On the subject of music education
To set this up, I am a guitar instructor. I was going to become an engineer, but I could not pull myself away from teaching music.
One thing I tell students of mine is that in order to know anything about music, you must understand how any given piece of music makes you feel.
I have a particular frustration with other teachers who force children to learn from a list of pre-selected songs instead of ones they love to listen to.
When I substitute for some teachers, or have a student begin lessons with me after a period with other teachers, I always ask them "do you enjoy what you have been working on?"
It is devastating to hear them respond "no."
When I ask some of them what they love to listen to, they react like they were never asked that question before.
Then they might say "well it's not really meant to be played on guitar."
So I explain the concept of arrangements. A way of viewing music as a spectrum of styles that can blend together in whichever way we desire.
One student loves the musical Wicked. After I broke the spell of having to play only what the teacher tells you, she wanted to learn the song "What is this feeling?"
So I broke down the chords and showed her that while I cannot emulate an entire stage performance as a lone voice and a guitar, I can create an emotion similar to how she feels listening to the song.
And that feeling is made even greater when she begins to play those simple chords and is able to hear that song in her own voice.
To get personal, as a gay man, I am uncertain of the feasability of having kids of my own.
For a time I felt extremely jealous of straight couples who never had to give that question much thought.
But then I realized, how many people in the world get to encourage a child to find their own creative voice?
How many people are there that can say that they undeniably make the world a more enjoyable place?
That is how teaching makes me feel.
The related subject of microtonality
I have a hard time disconnecting myself from the vocabulary and theory I have learned to apply to music over the years.
My thinking is overall very black and white, and it is something I have attempted to correct.
And when I find myself thinking things should be a certain way and there are no other options, I need a shock to my system to pull me out of it.
So when I first heard the song "Gleam" by the microtonal artist Sevish, my entire perception of music melted away.
"Intonation is just another musical parameter that us musicians use to more finely hone our expression. Intonation is the same kind of thing as tempo, dynamics, timbre. Learn one more thing and improve your craft."
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Sevish
The twelve tone system has divided an infinite spectrum of frequencies into discrete units, whose definition is somewhat based on physical principles, but mostly arbitrary.
Many many more intonation systems exist, but they are on an equal playing field hypothetically with the western standard of 12 EDO.
They still create definitions that musicians must follow.
The names we give pitches serve only to categorize them in a way the human brain is more ready to understand, as is any aspect of composition.
When I realized that as a being of free will with numerous methods at my disposal of producing a tone of any frequency of my choosing, everything fell apart and reassembled again.
I believe that in the future, there will be a method by which we can command the entire pitch continuum with the same ease that some people have mastered the 12 tone system.
At this point, Sevish is the closest any human has come to reaching that precipice. As a result, the collective creative force of humanity is irrevocably improved.
