Social Networking

This is not about rock music and rap although it is related to my increasing absorption in, and knowledge of, those musical genres. This is about social networking. Specifically, I want to write about my experiences with Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. I'm also a subscribed member of LinkedIn but I don't really use that site. Perhaps as the book nears completion and I am immersed in marketing and training connected to the book, I will use LinkedIn more as it is mainly a networking site for professionals. It has a totally different interface and "tone" in general, from any of the others.

I am first going to talk about Twitter. Tweets (the messages you send on Twitter) are short (max. 160 characters) statements that you make. At first you make them to cyberspace. It's rather like talking to yourself. No one is "following" you, unless you've been invited by a friend to join Twitter who already uses it. In that case, you;d start out with one "Follower". Then, you search for people and YOU check a box to follow THEM. I began by searching out rock musicians. In the beginning, I searched -- naturally -- for musicians that I knew about. In other words, famous ones. That's how I started following Slash and Steven Tyler and Joe Perry and Black Eyed Peas and Paul McCartney and a host of others. I began by Following about 100 rock musicians and rappers. When you choose to Follow someone, you see all of the tweets that they send. They, however, do NOT see yours unless they choose to Follow you back. You can try to contact them by typing an @ before their Twitter user name. Supposedly, that will show up on their "stream" of messages. They may or may not respond. Most famous people do NOT respond. Well, not to me anyway. Maybe they respond randomly to some messages. I've had NO luck whatsoever contacting ANY famous person that way. So a word to the wise: if you want to contact a celebrity who is on Twitter, you may wait a very long time for a response, if you EVER get one.

But my messages eventually drew responses from strangers, all of whom are rock musicians --not famous ones -- or rock music fans like me or rappers and MC's. And so I began, one at a time, to build a Twitter community. I now have nearly 600 twitter Followers and I Follow about 550. My community now includes rock musicians at varying levels or stages in their careers. Some have music available via iTunes and other internet Mp3 sites like Amazon. Some have not reached that point. Some are doing very well in their careers and are starting to tour as well as put out new albums and so on. I've got about 10 rappers in my Community who are doing very well indeed. Touring in the US and in Europe, putting out albums and so on. I continue to build my Community mostly because my name is now on a number of Twitter "Lists" and I've built my own Twitter List and registered it -- that means my name is now circulating quite widely on Twitter.

It has been simply the most amazing experience. I've met some genuinely wonderful friends on Twitter. Most of them are young men. Charming, friendly, very excited about their music, very encouraging to me of my text and my attitudes generally. I've also got a number for friends who read my Tweets because they enjoy my musical analyses of the music I'm learning about. These are not rock musicians but they love the music, as I do now, and they are excited to read about the inner workings of it. I also tweet back and forth with some music educators whom I've met on Twitter, one of whom has assembled an impressive Twitter community of K-12 music teachers. We share a lot of information back and forth.

In some ways, Twitter is the sounding board for my text. Since this will be the first text of its kind, it's important for me to understand how my perceptions of the music and the artists compare with those from musicians actually in the field. Twitter has helped me to formulate my ideas and test them out with experts in the various genres. A lot of people on Twitter send out links to their newest album or they send YouTube links showing them performing and even rehearsing. These are such valuable resources for my research that I can hardly begin to understand HOW valuable. They are living, breathing, cutting edge, real, and tremendously insightful and informative. Wow! I'm just starting to comprehend the vastness of knowledge we will all have at our fingertips in this increasingly streamlined digital age. I mean, one picture is worth a 1000 words? One 10-minute video of a band rehearsing a new rock composition is worth 10,000 words. At minimum.

I'm on Facebook too. I check in once a day or maybe twice. I find Facebook to be more about keeping up on news of friends and family. Some of my rock music contacts are on Facebook but I tend to just write comments now and then or just read what they write. It doesn't seem like the place to get into serious discussion for some reason. I've met a heavy metal fan, a woman, from Seattle and we've actually become friends. We e-mail each other once a week and just talk about life and Metallica (she's a lifelong, very devoted Metallica/metal music fan). But she loves all kinds of music and has seen and heard a lot of very good music indeed so we talk about that and her job as a surgical nurse --high stress, fast-paced -- and her hope to find a husband one day. She's in her mid-40's, never married. Beautiful person -- and very attractive -- one wonders why she cannot find a simply marvelous partner!

