Projects in the works . . .

While my intro post talks about some attitudes toward music, it doesn't really say much about what I plan to do with this blog. Here's a brief post about some of the projects I am planning

-A journey through pop: I'm planning to spend some quality listening time with many of the pop artists of today: Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Kanye, Taylor Swift, etc, and see what I notice about their music. I'm not so much aiming to praise or criticize the music on abstract merit. I'm planning to see what I find interesting, where I find value in the music and what I think some of the appeals are, as well as my general like/dislike of the material and why. My goal is to try and listen to the music for content, both musical and lyrical. I am going to refrain from consulting other analyses or reviews, in an effort to make this primarily a listening journal. I will allow myself resources like wikipedia for general information about the groups, and lyrics transcriptions. This will be the first time in years that I will have really payed attention to modern popular music, and hopefully the musical skills I have acquired combined with my lack of too many prior experience and entrenched opinions on the subject will lead to interesting insights.

-general ideas: When you spend a lot of time with music, you often come up with some ideas of a more general nature concerning music. I plan to post about some of the ones I think are interesting.

-classical music in Cleveland: While I'm a poor grad student who doesn't have money to blow on the excellent Cleveland Orchestra every week, I will be performing in or attending various concerts of amateur, student, and professional natures. I'm definitely planning some posts on these experiences.

And of course, anything else that strikes my fancy might end up on this blog. You can expect to see occasional material about the Cleveland Cavaliers, especially come playoff time. The blog will primarily remain musically oriented, but expect a few posts on other topics now and then,

-Matt W