No. Paul McCartney joined John Lennon’s skiffle band in 1957, when they were fifteen and sixteen, respectively. George Harrison joined the following year, when he was fourteen. (Ringo didn’t join the band until 1962.) Who were your friends when you were fourteen, fifteen, sixteen? Imagine yourself intensely and inseparably joined with these same people professionally, [...]
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
For Paul Geluso’s Advanced Audio Production midterm, we were assigned to choose two tracks from his recommended listening list, and compare and contrast them sonically. I chose “Regiment” by David Byrne and Brian Eno, and “Little Fluffy Clouds” by The Orb. Recorded ten years apart using very different technology, both tracks nevertheless share a similar [...]
Also filed in Copyright and Authorship, Music, Recording, Sampling
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Tagged brian eno, dance, david byrne, digging the crates, eighties, electronica, funk, mixing, Music, nineties, nyu, paul geluso, production, Recording, Sampling, synths, the orb
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Friday, September 28, 2012
A while ago I wrote a post explaining how jazz works. In response, someone asked me to name my favorite hundred jazz tracks. So here’s my list. It’s totally subjective and necessarily incomplete, but I can guarantee that any of these tunes will make your life better. Hear them on Spotify.
Also filed in Music
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Tagged america, art blakey, art tatum, bebop, billie holiday, blues, bud powell, cannonball adderley, carmen mcrae, cecil taylor, charles mingus, charlie parker, clifford brown, Composition, count basie, digging the crates, dixieland, dizzy gillespie, django reinhardt, drumming, duke ellington, ella fitzgerald, eric dolphy, free jazz, gil evans, hank mobley, herbie hancock, horace silver, jazz, jimmy smith, joe pass, john coltrane, louis armstrong, max roach, mccoy tyner, miles davis, nat adderley, oliver nelson, sidney bechet, singing, sonny rollins, soul, standards, swing, thelonious monk, wayne shorter
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I recently saw Under African Skies, the documentary about Paul Simon’s Graceland, and it was spellbinding. The music is so beautiful, the politics are so agonizing. I watched it with my mom and sister, which is appropriate since Graceland was in heavy rotation through my childhood. Mom isn’t a big pop scholar and knew next [...]
Also filed in Autobio, Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Improvisation, Music, Race and Identity, Recording
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Tagged accordion, africa, apartheid, Bakithi Kumalo, bass, chevy chase, copyright, graceland, guitar, judaica, ladysmith black mambazo, Music, ownership, paul simon, Politics, race, ray phiri, south africa
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The seminar I’ve been taking with Morton Subotnick is sadly drawing to a close. As part of the end of the semester, we were invited to Professor Subotnick’s home studio, a few blocks from NYU, to get a demonstration of the setup he uses in performances.
Also filed in Composition, Hardware, Improvisation, Interfaces, Music, Sampling, Software
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Tagged ableton, avant-garde, buchla, classical, Composition, electronica, experimental, Improvisation, midi, morton subotnick, nyu
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This post is longer and more formal than usual because it was my term paper for a class in the NYU Music Technology Program. Questions of authorship, ownership and originality surround all forms of music (and, indeed, all creative undertakings.) Nowhere are these questions more acute or more challenging than in digital music, where it [...]
Also filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Music, Music Business, Politics, Recording, Sampling
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Tagged ableton, afrika bambaataa, amazing grace, amen break, authenticity, bach, beatles, beyonce, biz markie, brian eno, classical, compulsory licensing, copyright, danger mouse, david shields, dj, dj earworm, dj premier, double dee and steinski, entropy, Evolution, fairlight cmi, fugees, girl talk, grandmaster flash, harold bloom, hip-hop, informationtheory, jay-z, jesse walker, john coltrane, jonathan lethem, linkedin, looping, marcus boon, mashups, memes, midi, missy elliot, mohawks, nas, nyu, originality, plato, plunderphonics, questlove, reason, Recording, remixes, richard dawkins, Sampling, sasha frere-jones, stravinsky, susan blackmore, theodor adorno, walter benjamin, william gibson
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Here’s an email conversation I’ve been having with my friend Greg Brown about Kanye West’s recent albums. Greg is a classical composer and performer with a much more avant-garde sensibility than mine. The exchange is lightly edited for clarity. Greg: I’ve been listening to 808s and Heartbreak and Twisted Fantasy. I’m really enjoying them. Far [...]
Also filed in Emotion, Music, Recording, Software
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Tagged 808, 808s and heartbreak, autotune, classical, distortion, fiona apple, frank ocean, hip-hop, jay-z, john adams, kanye west, pop, posthuman, rnb, Sampling, singing, soul, watch the throne
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Saturday, February 25, 2012
Chapman, Dale. “That Ill, Tight Sound”: Telepresence and Biopolitics in Post-Timbaland Rap Production. Journal of the Society for American Music (2008) Volume 2, Number 2, pp. 155–175. Chapman examines the impact that Timbaland has had on popular music production, and what his significance is to the broader culture. While Timbaland himself is no longer the [...]
Also filed in Music, Race and Identity, Recording, Sampling, Software, Technology
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Tagged anxiety, dance, hip-hop, Internet, linkedin, missy elliot, pop, posthuman, production, technomusicology, timbaland
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Related: my top 100 jazz tracks. Rather than attempting the impossible task of explaining how everything in jazz works, I’m going to pick a specific, fairly mainstream tune and talk you through it: “Someday My Prince Will Come” by Miles Davis, off the 1961 album by the same name. First of all, here’s the original [...]
Also filed in Improvisation, Music
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Tagged disney, hank mobley, Improvisation, jazz, jimmy cobb, john coltrane, linkedin, miles davis, movies, Music, paul chambers, quora, wynton kelly
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
John: “Instant Karma” I’d put “Oh Yoko” up there too. “Imagine” has a gorgeous melody, but the lyrics are like something an eighth grader would write.