SmarterMusic is dedicated to the exploration of music in all its forms and the promotion of musical understanding for all. Active contributors include:
Pianist, instrumentalist, vocalist, arranger, and molecular biologist based in New York City. Former Music Director of the Achordants. For arranging services, see Broze Brothers Music; for performing and lessons, see Yuri Broze.com.
Accomplished guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, and photographer.
Composer, arranger, double bassist, writer, and didgeridoo builder. Music Director of Brandeis University's Rather Be Giraffes. For arrangement and other sundry music services, check out MusicaRanger.
We like InterCaps.
The Gregory Brothers, more popularly known as the people who Auto-Tune the News, are not only satirically cunning, but they use their musicianship in a particularly effective manner. If you don’t troll YouTube like I do, seeking out memes and delighting in double rainbows, Auto-Tune the News is when popular/recent news clips are set to [...]
We are now Portamental—and an official dot-com! What is Portamental? A portamento is fluidity of pitch in music. It’s a slide from one pitch to another, blurring the boundaries between notes. Portamental is mental fluidity, playing with concepts, eschewing quantization for analogue, or even vice-versa. Don’t worry, though, the SmarterGuides are still here. Why the [...]
I just finished watching Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I must say is an awesome TV series. Evidently the movie was a shame, which pains me considering that the TV series was so good. It’s the kids of series where you don’t want the show to end because you’ll miss the characters so much. Kind [...]
~I wholeheartedly support all kinds of research that you can do before putting notes to a page. Steal ideas! Save yourself time! Don’t reinvent the wheel with every new arrangement, especially if you’re cutting your teeth for the first time. ~Ostinatos, or repeated bits of music, make teaching and retaining a lot easier…so you should [...]
Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a Bobby McFerrin. If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe.
Really cool news here- SmarterMusic was recently named on a list of the 100 Best Blogs and Websites for Innovative Academics by accreditedonlineuniversities.com. Cool! I’m sure there are some good ones in that list as well, and we’re happy to be included. Stayed tuned in the coming months for a lot of activity on this [...]
To start off the Music Theory section of SmarterMusic, I’ve written the first article in the Fundamentals land: Staffs, Clefs, Notes, and Rests. It is a brief introduction to the most basic music symbols and how they tell us neat things. If you have no music training or you chose to drift into a coma [...]
Otis Redding has a fantastic output, and everybody should take a good listen to a classic master singing his own and those of other people. Here’s some My Girl: [Audio clip: view full post to listen]
So I’m hitting the road, off to adventure, with a tent and an accordion. No real plan, just going west from New York. If you see a guy on the side of the road with an accordion, say hi to me! I’ll be back before the middle of August- cheers!
