In the middle of the Holidays

The New Year is near and the season has been interesting. The music really makes the season.

I have a favorite recording that I always listen to on Christmas morning. It really set the hook this year. Because I don't gig any more there was a lack of music for me to get in the spirit. I wonder if there is any New Year's music except for the one song sung at midnight. Maybe someone should write something.

Don

Songwriter's Concert at MCC

This Friday will be the Songwriters concert.

These students are developing songs with a dramatic variety of skills. Some are instrumental players that can communicate through their instrument and voice. Dave and I will be in the "house band". I will be playing bass and Dave will be playing piano. It is interesting how much the musicians who do not play or sing need us to supply the content that is missing in their songs. They are giving it their best. There are song good songs and some good performances. If any of you want to see what these students are doing, it is at 7:30 at the MiraCosta theater on Friday night.

I think the admission is around $7.00.

Don

Miles in the Rock Hall of Fame

Well, Miles just got inducted into the rock hall of fame. I'm not sure if I agree. Miles is certainly a major jazz figure and was important in the importation of rock into jazz but I'm not so sure there was much influence in the reverse direction. At the same time as jazz fusion (rock in jazz) was popular rock did have some bands that brought some jazz into their music, primarily Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears. Rock imported fall less jazz than jazz imported rock. Ultimately jazz rejected the fusion movement and returned to a more traditional bebop format.

Earlier jazz musicians like Armstrong, Dinah Washington and Billie Hoiday were inducted into the rock hall of fame for the influence they had on early rock. I can see that much better than Miles' influence on rock. Perhaps Miles is properly inducted for expanding the rock frontier into the jazz scene. I can buy that.

Rock and Old Men

The Stones just passed through town and filled the baseball park -- sold out! The question is not if the Stones are still popular but if they are relevant any longer. They were the bad boys during the first British wave but now? It seems rock came into its own with the rise of the adolescent class. At that time it appealed to the youth who had the money. And where the money goes so goes the marketing. When the boomers had acne all the radio adds were about complexion remedies. When they learned of cholesterol problems fast food outlets started to offer chicken sandwiches. Up until recently they have controlled the market by their sheer numbers.

However, the boomers did not always control the front edge of rock's development. Their size keeps the Stones concerts full but it still seems that the youth are the custodians of newly emerging rock styles. Is that a characteristic rock will maintain throughout its time in the sun? Is that because the voice of rock and the voice of the adolescent are in fact the same? Or that youth are more susceptible to the marketing of fashion and mass culture?

Will all older generations look back at the music of their youth the same way the Stones fans have? Will there be old punkers? Old death metalers? Is rock doomed to speak only to the concerns of youth and those who look back nostalgically to their own youth?

"I can't get no....."

How Many Got Here From the History of Rock Class?

Hi,

This blog is listed in our History of Rock class as an experiment to see how far students might go afield to possibly find this. If you have you might leave a comment.

Created Work Around for Classic

Well it is not a true fix but it seems Classic has a mind of its own. So..... I created an applescript that does nothing but watch it. When classic hangs it brings it down and restarts my server. Cool, I no longer get pages in the middle of the night. Let me know if you would like the appelscript code.

Keeping Classic Up

I finally got a fix for the flaky Classic Environment crashes. Now when Classic takes a dive I can sense it and force quit it and remount it all under a minute which makes pending web calls still active by the time it comes back up. I sure would like to know what the issue is with Classic in Tiger??

School Starts

Well, we are back at school. It looks like we have a large group of students in most all the areas of our curriculum. We are working to finish up the Rock History class. The CDs just came in and we will be making the listening guides this week. The class we teach now does not yet have the listening components and the great written material now being produced by Shawn.

Off to Merlot

The Merlot conference is this week. If you haven't seen this site it is very cool and has valuable online modules for teachers in many disciplines.

Don

Server Down

Well it was a long day. The server went down (hard drive failure). We actually found the data after about 12 hours and didn't end up losing anything. So it should be ready to go!!!

Add to online courses?

Dave and I are looking at the use of a blog in one of our courses. The first question is to see if there really is a need or we are caught trying another new toy. Stay tuned.

Why this Blog?

This blog is for use in all classes written by the Megills. Postings about the courses as well as technical matters that might be useful will be posted here. Many of the postings will allow users to reply. We hope this will create a communication channel between the students who use the courses and the authors.

So What is eMegill?

We are a couple of guys who develop online music classes (mostly for college level use).