First Post, or 'Aren't You Doing Too Much Already?'

(This, and everything marked before May 2018, was originally written as part of "Matt Riggen's Jazz Blog", a blog which I kept on-and-off as a college student. Some of it is edited for style, namely the presence of gendered language and for clarity in the writing.)
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​Right what it says on the lid, kids. Nothing extra.

I want the point of this blog to be an avenue for discussing WHY notes are played in jazz (and by extension, music in general) and to expand on things I'm excited about. Maybe that's a tune I'm obsessed with, maybe it's something someone at the school is doing, maybe I take a look at the cultural conditions surrounding a body of work. Maybe I take up 10 pages talking about Ives' 'Variations on America'. Strap in.

I might bring a transcription in every once in a while to illustrate a point or to show something I'm working on making clearer for myself, but to be honest there are guys way better at the act of transcribing than I am and I'm not super into it as a way to understand the music beyond 'Warne Marsh played this here, whatta genius'.

I'm not Ethan Iverson, so I can't imagine I'll interview too many New York heavies. I might, though, profile a fellow student's work, or reference them as someone who has an opinion I think is neat.

Finally, that subtitle is no joke. I'm pushing two majors and gigging semiregularly and writing for all sizes of ensembles. The goal is update once a week, but if like a month goes by and people start grousing, remember I warned you now.

I look forward to seeing what this becomes.