The Vagaries of Music Education. A live improvisation in tandem with a four-part recorded composition. The concept for this piece occurred when I came across some rehearsal tapes from my school years of playing a banal rhythm at different tempos on a practice pad. I instantly remembered the late-night session in the institutional white room in the basement of my university. When I heard the track, I felt nothing but frustration that by the time I graduated, I had put myself under immense pressure to emulate an absent abstraction, yet knew nothing about how to express my own tastes. In this brief four-part composition I attempt to weave something of interest from these mindless exercises, manipulating this rhythm into clusters evocative of chaotic systems. In the live performance, a free improvisation was played over the recorded composition. Performed live on Philip Von Zweck’s radio show, “Something Else” November 6th 2005, 10th anniversary episode. Less