MySpace is something of a trip. I need to write a separate blog about that someday. I mostly lurk on MySpace because ALL of my friends on there are rock bands -- and most of them -- although increasingly, that is not the case -- are very famous. Green Day. Led Zeppelin. Motley Crue. Guns and Roses. The Grateful Dead. And so on. I mostly just read their postings about new albums, world tours, that kind of thing. It gives me a glimpse into their professional lives. However, I've also met a number (that is increasing) of young, not famous, musicians and bands on MySpace. Many of these have asked me to listen to their music and comment on it. I've been flattered by that but also reluctant to say a lot to some of them because I'm still a novice at these musical genres and in some cases, I really can't listen to their music. Screaming metal. I just cannot stand it. It actually HURTS my throat to listen to it. Their vocal cords will be in SHREDS -- and these are YOUNG men -- with a lot of years (hopefully) ahead of them in which they will need to have voices: voices to talk to people about their music, voices to whisper love messages, to chastise children, to shout for joy, to sing Happy Birthday to a beloved parent -- our voices are among our most important and cherished personal possessions. We're JUDGED by our voices! And they are RUINING theirs at such young ages. Ugh. I am opposed to it. But ... my perspective is unique as a singer myself of opera, and a person trained in bel canto singing techniques, and as a former voice teacher myself. So I just can't do it. Can't listen. I listened to one screaming metal band and sent a message suggesting the frontman should "be sure and take voice lessons from someone who can help protect his voice". They never responded. Probably think I'm a fusty dusty old curmudgeon. So be it. I'd be seriously remiss if I didn't send a warning.

My Changing (or Not) Tastes in Rock Music

This rock/rap research journey has taken so many twists and turns. For one thing, the music that captivated and enchanted me from the outset has remained captivating and enchanting, almost without exception. I feel confident that is because the music has genuine merit musically and not just emotionally. In fact, as I live with the music longer and listen to a song for the 50th time, I keep finding more and more excellence in it.

On the other hand, there is music that at first I found unattractive at worst, bland and uninteresting at best. One group whose music has really grown on me is that of Guns N' Roses. I've struggled mightily with the issue of GNR's music because I so dislike Axl Rose's whimsical and seemingly random vocal technique. He sounds fine and then he sounds dreadful: harsh, scratchy, squeezed and strained. But I've come to absolutely adore the music of Guns N' Roses, Axl's vocal vagaries norwithstanding. I think 50 years from now when music historians tell the story of classic hard rock, the ORIGINAL band Guns 'N Roses, will stand as one of the top, if not the top, bands in rock history. If so, it will be in SPITE of Axl's on-again off-again vocal performance. Because I find their musical compositions simply incredibly excellent from every standpoint. I'm citing many GNR songs in the text because so many musical concepts are embodied in them.

Another band that has grown on me is Radiohead. I cannot find enough superlatives to describe how simply magical their music is. They sound great and the songs/compositions are filled with all kinds of marvelous chord progressions, metric variety, textural innovations, and just plain beautiful sound. I think Paranoid Android is kind of like Beethoven's Eroica Symphony: a completely new approach to an art form that raises the bar for alternative rock very high indeed.

I've blogged about 30 Seconds to Mars before and I'll say it here: this is a game-changing band. Jared Leto is a Paul McCartney for our time. It may not be recognized now but I am certain it will be and soon. I was part of an effort to turn 30 Seconds To Mars into a major #trendingtopic on Twitter when This is War, their last -- epic -- album was released back in late Fall 2009. It was one of the most exciting efforts I've ever been part of! This is War is that kind of album that you just can't listen to one song: you must listen to it all the way through. It is really an opera or perhaps a choral cantata is a better comparison.

