I use a project-based approach to teaching music technology. Technical concepts stick with you better if you learn them in the course of making actual music. Here’s the list of projects I assign to my college classes and private students. I’ve arranged them from easiest to hardest. The first five projects are suitable for a …
Tag Archives: audio editing
Killen and Marotta
Participants in Play With Your Music were recently treated to an in-depth interview with two Peter Gabriel collaborators, engineer Kevin Killen and drummer Jerry Marotta. Both are highly accomplished music pros with a staggering breadth of experience between them. You can watch the interview here: Kevin Killen engineered So and several subsequent Peter Gabriel albums. …
Teaching audio and MIDI editing in the MOOC
This is the fifth in a series of posts documenting the development of Play With Your Music, a music production MOOC jointly presented by P2PU, NYU and MIT. See also the first, second, third and fourth posts. Soundation uses the same basic interface paradigm as other audio recording and editing programs like Pro Tools and …
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Looping and stasis in Medúlla
Malawey, Victoria. Harmonic Stasis and Oscillation in Björk’s Medúlla. Music Theory Online, Volume 16, Number 1, January 2010. The fundamental unit of electronic popular music is the loop. This puts it at odds with the Western art music tradition, which typically favors linear structures with a narrative arc. Repetition has mostly appeared in classical music …
Why do people like Girl Talk?
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 …
Gimme Shelter
I’ve always been more of a Beatles guy than a Stones guy, but respect where respect is due, “Gimme Shelter” is a classic. It’s on my mind because Dangerous Minds posted the isolated tracks, and they’re a lot of fun. It’s fascinating to hear the separated vocals, guitars, bass and drums. The Youtube videos containing …
Capturing sound
I was doing a frivolous Google search for the Simpsons episode where Bart, Nelson, Milhouse and Ralph form a boy band. They’re in the studio singing, and they sound terrible, until the producer pushes a huge button labeled “studio magic.” Then suddenly they sound like the Backstreet Boys. While I was digging through the Google …
Inside the recording process
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 …
Copyright Criminals
This PBS Independent Lens documentary on sampling culture is a good one, and you can watch the whole thing on Youtube. Their resources and links page includes my Biz Markie blog post. Thanks Beautiful Decay for posting the videos. Part one:
Video remixes and mashups
Couple of exciting memetic hybrids circulating around the web right now. First, here’s a techno track using samples of Pixar’s Up, which is one of the best and saddest movies ever. Thanks Mike for alerting me to the remix’s existence. Remixing songs is all well and good, but remixing movies, that’s where it’s at.