In a music classroom in the Bass Music Center, students sit with their guitars, hands at the ready. If you were to ask them to play a standard G-major chord, many would hesitate. They are pianists, vocalists, percussionists and musical theater majors. In fact, perhaps no one in the room is a guitar major.
And yet, when they strum the open strings, the room doesn't fill with dissonant, chaotic clatter. Instead, it sounds a little like the music of legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell.
If you play all the strings at once in standard tuning, it just sounds like chaos, said Matthew Jones, the musicology professor at the helm of this unique course. But Joni retunes the instrument. She makes the instrument match what her body can do.
Mitchell's experience of childhood polio in the 1950s opened the door to a lifetime of adaptive music making. And thanks to a determined student and a forward-thinking professor, students in the Wanda L. Bass School of Music are ensuring that Mitchell's music will be heard and performed by a new generation.
To understand the premise of Jones class, one must reconcile two things. First, this is not a typical music appreciation elective. It is an upper-level musicology seminar that uses Mitchells career to bridge the gap between high-level academic theory and musical performance.
Second, you have to understand the mechanics of the guitar or rather, the mechanics of Mitchells hands.
Playing guitar in standard tuning requires dexterity. The player has to contort their left hand into a variety of shapes and positions to form chords. For a player with full dexterity, this is a rite of passage. For Mitchell, it was an obstacle. Mitchell contracted polio at age 9. While she recovered, the disease left her with weakness in both hands, forearms, and her back and chronic nerve pain, a condition called post-polio syndrome, all of which make playing the guitar challenging.
Her hands are not particularly dexterous, Jones explained. So she retunes the guitar.
In Joness class, students learn to twist the tuning pegs until the open strings sing a specific chord without the left hand touching the fretboard at all. This is known as "open tuning."
So instead of having to do all this crazy stuff with your fingers, if I want a different chord, all I have to do is press down all six strings at one fret, Jones said. Very easily, now, I have a whole bunch of stuff that I can do, but I only have to move my hand up and down the guitar. You don't have to maneuver the fingers very much.
For the students, this method is a revelation. It levels the playing field. A vocalist who has never touched a fretboard can suddenly produce the rich, atmospheric soundscapes that define albums like Blue or Hejira.
The point of entry in terms of guitar skill is quite low, Jones said. Beginners can learn how to play a song in one of these open tunings in a few weeks. It sounds like you're doing something way fancier than you are.
Campaigning for class
Enrollment for the 2025 fall semester class quickly filled with a roster of 20 students, but the existence of the class was far from guaranteed. In fact, it almost didn't happen at all.
Lianna Paglia, a senior musical theater major, remembered seeing the course catalog last year and realizing the class wasn't listed. Having heard about the pilot version of the course that had run previously with only four students, she was determined to get in.
I really wanted to push for the class, so I emailed (the dean), Paglia said. He said it probably wouldnt happen this semester.
Undeterred, Paglia turned into an advocate. She began gathering names of other interested students, compiling testimonials, and proving to the administration that the demand was real. She worked for months, collaborating with Dr. Jones to put the pieces together.
I kind of stepped away from it for a little bit, and then Dr. Jones sent me an email and was like, Wait, there might be a chance... send me that list of students again, Paglia recalled. I got some more testimonials, put it all together, and after a few months it was finally figured out.
The administration listened. When registration opened, the class was instantly popular.
Everyone in the class is really engaged with the material and feels comfortable speaking, Paglia said. It really does feel like a group of people who are all interested in the music.
Making theory tactile
Jones is a musicologist and historian whose academic work often intersects with gender and disability studies. He has spent years researching how bodily differences whether from birth, accident or age shape the way musicians interact with their art.
Its a response to (Mitchells) disability, which is what is interesting to me about it, Jones said. She tunes the strings down, and the range of notes the instrument can play is considerably broader. You can actually play notes in these tunings that are impossible to do when the guitar is tuned in its standard way.
The structure of the course is designed to mirror this complexity. It isn't just about learning chords. It's about understanding the artist as a composer, not as a diarist, Paglia noted.
There's a big emphasis on the fact that I think a lot of people take Joni Mitchell as, Oh, shes lived this whole life, and her songs are so personal, Paglia said. But we talk a lot about how she views herself as a composer. Her songs are more like plays. She calls them chords of inquiry. They're not standard to everyday pop music.