I started out with a total adoration of Aerosmith and U2. I have not forgotten my old loves. I'm the type that never forgets a lover, that remains friends with them after the passion has ended. I am fight phobic and so I and my lovers have always parted peacefully, by mutual agreement, at least on the surface. U2 is still my spiritual anchor in rock music; and Aerosmith will always be my first love. Like the boy I loved in junior high school. My first taste of woman's passion. Never forgot that, or him -- even though he's now balding and overweight and old like the rest of us! Hs! But grown up love is different from adolescent love. It carries with it all the pain and joy and passion and disillusion that maturity brings to us.

And in terms of my "grown up" love for rock music, Alice in Chains remains for me the most beautiful sounding rock band I've heard yet. Beautiful singing, gorgeous Debussy-impressionist harmonies, deeply emotional lyrics and performances. At the end of the day, when all is said and done, I return to Alice in Chains. They are the A section of my rock music listening rondo. They aren't for most people: I think grunge is an acquired taste. But my love for opera, for drama, for lush harmony, for beautiful vocals -- inform and direct my tastes.

Random Thoughts, Specific Purposes

The Oxford University Press music education text rep. visited with me for an hour. She is interested in the Rock/Rap text. Also in my course pack which I developed in 1995 and have used for all of my elementary general music methods courses, with adaptations and additions, every year since then. I was surprised she was interested in the Course Pack after all these years of my using it ... but that is in fact why she contacted me in the first place, not because of the Rock/Rap text.

So I told her about my rock/rap journey, waxing poetic as I tend to do, on the subject. She listened, asked a few questions, and looked at the mss. I have completed so far and then gave me a LOT of advice. Some of that advice was nuts and bolts: How many pages? Paperbound or hard bound? What about copyrights & reprint permissions? To whom is the book going to be targeted, in terms of market? Will there be an accompanying DVD or CD or both? Table of Contents? The sorts of details that any publisher needs to know in order to assess the potential costs & profits of a book.

Then, she asked me some much more difficult-to-answer questions.

Such as: what [about your text] will compel professors to require their students to BUY this text? It is a "supplementary" text -- I'm fully aware that methods courses teachers--and I'd be among those, I'm afraid--are not going to just drop all their accustomed repertoire and processes to use this book in place of what they use now. What's to prevent them ordering their complimentary desk copy -- and letting students borrow that single copy to use for lesson plan ideas for the unit they're doing on "including popular music in your teaching"?

Also: she told me "your passion for this music is driving the book right now. That has to change. The book must be centered upon, and driven by, issues of teaching and learning music; NOT on your personal journey of discovery of musical treasures and gems to be found in rock music and in rap".

I had a little taste of what she means in that last statement. Yesterday I did a workshop for my undergraduate music education students. The first lesson I took them through was the one where students are to compare how Schubert and Metallica treat the issue of children's fears of the night and of the dark in their respective compositions The Erlking (solo art song) and Enter Sandman (heavy metal rock). That lesson seemed successful; they liked it. One of the students asked me if I knew Iron Maiden's Fear of the Dark piece as well. I was grateful for his idea.

But the second lesson I took them through was comparing three different artists' renditions of the song Johnny B Goode. First of course, I played them the Chuck Berry original. They obviously responded very positively to that. The second version I played for them was a reggae version of Johnny B Goode by an artists named Peter Tosh. The students LOVED the reggae version! The third version I played was that of Judas Priest. Now: I LOVE the Judas Priest cover of Johnny B. Goode. But....my ears have become accustomed to the "screaming" vocal techniques of heavy metal singers, in this case, the brilliant voice of Rob Halford. But the voice majors in the room yesterday flinched at his first scream, covered their ears, asked me to turn it down and then suggested I turn it off after the first verse! They buzzed among themselves most energetically and I could see their reactions were largely negative.

I have to agree the voice major students: this style of singing is NOT a good model for children to hear in our music classrooms! I should have, on reflection, played the Grateful Dead cover -- which has close vocal harmony and some added instruments from the original version--and no screaming -- quite lyrical singing in fact. That was a rather dramatic example of my personal passions or tastes ruling over my pedagogical understanding -- and what I need to convey in this text to people who are becoming music educators. I'm sure that's what the rep intended by her charge.

