Prune Your Creative Garden
Put yourself in contact with creative work. Prune and reorganize your MP3 catalog on your computer, reshelve your books, curate your instagram or your photos on your computer, rearrange these items or try to recreate the same arrangement.
Musicing Identities
Create a top ten list. Pick one song from your top ten list that best represents you as an individual. Create a presentation using Prezi that includes the top ten list, a brief analysis of the song (formal as well as conceptual/interpretive), explain how you relate to this song and how it represents your identities. Be creative. Be prepared to share.
"Don't imagine what you will become—imagine what you won't become"
Reflect on the above statement from page 33 of Creative Quest by Questlove. Create a musical way to represent what you won't become. Present it to the class.
DJ Your Community Heritage
Create a playlist that reflects your community’s heritage? Curate this playlist so that the music seamlessly transitions from one song to the next and takes us on a narrative journey. Match styles and tempi, etc.
Sampling Project
Develop a lesson on music history where you teach history backwards. Find a song that samples a song that samples a song that samples a song. For example, Outkast's "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things" from their 2003 album Love Below which samples John Coltrane's 1963 Newport Jazz Fest performance of the same piece, which in turn comes from the Sound of Music by Rogers and Hammerstein, which mirrors Wagnerian operatic forms, etc., etc., etc...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ZhjN321yI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14EergYBa9o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IagRZBvLtw
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-we-should-teach-music-history-backwards-180955053/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ZhjN321yI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14EergYBa9o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IagRZBvLtw
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-we-should-teach-music-history-backwards-180955053/
Random Plucking
Step 1: "Randomly open up a dictionary to any page and stab your finger down on a word. No matter what word it may be, force yourself to have an idea about it. 'Archery'? Okay—that's easy—maybe it's a song about how the country keeps missing its target by making the wrong people targets. 'Look'? Okay—it's a simple command, one of the simplest, urging people to pay attention."
OR
"Take any book. Pick a number that's less than the number of pages that it has, then a second number between one and twenty, then a third number between one and ten. Go to that page, to that line, and to that word, and then use whatever word you've selected."
p. 80 Creative Quest
Step 2: Create music around the word you pluck.
OR
"Take any book. Pick a number that's less than the number of pages that it has, then a second number between one and twenty, then a third number between one and ten. Go to that page, to that line, and to that word, and then use whatever word you've selected."
p. 80 Creative Quest
Step 2: Create music around the word you pluck.
Play It Backward
"Take a piece of music that you love and invert it. You might need to get some kind of app to play the music file backward, but it's completely worth it. Outros become intros. Rising action before a verse becomes some kind of strange after-dinner mint. Hearing music in reverse is a time-tried and time-tested tradition." - p. 79 Creative Quest
Choose one of the pieces from Beck's Song Reader learn it completely forward. Then try playing it backwards. Reflect on how your perspective of this piece changes by playing it both forward and backward.
Choose one of the pieces from Beck's Song Reader learn it completely forward. Then try playing it backwards. Reflect on how your perspective of this piece changes by playing it both forward and backward.
Solo Re-arrangements
Song Reader Arrangement: Choose one of the songs from Beck's Song Reader ... do not listen to a recording online ... learn it from scratch, make it your own. Perform it to the class.
Song Arrangement: On your own, choose a song that resonates with you—one that you can listen to a million times and never get tired. Arrange the tune for a solo instrument. Perform it for the class.
Song Arrangement: On your own, choose a song that resonates with you—one that you can listen to a million times and never get tired. Arrange the tune for a solo instrument. Perform it for the class.