Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume XVII–The Impactful Album Challenge

What follows, dear reader, is a revised and slightly expanded version of my participation in the Facebook Album Challenge that’s been making the rounds of late in this merry, merry month of May in the year of our pandemic, 2020. I include it here so that it’s all in one spot for quick reference forContinue reading “Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume XVII–The Impactful Album Challenge”

To Be a Life-Long Listener

In education we often bandy about one of our most sincere hopes for our students and aspirations for ourselves, to be life-long learners. I’m a huge fan of this concept. I never want to be complacent about my learning, about expanding the horizons of my brainiac: I want to read new things, write new things,Continue reading “To Be a Life-Long Listener”

Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume XI, Letter F

What follows is a continuing exploration of all the music in my cd collection for which the artist or the band name begins with the letter F.  Let’s begin with this.  F this.  Fishbone and The Flaming Lips, Ben Folds Five, bookends or markers for my 1990’s, perhaps the three most influential and inspiring bands forContinue reading “Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume XI, Letter F”

Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume IX, Letter E

Here we are with volume IX of a series of blogs about my attempt to listen to at least one compact disc from every artist in my music collection in alphabetical order. That is a mouthful. A mouthful for an earful.  I’ve been at it almost a year and I have worked my way throughContinue reading “Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume IX, Letter E”

Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume VIII, Bowie Binge Thanksgiving

As many of you know if you’ve been hanging around the jolly old blog site of yours truly, I’ve been listening to a lot of music.  I’ve been attempting to rescue my languishing compact disc collection by listening to a single cd from every artist or band represented on the shelves in alphabetical order and thenContinue reading “Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume VIII, Bowie Binge Thanksgiving”

Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume VII, Letter D

Ahh. The letter D. D is for Dali’s Car. D is for Miles Davis. D is for Death Cab for Cutie. D is for the Decemberists, Deerhoof, Destroyer, Devo, Neil Diamond, Thomas Dolby, The Doors, and Mike Doughty. Taking up only two small shelves, four little cubbies of the ikea compact disc cabinet, the DContinue reading “Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume VII, Letter D”

Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume VI, Letter C

A wrench in the works for my project of listening to compact discs, one at a time, all the way through, touching at least once on every band or artist in my collection: I bought a new turntable for the basement listening lounge!  I have been distracted this week by vinyl and paused my project toContinue reading “Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume VI, Letter C”

Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume II, Letter B

  Herein you’ll find volume two of a written record of the experience of attempting to listen to at least one compact disc from every artist represented in my collection. I think I’m crazy and I don’t know how long I can maintain or persist in this folly. I managed in two weeks and aboutContinue reading “Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume II, Letter B”

Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume I, Letter A

I have often thought of my record collection, now mostly a compact disc collection, supplemented by the occasional download and maybe 100 vinyl LPs, as a kind of musical autobiography. Listening to records for me has always had the same kind of effect as looking through a photo album, or reading old journal entries. TheContinue reading “Notes Toward A Musical Autobiography: Volume I, Letter A”