As for what about the text will compel methods class teachers to require students to buy it: that is a far more perplexing and frankly, daunting, question. As the rep pointed out: this would be the first text of its kind. That means marketing it will need to be very focused and clever so that a niche market is created. I told her that all of the composition chapter will be written by living, working rock musicians. Quotes from rock and rap musicians will be throughout the book. The chapter on rap is being entirely written by working rap musicians. I'm merely an editor for them. I had hoped to be able to have some small contributions from people like Quincy Jones about Michael Jackson's music; or from rock composers who have achieved fame in their field. I tried contacting Steven Tyler for that purpose. To no avail. I will continue to work on contacting Cheap Trick who are down the road in Rockford IL.

It would be wonderful to contact any rock composers or rappers (I'm interested particularly in Mos Def and Common) who have become famous for their music and who would supply some kind of essay or quote or something more extensive for this text but I don't know how to do that and I've no idea if such a project would be of the slightest interest to them. The VH1 folks might be helpful as VH1 does a lot of PSA's on TV and has a rather extensive grants program for music education. That may be the route to follow. Meanwhile, I keep slogging on. I think if I had contributors who have achieved wide recognition the book could use that in marketing strategy.

The other part of the book that I think will be very valuable will be the Technology for the Classroom chapter written by my cousin Paul Geluso who is a well-regarded recording engineer in New York city and who teaches courses in studio recording at New York University. His mom and sister are both music educators so he understands that point of view as well as the professional studio environment and working with rock music as well as music from classical, jazz, and other genres.

Some of the childlike joy and passion have evaporated for me. Not that I have ceased to love the music or listening to it. But, as the Oxford U Press rep said: the time has come to change focus. And wear my "teacher trainer" hat. But as I told her "I always tell my students to teach the music about which they are most passionate because that joy, that enthusiasm, conveys itself to their students. Kids know when you are faking it. I was always very successful at teaching my kids in elementary and middle school about opera. They caught my passion for it, the wanted to share in my enthusiasm." I am hoping that sense of joy and commitment will shine through the pages of the book even though the focus of the book from MY point of view will have to be more down-to-earth and practical than I might prefer!

Penny Road Pub/Visiting a Rock Club

Saturday Feb. 13 I again stepped way outside my comfort zone and went to Penny Road Pub about 50 mins from here, in the NW suburbs of Chicago. I went to hear Days of the New, an Illinois band that plays an exotic blend of alternative rock, grunge, and world music. Travis Meeks, their leader and frontman, is a magical musician. The only way to describe his riveting, mesmerizing music, his gorgeous voice, the world percussion sounds. All couched in lush chordal progressions that are often modal and feature the slow hypnotic harmonic rhythms that you hear in Alice in Chains and other grunge bands. I love their music!

I was at the pub for 7 hours total. That's because Days did not start until 12:30 a.m. Some mixup with the sound check. Anyway, though I typically retire to bed no later than 11, I was not about to miss this. I bought my ticket way back in November and was determined to see them perform. So I spent the evening listening to about 8 other bands. In varying stages of development, musically and technically. Some classic hard rock bands, one band that easily and skillfully moves between alternative rock and jazz, one band that was spot-on terrific, one that was what I would call screaming metal -- had to leave the room -- my throat felt raw after about 5 minutes of the frontman's anguished, harsh screams. My opera singer ears just can't bear it although it is part of the genre, I know -- it's fine -- just not for me. And nor would I want children with their fragile, as-yet-undeveloped voices to adopt such a singing model. So I'm not including that style of metal in my textbook. Believe me, they'll discover it on their own if they are so inclined.

I heard 7 straight hours of rock music and out all that, only THREE songs that I know. An Alice in Chains cover by a band called A.D.D. (with a frontwoman singer, excellent!) and two Days of the New songs that I know because I listen to their music a lot. All the rest of the songs were unfamiliar. I think. When the volume is that loud, I cannot really hear chords and melodies and things -- just noise -- so it's possible that songs I do know were played and I didn't recognize them. Very possible.

