Learning Music was an experimental band and music collective based in Los Angeles, California.
Learning Music was founded in November 2006 by John Clement Wood (backing musician for
The Black Keys
The Black Keys are an American rock duo formed in Akron, Ohio, in 2001. The group consists of Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums). The duo began as an independent act, recording music in basements and self-producing thei ...
,
Sebastien Tellier,
Inara George
Inara Maryland George (born July 4, 1974) is an American singer-songwriter and musician, one half of The Bird and the Bee, a member of the band Merrick, with Bryony Atkinson, and a member of the trio The Living Sisters, with Eleni Mandell a ...
,
Mike Andrews
Michael Jay Andrews (born July 9, 1943) is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as an infielder for the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox and Oakland Athletics. After his playing career, he served f ...
,
Anni Rossi). Under the title Learning Music Monthly, the group released one original album per month for three years.
The live band ranged from two to twenty performers at once, playing almost exclusively at smaller venues around
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...
. The band’s musical influences include:
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...
,
the Talking Heads,
Storm & Stress, and American folk music.
On December 20, 2009, Learning Music was featured on
NPR's
All Things Considered
''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...
.
On March 21, 2010, Learning Music's monthly album series was profiled by the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. n ...
.
On April 20, 2010, "Ovulation" by Learning Music was featured as
KCRW
KCRW (89.9 MHz FM) is a National Public Radio member station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, where the station is licensed. KCRW airs original news and music programming in addition to programm ...
's Today's Top Tune.
Learning Music Monthly
Learning Music Monthly was a "subscription-based album-a-month series.” This project was started by John Clement Wood and the first twelve albums released were written and recorded in his home studio. These albums feature numerous guest artists. After the release of his twelfth production, Wood stopped recording and formed a live Learning Music band. One year after their production hiatus, Learning Music partnered with Los Angeles-based vosotros and resumed recording and releasing their monthly albums.
The monthly releases of Learning Music are available through their website
Learning Music Monthly
According to the
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has releas ...
website, Learning Music offered a “tiered subscription service” where subscribers "receive a brand new full-length album of original music every month." The entire LMM catalog is currently available for free streaming and download on their website. Subscribers were able to have physical CDs with artwork from a new artist each month mailed to their homes. All of Learning Music's work is released under a
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has releas ...
BY-NC-SA 3.0 license, which according to an interview with John Wood, “inspire
new creative opportunities”. Thus listeners are allowed to share and remix the music for non-commercial purposes.
Notable albums include a musical written by a robot, two collections of music videos (where the music was written to pre-made videos by various filmmakers), an album of 99 20-second songs using only samples of kitchen objects and voice, a Greek drama musical telling the story of the first ever
Jeopardy!
''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given ge ...
three-way tie, a synth-pop-dance interpretation of
Guy Debord's
Society of the Spectacle, an album of spoken word stories and experimentations, and a variety of other recordings utilizing various mixed genres and production techniques.
[http://www.learningmusicmonthly.com]
The 36th and final issue of Learning Music Monthly was released in April, 2011.
Discography
Season 1
*''LMM 1.1 - Whales this November''
(November 2006)
*''LMM 1.2 - De-December''
(December 2006)
*''LMM 1.3 - Readers, Travel''
(January 2007)
*''LMM 1.4 - The Songs of Clem Ten''
(February 2007)
*''LMM 1.5 - No Fingers, Hands''
(March 2007)
*''LMM 1.6 - Memorial''
(April 2007)
*''LMM 1.7 - In My Living Room Thursday Night''
(May 2007)
*''LMM 1.8 - Jason Golday's Burning Music''
(June 2007)
*''LMM 1.9 - Songs For Singing''
(July 2007)
*''LMM 1.10 - Readers, I Like To Read''
(August 2007)
*''LMM 1.11 - September Still''
(September 2007)
*''LMM 1.12 - Contagious''
(October 2007)
Season 2
*''LMM 2.1 - Allegro''
(March 2009)
*''LMM 2.2 - Matchstick Monument''
(April 2009)
*''LMM 2.3 - An End Like This''
(May 2009)
*''LMM 2.4 - Geochemistry''
(June 2009)
*''LMM 2.5 - You Can Take It In''
(July 2009)
*''LMM 2.6 - Frequency Histograms for Predictor Variables''
(August 2009)
*''LMM 2.7 - Friends Who Are''
(September 2009)
*''LMM 2.8 - Famous: the Jonny Pride Story''
(October 2009)
*''LMM 2.9 - Horizontal Household Ballads''
(November 2009)
*''LMM 2.10 - (a telling of) The Greatest Event in Sports History''
(December 2009)
*''LMM 2.11 - Fifteen Two Part Inventions for 2010''
(January 2010)
*''LMM 2.12 - The Biologic Imperative''
(February 2010)
Season 3
*''LMM 3.1 - Left Right''
(May 2010)
*''LMM 3.2 - Neapolitan Shake''
(June 2010)
*''LMM 3.3 - Learning Music with the Students at KIPP LA College Prep''
(July 2010)
*''LMM 3.4 - Little Spookie''
(August 2010)
*''LMM 3.5 - In The Lights''
(September 2010)
*''LMM 3.6 - Face Fingers (feat. Nowcloud)''
(October 2010)
*''LMM 3.7 - Untitled''
(November 2010)
*''LMM 3.8 - LARGER''
(December 2010)
*''LMM 3.9 - Congratulations''
(January 2011)
*''LMM 3.10 - Base and the Superstructure presents: The $pectacle''
(February 2011)
*''LMM 3.11 - Confessions Accounts Ruminations''
(March 2011)
*''LMM 3.12 - Choreos Incorporated''
(April 2011)
Compilations
*''The Greatest Hits So Far EP''
(vosotros, 2008)
*''This May Also Be It''
(vosotros, 2009)
*''It May Also Be This''
(vosotros, 2010)
*''An End Like This''
(Free Music Archive, 2011)
External links
Learning Music Monthly
References
{{Authority control
American folk musical groups
American pop music groups
Indie rock musical groups from California
Musical groups established in 2006
Musical groups from Los Angeles