• Understand the one law of physics that gives each instrument its unique sonic DNA
• Find out what ping pong machine guns have to do with your ear drums
• Discover the two things you do every day that determine the tempo of almost every song you've ever heard
• Learn how Claude Monet illustrates the concept of Harmony in his paintings
• Uncover the link between Ludwig van Beethoven and Gollum
• Find out how to "see" the music in a city skyline
• Discover the most important question in history and how it shaped our musical minds

This is not a course in music theory. It will not teach you how to play an instrument or compose a song. Rather, it is like a language course that will teach you how to speak a new language, but not necessarily how to write a poem or a play. Participants will learn 5 parts of musical speech, exploring the physical, conceptual, and neurological aspects of them and how listen for them. After this course you will never hear music the same way again.

Half of the material comes from my manifesto, "Do You Speak Music", based on the work of writers, composers, and neurologists such as Ernst Toch, Daniel Levitin, Oliver Sachs, William Benzon, Bob Brookmeyer, Heinrich Shenker, Ludwig van Beethoven, J.S. Bach, Duke Ellington, and my own experience as a musician and composer.

The other half of the material comes from the participants... they will provide the music we examine through the lens of Do You Speak Music.

This course also flips the traditional classwork/homework scheme, using technology to deliver the course content individually and reserving "class time" as an opportunity for interaction, discussion, and mutual discovery to clarify and explore the concepts of each lesson.

LOGISTICS

Syllabus: There will be 6 lessons in this course study group. The first five will each cover one part of musical speech and the last lesson will combine them all in a final project. The course will be mostly asynchronus using a PDF "textbook" plus some cool online blog-ish discussion tools. I will, however, hold "office hours" each week for live discussion over Skype if you would like to join.

Schedule: Even though the study group is asynchronus, it will move along at a weekly pace. Starting later this month (or as soon as we get enough participants) I'll post new material for discussion each week and hold weekly office hours to discuss that week's materials over Skype. Check back soon because I'll be using WhenIsGood to figure out what office hours will work best for everyone.

Materials: There are a few things you'll use to participate in this study group. Here's a list:

• Coursebook - this is my manifesto, Do You Speak Music, and it will serve as the "primary text" for the study group.

• Voicethread - I'm hoping this will be the main tool I use to post additional discussion material. It will be a slide show with audio track to illustrate the musical concepts of the week's lesson. It also includes a multimedia discussion thread... it's cool.

• Skype - I'll be using this to hold live video chats during "office hours". You should download it and set up an account if you're interested in the video chat portion of this study group.

• Group Playlist - Every participants picks a few songs and I whittle this down to a playlist. Everyone buys the tracks off iTunes (will be under $5 total) or something similar and puts it on whatever they use to listen to music with.