The visit to Penny Road was extremely enlightening. If/when I go again, I'll hang out in the cellar. I like the young, somewhat raw groups and the ceiling is so low down there and the room small so they don't crank up the volume to ear-splitting levels. You can sit barely 5 feet away from the performers. I love that. I could watch the guitarists stepping on buttons to change the sound, I could see them adjusting the amps, I could hear them tuning up. So in a way, that's more valuable for my research purposes than going to Soldier Field and sitting in the nosebleed section along with 90,000 others, an entire football field's length and just about the same height away from U2 -- as I did in Sept. Of course, the U2 concert was a marvelous spectacle and I just love U2 -- love their music, their sound, Bono, The Edge -- all of it. I'm a U2 fanatic. But I think I would give 1 year of my life to hear/see U2 in that cellar at Penny Road Pub. Sitting 5 or 7 feet away from them. Listening to them talk to each other, talking to us, their audience. Looking them in the eye, hearing Bono's glorious voice with minimal amplification -- just a simple microphone -- watching The Edge adjust the controls so that he maintains his beautiful, subtle guitar sound. Perhaps if I visit Dublin some day.......

Going it Alone

My life's path has been a long series of detours. Some people's lives, most of the people I know in fact, go through fairly regular childhoods, grow up, get married, have kids, have a career, have ups and downs, sorrows, tragedies and great joys. Marriages, births, more marriages, graduations, family life, occasional deviations, grow old, start thinking of retirement, travel, estate planning, and so on. I'm the weirdest person in my acquaintance in terms of how really whacked up my life's pathway has been. Not one aspect of my existence has been "mainstream". I think if there were fairies present at my birth, standing around making wishes and predictions, they must have been drunk on strong liquor and said the type of things one says when one has had too much to drink and loses inhibitions and caution.

I was born to a woman who was an irresponsible teenager, she was quite out of control and I was the result of her date screwing her out behind the school at her high school senior prom one warm May night. In that time and place, if you got pregnant, you got married and she was no exception. That was a disaster. And she ran off when I was 2. A year later, I got committed to a TB sanitorium for four years as a result of a mistaken diagnosis (they thought I had TB of the hip-- and instead, I had a dislocated hip that they held immobile by a cast from my head to my feet so that it would never in my life have the proper muscle alignment). Four years in a sanitorium high on a mountaintop, isolated from the world so as not to spread infection. Mom remarried and came back during that time and when I got out of the hospital, I had a new stepfather and started living in a new family. I never really adjusted socially to public school and my physical handicap also made me different. Kids don't like "different". I think it's a good thing that special needs kids are educated with their non-disabled peers now. It's good for both sides. Non-disabled kids get used to the idea that we're not all physically and mentally and emotionally perfect.

So my life has never followed traditional lines. No marriage, no children. Professional singing career, conducting career. Worked for, and became close friends with, Leonard Bernstein. I loved living in New York. New York is a city that is FILLED to the BRIM with unconventional people. I felt more at home there. You could find a community of just about any type there.

Now in my approaching senior years, I've embarked on a journey of discovery and excitement, learning to know and love and understand rock music and rap. And once again, many aspects of this project I'm having to do alone. There is no such text in music education. This is good and bad. Good because I'm on the cutting edge of a new trend in music education (probably). Bad because I'm on the cutting edge of a new trend in music education (probably). Bad because the marketing strategy will have to be very clever and unusual. Because the wheels of academe grind exceedingly slow. Which is the understatement of the year. To get methods class teachers to buy this text will be a true miracle. Yet, if I don't write this book, I'll never have a happy day in my life again. If I write it and it gets published and flops, I'll never have a happy day in my life again. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.....and so on and so on.

The other lonely aspect of this is that there is virtually NO one in my circle of friends with whom I can share this music. Thank God for social networking like Twitter and MySpace. I'd be completely isolated and out on a limb. I'd probably, in fact, have given up on this by now. I certainly would not have met the rock musicians and rappers that I've met and who are going to be consulting authors -- and, it turns out, composers/performers for the text too. So I feel LESS lonely than I might feel.

