How to prepare to attend a classical music concert.

1. Find out which pieces will be played.
2. Choose one to study.
3. Search out background information, from reputable sources, on the composer and the piece.
4. On YouTube you will find experts speaking on well-known pieces. They may be worth a listen.
5. If the piece is in the public domain, you can download the score here: IMSLP: Free Sheet Music PDF Download
6. Play a few of the themes of the piece. Violin I is a good place to find these themes.
7. Watch the score on YouTube scroll as the music plays.

Below I've created an example using Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

Short explanation

This goes deeper

The score and parts are at the bottom of this page. 

I recently returned from Scotland where I attended, Mostly Audio 2023, an audio/music/Ai workshop and conference. This video summarizes all that's wrong with Ai generated music while missing the creative possibilities of Ai. 

My take aways from this video. 

• It presents a new way to sound conventional. Whereas the old way of producing banal music took time and effort, this is much quicker. 
• This is to music composition what paint by numbers is to art. 
• The part I enjoyed the most was the human generated vocabulary of the introduction. It was dope!
• The part I didn't enjoy was the voice over telling me what my reaction was supposed to be. A variation on a leading question. 
• The latest con, that you too can be a musician without time or much effort. 
• Thank goodness, the output of these musical geniuses will remain buried on YouTube. 

Musical skill, vision, and creativity will be paramount to overcome the limitations of this new medium. To succeed as a musician in the future, you will have to be better than this. As "this" will flood the market.  

However, this video does raise interesting questions for music education. The structure, delivery methods, and content of musical education will need to quickly evolve to stay relevant. But I have a few questions. 

Relevant to whom?
Do all students want to be creators or producers?
What will be the nature of musical collaboration?
Who will have time to listen to all this easily generated music?
Who will care?
Is the joy of making music in the work or the output?
How will this be monetized?
Did the "creators or producers" of this video have licenses to use the likenesses of John Coltrane?

David

I wish this had been available when I started playing piano as I was not a gifted ear player. In fact, I struggled. On top of this my teachers didn't stress aural development either. They were all readers first. So, my development was glacial. Thankfully, things have changed for piano students. 

How did I develop my sight reading and aural skills? In college I was given proper ear training. Later, I took up the drums, learned countless tunes by ear, and wrote them down. For the last decade I've been teaching online where I don't always see students' hands clearly. My ear learned to hear individual notes out of place. My sightreading developed early because I was a lazy student. It was more fun to read tunes than to practice them. Consequently, I became a professional sight-reader. I still am. 

If I can help you, call me. 

​David

What an exciting time of learning. I was able to experience live coding, VR sound, Ai developments in musical education and more under the direction of young and exciting researchers. It was just what an old goat needed, some fresh ideas. 

One thing that did strike me was how dated the synthesizer music was. The young musicians were in the thrall of the 1990s. That took me by surprise. 

The walk from downtown to Napier University was lovely and peaceful.