Thoughts on history, culture, music, the details of our world, and how learning matters. Written by a musician and professor, Learn with Mike provides insight and resources for those looking to maximize their creative potential through developing the skill of learning. Also posts from On Learning Percussion, my more practical posts about musical learning that I hope are helpful for curious learners.
With August here, I'm avoiding writing my book on learning to write another dubiously researched text on my other love: food. But first: NewsletterThis newsletter is taking on some new to me directions. I’m going to send slightly more frequent ideas about details and learning, and more infrequent deeper dives into interdisciplinary connections with an emphasis on music-making. If you want to adjust your Mike level, you can click "Update Preferences" at the bottom of this email and adjust accordingly. One joy and gift of traveling is living somewhere, to learn about cultural norms and priorities by spending a bit more extended time in a destination. This leads to a lot of grocery stores, walking around (as fast as possible), museums, and failing at quotidian tasks—I’ll never forget my first experience with a German washing machine. I’ve found that this predilection enhances my ability to articulate ideas of style in music I’m studying, while also honing my ability to notice, parse, and organize the details in music by practicing in the world. After weeks of stimulation and overstimulation (Toledo Cathedral and Sagrada Familia being the main offenders), I’m back from such a trip to Spain and Italy. It’s not desirable to work against norms, particularly with regard to food, and Spaniards certainly have predilections vis a vis meal timing, construction and judgement. I love eating in Spain, riding the ebullient waves of energy before, during and after meals. However, one detail has always tickled my mind with regard to Spaniards’, and by extension my, criteria for evaluating their cuisine. It’s sheen-based.In fact, I would argue the shinier the better. Based on research conducted from age 2 to the present, here are observations on some Spanish culinary mainstays, organized by level of shininess/deliciousness, drawing upon observations and discussions by natives and courteous foreigners. Top Tier: Sunglasses required. The tastiest.
Mid-Range (transitional, wildcards, B-League)
Foods Which Make Their Surroundings Shiny:
Dull, Dry
Details are indicators of priorities, intentions, and connections. So, what do these details tell us, other than confirming that there are a LOT of olive trees in Spain? While I’m interested in tracing this thread historically (culinary history is fascinating!) I’m more interested in what I can learn about music through this journey, as it clearly activated the same part of my brain which goes crazy for analysis. The act of observing and organizing details is critical to our role as interpreters, especially interpreters of such enigmatic and cryptic historical artifacts as musical scores. Building muscle around noticing assumptions via details and connecting those assumptions to larger ideas of style is critical to this endeavor, and is effectively practiced outside of musical domains. For example, let’s say our musical text was the menu of a restaurant. Filtering by shiny might help explain the menu’s organization and give ideas about what an astute diner might order. The knowledge when and how people eat is not as such encoded in most musical texts, and we as performers have to recreate and reimagine those details from other sources and through extrapolation from available information. And it all starts with one detail. It goes without saying that one shouldn’t draw conclusions about an entire culture from one person’s consciously limited experiences in Shine City. But, maybe learning about a localized culture, the unspoken connections that make one place at one time that place and that time can help us build those connections while engaging learning the music of the past. Wow, I guess I did work on my book! Other Details
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by Michael Compitello
Thoughts on history, culture, music, the details of our world, and how learning matters. Written by a musician and professor, Learn with Mike provides insight and resources for those looking to maximize their creative potential through developing the skill of learning. Also posts from On Learning Percussion, my more practical posts about musical learning that I hope are helpful for curious learners.
LEARN WITH MIKE Thoughts on history, culture, music, the details of our world, and why learning matters. From Michael Compitello 04/19/2024 Most of the time I write about “sticky” thoughts: ideas that have remained front of mind across numerous disciplines. But, while I’m reading about maps, Chopin’s placement of dotted 8th/16th note figures, and wondering about how referees train to execute basketball jump balls, I’m trying to put into practice ideas about how to make the teaching of musical...
ON LEARNING PERCUSSION Practice tips, musings on musicianship, and ideas about productivity, advocacy, and more. From Michael Compitello 03/08/2024 With a little bit of space between performances, and a number of doctoral students graduating this semester (get it, team!), I’ve been on a pedagogical kick, rounding up materials I’ve generated over the past few years and working to connect the dots between theory and practice. The scaffolding of my work on learning has become more clearly...
LEARN WITH MIKE Thoughts on history, culture, music, the details of our world, and why learning matters. From Michael Compitello 02/29/2024 I’m pleased to announce the release of the MikeDrop Podcast, a joint venture between myself and percussionist Mike Truesdell: Logo by Shaun Tilburg Mike and I chat almost daily about our approaches to music-making, productivity, pedagogy, and more, and we are going public, sharing some of our insights into issues facing contemporary musicians while...