This isn’t an essay, but rather a collection of old links. After my initial attempts to gain exposure for Yearling’s Bobtail failed, I went back to school to study music formally. Since the band website was more or less defunct during this time, I treated it like a personal one and occasionally posted links to my school work. Some of these links ended up ranking pretty high in search results, which made me proud. It was the most validation the world had ever given me for my music-related efforts.
I’m currently revamping the band website, but I’d like to keep my search rankings! So here are those old links for posterity.
Still stinging from the rejection of my “Ulysses of rock albums,” I had many observations to make about indie rock’s dysfunctions. I can’t say whether these arguments still hold up. But I did try my best to stay gracious, assuming at the time that I was on my way to becoming a professor.
Personal blog (2011 to 2013)
The work that became my Master’s thesis. I came up with a new theory for composing music in multidimensional spaces that I call amnesticism. I’m not sure my advisor or anyone else ever took it seriously. But in academia, unlike in indie rock, no one dismisses weird ideas offhand.
Tonal Composition in Multidimensional Virtual Realms (Spring 2013)
Choose Your Own Cadenza (Fall 2011, presented at SMT)
Diminished Triads and Scale Networks (Fall 2010)
Using Geometric Models (Spring 2010)
Papers written for class assignments. I don’t vouch for their quality.
Schoenberg’s Coalition Chess (Fall 2012)
Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures (Spring 2012)
Stockhausen’s Formel (Fall 2011)
Janáček’s Music Theories (Fall 2009)
Bartók’s Second Rhapsody (Spring 2009)
Confused about the lack of attention that Yearling’s Bobtail was getting from the indie labels and music press, I wrote a songwriting book that distills my personal technique for composing melodies into a lesson plan, and I sent it out as a follow-up. But as it turns out, this kind of stunt gets you taken even less seriously by indie rock, not more.
Bobtail Method (2008)