Eric Kuehnl

Tag: blog

  • Is Anyone Listening?

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    Eric Kuehnl
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    I’ve been posting my music on SoundCloud for the past couple of years.  It’s been an interesting experience, to say the least.  I began by posting a bunch of old compositions that had been languishing on a hard drive for a very long time.  Before long, I began to post new compositions at the precise moment that they…

  • Does Attendance Matter?

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    Eric Kuehnl
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    I find it ironic that, while every K-12 school in the country emphasizes attendance as one key to academic success, we in the higher ed community pretend like it doesn’t matter.  Or at least that’s how it seems to me when I’m told that I can’t count attendance as a graded component of my classes.  Now I…

  • Mentor

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    Eric Kuehnl
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    Last night I attended a memorial concert for Mark Trayle at Mills College in Oakland.  Mark was my mentor while I was in graduate school at CalArts many years ago.  He passed away from pancreatic cancer just before he was scheduled to play on the Electroacoustica festival that I produced at Foothill in April 2015.…

  • Textbook Boogie

    Textbook Boogie

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    Eric Kuehnl
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    I was looking forward to a (relatively) relaxed winter term this year.  For the past couple of years, I been busy taking classes for professional growth and writing curriculum for my own new classes.  (And composing music, and producing an electronic music festival, and raising two kids, and trying not to get divorced, and…)  My plan this quarter was…

  • Showtime

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    Eric Kuehnl
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    I just returned home from the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show this evening before sitting down to write this post.  It’s one of several conferences that I try to attend every year (although the Audio Engineering Society conference is the most relevant to my field).  Anyway, in spite of the usual long-haired metal heads that seem…

  • So Many Hats

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    Eric Kuehnl
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    My wife offers zero sympathy whenever I’m stressed-out about my job. She loves to quote some unnamed study that (she says) scientifically determined that being a “college professor” is the least stressful job in the universe. My usual response, borrowed from a fellow music department colleague, is “not if you’re doing it right.” Still she…

  • Showing Up Is Half The Battle

    Showing Up Is Half The Battle

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    Eric Kuehnl
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    I’ve been teaching full time for almost three academic years now. In that time, I’ve learned some valuable lessons about myself, my students, and my field. One thing that has become very clear is the difference in student success between those students who participate every week, and those who do not. I just finished grading…

  • Call Me, Anytime.

    Call Me, Anytime.

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    Eric Kuehnl
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    I give my mobile phone number to students. There, I said it. I give them my personal mobile phone number. It’s not a shiny red “Bat Phone” that I reserve for student calls. It’s my everyday phone that I use to call my wife, receive calls about freelance gigs, check email, read Twitter feeds, and…

  • How Did I Get Here?

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    Eric Kuehnl
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    When I was a kid, I was a pretty good student. I was always good at taking tests, and that carried me through even though my study habits were not that great. (Actually, that didn’t work so well in college Calculus, but that’s no big surprise.) Anyway, it’s kind of funny, considering my current career…