Music X: Scott Bradlee's Extremely Informal Lectures On Music

A new live lecture series on Sundays at Noon CT

Hey all - I’ve got something special planned for the music fans out there, so let me cut right to the chase:

Starting this coming Sunday, March 30, I’m going to be giving a series of live, informal lectures on music, right here on Substack. Nothing too fancy or pretentious here; it’ll be me, a piano, some notes, a cup of coffee, and whoever happens to show up. We’ll be exploring the common threads that run throughout music of all genres, and I’ll be sharing some of the stuff that has inspired me over the years, both as a pianist and as the founder / arranger of Postmodern Jukebox.

What inspired this? Mostly, coming across a random historical anecdote about one of my favorite lecturers:

During his tenure as a professor at Caltech, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman taught a class on Thursdays afternoons to an audience of whoever happened to show up. This particular course — called “Physics X” — wasn’t in the course catalog, came with no college credits, and had no real curriculum. Instead, Feynman — always a great improviser — would field questions from the students and weave them into a tapestry of a lecture on subjects like quantum electrodynamics, or classical mechanics, or how to pick a lock. For many of the freshman students that attended these informal lectures, Physics X was the most insightful and inspiring non-class they ever took.

Speaking personally - I never had more than a passing interest in physics, but Feynman nonetheless continues to be a source of inspiration to me. His infectious curiosity and his ability to explain complex subjects in plain English made him a great educator, and I often find myself wondering how Feynman would approach teaching musical concepts, had that been his field of expertise.

For years, I’ve saved most of my thoughts on the intricacies of music to one-on-one discussions with a few close friends and colleagues; I prefer to “speak” about music through my work with Postmodern Jukebox and leave the theorizing and analysis to more qualified, academic minds out there. As longtime readers of my Substack can attest, I’ve likely written more words on the television show, Ancient Aliens than I have on music.

These past couple of years, however, I’ve been haunted by a singular question:

What is the purpose of art?

I wrote my own attempt at an answer back in 2023, but the mere act of sitting with this question also made me realize two things:

1. There’s far too much cynicism and nihilism polluting the world around us.

2. Music (and all art that inspires us) actually fixes this.

For the sake of our future, we need builders to be inspired to build. We need teachers to be inspired to teach. And, we need artists to be inspired to make art — not just content, but art.

So, I’m going to do my own small part to share the musical things that inspire me, in the hopes that they might also inspire you. And, I’ll be doing this right here on Substack, as a series of weekly / semi-weekly live lectures / Q&A sessions. As a homage to Feynman, I’m calling this series “MusicX” (not to be confused with the Mucinex brand of cold & flu medicine — but also, sure, I’m open to that sponsorship).

These lectures will be aimed not so much at musicians, but at the musically-interested. By “musically-interested,” I mean that you have a deep love and appreciation for music as an art and craft; an appreciation that goes beyond what’s trending and current, and into what makes music timeless. No skill on an instrument or music theory know-how is required here (although it certainly helps).

I’ll be coming up with a theme for each lecture (some individual titles I’m workshopping include “Pop Anthems and the Majesty of the Descending Bassline” and “The Stylistic Influences of the Super Mario Bros. Musical Universe”) and then I’ll spend an hour or so with a cup of coffee at the piano, demonstrating musical concepts and riffing on the theme. The last 15 minutes will be a Q & A — which hopefully will also inspire themes for future lectures.

The first MusicX with Scott Bradlee lecture will be on Sunday, March 30 at 12 noon Central Time. It’ll be both an overview of the series, and also a standalone lecture titled, “The Mythic Chord Progression.” We will be exploring how music can evoke the Hero’s Journey by way of an elegant chord progression used in music of all genres — from classical to jazz to gangsta rap to k-pop.

This initial lecture will be free, but after that, I’ll be charging an $8 monthly membership fee to keep the audience limited to those that are interested in this sort of thing. However, if you lack the funds to afford this, just email me and I’ll put you on the guest list.

Please note: I am not a teacher, and this isn’t a music lesson! You will not learn to play piano here! Instead, you will be joining me to explore cool musical ideas, make connections across genres, and marvel at the wonder of a great and mysterious art form.

See you on Sunday at noon!

-Scott