An introduction — Calling all music lovers

First, an introduction

My name is Nathan Wright. I’m a composer, performer, and educator in Tulsa, OK. I’ve been teaching for 8 years, performing for 12, and obsessing over music and sounds since I was a child. I’ve acquired a degree in music composition, performed countless shows, taught over 400 people, fallen apart on stage, argued passionately with band members, cried at concerts, and witnessed fan singing lyrics I wrote naked in my bedroom. I’ve seen and studied how music moves people, and I can’t get enough of it.

I bumped into the Steemit community for… well, selfish reasons. A friend of mine made a small fortune with cryptocurrency, and I began scouring for my opportunity at a piece of the pie. I excessively researched the technology involved in this new era of decentralization and eventually bumped into you, Steemit community. I fell in love with you. My attention has officially been diverted; I’m thankful to have been gifted an opportunity to share a project I’ve been ploughing hours of my life into. I've been compiling my experience into a series of episodes, the first being a book of the simplest ways I've found to explain musical patterns to children and adults over the years.

There is a musical problem plaguing communities all over the world

For centuries, musical environments have been split into the extremes of the educated elite and the anti-intellectual “common folk.” I’m not here to talk about these cultural splits or how they’re defined; I’m here to disrupt them. Language brings people together, and education is far-reaching and inexpensive in our modern age. There is nothing to stop you from understanding the basics of musical language.

My goals are to give curious people access to the blueprints of music they love and to give music students the courage to use music theory as a tool rather than a restriction. I also feel a personal duty to bring people together; Musicians and music lovers everywhere can and should feel free to interact with one another and not be limited by an avoidable language barrier. Steemit, you are the place I’d like to beta test my first book, share my interest in the physics of sound, and explore the deep crevices of world cultures and the sounds they create.

It has often seemed to me that there is a tendency to exaggerate the difficulty of properly understanding music. We musicians are constantly meeting some honest soul who invariably says, in one form or another: “I love music very much, but I don’t understand anything about it.” My playwright and novelist friends rarely hear anyone say, “I don’t understand anything about the theater or the novel.” Yet I strongly suspect that those very same people, so modest about music, have… little reason to be modest about their understanding of music. If you have any feelings of inferiority about your musical reactions, try to rid yourself of them. They are often not justified.

-Aaron Copland

I need your help

I want to bring out the musical expertise that is already contained within most people, a goal I can achieve only if my language is spot-on. Let me know if a concept is unclear, vague, or just downright incorrect. Alternately, let me know if a post speaks to you or changes the way you experience these beautiful vibrations that blanket us every day.

Thank you so much for reading, Steemit crew. We’ll begin with Chapter 1 of Fast Music Theory soon!