are albums still relevant?

so recently I have been conducting a little experiment with music and I would like to get everyone's personal feelings on the matter too. I'll give a little background to the situation: I stopped listening to music in Dec 2006 and didn't start again until about Aug 2008. When I came back to take a fresh look at my music I began by putting about 25 of my tried and true favorite albums (old and new) on an mp3 player and listening to the 300+ songs through headphones while cleaning windows.
I listened in just about every possible combination (e.g. album by album, each album repeatedly, all songs in random, all songs in alphabetical order)

By listening closely, I found some interesting things about music which I could prolly sum up with: Music is usually best when listened to in "album form" and from start to finish. Of course, this only applies to albums that you actually like most of the songs on as opposed to albums that only have 2 or 3 really good songs surrounded by blah songs. (I could argue that being able to repeatedly listen to an album closely might make you appreciate some of your less favorite songs, but that is a discussion for another day)
To me, it seemed that even songs that I liked pretty well within an album really lost their luster when played randomly mixed with other various songs and styles that i liked. A little more investigation revealed to me that where a song is placed on an album mattered quite a bit too since an album can be like a performance with ebbs and tides and it's mood is dependent on the type and order of songs. (try playing some of your favorite albums with the songs randomized to see if it is as good as the original order album)

All of this adds evidence to my fledgling theory on the state of music today (see early posts and comments on this blog). Sometimes it seems like there is very little new music out there that is good, yet at the same time the overwhelming evidence is that Myspace and Pandora allow us to find endless little-known-artists and tons of good music very easily. But I wonder if the abundance and ease of finding new music make us jaded and spoiled because there is just too much to listen to and when we do listen to it, we tend to just sample the smorgasbord buffet and never really get to enjoy a carefully crafted fine meal with carefully chosen courses of food that complement each other.

So I have to ask myself a few things... If all we ever do is download single-songs we like, and sample single-songs through streaming services, are we missing the whole point of music as a performance? In the future will artists just need to release one 'mega-hit' at a time to be downloaded by the masses instead of coming out with 8 or more good songs on an album of 12? If we only listen to lower-fidelity songs on our PC through a mediocre sound system in the background while checking our email will our appreciation for great albums eventually disappear? If our car stereos contain CD's full of 650MB of random artists played at low volume while our passenger talks about 'their day', will we actually be able to taste music fully or will it become just like the bland drive-thru food we eat because of lack of time?

All things considered, I am led to conclude that if I strive to listen to new music in it's full album form I will be best able to enjoy it's intended mood and hopefully be better able to find great new albums to add to my collection.
What do you think?

Victor Wooten Bass Clinic

I had the privilege of going to see a free clinic at Sweetwater recently and was very impressed! I saw a few of our fellow bloggers there too and wondered what your impressions were? What were your favorite tips?

For me, Victor Wooten (bassist for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones) was quite impressive as a player and performer but what really surprised me was his humble demeanor and gracious attitude. This is my first time attending a clinic so I'm not sure if this is common, but he seemed very willing to take time and make sure that every question was heard and that every topic was covered.
He had some very interesting ideas on many topics like how to practice by yourself, how to raise kids to love music without making it a chore, how to approach music as a whole to make it more enjoyable to play and create, and much more!
All I can say is that if most clinics are half as good as this one, I'd recommend going to any of them you can!  Below is a little Wooten trivia:
Wooten won two Nashville Music Awards for Bassist Of The Year and is the only three-time winner of Bass Player magazine’s Bass Player Of The Year. With the honors came sideman calls, leading to recordings and performances with artists like Branford Marsalis, Mike Stern, Bruce Hornsby, Chick Corea, Dave Matthews, Prince, Gov’t Mule, Susan Tedeschi, Vital Tech Tones (with Scott Henderson and Steve Smith), the Jaco Pastorius Word Of Mouth Big Band, and the soundtrack of the Disney film Country Bears.

just when you think you are starting to 'get' music

I am always amazed and usually stupefied every time I scratch the surface of music knowledge.
recently, while doing a bit of research on wikipedia, I ran across these mind blowing topics: (which link to many more brain bending topics!)
Just Intonation
Pythagorean Tuning
Close Harmony
Beat (acoustics)
Mathematics of Musical Scales

So, now post any cool little tips or musical phenomena that you have known that you found amazing in your previous experiences.

Music Theory 101 (This is a Blues Riff in B Watch for the Changes and Try to Keep Up).

Lately, I am starting to have a greater appreciation for guitar since I have been messing around with the piano. As Scotty had mentioned, I took a music theory course a couple of years back taught by a fun-sucking taskmaster named Generalissimo Lydy. In the course we learned that a major scale is: Whole step (2 frets), Whole step, Half step (1 fret), Whole step, Whole step, Whole Step and Half Step from your bass note (a minor scale would be W, H, W,W,H,W,W). Therefore, all the white keys on a piano are in the key of C. Whereas with the guitar it means all the normal notes (no sharps or flats) are in the key of C. However, if you did the major scale in A then C, F, G would be sharp. Further, music nazis name these notes in a major scale as (using the C major scale as the example):
I or Tonic (C) is the key note.
ii or Supertonic (D) establishes the Dominant as the secondary tone.
iii or Mediant (E) is the middle note in a triad (the three notes that make up a chord).
IV or Subdominant (F) is considered a good harmony note to start with since it is not in the triad.
V or Dominant (G) is the running mate of the Tonic and is also the third note of the triad to make a chord therefore C, F & G make up a C major chord
vi or Submediant (A) is the note that passes to the IV or ii. It is the second chord in the example passing to the IV.
vii or Leading Tone (B) is the note that music theorist say a song cannot end on cause it "naturally" directs you towards the Tonic note. It's the third chord in the example.
VIII or Octave is the same note as the Tonic only higher or lower. If you ever see the notation 8va or 8vb that means they want you to play the note higher or lower than the notated note.

Finally, the reason some of the roman numerals are lower case is because those chords in the major scale are supposed to be played as minor chords and the vii chord is diminished (which the fifth is flatted). Which means if you are playing the chords in the C scale it would be: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B dim (A scale would be A, Bm, Cm#, D, E, Fm# and D#dim which most guitarist simply achieve by capoing their guitar and playing like they are in the key of C). The reason I am boring you with this is because from this base we can get into some interesting conversations about scales, modes (Mixolydian, Dorian etc), and general theory and rule breaking of this theory that makes music unique. Also, I would like to know when you're making up songs do you follow any music theory or do you just wing it?

Anyway here are some songs in the key of C:
Dust in the Wind
Let It Be

a theory in the works

the initial idea of creating a blog like this came from a conversation with nathan about the state of music today and a personal theory of mine which partially involves the topic of why some people stop listening to new music as they age. i believe the theory will eventually involve many possible reasons for this all-too-common occurrence and i will be working on fleshing out the general outline of my theory in coming days and look forward to hearing if you have any such personal insights right now. is it more than just the human tendency to look with disgust upon incoming generation's culture? is it that overall music generally devolves each year? is it the form and way we listen to music because of changing technology? is it genetic? etc...