Sunday, November 28, 2010
We conventionally place a high value on originality in music. But it’s been my experience that the desire for originality gets in the way of making music that’s actually good. The closer you are to your influences, the more definite and truthful your work is. The key to quality music is to blend together an [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Evolution, Music, Music Business, Politics, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged academia, beach boys, biology, biz markie, chuck berry, copyright, creative commons, Evolution, hall and oates, led zeppelin, marcus boon, memes, michael jackson, Sampling
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Saturday, November 6, 2010
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 [...]
Filed in Music, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged audio editing, composing, history, mark katz, Recording, repetition, simpsons, van halen, walter benjamin
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Thursday, October 21, 2010
Over the weekend I went to see The Social Network, and totally enjoyed it. Hurray, movies that glamorize angry nerds! My friend Alex asked me if it’s better than the classic Pirates Of Silicon Valley. Nothing could be better than Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates, but Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerburg is good too.
Today in the NY Times there’s an article about NASA’s new Solar Dynamics Observatory. Check out this amazing video of the sun in action. The sun was on my mind today anyway, it being so nice and cloudless outside. But days like today also cause me anxiety. I’m a fair-haired sunburn-prone type, and my dad [...]
Filed in Physics
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Also tagged antimatter, electromagnetism, fusion, george harrison, gravity, nina simone, paul simon, Physics, quarks, Science, space
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I’ve had a lot of music teachers, formal and informal. The best one has been the computer. It mindlessly plays anything I tell it to, over and over. Hearing an idea played back on a continuous loop tells me quickly if it’s good or not. If the idea is bad, I immediately get annoyed, and [...]
Filed in Composition, Math, Music, Music Teaching, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged country, dance, electronica, fela kuti, hip-hop, jazz, looping, memory, modules, recursion, remixes, rza, structure, symmetry, theodor adorno
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Why are the Beatles still so cool? By which I mean the late Beatles, Revolver onwards. I like Please Please Me as much as the next guy, but it isn’t why the Beatles are cool now. No, I mean the last few records, especially Sgt Pepper, the White Album and Abbey Road. If any of [...]
Filed in Key Musicians, Music, Recording, Sampling, Video Games
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Also tagged abbey road, analog, audio, audio editing, common, divorce, hip-hop, john lennon, kanye west, mellotron, memes, mixtapes, multitracking, paul mccartney, prince, remixes, rock, rock band, Sampling, tape, tape editing, Video Games
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Thursday, August 13, 2009
Here’s one of my favorite bits of South Park.
Filed in Dance, Interfaces, Music, Music Teaching, Video Games
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Also tagged america, dance, electronica, gender, guitar hero, masculinity, Recording, remixes, rock, rock band, simulation, south park, Video Games, visualization
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“Once In A Lifetime” by Talking Heads and Brian Eno is one of my favorite songs by anyone ever.
Filed in Composition, Hardware, Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music, Recording
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Also tagged attention, 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 [...]
Filed in Hardware, Interfaces, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged audio, eighties, ferris bueller, grateful dead, jazz, john hughes, keybs, mellotron, midi, Music, reason, Recording, recursion, Sampling, synths, tape, yello
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Before digital recording media, recording artists faced a tradeoff between spontaneity and perfection. Recording take after take until the performances are spotless can quickly suck the joy and energy out of the music. But the kind of sloppiness that goes unnoticed in a live performance can get on your nerves after many repeated listens. It’s [...]
Filed in Composition, Improvisation, Music, Recording, Sampling, Software
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Also tagged audio editing, composing, gnarls barkley, hip-hop, kind of blue, looping, michael jackson, miles davis, Music, pro tools, psychology, Recording, thriller
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