I'm going to live rock concerts. I don't intend to do this for very long mainly because I don't have anyone to go with -- and I feel lonely going there with loud, celebrating crowds of YOUNG people (for the most part), just looking out of place. I don't always FEEL out of place. I find rock fans to be very social and friendly. At the U2 concert, I was talking to no less than 8 or 9 people sitting around me by the time the concert ended. Saturday night, I'm going to Penny Road Pub in Barrington, IL to hear Days of the New, a grunge/alternative band from here in Illinois whose music I LOVE to PIECES. I'll be alone there. I hope I can chat with people. I wish I could meet Travis, the frontman/leader of Days/New. He's autistic, however, and doesn't want to interact much with people. So I don't know if I'll get to meet him. Their music is like a lot of grunge: very lush harmony, slow harmonic rhythms, mixed or odd meters. His lyrics are not so uncompromisingly despairing and wretched as Alice in Chains's lyrics.

I guess my biggest disappointment is that I'm going to hear my beloved Alice in Chains on March 20 and although I bought 5 tickets, hoping to entice students to come with me, it turns out there is a big jazz & steel band concert at School that same night -- an unexpected addition to the concert calendar -- and so I may not have anyone to go with me. The show is sold out and there are no seats in that place (Aragon Ballroom). I cannot physically tolerate standing up for longer than about 30 minutes so I'm not sure how I will survive. I was going to sell all my tickets and not go. But.....I cannot miss this opportunity to see and hear them. I feel emotionally tied to them and I am vested in their success and want to support them. James Hetfield, in a Metallica documentary, said that he couldn't care less if people buy the CD's: he appreciates MORE that they take the time and trouble to come and see them perform live. I was quite surprised by that statement of James's and I thought of that when I found out the Aragon has no seats and I thought of not going.

So.....although I've met lovely rock musicians on Twitter and MySpace and I'm sort of an "angel" to the band at our university who is letting me observe their rehearsals and get involved generally in their music and their career, it still feels as though I keep walking this lonely road. It may be a loneliness of my own choice. That is always a possibility. But I cannot help it. I am so passionate about this project and this music. I must see it through to its conclusion, no matter at what personal emotional cost. Rock on! \.../

My Research, New Music Education Text

I teach music education at Northern Illinois University. It's my 10th year here. Taught at University of Vermont for 4 years before that. Got my doctorate in 1996 from Temple University in Philly. I'm an east coast native. Only been here near Chicago since 2000. My life's work has been music. I lived in Manhattan and sang opera professionally for 10 years in New York and I have taught vocal/general music grades K-12 for many years in addition to that. Worked for Leonard Bernstein and so on. Lots and lots of life experiences, most of them in music. I've sung with symphonies, conducted full scale opera productions, all kinds of interesting musical activities.

Never in my adult life have I been a "fan" of popular music, especially rock or rap. But last summer, when Michael Jackson died, I began a journey, an odyssey, of discovery and extreme joy that has been life-changing. I didn't know MJ"s music much -- Billie Jean and the Jackson 5 stuff. Not much else. Didn't follow his life or career at all. I'm very uncomfortable with screaming, hysterical crowds and have avoided them all my life. When it came on the news on June 25, 2009 that he had died at age 50, the news program I was watching showed a video called "Black or White" with the song. I'd never heard it. I went upstairs to my computer and downloaded the song from iTunes and that was the beginning. Spent 6 weeks listening to MJ's music and watching the videos, all of them. Hours and hours. Fell completely and irrrevocably in love with MJ's music, with his dancing, with his vision of the world. Found myself grieving his passing deeply. What could I do? I felt deeply compelled to DO something.

Serendipitously, I was teaching a summer grad course and we had a guest lecturer, Dr. Jere Humphries, who is one of the most well-known music education researchers in the world. He lectured to my class about how in music ed, we teach only DEAD music by DEAD composers. Something clicked in me. I decided to write the first ever music education methods text preparing music teachers to teach children music literacy and listening skills using rock and rap music--the music that they listen to and love. Almost without exception. The book will be called Beat It! After the MJ song and of course, with reference to 'beat' as an element of rhythm.

