Omg my grad program and its umbrella school use *both* Google-based and Microsoft-based platforms and I have never felt more out of my depth.

At least for me, it’s the figuring out that’s the most exciting part about it — watching a student (or myself) get better at something in real time, even if that thing isn’t a finished product, is the coolest thing in the world. Learning about our brains and muscles and capabilities is just the best

The students who get the satisfaction from this sort of iterating between all these various two note patterns, even though they’re not musical, end up making so much more (and quicker!) progress than the students who don’t understand why they aren’t learning the songs they want to play already.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in context of the piano lessons I teach — my ‘trick’ is to have students get used to oscillating between two notes, hands together (e.g. right pinky and 4th finger at the same time as left pinky and thumb). It’s almost like phonics for the piano.

!!!!!

Boy do I get that — and thanks for writing those actual words of fiction ❤️

I put out my attempt at writing a protest song for These Times yesterday: I’m hoping it does something to galvanize someone somewhere.

I keep coming back to the smallness of it all - not in the cruelty of the actions, but in the size of imagination. It’s all so predictable, and the squishy cowardice of seemingly fucking everyone with power to Do Something leaves me in a state of incandescent rage most of the time.

Not to be That Guy, but I seem to recall @timmiller.bsky.social wondering recently where the protest songs for this moment were. Here’s one that I hope does something for someone somewhere.