Paglia admits this required a mental shift.
I remember writing in our first homework assignment, I want to know the real-life events that have informed her songs, Paglia said. And I quickly learned that this is a viewpoint that she doesn't take very kindly to. She really wants people to see themselves in her music, and not try to analyze who the song is about.
To facilitate this deep dive, Jones developed a weekly rhythm designed to frame the learning process. The week begins on Monday with context on where the album fits in history. Wednesday is for the scholars, engaging with academic writing.
And then comes Friday: "Song in Focus Days."
Every Friday is a day where they bring their instruments, or sometimes we go downstairs to the piano lab, Jones said.
For the students, these sessions are where the theory becomes tactile. Paglia describes the class learning "Cactus Tree" from Mitchell's debut album, or heading to the piano lab to deconstruct the holiday classic "River."
Not only do we learn it, but we talk about how it was composed, Paglia said. What are key elements of Joni music that you can see repeated in this?
To keep the students processing the heavy influx of information, Jones assigns weekly "Joni Journals," short, 175-word reflections due every Friday.
They're really manageable. Dr. Jones does a really great job of facilitating discussion, Paglia said. It doesn't feel domineering at all. We really feel like we can voice our opinion, and he emphasizes there are no wrong answers.
From Tragedy to Breakthrough
For Paglia, the physical aspect of the class hit close to home. A guitarist since childhood, she had drifted away from the instrument during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, the summer before her senior year, she broke her foot.
I was booked in a summer contract, but I had to drop because I couldn't dance, she said. So I was at home, and all I was doing was reading and playing guitar.
Coming into the class, she found that Mitchells adaptive techniques weren't just a historical curiosity. They were a practical tool.
I have small hands, so these alternative tunings that allow for easier hand positions have allowed me to explore more difficult repertoire on my own. Its totally reignited my love for guitar, Paglia said.
This is the core of Jones's teaching philosophy: reframing disability not as a tragedy to be overcome, but as a variance that can lead to artistic breakthrough.
Its about how people who inhabit different kinds of bodily difference, how they have changed things to make music meet their body where their body is, rather than just saying, Well, I can't do this the conventional way, so I can't do it at all, Jones said.
Paglia notes that Joness expertise in disability studies adds a layer of depth that goes beyond standard music theory.
He knows a lot about disability in the music field, so he's able to provide a really unique perspective on that issue as well, she said.
The Cabaret
The culmination of the semester is a project that perfectly encapsulates the courses ethos of adaptation. Jones calls it the "Joni Mitchell In-Class Cabaret."
Students are tasked with selecting a song to perform. However, because the class is filled with a diverse array of instrumentalists marimba players, percussionists, string players they are encouraged to adapt Mitchells music to their own native instruments, just as Mitchell adapted the guitar to her hands.
Ive tried to unleash their creativity and their musicianship in whatever way they feel like would serve them the best, Jones said.
Paglia chose Little Green, a touching ballad from the Blue album. True to the spirit of the class, she performed it on guitar, utilizing the specific open tuning Mitchell used to write it.
You almost have to (use the tuning), Paglia said. Thats how you get the sound.
Other students took their own unique swings. Senior percussion major Nathan Rainey arranged Mitchells Both Sides Now for marimba quintet. Music education major Alaina Brady-Hummingbird arranged Bad Dreams Are Good for string ensemble, piano and voice. Student instrumentalists who were not enrolled in the class showed up to perform these arrangements during the cabaret.
As the semester wound down, the impact of the class extended beyond the credit hours. For students like Paglia, who balances the demands of directing shows, auditioning for summer stock and finishing her senior year, the class was a sanctuary of focused creativity.
Im someone who really likes structure, Paglia said. Its been really nice to have guitar be part of our final for the class. Its probably one of the best and most engaging classes Ive had.
The students in Jones class are no longer just analyzing a text, they are practitioners of a unique tradition. They have learned that if the standard way doesnt work, you don't quit you twist the pegs, you change the tension and you find a new resonance.
Jones has created more than just a fan club for a folk icon. He has built a laboratory for musical empathy and adaptation. In teaching his students how Joni Mitchell retuned her guitar to survive, he is teaching them how to retune their own thinking to thrive.
Im really excited to see what they come up with, Jones said.