Of course, I needed to learn about rock and rap music. 40 years' worth. So I've downloaded 100's of tunes to my iTunes library. I listen 9 to 10 hours a DAY. I've read a number of books such as Slash, and bios of Jimmy Page and Aerosmith and Richard Barone and The Beatles and U2. I'm meeting living rock musicians and rappers on Twitter and Facebook, something I never in a million years thought I'd be doing.

I'm in awe of the sheer immensity of wonderful--beautiful--music I've found and keep on finding. I am shamed by the ignorance and intransigence of my academic peers who dismiss this music as being inconsequential. It is the symphony, the sonata allegro, the concerto grosso, the opera, of our era. And we have largely ignored it. I've become devoted to hard rock and heavy metal. And I guess, based on my ADORATION of Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam, grunge. WHO'D HAVE THOUGHT????????

I've delved deeply in rock culture because it is so much an integral part of the art form. The U2 360 degree tour concert in Chicago on Sept. 13 was the first rock concert I've ever attended. I also went to Mos Def's concert at House of Blues. Mos Def is a GENIUS! I am now a MEMBER of House of Blues in Chicago and go there regularly to concerts. I'm on FIRE with excitement and have started to write the book. With a little help from rock musicians I've met on Twitter who are going to write for me about the composition process and other things.

So if you have any comments to add, please do so! I want this text to be ALIVE and living and breathing and RELEVANT above all. I rely on the wonderfully insightful and skilled observations from rock and rap musicians. I'm merely the coordinator, the editor, if you will, channeling their words and ideas. \..../ Rock on!

Slash and Myles Kennedy

Slash announced on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, that Myles Kennedy, singer for the band Alter Bridge and others, will front his band on the 2010 tour that is part of promoting his new solo album. Wow! I COULDN'T be happier. I feel a proprietary interest in Slash's tour and his album. I believe he is under-appreciated in the extreme. Not in terms of fans--he has a gazillion of them -- they hang onto his every word and utterance on the social networking sites. Slash has only to write some very brief and mundane statement: "I'm going to the store to buy some milk" and he'll be answered or commented upon by hundreds of impassioned, really loving messages from fans and followers. I assume they are mostly young rock musicians and rock music fans -- the language and writing style that some of them use makes me think many of them are teens. Maybe even younger. It's touching. Young people long for role models, for people to love and fantasize about, and idolize. It's part of growing up. Both genders seem well-represented among his fans, at least judging from those that I take time to read.

I think Slash's wondrous guitar playing and his acute musicianship will bloom and shine and rise to unexpectedly sublime heights with Myles as his partner on stage. I hope and pray he hires a really good videographer to make a sort of documentary about it. When I read his autobiography, his pain and anguish at the debacle of Guns and Roses was plain to read. Not just in the "between the lines" sub-text, but also in the actual words and thoughts. As I read the book, my heart ached for him. I thought a lot about Mozart while I was reading "Slash". Mozart was prone to all kinds of personal weaknesses and above all, he was surrounded by people who did not for one moment understand the depth and power of his creative genius. He suffered a great deal from the cultural Philistines around him who could not understand what his music represented. It has in fact taken many many years for us, in this day and age, to appreciate the rare and exceptional musical mind that Mozart had.

A source of great pain to Mozart was how eager and excited he was just by the ACT of creating music and then seeing/hearing it performed; yet he had to deal with unscrupulous promoters, aristocrat audiences who had not even the slightest idea of what they were hearing -- that they were being presented with the most rare and precious jewels of music that they could not really appreciate at the time -- and performers whose egos were way out of proportion to their talents.

I think Slash's musical life has in many facets reflected some of the angst and struggle that beleaguered Mozart. I also believe that we have yet to fully see the remarkable range of talents, understandings, vision, and creative genius that Slash carries within himself. He has my blessings for sure. I can hardly wait to hear and see Slash perform live. I hope the tour comes within a reasonable distance from Chicago. I honor and treasure musical gifts of genius, be it in rock music, opera, jazz or hip hop/rap. I am eager to transmit that thought in my music education text.