Turntablists use record players to play records in ways they weren’t meant to be played. By speeding up, slowing down and reversing the record under the needle, a whole universe of new sounds becomes possible. The record player as musical instrument is still in its early stages of development. DJs already invented the instrumental sound [...]
Also filed in Improvisation, Interfaces, Music, Sampling
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Tagged a tribe called quest, afrika bambaataa, apache, dj, dj premier, funky drummer, grand mixer dst, grandmaster flash, herbie hancock, hip-hop, Improvisation, looping, mashups, music notation, peter piper, rahzel, remixes, rhythm, rockit, run-dmc, Sampling, scratch, turntablism, visualization, wu-tang
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This is a picture of my electronic funk-soul-R&B band doing a show. From left to right, it’s Nicole Bishop, me and Barbara Singer. We were the whole band for that show. I did all the beats, samples and keyboards from my computer using a video game controller. Here’s a screenshot of the program that the [...]
Also filed in Autobio, Improvisation, Interfaces, Music, Software, Video Games
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Tagged composing, electronica, hip-hop, Improvisation, interface, keybs, mapping, max/msp, midi, programming, reason, Sampling, sequencing, synths, Video Games
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Thursday, August 20, 2009
Hip-hop artists love Prince. Like them, he blends drum machines, live jazz-funk musicians and samples of other songs.
Also filed in Composition, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Tagged digging the crates, drum machines, eighties, george clinton, guitar, keybs, pop, prince, remixes, rock, sample maps, Sampling, synths
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“Once In A Lifetime” by Talking Heads and Brian Eno is one of my favorite songs by anyone ever.
Also filed in Composition, Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music, Recording
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Tagged attention, beatles, brian eno, david byrne, Improvisation, meditation, mixing, philosophy, Recording, recursion, reggae, remixes, sly and the family stone, talking heads, tape, tape editing, time
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One of the greatest weirdnesses of electronic music is the sampling keyboard. You press a key and any sound recording you want pops out, at whatever pitch. The recent passing of John Hughes made me think of the scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when Ferris samples his coughing and puking on an E-mu Emulator [...]
Also filed in Interfaces, Music, Sampling
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Tagged audio, beatles, eighties, ferris bueller, grateful dead, jazz, john hughes, keybs, mellotron, midi, Music, reason, Recording, recursion, Sampling, synths, tape, yello
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There are a lot of different musical instruments out there. Just about all of them share four basic components: a harmonic oscillator, a source of noise, a control surface for modulation, and a resonator.
Also filed in Interfaces, Music, Physics, Video Games
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Tagged chiptunes, guitar, Music, Music Theory, overtones, Physics, resonance, singing, synths, Video Games
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I found this picture of Herbie Hancock on a stranger’s blog. There was no caption or any other context. So I posted it on my Flickr with a note asking if anyone could identify the computer Herbie is sitting in front of. A couple of days later my friend Mike responded with this video of [...]
Also filed in Interfaces, Key Musicians, Math, Music, Software
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Tagged computers, drum machines, eighties, electronica, Emotion, funk, herbie hancock, interface, jazz, keybs, Music, quincy jones, sequencing, sesame street, synths
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People had been playing electric guitar for decades before Jimi Hendrix. Mostly they used it as a louder, less effortful version of the acoustic guitar. Jimi was one of the first musicians to think of the guitar amp as a musical instrument unto itself, an early analog synth, with the guitar as a very sophisticated [...]
Also filed in Interfaces, Key Musicians, Math, Music, Physics
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Tagged analog, electricity, electromagnetism, electronica, feedback, guitar, harmonics, harmony, interface, jimi hendrix, Music, Music Theory, recursion, remixes, resonance, tuning, wah pedal
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When I was in third grade, my mom and stepfather went on academic sabbatical to London for six months, taking my sister and me with them. I guess I’m grateful for the chance to experience another culture and everything, but it was a rough six months. I missed my dad, school, New York, the Muppet [...]
Also filed in Key Musicians, Music, Recording, Sampling
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Tagged analog, bbc, delia derbyshire, doctor who, eighties, electronica, keybs, multitracking, scifi, sixties, synths, tape editing, tv, uk, vocoder
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Say “oooh” as in “noodle.” Then say “aaah” as in “park.” When you say “oooh” your mouth is more closed, with less resonating space and a smaller opening. This configuration blocks the higher overtones of your voice. When you say “aaah” your jaw and lips open, creating more resonating space and letting more high overtones [...]
Also filed in Music, Physics
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Tagged electronica, envelope filter, funk, guitar, harmonics, jimi hendrix, keybs, metal, overtones, Physics, physiology, pop, resonance, rock, seventies, sixties, soul, speech, wah pedal
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