This is part of a research project I’m doing for my Psychology of Music class at NYU, thus the formal tone. The backbeat is a ubiquitous, almost defining feature of American popular and vernacular music. Clapping or snapping on the backbeats is generally considered by musicians to be more correct than doing so on the [...]
Also filed in Music, Race and Identity, Science
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Tagged africa, america, backbeat, dance, drumming, funk, hip-hop, james brown, jazz, neuroscience, nyu, race, rhythm, rock, swing, syncopation
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Guberman, Daniel. Post-Fidelity: A New Age of Music Consumption and Technological Innovation. Journal of Popular Music Studies, Volume 23, Issue 4, pp 431–454 Guberman divides the history of recorded music into two distinct sections: the fidelity era, stretching from Thomas Edison through the invention of the compact disk, and the post-fidelity era, beginning with the [...]
Also filed in Hardware, Internet, Music, Music Business, Recording, Technology
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Tagged audiophiles, cell phones, dance, hip-hop, linkedin, mp3, nyu, pop, Recording, sodcasting, technomusicology
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Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The trumpet player Nicholas Peyton wrote a blog post recently: On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in the future of the art form. If jazz is ever going to be popular again, it needs to regain its cool. Jazz was popular when it was intimately connected to popular culture. [...]
The first time I heard Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa” was courtesy of Motorcycle Guy, a prominent Brooklyn eccentric who drives around on a tricked-out motorcycle bedecked with lights and equipped with a powerful sound system. I encounter him every so often and he’s always bumping some good funk, soul or R&B. One night, he was [...]
Also filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Tagged a tribe called quest, big daddy kane, bjork, boy george, boyz ii men, cameroon, charles hamilton, copyright, dance, david mancuso, digging the crates, duala, eighties, Evolution, fugees, funk, geto boys, jay-z, kanye west, kool moe d, lord tariq and peter gunz, manu dibango, memes, michael jackson, poor righteous teachers, pop, rihanna, songwriting, soul makossa, thriller, will smith
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Thursday, October 20, 2011
The bassline is neglected by most non-musicians. But if you want to write or produce music, you quickly find out how important it is. The bassline is the foundation of the whole musical structure, both rhythmically and harmonically. The best basslines interlock with the drums and other rhythm instruments to propel the groove, without you [...]
Also filed in Composition, Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Tagged 808, art blakey, bass, beatles, black sheep, bootsy collins, charles mingus, daft punk, dance, digable planets, duke ellington, electronica, funk, groove, herbie hancock, hip-hop, james brown, janet jackson, jazz, john coltrane, kanye west, ladysmith black mambazo, looping, michael jackson, miles davis, morphine, paul simon, pop, rock, sequencing, talking heads, teddy riley
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I don’t enjoy Girl Talk’s music all that much — I find it overwhelming, like watching someone flip channels on a TV. But I think he’s really important, and anyone who cares about music, technology, originality and ownership should be paying close attention. Adam Bossy raised an intriguing idea in his answer — describing an [...]
Also filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Key Musicians, Sampling
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Tagged audio editing, copyright, girl talk, hip-hop, hipster, inspiration, linkedin, mashups, memes, pop, rock, songwriting
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Saturday, September 24, 2011
Predictable unpredictability. The brain is a pattern-recognition machine. We like repetition and symmetry because they engage our pattern-recognizers. But we only like patterns up to a point. Once we’ve recognized and memorized the pattern, we get bored and stop paying attention. If the pattern changes or breaks, it grabs our attention again. And if the [...]
Today is the Fourth of July, and I can’t think of anything more patriotic than a post about our most significant contribution to world musical culture: swing. The title of this post refers to the classic Duke Ellington tune, sung here by Ray Nance. Check out the “yah yah” trombone by Tricky Sam Nanton. The [...]
Also filed in Emotion, Music, Music Teaching
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Tagged america, charles mingus, classical, count basie, drum machines, duke ellington, ella fitzgerald, funk, hip-hop, janet jackson, jazz, louis armstrong, ray nance, rhythm, soul, swing, syncopation, tchaikovsky, time, tricky sam nanton
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I’m continuing my tour through hip-hop’s most classic breakbeats with “Ashley’s Roachclip” by the Soul Searchers. The drum break at 3:36 is one of those hip-hop workhorses, like “Impeach The President” and “The Funky Drummer” and “Apache.” It seems like it’s always been there. The Soul Searchers were led by guitarist Chuck Brown, known in [...]
Also filed in Copyright and Authorship, Music, Sampling
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Tagged breakbeats, chuck brown, digging the crates, emf, eric b & rakim, funk, go-go, hip-hop, milli vanilli, nelly, nice & smooth, pm dawn, Sampling, soul searchers, spandau ballet
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Saturday, August 14, 2010
In 1988, a pair of British acid house DJs named Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, variously known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords, and The KLF, had an improbable number one hit with “Doctorin’ The Tardis.” The track isn’t so much a song as it is an early mashup. Just about everything [...]
Also filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Music, Music Business, Music Teaching, Recording, Sampling
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Tagged dance, digging the crates, doctor who, eighties, looping, mashups, memes, michael jackson, pop, production, Recording, rick astley, songwriting, uk, whitney houston
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