Friday, February 26, 2010
The vast majority of music that I hear is recorded, and if you’re reading this the same is probably true of you. Most people don’t have a clear idea what the recording process is like, especially using computers. Here are my adventures in recording. I grew up in the eighties. Cassette recorders were just starting [...]
Filed in Autobio, Composition, Hardware, Improvisation, Music, Recording, Software
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Tagged analog, audio, audio editing, autotune, computers, electronica, hip-hop, Improvisation, looping, mashups, Music, pro tools, Recording, remixes, revival revival, Sampling, sequencing, synths, tape, tape editing, visualization
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Sunday, February 21, 2010
The best tool for understanding where music comes from is evolutionary biology. Songs don’t spontaneously spring into being any more than animals or plants do. They evolve, descending from reshuffled pieces of existing songs, the way our genes are shuffled together from our parents’ genes. The same way that all life has a single common [...]
Filed in Composition, Evolution, Music, Sampling
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Tagged cassettes, dna, Evolution, family, genealogy, memes, midi, Music Theory, originality, sample maps, Sampling, sequencing, songwriting
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Saturday, February 20, 2010
Fan Wars: Copyright vs. Mash-ups and Fan Fiction Many mash-up artists seem unaware that their work implicates any rights at all, and copyright owners may be reluctant to alienate fans with copyright restrictions. Artists such as Girl Talk remain outspoken against copyright restrictions on mash-up culture. Individual copyright owners, such as the owners of Star [...]
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Meet guitarist and producer Nile Rodgers, one of my favorite musicians in the world. He founded Chic along with the late bassist Bernard Edwards, and he’s on Twitter. Nile Rodgers has led an action-packed life. As a teenager, he played with the Sesame Street band, and then with the Apollo Theater house band, where he [...]
Filed in Dance, Key Musicians, Music
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Tagged bass, bernard edwards, chic, dance, david bowie, disco, duran duran, eighties, funk, gremlins, guitar, hip-hop, madonna, nile rodgers, pop, Sampling, sugarhill gang
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Thursday, February 11, 2010
When I was younger I was obsessed with authenticity in music. I wouldn’t even play electric guitar because it felt too easy, like cheating somehow. I expended a lot of energy and attention trying to figure out what is and isn’t authentic. Now, at the age of 34, I’ve officially given up. I doubt there’s [...]
Filed in Autobio, Music, Race and Identity
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Tagged acoustic, alicia keys, authenticity, autotune, bebop, big chill, bill monroe, bluegrass, blues, electronica, Emotion, harmonica, herbie hancock, howlin wolf, jay-z, jazz, john coltrane, judaica, klezmer, led zeppelin, lipsynching, michael jackson, motown, nyc, purists, rnb, Sampling, soul, synths, thelonious monk
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My friend Adam, a non-musician but devoted music fan, asked me why sampling is good. He’s used to hearing me defend sampling from the accusation that it’s bad, but he’d never heard a positive argument for it. In case you’ve ever asked the same question, here’s my answer.
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Improvisation, Interfaces, Music, Recording, Sampling
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Tagged beyonce, brian eno, chi-lites, copyright, disney, Evolution, fan art, fans, funky drummer, grateful dead, intellectual property, janet jackson, joni mitchell, kickstarter, lil wayne, manu dibango, memes, michael jackson, midi, monkeysphere, Music, public domain, remixes, Sampling, songwriting, swv
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