My friend and sometime musical collaborater Leo Ferguson is releasing an album of his adventurous jazz compositions and arrangements. Leo Ferguson Ensemble (2011) by Leo Ferguson As part of the album’s extended liner notes, I interviewed Leo on May 5, 2011. Here’s an edited transcript; you can also hear the audio on Leo’s site.
Filed in Composition, Improvisation, Music, Race and Identity
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Also tagged barack obama, classical, jazz, john coltrane, leo ferguson, miles davis, steve reich, wayne shorter
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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, beatles, history, mark katz, Recording, repetition, simpsons, van halen, walter benjamin
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Thursday, December 3, 2009
Boys And Dance Floors Revival Revival vs Janet Jackson mp3 download, ipod format download Right-click or option click the links to save the track to your computer. There are as many different ways of writing songs as there are songwriters. Barbara Singer and I have arrived at a good one, so I figured I’d share [...]
Filed in Autobio, Composition, Improvisation, Music, Recording, Sampling, Software
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Also tagged autotune, Improvisation, janet jackson, looping, pro tools, production, reason, Recording, remixes, revival revival, Sampling, songwriting
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This is a picture of my electronic funk-soul-R&B band doing a show. From left to right, it’s Nicole Bishop, me and Barbara Singer. We were the whole band for that show. I did all the beats, samples and keyboards from my computer using a video game controller. Here’s a screenshot of the program that the [...]
Filed in Autobio, Hardware, Improvisation, Interfaces, Music, Software, Video Games
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Also tagged electronica, hip-hop, Improvisation, interface, keybs, mapping, max/msp, midi, programming, reason, Sampling, sequencing, synths, Video Games
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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, beatles, gnarls barkley, hip-hop, kind of blue, looping, michael jackson, miles davis, Music, pro tools, psychology, Recording, thriller
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Friday, February 20, 2009
Sampling, remixing and mashups make some people angry. A lot of people think that repurposing existing ideas is bad, that it’s lazy, or a form of stealing. We value originality highly. Should we? My own experience of music making is that there are no original ideas. There are novel combinations of old ideas, but it’s [...]
Filed in Composition, Copyright and Authorship, Evolution, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged beatles, copyright, creativity, jonathan lethem, memes, Music, remixes, Sampling, susan blackmore
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