String Theories
On Music Appreciation, Hot July Bluegrass, Outlaw Star Cody Jinks, Soul Master Mike Farris, Memphis Breakouts Southern Avenue; New Nashville Albums
Musicality, Musicology, And Music Appreciation
What does “music appreciation” mean in 2025? The term is still out there, deployed by some online courses and some YouTubers. It kind of hangs on from the mid 20th century, when music appreciation emerged as a chronological study of classical music, targeted at what was then called a “middlebrow” audience - i.e. an aspirational middle or working class demographic that was interested in being more “cultured,” as it was then described. It was the same group that subscribed to Book of the Month Club and watched the programming on early “educational” public television. (To be clear, these are my kind of people!) While that faded (even largely from PBS surprisingly), today there’s a cool movement on YouTube toward general musical enlightenment. Many music educators and colleges still offer music appreciation classes and electives, and I’m looking forward to learning more about how they approach it. They’ve made changes to the old school, but no method or high profile figure has emerged lately to play the populist role in music that Neil deGrasse Tyson plays in astro-physics.
One could suggest that any attempt to tell an informative story about any kind of music, like the Pitchfork review of the new Tyler Childers album - is a form of music appreciation. Yet I think there’s value in holding on to the concept of MA as a genre of arts education for musical citizens who’d like to jump the cultural and perception gap between the mostly simple mechanics of popular music and the sometimes hidden magic of more developed composed and improvised music. But modern MA ought to try new tactics and approaches. Along with basic musicology and acknowledgements of various periods and progressive movements, MA ought to acknowledge the context in which the growing music fan lives. It should consciously try to disarm society’s longstanding anxieties and prejudices about music that’s been historically cast as the province of nerds and the intelligentsia, because that’s, well, fake news. So I talk a lot in my new book about media - traditional and digital/social - because these outlets have shaped not just our national conversation about music but parts of our musical consciousness. And I argue they’ve largely done a lame job.
I think music appreciation ought to teach listeners new ways to frame music. Just a few I dabble with: What’s the real difference between the composing of formal concert music and the composing done by an improvising instrumentalist in the moment? How do we listen for various rhythmic feelings, and how do they tie to a regional or immigrant story? What are the sonic differences between analog acoustic music, electronic music, and digitally generated music? And what forms of ear training and vocal instruction could supercharge a large number of students in their curiosity about music?
My publisher convinced me to make a change to the topic sentence of my upcoming book’s jacket blurb. I’d said: “Musicality For Modern Humans drags music appreciation into the 21st century.” I almost added “kicking and screaming” but thought better of it. Then without even asking(!), the boss, Mike Sager, re-wrote it as “propels,” and I immediately knew it was better. It was in keeping with my final pass through the manuscript, trying to remove passages where I could be accused of scolding the audience. This movement is about moving forward, about being nostalgic, per composer Ned Rorem, for the future!
Finally, just last week I had lunch with my fascinating friend Dr. Reyna Gordon, who does high level work at Vanderbilt in the now mature and vital field of musical neuroscience. We got to talking about the crucial distinction between musicology and musicality. Listeners, she proposed, don’t need to be musicologists. She believes that the goal should be to cultivate, and in her line of work study, the under-investigated concept of musicality. And in the book, I quote a line from one of her research papers that made me excited, because it validates my world view and my concept of why this is so important. She wrote: “Musicality (broadly encompassing musical behaviour, music engagement and musical skill) impacts society by supporting pro-social behaviour and well-being.”
How about we give that a try?
JULY IN PERFORMANCE
I appreciated the hell out of some bluegrass (and related) music since I last reached you. I’ve been invited by the energetic promoter and musician Jeff Burke to emcee shows (as available) for his exciting new Bluegrass On 3rd lunch-hour series at the historic 3rd & Lindsley here in Nashville. These are full-length ticketed shows that start at 12:30 pm, with the kitchen up and running. Dinner theater at lunch time! Thus I got to hear full sets by Tim O’Brien, Jan Fabricius and the Tim O’Brien Band, the powerhouse all-woman, all-star band Sister Sadie, and authentic bluegrass torch bearers the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys - all within a month. Please follow Jeff’s new and important calendar of bluegrass and string band happenings in the Nashville area, simply called Bluegrass Nashville. Website HERE. Facebook page HERE.
I also went out at night! I caught the album release show by Virginia family duo The Wildmans, as they took yet another step forward on their innovative string band journey with a self-titled LP from New West Records. Brother Eli plays electric guitar and mandolin and shares lead vocals. Sister Aila is a beautiful singer and a fiddler who started winning awards at the top Appalachian contests in her teens. They’re not a bluegrass band anymore, but they haven’t left it behind either. Aila tore up some fiddle tunes in the friendly confines of our great new Skinny Dennis honky tonk.
Speaking of fine young singers, I was keyed up for months about seeing AJ Lee & Blue Summit make their debut at the Ryman Auditorium as part of that venue’s indispensable summer bluegrass series. They shared the bill with East Nash Grass, my favorite breakout band in trad bluegrass in ages. So it was a night of contrasting flavors, impeccable musicianship, and superbly rendered original and borrowed songs. AJ Lee has THE VOICE. I would not say anyone’s come along since Alison Krauss with that kind of mass-appeal pure tone and graceful phrasing. But AJ’s the one. The show was so compelling I wove it into my roundup of the IBMA Awards nominations, which were announced the next day. Please read that HERE.
Also, the Analog at the Hutton Hotel on West End might be the most elegant and audiophilic listening room in Music City, and I’m starting work this week on a feature story about it. I made sure to catch the final night of a residency there by fiddler Jason Carter, who’s taking strides as a solo artist after parting ways with the Del McCoury Band, with whom he’ll always share three decades of iconic bluegrass history. It was no surprise but a great pleasure when his wife, fellow award-snagging fiddler Bronwyn Keith-Hynes showed up to play along on a few songs.
Go see more live music! (And please when you possibly can, buy tickets in advance. There’s a crisis of promoters canceling long-planned shows due to lack of pre-sales.) Now, on with…
RECENT WORK
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Few fully independent artists in any genre have been able to grow to the scale and influence that Cody Jinks has pulled off in the outlaw country space. He sells out iconic venues like Red Rocks in Colorado with a sound that layers his boyhood influence from Lefty Frizzell with the edge of the thrash metal rocker he once was. The Fort Worth native “put in the reps” for countless years in bars and honky tonks, nearly going broke, before albums like I’m Not The Devil and Lifers vaulted him to the big time in the years before the pandemic. He’s now out with In My Blood, an album that basks in his newfound sobriety and a new focus on himself and his family, making this a very candid and fascinating interview with a self-made country star whom mainstream radio virtually overlooks.
In Case You Didn’t Get The Meme-O
Love the new Mike Farris album; it’s one of the best of the year. I’ve been a fan of his since the Cheetah Wheelies. I’ve been keeping an eye on Southern Ave the last few years, too. Good stuff.
I’ll give Cody Jinks another shot. I really like a couple of his tunes, especially “Cast No Stones.” He’s one of those artists that really should be right up my alley but so far hasn’t rang my bell. Thanks for the reminder to check out his new stuff!