the meaning of life is to listen to music as much as possible

When I have students say that a certain thing I have assigned is hard I often reply, “well, enjoy, I know you like doing difficult things because you decided to play the cello”

i love it when im listening to a song ive heard hundreds of times and suddenly notice something i never did before

I LOVE MUSIC THEORY

music theory needs more fun names like "cowboy chords"

If you keep discovering new music, you don’t die.

I propose that we start pronouncing "envelope" to rhyme with "Penelope"

I tell my students they have to form a self-conception as someone who *just does* go to class. If you wake up every morning and have to *decide* to go to class, you will end up missing too much class even if you’re a fairly disciplined person. You can’t be weighing the pros and cons every day

actually please cite the deep magic to me, yeah I was there when it was written but this is plagiarism

I'm so grateful that this world has music

the good that you do persists in this world

As he celebrates his 100th Birthday this very day, can we all take a moment to acknowledge that time when Dick Van Dyke won the internet internet. Forever.

something about singing a vocal harmony with another person always imbues me with this very slight urge to run away with that person, love them forever, etc

I dont think ill ever be able to quit doing music because every time i stay up too late working on something i think is cool its a pretty literal reminder that there is nothing else i would rather do with my time

Evaluation time! Don't forget to use @bschmidt.bsky.social's amazing tool to help your students see that these mechanisms of surveillance are fundamentally discriminatory and, as evidence of teaching quality, effectively useless! shorturl.at/To24L

Also: if you are tenured, explain to your students how to tell if a professor is precarious and give them context for who reads their evals. Most students don't realize that evals are read by anyone other than their prof and they are grateful to learn that hiring/promotion decisions depend on them.

Sometimes learning things the relevance of which is not immediately apparent to you is Good, Actually? Because we are people in the world, not merely vehicles for producing capital?

I don't know what today's stupid higher ed article is but it's important to remember that the "marketplace" justification for killing humanities programs is false on multiple levels: employers like to hire humanities majors and those departments are often popular and solvent

Aggressive support is my favorite kind of support. "YOU ARE SO AMAZING AND I CAN'T STAND HOW YOU DON'T SEE IT, BUT I'M GONNA MAKE YOU SEE IT!"

All of music theory feels like this. you get to use phrases like Gregorian modes and metric modulation like you're unearthing a deep magic.

i love when i can feel music in my bones

I feel like I've been struggling to articulate this for years, but I just figured it out: Musicians that can read music/are classically trained are wizards, and musicians that can't read music/learned by ear are sorcerers.

Maybe I should be more careful, but jumping over snow banks really takes me back to doing hurdles in high school track! Love a good hurdle

I listen to pop music with as much of an analytical ear as I do classical music only I never learned any pop music terms, which is why I say things like “I really love the stretto in this Carly Rae Jepsen song”

… music

2026 goal: be accused of having too much whimsy in my life

Walking through a bunch of snow after a hard leg day is quite a challenge!

"This was the key to fluourishing in graduate school. You could do anything if you were delusional." --R.F.Kuang, Katabasis

Youtube music also has a 2025 wrapped, but I can't share it because I listen to white noise on repeat a lot while I work, so half of my recap is that bahaha Unsurprisingly the rest is Disney & K-Pop Demon Hunters with a little The Family Crest and other similar indie/rock :P

~ The crunch that rock salt makes when you step on it ~

"I hated music theory" or "I'm a great musician and I don't need music theory" are probably the two most common responses when people find out I'm a professional music theorist.

what key is this in?

Congratulations to everyone who submitted applications to grad school today (and earlier)! 🎉

People are so weirdly negative about tattoos. I love my little skin picture. I want more!

Does anyone want a survivorship bias shortbread

When students email me because they saw/heard/read something that pertains to class? The BEST

I am a nerd

I love it when a cat is

if you never come to office hours, you will never complete the office hours side quest, that's just standard game design

At a Friendsgiving where I was the only musician, we put on a Thanksgiving radio stream. Every time a jazz piece came on, everyone complained about there being "Christmas music" on the Thanksgiving stream (none of it was overtly Christmas)

I love making music with my friends but also with old dudes who don’t know what to make of me.

one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.

Yeah, s*x is cool, but have you heard the sound a page in a book makes when you turn it? 🫦 #WritingCommunity #BookSky

i need to study music theory

halp, im binging 🎼music 🎹theory content🎧 again.....🫣

I used to get really anxious about getting shots, but since getting a tattoo, dealing with them has been so much better. One of the many ways getting a tattoo has improved my life!

I just really love Chicago

One must imagine Charlie Brown happy