jedscott

Books remain at the heart of the media I consume – not perhaps the most significant by volume, but certainly by the effect they have on my life. I completed 27 books in 2018; I think a book every two weeks is a solid total, but I do hope to increase […]

My listening habits are fairly diverse, and fairly heavily rooted in revisiting music I love. That said, there are plenty of things I discovered this year – either new or new to me. Here are some that I loved. The Questions (Kurt Elling) I’ve written before that I think this album is a career […]

The British holiday of Boxing Day is a secular holiday traditionally held Dec. 26 or the first weekday after Christmas. It seems to have come from a tradition of giving tips or “Christmas Boxes” to servants and various workers. The way I see it, Boxing Day has two big reasons […]

I’ve been revisiting the Harry Potter films recently, and after a recent read-aloud of all seven books, it takes just a few of films to notice the differences. I don’t mean the differences between the films and the movies: those are quickly obvious and entirely predictable because of the differences […]

200 years ago this evening, Jacob Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber premiered their brand-new carol, Silent Night. According to the accepted tradition, Gruber had written the tune on short notice to Mohr’s words because Mohr needed a new piece to sing at the Christmas Eve service because the organ had been damaged. […]

Welcome to Week 16 of The Definitive Version, a new weekly feature of my website. You can read more about the project here and read all past entries here. Song: “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” (1945)Composer: Jule StyneLyricist: Sammy CahnForm: AABAStandard Key: There doesn’t seem to be a particularly standard key. […]

When I’m here, I create. It can be a coffee shop, a music studio, or a practice room. It can even be a particular word processor. The specifics don’t matter. What does matter is training yourself to imbue a space with the specific quality of being the place where you […]

No matter how many times I get sick, I can’t shake a deep sense of anger about being sick. I’m angry at letting down my family, students, my clients. I’m angry at being unable to do all the things I do in a day. But I also know that the […]

We brainstormed a list of ways to make a subito piano more striking. At least half of them related to our interpretation of the previous forte section. Dynamics are not absolute: they work in deep relationship to what’s happening around them, in terms of contrast, timbre, tone, placement in the piece, voicing, language, […]

Can we agree that “music theory” can make the subject sound a little…dry? Esoteric? Unnecessary? Here’s a better comparison. Music Theory is the Structural Engineering of music. Architects can dream up beautiful forms and dramatic lines, but without structural engineers, they can’t build them safely and effectively. (It’s been said […]