#9 Ratbastid,

Well, if you only practice your scales/arpeggios chromatically, you only get really good at chromatic progressions. Same with circle of fifths stuff. The idea was to get good at finding possible transitions from any chord to any other chord. Kind of "iron man" stuff for jazz improvisation.

(But it surely didn't train me in working through more standard harmonies; to get good at Rhythm Changes, you need to practice Rhythm Changes, which I soon discovered after practicing absolutely random chord progressions this way. I never threw out the routine completely, but it's a pretty out-there skill, not in the range you'd necessarily use very often unless you're playing some pretty "out" stuff...)

Oooh, I actually did use my 12-sided dice to create (awful) tone rows, though it was kind of a pain rerolling after I kept getting the same numbers. A much better use was when I wass doing random chord change charts that I was taught to use to learn how to transition through difficult chord changes in jazz songs.

Use the same 12-key chart above for the root of the chord, and then this one for the chord type:

6-sided die:
1 - Major 7th
2 - Minor 7th
3-5 - Dominant 7th
6 - see chart #2:

Chart number 2 involved things like rerolling above, but using a 4-sided die to choose the upper partial (7th, 9th, 11th, 13th) and there are other chords types to mix in. Best way to make a page of absolutely random chord changes. Good way to get at sight-reading changes, but not so good for learning to hear conventional changes in most jazz songs.

Gotta agree, not all serial music is the same. I fancy Webern's and Stravinsky's, but never got into Schoenberg's or Berg's much, and as for Babbitt, well...

There's a great story I remember hearing about Steve Reich as a composition student, writing these repeating tone rows until his professor said, "If you want to write tonal music, write tonal music." Ah yes, it was Berio.

Oh my, I have been mentioned on boingboing!

(happily crosses another item off the list)

So very cute. Whatever theories float around, one thing that never changes is that (most) kids love to sing and dance, and that making English class fun with these kinds of things helps immensely. Suddenly English class isn't about obsessing over potentially embarrassing grammar mistakes, it's (at least sometimes) about rocking out.