Because I’m old and out of touch, most of these are pre-2012 songs that were new to me this year. Nas — “The World Is Yours” In 1994 I was not paying attention to hip-hop at all. My loss. Blackalicious — “Swan Lake” More vintage 1994 hip-hop. Samples three different cover versions of the Stylistics’ [...]
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, Key Musicians, Music, Recording
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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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Saturday, August 25, 2012
A significant chunk of the music I’ve made in the past year has been prompted by a blogger and journalist named Marc Weidenbaum, proprietor of the fine electronic music web zine Disquiet. This is funny, because while I’ve had a number of online exchanges with Marc, we’ve never actually met face to face. Nevertheless, in [...]
Also filed in Composition, Internet, Music, Recording, Social Media
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Tagged avant-garde, blogging, community, disquiet, experimental, junto, marc weidenbaum, Music
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Discussing “Silver Apples Of The Moon” puts me in a quandary. I like Morton Subotnick personally, and very much enjoyed studying with him. I appreciate his desire to liberate the world from the shackles of keyboard-centric thinking. There’s no question that his music is personal, original and forward-thinking. But I find myself unable to emotionally [...]
Also filed in Composition, Hardware, Interfaces, Recording
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Tagged analog, anxiety, buchla, Composition, electronica, modernism, morton subotnick, rhythm
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Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Recently, I was on Connecticut Public Radio’s Colin McEnroe show, talking about the culture and history of the mashup. I gave my usual enthusiastic endorsement of the practice. My friend Jesse Selengut, an ace jazz trumpet player and all-around music master, had some responses.
Also filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Music, Recording
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Tagged appropriation, capitalism, collage, Composition, copyright, dj earworm, hip-hop, jesse selengut, mashups, memes, Music, ownership, production, Recording, rolling stones, Sampling, susan blackmore
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Frank Ocean is the R&B singer of the moment. Does he merit all they hype? There’s no doubt but that the man can sing. I first heard him in Jay-Z and Kanye West’s tremendous “No Church In The Wild,” which owes a lot of its intensity to Ocean’s vocals. He’s been releasing some good mixtapes [...]
Also filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Music
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Tagged audio two, digging the crates, Evolution, frank ocean, genealogy, honeydrippers, jay-z, kanye, mary j blige, memes, rnb, Sampling, top billin
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On Tuesday, July 17, I appeared on the Colin McEnroe Show on Connecticut Public Radio to talk about my pet topic, remixes and mashups. The great DJ Earworm was on the show too, which I was totally geeked out about. You can stream or download the show here. Or listen to my remix of it: [...]
Also filed in Autobio, Copyright and Authorship
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Tagged copyright, dj earworm, electronica, Evolution, girl talk, hip-hop, mashups, memes, Music, npr, pop, remixes, self promotion
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Apple has long made a practice of giving away cool software with their computers. One of the coolest such freebies is Garageband. It’s a stripped down version of Logic aimed at beginners, and it’s a surprisingly robust tool. The software instruments and loops sound terrific, the interface is approachable, and it’s generally a great scratchpad. [...]
Also filed in Hardware, Interfaces, Music, Recording
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Tagged apple, beginners, drumming, garageband, guitar, interfaces, ios, ipad, keybs, linkedin, midi, Music, music teaching, Sampling, sequencing, songwriting
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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, Key Musicians, Music, 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, Key Musicians, Music, Music Business, Politics, Recording
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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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