Nicole Dieker Finley

Cognition

On books that change your life

"I really should have read Plato's Republic in college, like everyone else," I told Larry, the other night. "It seems impossible to comment on it without feeling sophomoric." "You wouldn't have understood it in college," Larry replied, "the way

MELISANDE

Small changes change everything

I said I would tell you about one of the small changes I made to MELISANDE, so here you go – There's this bit in the second half of the first act where the King puts out a call for competent princes, anyone who can lift the curse gets

MELISANDE

I want a space for people who are serious about making things

First of all, I have discovered that I can make minor edits in MELISANDE even as I do everything else that I am tasked with producing and performing over the next month. This is good, especially because I would be less likely to make these edits if I had four

Education

"no learning gets done over the holidays"

So first of all I should mention that I did watch My Old Ass, or at least the first twenty minutes of it, at which point I fell asleep. Larry and I are both slightly under the weather, which might otherwise have given me a reason to nap, but it

Art

Seriously, Go Watch "Hundreds of Beavers" and Also Read My Lengthy Analysis of Why It Matters

Hundreds of Beavers, a 2022 slapstick comedy film that was built on a $150,000 budget and successfully self-distributed to streaming services in 2024, may be the best movie you'll see this year. It may also be the most important movie you'll see this year. Yes,

MELISANDE

Why am I writing this music specifically?

I had sort of forgotten that MELISANDE was meant to be a student theater piece. Over the past few months I've written two grants to assist with the funding of the project, including a potential workshop with students. The application I sent to Emergent Ventures got turned down;

Education

"why do we even write music anyway"

I'm going to see if I can come around to where my thoughts are taking me, starting with where they are – Yesterday was my 43rd birthday. Larry and I spent our celebratory dinner talking through everything we'd learned about cognition and pedagogy, to wit: * If you

Education

Showing my work

I actually recorded this on Friday, but you get it today. ❤️ First is Bach Invention in C Major plus the first chunk of the Sinfonia (which represents about 30 minutes of work): And here is "Soon," from A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. I recommend watching this one to the

Cognition

How to solve problems (how to learn)

If you want to solve a problem, it has to be your problem to solve. This is almost a tautology. However, we are literally taught to figuratively participate in the solving of other people's problems. Take the piano student. In most cases it is the parent who takes

Theater

I might as well fix RIDE THE CYCLONE while I'm at it

First of all, I did in fact memorize that Bach invention, I'll do another showing-my-work post this Friday, and I may be developing a theory of how one learns that is 95 percent stolen from Lewis Carroll but whatever. Second of all, learning a Bach invention did in

Education

Showing my work

It would be silly for me to be telling you any of this if I weren't able to demonstrate at least some ability in the disciplines I am currently learning, which is to say that I ought to show you what I can do right now, if only

Cognition

Bach (still Bach) and Henle

I don't even know how to tell you that it seems like if you are going to learn a thing, the best way to do it may in fact be to plunge in and see how much you can get on the first go, and then start asking

Education

Bach (again) and Plato

"Two things," I told Larry, last night. (You have figured out that we tend to think in lists, separately and together.) "First, the thing we were talking about, one-on-one teaching-and-learning, it has a name. Dialectics. Which means I need to read Plato." "I've

Theater

More thoughts on SIX, including how to fix it

So if you think about SIX at all seriously you have to ask yourself if these women know they're dead and if they know themselves to be in some kind of afterlife, and if they know that the conditions of this afterlife require them to enact the same

Cognition

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total

There's a problem, if you can call it that – because its function is not to be solved, but missolved – which runs as follows: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

Education

I want to be a functional pianist (and other things I want)

If you read this post all the way through I am going to both a) solve for education and b) analyze each of the Queens' songs in SIX, I hope at least one of those items interests you, so here we go: Larry and I spent much of the

Education

It's all the same thing, though

So I ended yesterday's post with "every time you interact with a Quality teacher, it 1) teaches you something new and 2) you do not forget what you learn," which meant I had to ask myself what it might mean to teach something to someone in

Education

Gödel, Escher, Bach, and Handel

The King's song is kinging along, I love when you go in after you've written something and find all of the little bits that can be rearranged into more cohesive and/or more communicative patterns, in fact I may just show you the first draft of

Education

The informational quality of food

The deal is that I can't finish the King's song until I take some time to work out the next bit of underscoring, what are each of the pianists saying in response to what the King is saying, how does that affect what I hope to

Education

In which I develop a functional definition of "quality"

So yesterday I did this post in which I argle bargled for 1,287 words on problems I was not prepared to solve, such as: * Whether children should be allowed to spend their money as they choose (yes, also this does come down on the side of private property, oh

Education

Giving children purchasing power could rightsize college debt

I mean, maybe it couldn't, but it's an idea I'm thinking about so I might as well think it all the way through. The flip side to giving children purchasing power is obviously giving them the opportunity to earn money, and as soon as

MELISANDE

More thoughts on musicals, and a few thoughts on keeping an audience's attention

MELISANDE update! The Queen's song is final-first-drafted, which is to say that all of the musical elements except the performers are in place, and I have begun the King's song, which is to say that I've figured out how to navigate the sixteen-year-time-jump in

MELISANDE

"musical openings are like chess openings, they set the conditions of the board"

Okay. So. You might ask, if you were of an inquisitive frame of mind, why theater gets nary a mention in WHAT IT IS and WHAT TO DO NEXT. If that book was all about biography and cognition and the process of problem-solving (problems are ultimately solved by love, they

MELISANDE

Taking Yourself Seriously

First of all, the Queen's song is scored. I need to go through it as a pianist and make sure each of the parts are functionally playable – I suspect they are, since I play them as I compose them, but every time I play through an entire accompaniment

Theater

In which I get very critical about MUSICALS YOU MAY KNOW AND LOVE

MELISANDE is going very well, thank you. Scoring the Queen's song; telling Larry that each note needs both a musical and a dramaturgical reason to exist. The example and/or standard is of course INTO THE WOODS, and if you don't believe me you can watch