I taught cadences today and asked students what rep they were performing for juries, and we hunted for cadences in their pieces. They jumped up to perform them for everyone. Doing this all the time!

Just checked my ratemyprofessor for the first time in a while, and apparently I’m really sweet but will “absolutely demolish you with no mercy when assessing your counterpoint in front of the class.” So much for learning from each other, I guess?

This student has clearly not been to any of my Theory 4 classes. Good try, though, buddy. (This is OpenAI, not a real essay by a real student.)

My evals in one comment: "An absolute slay, Dr. Holmquest"

My toxic trait is wanting to redesign my Theory 4 curriculum every year and only giving myself a week to do it 🙃

I think I might abandon my essay component of my Theory IV class and just have them do an analysis-program notes-lecture recital of one of their jury pieces instead. Has anyone done this kind of thing? Or have awesome/terrible examples of program notes to use as models?

Why has no one talked about the SMT list’s call for papers often appearing in pdf form? They don’t seem very screen-reader friendly.

Someone pick an SMT topic for me.

New idea: tell me what topic I SHOULDN'T write about for SMT.

Dear Renaissance Music Twitter, does anyone have a short guide to cadence strength gradation in polyphonic music? Thanks!

Henlo Saturday night music theory twitter discourse, I am here to simply say that it's time we come up with a new word to replace "contemporary." Music written 100 years ago is not contemporary. That's silly.

Dear composers: make sure your birth year is somewhere on your dang website so when I program your music I can follow program formatting rules! kthxbye

Me while writing my dissertation

I'm trying to finish up my grading for the semester, so of course I'm brainstorming for next spring's seminar instead (20th/21st century art song in english). So...who are your favorite LIVING art song composers, and where can I get their scores?

This is the most modern troubadour poem I've ever seen.