehicle to explain how these devices operate whether or not the songwriter named them. We also touched briefly on how power chords (open fifths) reveal harmonic structure by removing the third from the equation.
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  THEORY-GYM Worked through the chord changes to "Sweet Lorraine" (B♭ jazz standard), mapping the full A-section progression and identifying the harmonic devices that create its characteristic chromatic motion — including secondary dominants, tritone substitutions, diminished passing chords, and the use of the iii chord as a stand-in for the I. Also addressed left-hand piano voicing technique: how shells (thirds and sevenths), tenths, and the "drop assassination" vs. "sneak attack" approach connect directly to the voice leading inside those changes.
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  WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE Reviewed a hip-hop track built around stutter edits and an Aretha Franklin piano sample, with discussion of lo-fi authenticity, kitsch production aesthetics, and how to commit to a retro sound without tipping into parody. Explored stutter-editing techniques in Logic Pro — including the Beat Breaker plugin and manual cut-based approaches — and compared them to a buffer override plugin used by one of the students. Also searched Logic Pro's legacy instrument library for a Farfisa organ sound to illustrate a tonal direction for a separate piece in progress.

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